I. THE CAMPAIGN THAT REFUSED TO GROW
The stark reality which no Clinton supporter ever addresses is that exactly one year ago Senator Clinton entered the campaign with 38%. Before Iowa that number was 42%. Through all of this campaign Senator Clinton has not been able to move her numbers at all. She has flatlined for the entire race and is always hovering between 42-47%.
In a 3 (or 8) person race a 42% level of support is a commanding lead. In a 2 person race it is a loss.
This primary cycle has had two over arching themes: the ascendency of Senator Obama and the rejection of the Clinton brand for the future of the Democratic Party. She did not pick up any of the other candidates for Presidency and she didn't pick up any of their supporters.
II. HILLARY THE GREAT
And here is the supreme irony. She was good enough and she should have had it. A few times the real Hillary Clinton slippped through, and no the tearful wispy cry in New Hampshire was not one of them. I saw her on Nightline. Fantastic. No packaging no spin. A smart relaxed funny confident woman. The kind of woman I want my daughters to be.
But Hillary the Great was put away. The Clinton team knew better they had won it before (but actually they hadn't they had won the 3 candidate race before and never in fact had won a 2 party national election and sadly poor Ross Perot declined to run again) and resorted to the Selling of Senator Clinton, the 'New and Improved Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton'.
Had Hillary done what McCain had done and shucked the idiots that became her entourage and gone to town halls by herself and exhausted every question rather than planting them then she would be the nominee and the ticket would be Clinton/Obama. She is that good. But she would have had to walk into the den and made herself vulnerable and shown people she isn't the demon that she has been charachterized as. But she didn't.
III. SADLY THE TRUTH IS GOOD ENOUGH BUT IS NOT USED
And the whole sad affair can be boiled down to Bosnia snipers. The truth was good. The truth was fantastic. The truth proved her point that she has been around and knows where the problem areas were and because she saw how prudent and careful her husband had been that even in a war zone, a war zone that had not one single combat death, the first lady was safe enough not only to go but to take her daughter and get a poem right out on the tarmac - no need to worry or run from snipers.
But just as she feels that Hillary the Great is not good enough the story of First Lady safely arriving in a War Zone was not good enough. It raises the question why doesn't she just be herself and get rid of all of the packaging.
IV. THE PARTY DECLINES THE 'NEW AND IMPROVED' AND GOES ANOTHER PATH
The party has gone another path. It is not simply a different candidate it is a different strategy. The umbilical cord to the corporate universe has been severed and a mass base has been replaced. The plucky community organizer who added 400,000 Democrats to the polling rolls in Chicago has added 3 million in the primaries.
This summer they will add another 10 or 20 million people. That is where the real campaign is heading. One candidate will be doing undraisers and one will be changing the landscape with a completely new and reformed Democratic Party. Stronger and united.
V. SOME WHO LOVE HILLARY THE GREAT CAN'T UNDERSTAND THE REST OF US.
Some who fell in love with Hillary the Great and can't understand the rejection of 'New and Improved Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton' cling to her candidacy and insist she absolutely must be on the ticket. If we could undue the marketing and some how find Hillary the Great that would have been possible.
Some of these supporters are the best that the party has. Some have been longtime and substantial supporters and some are fantastic writers. The party is not going back. We could no more go back than Europe could have pretended that Columbus hadn't taken a trip somewhere. It's not that we found a messianic candidate its that Senator Obama has shown us the new world of the Democratic Party and we like it.
VI. HOPE THAT YOU WILL COME ALONG
Hopefully everyone will want to come.
Sadly some are too bitter to make the trip.
Maybe they will take some time and join latter.
The party is not however, going to accept their intransigence as the obstacle to unity. Its up to them. They are welcome to come aboard. We like them and admire them we want them to come.
To the Lovers of 'Hillary the Great':
I hope to see you in the new Democratic Party that is being formed.
Peace
By letting it go it all gets done.
The world is won by those who let it go.
But when you try and try.
The world is beyond the winning.
Lao Tzu
