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I came across the letter recently, and I thought I’d share it.
A former Clinton supporter wrote this open letter to the Senator from New York on February 14th. It is moving, and eloquent, and dead on:
(Source: http://www.clintonsupporters4obama.com)An Open Letter to Hillary Clinton, By Erin Kotecki Vest
This is a very hard letter for me to write, so please bear with me. I’d like to ask you, with all due respect and humility, to step down as a Democratic Candidate for President of the United States.
Please understand this is not because I believe you can not or should not lead this nation. Please understand that I find you qualified, capable, and worthy. Please also understand I want nothing more than to see a female as the leader of the free world. I would be pleased and honored if you were that female.
However I am finding, right or wrong, many citizens of this country seem to react to you on an emotional level. Emotional, not practical. They can’t seem to see your record. They can’t seem to see your policy. They just hear or read “Hillary” and venom or praise spews.
I thought that with your candidacy, would come reason. I thought that you would be able to get a fair shake by main stream media, by voters, by sexists, and by soccer moms. I thought over time people would begin to see that you really are an effective politician.
I was wrong.
Tonight, I’m typing as I watch you speak in El Paso, Texas. I’m sad. There really is no other way to put it-I’m sad.
I truly believed you would be the best person for the job, and I had this nagging thought in the back of my mind that is now at the forefront. The thought that drove me on Super Tuesday to Vote for Senator Obama and the thought that is the driving force as I write tonight: Senator Hillary Clinton divides this country.
It’s not fair. It’s not right. And under just about ANY other circumstance I would go to the mat for you. However we are a wounded and deeply divided nation. We are a nation at war. We are a nation at odds with each-other. It’s ugly. I thought you could get people past it. I really did.
When I told myself it was gender that got people going, I refrained from asking and wanting you to step aside. Simply on principle, I wanted to see you run and win because they said it couldn’t be done. Because it was my belief, this was all about being a girl.
It’s not, and I was wrong.
I firmly believe while the gender issue has given you a handicap I hope we all one day overcome, it is NOT the reason people have a gut reaction to you or your campaign or your legacy.
Enter the Senator from Illinois, and what I think could be your true legacy. If you were to step aside now, shockingly early and shockingly un-Hilllary-like, you could galvanize an entire nation behind your party. If you were to throw your weight, and your tremendous political clout behind Senator Obama you could still change the world and make your mark in a way no one would expect and everyone would admire.
I don’t want to see you throw in the towel because the fight is too hard or the mountain too tall. I am asking you to throw it in because history is on the line. It is not the history either of us expected, however it is an equally important, momentous, earthshaking change in this country we sorely need.
Do something no one would ever expect. Do something extraordinary. Do something that changes politics as usual and changes history.
I could have never predicted having to chose between what my husband called “the lesser of two goods, not the lesser of two evils” when it came time to cast my vote.
It was agonizing.
But in the end, with no major policy difference and valid reasons on BOTH sides, I had to go with the candidate who I thought could best bring our nation back together. Who could cross party lines and gender lines and racial lines.
I wanted it to be you, but it’s not. For some reason you still get people very riled up, and not in the good way.
There is no way around it-it sucks. But after 7 years of nothing but fighting and head shaking and feeling like we’re living in two Americas, I can’t do it again. Not even if my team is in office.
I really hate asking you to do this, but I want you to please step down and let this nation heal.
We’ve been too angry for too long and your history and your name brings a suitcase of anger to the White House front door.
With the full weight of the Clinton name, behind the scenes, your true legacy could be written. With the full weight of the Clinton know-how you could help orchestrate the next chapter in American history where an African-American leads our nation.
It is this time in history your nation needs you.
As nation’s go, ours has never been one to do things the way we predict. Who could have seen when we finally get our first, legitimate, female front runner we’d see our first, legitimate front runner of color?
Our nation and it’s people need you to do what is best for this country. We need you to be true to what you say on the stump and bring us back together.
If you firmly believe that there is still time for you to change the hearts and minds of those rude and stubborn Americans who are voting with their gut when they see “Hillary” on the ballot-then please, prove me wrong. I’ll be at the Democratic National Convention come August and I’ll hold up my Hillary sign loud and proud and fall in line.
But I think you’ve tried. You tried with everything you had to overcome that Clinton-emotional reaction. Here we are, moving into Texas and Ohio and Pennsylvania-and it’s not you winning over hearts and minds, it’s the Senator from Illinois.
Let’s end the division in this country now. Right now. Let’s start with the Democratic Party early and provide a united front against the GOP months ahead of schedule.
Let’s take back this country for the people, with you playing a much different role than you envisioned.
Make history. Make us one. Step down now.
Sincerely,
Erin Kotecki Vest
Is Hillary likely to read this letter, break into tears (again) and order her top campaign aid to immediately draft her concession speech? Not likely. But the writer frames the argument for why she should do so so well that you can’t help but wish that somehow this letter could be hand-delivered to the lady herself.
Those who seek to minimize what’s happening in this country say that we Obama supporters are ‘voting with our emotions’, and that we support Obama because ‘he makes us feel good’. What ELSE are we supposed to vote with when we’ve been mired in a pointless war for years, when our economy is teetering on collapse, people are losing their homes, teenagers are dying at the whim of huge medical conglomerates, and the olikely nominee of the Republican party wants us to stay in Iraq for 100 years?
What these people don’t get, these pundits who think they can psycho-analyze the American people, is that Senator Obama has moved us to action, and not just tears, and that can NEVER be underrated. There is a fever growing throughout this country, even Hillary supporters feel it, as evidenced by the growing number of defections from her camp. We want to be part of history – but not just the history that will come from electing our first African American president. I for one want to be part of this time in history that years and years from now will be described as the time when men and women of all ages, races, religious persuasions, and yes, even political affiliations truly and for the first time became the United States of America.
By Patricia Wilson-Smith
Imagine it – you’re a three-year old. You’re awaken in the middle of the night by the sound of men wielding machetes, and all you hear as you cower next to your bed in terror are the screams of your family, as the violent strangers kill them one by one. You survive only because you go undetected. You’ve survived – but now you’re all alone.
You narrowly escape the fire that the strangers set – you stumble out of your home, onto the street, half-dressed, nearly blinded by your tears and the heat of the fire, and you watch as your home, and everyone and everything you hold dear in it, is ravaged by the flames.
Imagine then that this scene is repeated day after day after day for weeks – and that it seems to go on without end. This story and others like it are being repeated in Kenya today, even as we all sleep soundly in our nice comfortable beds, and worry about how we’re going to pay our Dillard’s bill this month.
On December 27th, an historic Presidential election was held in Kenya, one in which the Luo had hoped to see one of their own, Raila Odinga, elected to the highest office in Kenya for the first time.
Early polls showed that his victory over Mwai Kibaki was imminent, but greater than anticipated turnout in Kibaki strongholds, where the Kikuya live seemed to magically erase any pre-election lead for Odinga, and Kibaki was sworn in as Kenya’s President. Again.
The result has been an outbreak of civil violence and unrest that had once only reared its head in the nations surrounding Kenya. At last estimation, over 350,000 men, women, and children have been driven from their homes by the violence, and machete-wielding warlords had taken the lives of over 1,000 Kenyans.
There has been no real outcry – not from around the world, not from within the United States. We watch the sparse coverage of the story on the nightly news, and click our tongues, and turn the channel to get our daily Election ‘08 fix, forgetting that the man who is responsible for sparking the political imaginations of so many, the man who has taught us all that as a nation, we can hope for more tolerance, more patience, and more unity, has his roots in Kenya, still has family in Kenya. We are connected to Kenya, whether we want to believe it or not.
It is so easy for us to live our daily lives, secure in the knowledge that no matter how bad our economy may get, no matter how disillusioned we become with our political system, our society will never disintegrate into chaos or anarchy, because, well, it just won’t.
But today, in Kenya, hundreds of thousands of people who live in the once tranquil, tourism-rich nation are now fleeing for their lives, leaving behind decimated homes, and any sense of safety they may have known. Can we really stand idly by, knowing that so many people are dying, and living in fear, and that no one is lifting a finger to help them? Would we be more willing to help if Kenya sat atop a great oil reserve, or if they were a strategically important base of operations for the U.S. in some other way?
What if a sea of phone calls could make the difference? What if you could copy this passage, cut and paste it into an email, send it to all of your friends, and make a difference?
Well maybe you can. I urge you, all of you, to make a phone call to your local television stations, your elected officials, your friends, your families, and anyone else you can think of, and remind them that the ancestral home of the man who has proven to be our greatest hope for a unified nation is under siege and needs our help. Kenya needs our help. It is time for us to see beyond ourselves, beyond our own borders, and help where we are needed, whether we have interests there are not.
Join me in contacting someone today – anyone, and telling them about the crisis in Kenya, and asking them to make a call to their congressman or Senator, and demand that they do SOMETHING before it’s too late. If you can’t do it for the Obama family, then do it for the innocent Kenyan children – they have everything to lose, and nothing to gain from the violence that threatens to destroy their land.
There are a number of great organizations lending their voices to this cause. If you’d like to learn more, or to make a donation, go to http://reliefforkenya.blogspot.com – it has links to a donation form, as well as posts about ongoing activities in Kenya.
By Steffini Bethea
This past Saturday, I went to delegate training in Atlanta. As I sat through the training, the gentleman that served as the facilitator mentioned several times (in jest) that being a delegate allowed you access to “ALL OF THE PARTIES”! That sounds like fun to me but I also had to sit back and think, “Why exactly do I want to go to Denver in August?” Now don’t get me wrong, I want to party like everyone else, but there is also a deeper more relevant reason. My reason has nothing and everything to do with Senator Barack Obama.
The reasons that have nothing to do with Senator Obama are:
A broken system that has my 68 year old father still having to teach in the Detroit public school system because he can’t quite yet “afford to retire.” (Fortunately, he does love his job)
A broken system that forced my mother to retire earlier than she wanted because after working 20 years at Ford Motor Company as a Systems Analyst, her job was outsourced to India.
A broken system that allowed my Aunt Pat to lose the $250,000 home that she owned outright because she could not pay a $40,000 medical bill once she became disabled.
A broken system that has allowed 2 of my friends to lose their homes to foreclosure.
A broken system that does not offer affordable healthcare for me and my family. It would cost my family of 6, $800/month for coverage. My husband and I are self employed.
A broken system that has my 65 year old mother-in-law still having to work at that school cafeteria, on the railroad tracks in Dillon, S.C., that Senator Obama always speaks of.
A broken system that has schools in Gwinnett County not making AYP because of the language barrier due to the influx of immigrants legal and illegal.
A broken system that has the elderly and sickly having to stay indoors on those days that we have a smog alert.
A broken system that has me paying $55 to fill up my car, while Exxon/Mobil just had a profit of $46 billion. (Somebody explain that to me PLEASE!)
A broken system that has cost some relatives, and children, of friends of mine to lose their lives in Iraq.
A broken system that has moved me out of the comfort of my previous neighborhood, just so that my children can get the best education.
A broken system that has millions uninsured, losing their homes, losing their jobs, losing hope!
Am I bitter? No! I am however, sick and tired of politics as usual! I want to go to Denver in August to cast a vote for CHANGE. That vote has everything to do with Senator Barack Obama. Tiger Woods was an agent of change for golf after he won the Masters in Augusta. Venus and Serena Williams became agents of change and now Black folks actually attend Wimbledon and the US Open. Magic Johnson became an agent of change for the NBA with the “Fast Break”. Doug Williams became an agent of change for the NFL after Super Bowl XXII. RUN DMC was an agent of change for Hip Hop. Spike Lee was an agent of change for Black filmmakers. Oprah, well she has just changed the game period (smile). I want to go to Denver to cast my vote for CHANGE on behalf of, my Aunt Pat, my mother in law, my parents, my best friends, my kids, my county, state, country and the 7th Congressional District. I believe Senator Obama will be an agent of change for OUR future!
If you happen to live in the 7th Congressional District in Georgia and are a registered voter, please support me by attending the Caucus on Saturday April 19, 2008. Help me get to Denver to vote for change.
Superdelegates: Who the F*&%! Knew?!?
February 23, 2008 in Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Black Women, Christmas, Commentary, Did You Know?, Hillary Clinton, Humor, Important Links, Issues, Politics, Polls, Superdelegates, The Campaign Trail | by bfwo | Leave a comment
By Patricia Wilson-Smith
Okay. I consider myself an intelligent woman, and I am NOTHING, if I am not forthcoming. So I’m going to admit it to everyone. Right here, right now, on BlackWomenforObama.org. I had NO IDEA that superdelegates existed before, oh, say a month ago. Got THAT off my chest. Whew! I feel a lot better!
What I want to know is, am I all alone? This election season has been historic in that it has drawn more people into the political process, and not just in a passive way, but in a way that has gotten people like me truly engaged, and getting engaged means becoming aware of some inconvenient truths. If you’re like me, you know that the REALLY scary part is, the more we learn about our electoral system, the more broken it seems. And that’s not good.
In a nation that prides itself on barn-storming communist or socialist or dictatorial nation states and cramming democracy down their throats, I’m a little baffled over how the Democratic and Republican parties could have thought that the superdelegate system was a good idea or even remotely in line with what our fore fathers had in mind when they gave every man the right to vote (unless you were black – that’s another subject entirely). I mean, seriously – do YOU think the signers of the Declaration of Indepence really meant for us to vote, march, rally, demonstrate, make our will known, all so that 800 seemingly randomly chosen people could pat us all on our collective heads and do whatever the hell they want? I don’t!
And yes – I’m using expletives liberally today. It is no friggin’ wonder that the political establishment is scared to death of Senator Obama – he’s dragged most of us kicking and screaming into the Matrix! He gave us all pleasant-tasting blue pills to suck down, and we thought we wanted them, and now we find out that the Matrix is running our political lives, and that we have much less control over who we elect as leader of the free world than we thought! Amazing!!!!
Think of it – what will we look like to the rest of the free world, let alone evil dictatorships, third-world countries and the like if we elect Senator Barack Obama as the Democratic nominee by popular vote, and 800 of the ‘chosen ones’ in this country end up going, “Nah, we don’t think so. He’s a hope-monger. Hillary – do your thang”. I submit that our status as the most free nation in the world will be called into question, and our credibility will be shot. Again.
So what can we do about it? At this point, just pray. Pray that Hillary Clinton will want to avoid an ugly showdown at the convention. Pray that someone wins by a large enough margin that no showdown is necessary. Pray that Howard Dean can pull a rabbit out of his hat if things start to go awry. Pray, pray, pray.
As someone who is newly addicted to all things political, I have to say that though I’m disillusioned, there is an upside. Now I want to know what ELSE I’ve been bamboozled, run amuck, and led astray about. I mean, what’s next? A hidden tax? Independence Day is really December 25th and Christmas is really July 4th?!?! I mean, sheesh, is anything what it seems?
Only time will tell. Thanks to Senator Obama in large part, the eyes of millions of Americans have been opened to the possibilities of what one person on a mission can do, when they band together with the like-minded. My hope is that the leaders of the Democratic party, and the candidates themselves will endeavor to do the right thing when the time comes. But if they don’t? There’s always revolution. And yes, it will be televised. Take THAT Fox News!