One of the reasons I support Obama is because he provides a positive and uplifting vision for the future. He speaks about changing the trajectory of this country - a trajectory which has carried us in the wrong direction for much of my short life. I like hearing what Obama says- he’s not talking about only winning the presidency - he’s talking about making the large, radical changes which our country needs in order to find our footing after the painful past 7 years.
Contrast this with what the Clinton’s are offering. See - I’m a little bitter at President Clinton. He came into office with such hope and promise. I remember being at the Albuquerque airport at 2:00 AM the morning of the election in 1992. It was my freshman year at college and I was so caught up in the end of 12 long years of Republican rule and I remember my amazement at the fact that more than 15,000 people had waited at the airport to see Clinton and his wife fly in and speak briefly. We knew when we saw that crowd that Clinton was going to win - and he did.
But what did it get us? The Democratic party lost control of both houses of Congress in 1994 and from that point on the mantra was about protecting the President and ensuring his election - no matter what compromises we had to make and no matter how unpalatable the choices given to us by the ascendant Republican party. President Clinton gleefully “triangulated” the Democratic party in the House and Senate and aided and abetted our marginalization.
The Democratic party began a long slumber, losing more and more seats in the House and Senate and governorships in the states. All the while President Clinton and his money-makers like Terry McAuliffe focused on what they considered the most important goal for the party - to raise money. Bereft of ideas, passion and vigor Democrats became dispirited and after expending considerable blood and treasure on protecting President Clinton from the ill-advised consequences of his own monumentally stupid mistakes in office by thwarting an unconstitutional attempt at impeachment, the party was spent. We were advised by the “ascendant” Republicans to get ready to accept our permanent minority status and the heartbreaking loss we endured in 2000 seemed to make that possibility a reality.
We lost seats in 2002, President Bush invaded Iraq (assisted by a compliant and subservient Democratic party in both the House and the Senate) and the future seemed grim. But then the slumbering members of our party began to awaken. Aided by the netroots and sites like Daily Kos and galvanized by the campaign of Howard Dean we arose from the slumber we’d been in for years.
We demanded a more responsive and confrontational party. We demanded a party which would be a 50-state party and would present a progressive and uplifting vision for the future that would act as a voice for justice. We demanded a party that would listen to its members and stop dealing our rights away and start protecting the Constitution of the United States. We put our money where our mouths were and in Howard Dean we got a leader who listened to what we wanted and in 2006 we took back the House and Senate from the rank Republican occupation they’d experienced for too long.
Now we face a clear choice in Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Do we want to go back to the snoozy days of the 1990’s when the most important role of the Democratic party was to protect a Clinton from the consequences of their own mistakes? Do we want to return to a party bereft of passion and of spirit, a party dominated by Beltway insiders who told us that the slow death our party was experiencing was natural response to the American people rejecting our ideas when we never even bothered to present our ideas to them in the first place? Do we want to return to a party led by a President who sees the party as a vehicle for her own ambitions and subservient to her needs instead of a President who clearly articulates an inclusive and positive view of what the Democratic party is now and what it can be in the future?
I know what I want. I know that Obama represents that view. I know that Obama is not burdened with the legacy of the personal and political foibles of the Clintons. If we’ve learned anything in the past two weeks it’s that the Clintons will do and say anything, will trash and destroy anyone, will leave no stone unturned in their attempts to win. As always the maintenance of the Clinton’s personal and political power comes first - before decency and before the future of the Democratic party. If you want another 8 years of this then by all means vote for Hillary Clinton. I don’t want that vision of the future. I want change and I know we can expect that change from Obama.
