John Edwards endorsement pretty much ratifies what we already know: Barack Obama will be our party's nominee for president. This is another great day for those of us who support the Obama campaign. I believe this is a great day for all Democrats.
It is a bittersweet day for many Edwards supporters. Senator Edwards began the campaign fighting a certain rap as a shallow pretty-boy. He shook this off the right way -- by presenting well-grounded, substantive proposals in healthcare, housing, and other areas to address our nation's gaping inequalities. Some of the nation's leading scholars helped to formulate these plans. If Senator Obama wins the presidency, his policies will be strongly influenced, for the better, by the contributions made by Senator Edwards and his team.
It is just a bitter day for many Clinton supporters, for whom this provides yet another sign that this campaign is effectively over. Senator Clinton's supporters can also be proud of her hard and skillful campaigning against long odds. They can be proud of her obvious substance and passion on issues of healthcare and other issues. They can be proud of her pioneering campaign.
Despite some wounds rubbed raw in recent weeks, Democrats should all recognize that this is a family feud now drawing to a close. It is time to come together, because we will need everyone to help in the hard task of defeating John McCain.
It's easier to reach out and to be gracious when your side won. So if you are an Obama supporter, you have a special responsibility to reach out. Reach out to your friends, colleagues, relatives, and associates who supported other Democrats, Encourage them to find out more about Barack Obama's personal story and policy views. Our best advertisement is a simple visit to http://www.johnmccain.com. Encourage your friends to compare Senator Obama's record and platform with Senator McCain's.
Most important, let's not get caught up in whatever nastiness that might ensue in the nomination endgame. Life is too short to worry about that. I hope that Senator Clinton navigates a graceful exit and can leave with her head held high. We all have a stake in this. The Clinton and Obama campaigns will negotiate the details. The rest of us, as individuals, can do our part to heal a little of the bitterness that has seaped into the Democratic campaign.
God bless America and God bless Obama
What a fine pair of leaders who along with Chris Dodd and Bill Richardson are true Democrats who want a Democrat in the White House more than they want personal power. This is a display of good judgment that should serve as a model for future presidential candidates.
John Edwards made a good decision.
Reduce animosity? Sure? Be conciliatory? Yes. Let down our guards? No, not yet. If you listen to Hillary closely, she's got other plans which hopefully she will abandon. But for now, guys and gals, keep your eyes wide open.
That doesn't mean we have to "make nice" with the likes of Mark Penn, Terry McAuliffe and Lanny Davis who said and did some outrageous things that shouldn't have any place in the Democratic primary process. But we must always remember that they do not reflect or represent the overwhelming majority of Hillary supporters who backed their candidate for the right reasons, even if we disagreed with them.
There is no point to be served by airing our grievances with the type of campaign she ran because we've won. We've already held her accountable. She'll have to live the rest of her life with the consequences of the decisions she made and the people she hired. That's penalty enough and further retribution serves absolutely zero purpose. If we want to win this fall, when it really counts, we've got to "get over it," reach out, be patient and understanding, and move forward.
Your header should have read:
In Defeat, Humility
"Senator Clinton's supporters can also be proud of ...her obvious substance and passion on issues of healthcare" ?
Hogwash. The healthcare positions of Edwards, Clinton and Obama are all craven capitulations to the healthcare lobby. They will collapse under attacks from both left and right, and can only help elect John McCain.
Consider. Compared to the current "free market" system, albeit hopelessly broken, the plans of both Hillary and Barack. like that of Edwards, would:
1. Increase health insurance premium costs. (If open to everyone, no matter how sick or old, costs and premiums will increase.)
2. Mandate that people must buy coverage. (Or the insurance police will get you !)
3. Increase taxes, to fund needed subsidies.
4. Increase government intrusion into our lives, to enforce mandates and to check subsidy eligibilities.
5. Increase government regulation of the insurance industry.
6. Increase government bureaucracy and costs.
7. Increase the hassle for employers who provide healthcare, burdening them with various "portable" policies, paying multiple insurers, and creating disparities in employee coverage.
And after all this: millions of people STILL have no insurance, 31% of premium dollars are still wasted on the insurance companies who deny treatments and impose costs on healthcare providers for dealing with them. And people still go bankrupt over uncovered medical costs.
Solution? Single payer HR 676, “Medicare for All”. See “The Hillbar Healthcare Plan Revealed”:
http://whatsnotso.blogs.com/whatsnotso/2008/04/the-hillbar-hea.html
I don't like any of the Democrats' plans for health care, but I do support a change that will bring us closer to what we need.
I beieve John Edwards to be the best match up with Senator Obama because of their shared goals and values. I trust John Edwards. If anything should happen to Senator Obama, John Edwards would be continue the fight for change in Washington for change in our politics...
Changing the way we do things in Washington will be hard. It will take a team rolling up their sleeves and going to it. I believe in John Edward and I am praying and hoping that Senator Obama will ask him and that he will say YES WE CAN!
Obama/Edwards '08
Obama/Richardson '08
You're not swaying any undecideds in this forum, sonny, all you are accomplishing is to let us know how scared you are and solidifying our resolve to permanently make your rotten party a permanent minority party.
Thank you for the signals. It reveals a lot. Well, time to get the credit card out again.......you see, loser, we put our money where our mouths are.
The Presidency requires brains, not bravado.
Lets not forget the CHICKENHAWKS of the right, who NEVER served in the military, but shoot their big mouths off when someone elses lives are on the line:
President Bush: MIA in the Alabama National Guard. Records "mysteriously" disappeared regarding his "Service"
DICK "5 Deferments" Cheney: "I had other priorities"
Rush Limbaugh : Medical deferment for hemorhoids
Sean Hannity: bust flag waving, not fighting.
Bill O'Relly: Nowhere to be seen
Joe Lieberman: I doubt he served, either.
Actually, from where I sit (outside looking in), no, according to the members of the Democratic Party that voted or caucused, it was not. It's that sense of entitlement that began the turnoff for me (not that I can vote, anyway), although I was never a great fan of Hillary's from Bill's day in the WH.
And based on the way the race started, it WAS hers to lose, which she has managed to do. You may want to direct your anger in the appropriate direction, i.e. her campaign (her campaign strategists, her refusal to toss them out, etc.), rather than Obama.
Please don't give me that soft soap about healing the wounds and all coming together for the good of the party and the good of the country.
I consider Obama to be unprepared, unqualified, and a liar. I consider the dirtiest trick of this campaign was for the Obama people to play the race card by twisting the Clinton's non-racist remarks and spinning it as the Clinton's playing the race card. African-Americans who should have known better, willingly played along with that slanderous campaign.
Obama and his thuggish supporters have made the Clinton's outcasts in their own party. Maybe the Clinton's can forgive and forget, but I can't.
This was Hillary's year. Obama, urged on by Kennedy, Daschle and Durbin decided to jump to the head of the line, and the Democratic Party wound up with two historic candidacies. What did they think would happen? Were they so dismissive of this woman that they didn't even consider the obvious, that the party would split badly?
I've had it with the party and with its so-called leadership.
I'm leaving the party and I will not vote for Obama. I can't stand the sight of him.
I notice in many of your postings you talk about Hillary haters, are you sure that you are not seeing a relfection of yourself when you do this. By the way initially I was willing to support her but when she suggested the while she and McCain were qualified to be President but Obama was not, that turned me off as a potential supporter.
Having said all that, I'll say this. My vote is first and foremost about policy, no matter who the standard bearer is!!!!!! So to all the Hillary supporters I say this, vote Hillary's policies. You don't have to like Sen. Obama, but when it comes to Iraq, economic policy, healthcare and the like, it's all about policy. The democratic platform is what I support first and foremost.
Let's stop voting personality and vote policy!!! That's the only way to move the country forward in a real way!!!!!!!!!!
DEMOCRATS 08!!!!
What do you mean by " Hillary's year"? Why is it "her" year? Is there something special about this election year that belongs to her? That she's entitled to?
Obama "decided to jump to the head of the line."
I did not know people line up to run for the presidency, and that Hillary is first in line.
Last time I checked this is a free country, and anyone can throw his/her hat in the ring, in any election year.
Your sense of Hillary's entitlement is unjustified.
What has she done for the country? She is a senator from NY, and before that, she was a former president's spouse. Does her CV makes her head and shoulders above the other candidates? Is it not for the voters to decide on her aptitude?
What about Biden, Dodd, Edwards, etc... ,are they supposed to wait in line behind Hillary to run for the presidency? And where in that line do they fit?
So what if you don't like Obama, or some of his supporters are nasty (HuffPo brings out the looniest!), or if you're POed at the DNC...voting for McCain for those reasons is against your best interest (and the rest of us) and a vote made to "show" us, or out of revenge is, to me, anti-American. You're not going to show anyone anything except what a disaster McCain will be, and I doubt that would make HRC proud that's what her supporters chose to do. Will that really make you feel vindicated?
If we want poor people to get health care, a better environment, and a different approach to the rest of the world, us Democrats will see past the personal rivalries and squabbles and work together come November.