The news is breaking tonight that Congressman and personal Ataru hero John Lewis is switching his superdelegate vote from Hillary to Obama. I’ve been pretty up-front about my personal respect and, yes, worship of John Lewis, and I will freely admit that John endorsing Hillary is what put me on this side of the primary battle. I never thought I would say it, though, but I’m not going with John on this one.
First of all, I think we all know that regardless of the timing of this announcement from John, the way his district voted in the primary weighed heavily on his mind. If there’s a district in Georgia that says “Barack Obama”, it’s the 5th, and after they voted so strongly for Obama there was no question that he would feel pressure to switch – I’m still surprised and pleased that he endorsed Hillary when it counted, before the votes were cast. I don’t know that John won’t regret switching his endorsement, but I do understand the circumstances that led him to that decision. He did what he thought he had to do, and I won’t regret what I had to do, which was to vote for Hillary on February 5 and keep supporting her now.
Much more important, though, are the reasons I went with John’s decision in the first place. Several weeks ago I thought about writing a post about how I thought our candidates would match up the possible Republican candidates, and the one candidate that I thought we really needed Hillary for was always John McCain. I have no doubt that Obama could have smashed Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee to bits, but if McCain has his way (as I think he will) and turns the election into one big debate on national security and Iraq, we HAVE to have someone who can bring both experience and a nuanced approach to what is sure to be issue #1 or #2 in the campaign. I’ll admit, between Super Tuesday and today I’ve thought hard about both candidates, just like John Lewis surely did, and in the end I think the right person to bring the right message that can appeal to both our base and the independents who are going to think about voting for John McCain is Hillary.
Think about it this way – Obama’s base is a lot of people who have never voted before and may not vote when it really really REALLY counts, whereas Hillary is drawing support from people (women) who vote consistently and who are clearly just as willing to see a woman as an agent for creating something DIFFERENT as a black man. If we nominate Hillary, yes, we lose all these potential new voters that Obama is bringing in with his rock star status and the misogynists who would rather go to hell than spend eternity with a female deity. If we nominate Obama, though, we lose a significant number of women who are going to vote either for Hillary or McCain as well as the racist swine who would rather go to hell than spend eternity with a black deity. Basically, Hillary brings us a stable, dependable base, while Obama brings us an unknown quantity.
What all of that, plus the scars I have from 2006 (probably look a lot like everyone else’s), means is that I’m sticking with my girl. I hope Hillary learns from the mistakes she made in this campaign (and she made them, let’s not kid ourselves) and bounces back on March 4 to prove she’s still in this. I think every superdelegate who isn’t in the unique situation that John is in should think carefully about their personal integrity before they switch their votes to try to ride a tide that may or may not exist; as for myself, I’m staying Hillary to August 25.
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