Friday, June 06, 2008

An Open Letter to Hillary Supporters

The primary season is now over. Senator Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee. It has been a long 17 months, but Obama has won fair and square. I know that many of you are very, very angry about this. But the fact of the matter is that this is a democracy, and the people have spoken.

Some of you are so angry that you have threatened to write in Hillary Clinton's name in November or to vote for John McCain. This really amazes me. How many of you have been lifelong Democrats? How many of you want our troops out of Iraq? How many of you are pro-choice? How many of you care about social justice? Or about universal health care? You do realize, don't you, that Clinton's stance on the issues are almost identical to Obama's? Is it more important for you to be angry? Or is it more important for you to have a country that starts heading in the right direction? Because with John McCain as president, our country surely will not be heading in the right direction.

John McCain has vowed to overturn Roe v Wade. He wants to keep troops in Iraq for 100 years. He is against universal health care. He is supported by lobbyists. I'm sorry to break the news to you, but your candidate will be coming out this Saturday to endorse Obama, and it's time you jumped on the bandwagon. We need a unified party in order to get the Republicans out of the White House, and your anger is not going to help. In fact, your anger will only hurt the party if you end up voting for McCain.

I was a huge Clinton supporter before Barack Obama came around. I truly think he was just the better candidate. This had nothing to do with sexism--as I would love to have a woman president. But Obama ran a truly spectacular campaign and he was a truly spectacular candidate. And Clinton made many, many mistakes in her campaign. This primary was hers to lose, and she lost it.

I hope you think long and hard and get over your anger before going to the voting booth in November.