What We Would Have Done is What We are Doing

The past couple of days, the subject among many of us Clintonistas who have moved in the last week to Obama is party unity. We are feeling the heat from our friends who worked with us during the primaries to get Hillary the nomination but haven’t been able to make the transition. In some ways, they seem more upset with us right now than they do with the people who were with Obama all the way.

I think this situation makes a lot of sense. If there are some of our friends among the Clintonistas who still believe Hillary can be the nominee, the fact that we have made this move indicates that we have rejected this possibility and given up on Hillary’s chances in 2008. When I first made the move a week ago or so, some people speculated I had been an Obama plant from the start. I have read similar pejorative speculation leveled at other Clintonistas who have begun the same journey.

I fear that one way or the other, it was bound to turn out this way. If Hillary had won, the Obama people would be livid, and there would have been anger and disappointment among people who would say they would never vote for Hillary. There would have been talk among some of them about the possibility of voting for McCain. Still other Obama supporters would have been talking about sitting it out.

In other words, what many of our fellow Clintonistas are feeling is really just a very human response to loss. It is not a unique phenomenon among a certain group of Clintonistas: It is a way that we human beings, whether Clintonistas or Obama supporters, Democrats or Republicans, Americans or not, it is one way that human beings respond to having hopes dashed.

For our part, I think, the desire to make the best of all of this is what has driven us more than anything else. We would have rallied Obama supporters to party unity had Hillary gotten the nomination. We will do no less, we will be no less, in defeat than what we would have been in victory. So we move forward together to make the better man in the race president.