"I dedicated nearly two years of my life working for President Obama and we achieved victory. Now, it's time for Hillary. All her life, she has fought for opportunities for all Americans and now it is our time to fight for her. I'm ready."It makes me wonder how people who have dedicated more than five years working for and supporting Hillary Clinton feel when they see this.
First of all, for me, there is something fundamentally wrong. "We achieved victory." Really? Where is the victory in a health care bill with no single payer option? That was the first thing Obama dropped without a fight. The extension of the "Bush" tax cuts for millionaires could properly be called Obama tax cuts now. Pyrrhic victory.
Next on the agenda are cuts to the FDR and LBJ social safety nets. It was Obama who put the chained CPI on the table. This will reduce cost of living adjustments for recipients of social security who have, in good faith, paid into this program all of their working lives. This is part of his plan for a "grand bargain."
What is the definition of "now?" Now we have to go through four more years of Obama.
There is a core group here at this blog also connected via Facebook and Twitter who have been together since 2008. We worked for Hillary. We are part of the popular vote that she won in 2008. We are her 18 million and have been for her ever since. We did not need to get ready. We have always been here.
So "now" is finally Hillary's time? They do not really mean now. They mean 2016. That is not now. They mean after the next four years of Obama.
It rubs me the wrong way to go to a pro-Hillary website and see a picture of Obama and David Pflouffe celebrating one of Obama's 2008 victories - very likely a caucus win since Hillary took so many primaries.
It rubs me the wrong way when those who were so exasperated that Hillary would not drop out of the 2008 primaries now push her to run - not last year - no. Not until 2016. That, they have decided, is her time.
When I hear that diehard Hillary supporter Howard Fineman tell Chris Matthews that his tactic to get her to run would be to lay "the guilt trip" on her - remind her of the history she must make and all of the women who want to see her do this, I feel like he is using me against Hillary. It is a women's coalition he has constructed in his mind, and I am not in it. It is a low blow. I would never lay a guilt trip on Hillary.
Who are all of these people who are finally ready for our Hillary? I wonder. When I look at their CVs, they were all Obama people, some so vocally. The grand majority of them were not only not ready for Hillary when we were but were vehemently against her.
Hillary has not changed. She has matured. We all have. She has gained additional experience, but her principles and issues have remained intact and in some cases perhaps deepened. We saw all of that in her when she was First Lady, when she was Senator, and when she was on the trail in 2008.
Some of us have to wonder why it took so long for these others to be, finally, ready, and then, in pushing her cause, the qualification is that they got Obama elected. "Now" it is Hillary's turn? Her time? This from people who missed the boat in 2008 and saddled us with Obama. smh
