Who is Hillary Clinton?

We've all become side-tracked. We've all got lost. We're all having the wrong conversations. As a Clinton supporter, I am being asked about delegates and superdelegates, about Mark Penn and Jeremiah Wright, about percentages and demographics. But let's remember something: the issue is not how the candidates can win (and they both still can, of course); the issue is still what they would do if they did.

When Hillary announced her candidacy she said she was the most famous person in America that nobody knows. During the course of this campaign, her opponents and detractors have tried to introduce her to us in all sorts of unfavorable lights. There have also, inevitably, been moments in her campaign that some of her own supporters have felt awkward about.

But if you want to know what Hillary Clinton believes in, what she stands for, and what's in her heart, then look at what she's been fighting for her whole life: she's been fighting for people who need help.

Here's a woman who, when she graduated, went to work for the Children's Defense Fund, rather than for a fancy law firm with a big salary. Here is a woman who introduced legislation to tie Congressional salary increases to an increase in the minimum wage because she believes that if America's working people don't deserve a raise, neither do their elected officials. That's the Hillary I know: a woman of compassion and conviction.

Extending health care to those without it, to the young, the vulnerable, and the poor has been the great passion of her public life. Hillary Clinton - so demonized by her opponents - is a woman who has been fighting for the truly Democratic ideal of universal health care for the best part of two decades. She has sponsored legislation to fight the global problem of HIV and AIDS. She has authored legislation to reduce the price of prescription drugs. She was instrumental in the foundation and continuing success of S CHIP. Hillary gets it. And then she gets results.

So let's see the content of her character in every little boy and girl who has access to a hospital thanks to her work on S CHIP. Let's see the inspiration Hillary has given to those women across the world who have been able to stand with her and say that women's rights are human rights. Or to all those who saw a First Lady join a gay pride march for the first time and knew that the world was changing.

Let's see the inspiration in being able to show our daughters that there is nothing they can't do, nothing they can't achieve in this new century of ours. And - not just for our generation, but for our mothers and grandmothers who couldn't even vote - let's fight for the chance to say the words "Madam President" to someone who we know can be relied on to get things done.

Because those of us supporting Hillary are not just standing up for her, we're standing up for the 47 million uninsured Americans who will be covered under President Clinton. We're standing up for the veterans who will be treated right by her administration. We're standing up for a balanced budget and fiscal responsibility; for jobs and for the economy.

We're not just supporting Hillary Clinton, we're supporting a moratorium on home foreclosures for struggling families; a green collar sector creating local employment and cleaner energy production; we're supporting mental health reform and a stronger middle class.

We're not just standing up for Hillary Clinton, we're standing with everyone who wants American soldiers brought quickly and safely home from Iraq; everyone who wants to restore America's standing in the world; everyone who wants to leave this world a cleaner and greener place for our children.

And Hillary's supporters are standing up for her, because they know she will stand up for them as President, as their advocate abroad and their champion at home.

They are standing up for her, because they know she will work her heart out for them. And they know that, because that's what she's been doing her whole life.

Comments

[TheWesternBreed]

In general it seems as though you might as well be standing up for Barack Obama in November, and I hope you'll have that opportunity.

Also: women were granted the constitutional right to vote all the way back in 1920. That's 88 years ago, closing in on the century mark. Given that some two-thirds of the current U.S. population is less than 45 years old, I'd say that appealing to the memory of "our mothers and grandmothers who couldn't even vote" is beginning to become a REAL stretch of an argument, even for an emotional appeal. My own grandmother got the right to vote just about the time she turned 21 (as the voting age then was), and she died several years ago, aged 100.

[Countess]

There are many people who started out liking Hillary Clinton and are now so disgusted with her they wouldn't trust her with anything. She has no decency at all and her campaign is such that the financial backer of right wing hate campaigns against the Clintons has now openly endorsed her which should tell you everything you need to know. How does it feel to be in bed with this scum?

[myskylark]

Your hatred for Hillary Clinton speaks more about you than it does about her.

Because you adore Obama you feel it's necessary to hate Hillary Clinton.

It's people like you who are driving many of her supporters to stay home or vote for John McCain in November.

I don't like personality cults, and too many Obama supporters treat him like the leader of a cult. He can do no wrong and anyone who opposes him is the personification of evil.

You and your candidate ought to be ashamed.

[BlueFan]

"You and your candidate ought to be ashamed."

Hello, Pot? This is Kettle. Black!

If anyone should be ashamed, it's Hillary Clinton, and the people who still support her at this point.

[timm0]

When did you become the arbiter of what is "hate" and who expresses it?

If telling the truth about the morally bankrupt behavior is "hate" - then what do you call lying about someone else's behavior? HUH?!? I doubt your head can handle that question.

[FrankBlackFrancis]

my my, what a mind reader you are. Let me clue you in before you make a furhter ass of yourself. There are many people, like me, who would have been happy to vote and campaign for Hillary Clinton and have come to loathe her and her cmapaign tactics over the past couple of months. It has nothing to do with Obama. Nothing ot do with MoveOn .org or any other outfit that has been criticizing her. It has everything to do with her though. Her words. Her deeds. Her willingness to take down the party. It's people like you, deluded into thinking that any criticism of Hillary is out of bounds, that are destroying our party. You really should be ashamed for jumping to so many inaccurate conclusions.

[Syco]

I hated Hillary before I knew Barrack existed explain that?

[tedbear]

I second that! Thank you!

[DustyRebel]

Agreed. I can't believe I start this primary as a Clinton supporter, even though I disagreed with her vote for the Iraq war, but the tone and actions of her campaign has been destructive.

The uglier her campaign gets, the harder it has become to be a "Clinton apologist". Perhaps after 16 years of turning a blind eye and defending the Clintons, I'm just tired of it.