The Agony of Defeat

Who could blame Hillary Clinton for dragging her feet in arriving at Washington’s National Building Museum to “suspend” her campaign for her party’s nomination for the presidency of the United States? She must have been thinking, “Why rush my feet to admit defeat?” However, Hillary will get another shot at the presidency in eight years, based on the speech she gave and her ringing endorsement of Barack Obama.

Even in 2016 she’ll still be younger than McCain is now, as he begs his aged and aching bunions to hold up a little longer as he makes his Quixotic bid to become Commander-In-Chief of the nation. Methinks that he really doesn’t want to be president as much as he wants to be the supreme leader of the most powerful military force the world has ever known... and that scares me.

Just an aside, but we never say or write “President of America,” but we will say the “American president.” Why is that? But I digress, back to Hillary.

Once she arrived at her Waterloo and put to rest her own presidential ambitions for the nonce, she quickly proved herself to be among the most able stateswomen of this, or any other, era. She gave an electrifying and magnanimous speech in which she not only secured the presidency for Barack, but virtually assured herself the vice-presidency in the process. Rarely has one speech accomplished two such worthy goals.

However, there remains discontent in both Democratic camps as some Barack supporters still want him to kick her to the curb for what they perceive as her “overly-vigorous” campaign style, where she repeatedly kicked him in the shins... knowing full-well that a Black man could not kick back at a White woman... not if he wants to be president of these United States that is. Barack had to fight her with one hand tied behind his back. Or, as I like to say, “He was like a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest.” And some of Barack’s supporters, in spite of the ringing endorsement Hillary gave him, still feel that Hill and Bill are not to be trusted. However, as my good friend Larry Durstin recently wrote... if Barack can’t keep the Clintons in line while he runs the country, then maybe he just isn’t strong enough to be president after all.

Barack supporters (my dear wife among them) don’t care to hear it, but I actually was initially pulling for Hillary to be on the top of ticket. My logic was simple: Barack is young enough to serve two terms as VP, and would thus ensure 16 years of progressive government for America ... which, by the way, still has a good chance of occurring ... just with him serving first.

Closer to home, unless local Barack supporter’s fury fades, my congresswoman is going to face some stiff opposition in her reelection bid. Many folks in her district feel that she disrespected their wishes by continuing to promise Hillary her super-delegate vote after they voted so overwhelmingly (80 percent) for Barack in the Ohio primary election. As one long-time Stephanie supporter recently said, “That super delegate vote was not hers to give, it was the collective vote of the people of her district, it was ours, and she had no right to promise something that wasn’t hers to give in the first place. If she can’t do what we want, then we’ll get someone in that office who will.”

Over the years it has never ceased to amaze me how easily national campaign managers (usually White) can be fooled by Black politicians, ministers and civic leaders who promise they can “deliver the Black vote.” The notion that Blacks are that politically homogeneous is as insulting as inferring that we all look alike. Black voters, like many others, will nod in church as they are cajoled about who to vote for and what to believe ... and then go into the voting booth and — proving they are not a heard of dumb sheep — vote as they damn well please.

On Hillary’s side, there remains among some of her supporters the ill feeling that Barack cut in line in front of her. There was a smattering of boos when she encouraged her followers to now support her former opponent (but nothing like the chorus of boos National Public Radio’s Allison Keyes later that day reported she heard; one has to wonder what event she was covering) but, by-and-large, it seems as if they were resigned to waiting eight more years for America to elect its first woman president. And we will.

However, the notion that Hillary lost the nomination because the nation isn’t ready to elect a woman to high office just yet rings false in the face of all of the female senators and governors we’ve elected in this country ... far outstripping the meager number of Blacks so elected. The truth is, the nomination was hers to lose ... and she and her campaign advisors found a way to lose it.

Nonetheless, we — Democrats, Republicans and independents — all get too caught up in the heat of battle; we become so partisan in favor of one person over another that the issues tend to take a back seat. What really matters is universal healthcare, ending the war, and lifting all Americans out of poverty ... and we need to stay focused on solutions to these problems.

But, American politics being what they are,, we’d better buckle our seatbelts for the nastiest campaign in history, as reactionary forces try to bait Barack into losing his cool by mounting increasingly vicious personal attacks as the election draws near. But he now has the opportunity to select a VP who’s proven that she can play hardball with the best of the big boys. If McCain’s people (or the surrogates they’ll put up to do the dirty work while keeping their hands clean) want a real knock-down, drag-out, ass-kicking contest, they can get one. Hillary sounds as if she’s ready to rumble for what she believes in, and she stated unequivocally that she believes in CHANGE.

From Cool Cleveland contributor Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com

Photo by Peter Chakerian
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