Wednesday, August 27, 2008

On TNR's The Stump, Eve Fairbanks, Noam Schreiber, Jonathan Chait and others have been out at the convention asking Hillary supporters what exactly it is that they want-

Daniel Kagan, Colorado Hillary delegate: There's a lot of bad blood to wash
away. I will hold my nose and vote for Obama, but there are a significant number
[of supporters] who won't. [Mollifying them] would take an acknowledgement that
he allowed his campaign to smear his opponent's camp, that he allowed his
supporters to smear the other candidate [Hillary]. If he were to acknowledge the
mistakes he made, I would be happy.

Richard Morgan, Texas Hillary delegate: I don't know if anything is
going to be satisfying, but a roll call vote would be great. [The roll call vote
is an especially contentious issue in Denver right now -- the other option is to
let Hillary delegates vote for their candidate at their delegate breakfasts, but
not on the floor.] If they don't let me vote for Hillary, why did we go through
this process? It's not necessarily going to put it right, but it would make the
democratic process better.

Denise King, New York Hillary delegate (now helping Obama on rural
issues, but explaining some of the attitudes of her fellow Hillary-ites): A roll
call vote is really important. If we vote for Hillary in the roll call here,
that doesn't mean we're not going to vote for Obama/Biden in November! For first
time delegates it's important for them to be able to say, "I went to the
convention, I cast my vote!" If it were the other way around [and Hillary had
won], we would say, "Of course" [there can be a roll call vote].



This goes to my last couple posts- although I may have been a bit snarky about the woman to whom Hillary means "faith... freedom...", the above comments hammer home the point that a lot of these folks are treating the primaries like some kind of children's sporting event where the important thing is that everybody should get a trophy and an awards ceremony. This reflects a fundamental lack of seriousness about politics- that there are in fact actual positive and negative outcomes of enormous magnitude that stem from electing one president versus electing another. Over four thousand American servicemembers have died in Iraq in a war that almost certainly wouldn't have been waged by a President Gore. The massive increase in the deficit and national debt brought on by the Bush administration has immediate consequences in the credit markets and untold consequences down the line in the way in which it restricts the policy options of future leaders. These are serious consequences and so the decision on which leader to elect should be a serious one, and I for one resent the way in which a handful of unserious malcontents have hijacked the past couple months of political discourse and hope that their actions don't wind up being a deciding factor in this election.

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