Hillary Clinton made history by coming so close to winning the Democratic nomination on June 3.
Barack Obama graciously called her “a leader who inspires millions of Americans with her strength, her courage, and her commitment to the causes that brought us here tonight.”
More history was made that night. Only two sitting Senators have ever been elected President, Warren G. Harding, and John F. Kennedy. No matter who wins in November, they will be the third. Arizona Senator John McCain (age 71) is the oldest man to ever run for President.
I believe that history was made Tuesday, June 3, not because a Black man had accumulated enough delegates to win a party nomination, but when Sen. Obama told us that “Our time to turn the page on the policies of the past. Our time to bring new energy and new ideas to the challenges we face. Our time to offer a new direction for the country we love.”
McCain’s speech that night was about Barack Obama, about how McCain doesn’t think Obama is qualified to be President and that his rhetoric about hope and change is just rhetoric. Hillary Clinton’s speech that night was about herself and how many people voted for her and how she deserves power. Obama’s speech wasn’t about a Black man making history, it wasn’t about himself or his rivals (except to praise them). His speech was about providing jobs, making taxes fair for the middle and working classes, making college and health care more affordable and restoring our reputation in the world.
Hillary supporters need to pull together behind the Democrat’s new nominee. Democrats will only hurt their chances in the Fall if they continue to campaign using fear, innuendo, and division. Those were the tactics of the Bush administration. Obama showed what he was made of when he stuck to the high road.
"What you won’t hear from this campaign or this party,” he told the crowd in St. Paul that Tuesday night, “is the kind of politics that uses religion as a wedge, and patriotism as a bludgeon – that sees our opponents not as competitors to challenge, but enemies to demonize."
Frankly, I think that’s been a problem afflicting our nation since the days of Joseph Mccarthy.
Religion should be a tie that binds, not a tool for political leverage. So-called conservative Christianity is neither genuinely conservative or at all Christ-like. It’s radical and legalistic, like the Pharisees who were constantly trying to trap Jesus in the Bible.
The Right-wing religion introduced into the public square by the likes of Jerry Falwell back in the 1980’s is about fear, anger, and a need to control culture. It’s about prohibiting and preventing. It’s against a lot of things- but what is it for? It opposes things but what does it propose? Does it propose we feed the hungry? Refresh the thirsty? Invite in the stranger? Clothe the needy? Visit the sick and imprisoned? What would Jesus do?
TRUE patriotism is standing up for the principals embodied in the Declaration, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights- not just the flag or the pledge or a car magnet shaped like a ribbon. It's not a lapel pin.
Choose hope over fear? Yes we can.
I hope that Hillary supporters will unite with Obama supporters to truly change the direction of the Democratic party. So that it will be bottom-up and not top-down. So that it won’t be politics as usual. Millions of small donors on the internet instead of millions from corporate donors and special interest groups and lobbyists.
I also hope that Republicans who are sincere in their concern for traditional values, for families and for honest people who work hard for a living will find something about Senator Obama that they can agree with and be leery of the faux-maverick promises of John McCain.
We all need to be able to argue and debate and hash out solutions together to our problems without calling each other names or writing each other off as irrelevant or morally inferior. It really is time for some serious change.
Let’s come together “to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves and our highest ideals."
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