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Editor’s Note: One of the lingering questions from the Democratic National Convention will be how many of Hillary Clinton’s supporters will heed her call and switch their allegiance to Barack Obama? And how many will defy Sen. Clinton and either sit out the election or vote for John McCain? In this guest essay, writer Mary MacElveen explores those questions in the context of an e-mail exchange with one former Clinton backer who is now for McCain: In her clarion-call to the Democratic convention, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton reminded ALL of her supporters, “You haven't worked so hard over the last 18 months, or endured the last eight years, to suffer through more failed leadership."
She also said to her supporters, "No way. No how. No McCain." So, listen to her. Previously, in blasting McCain for his Swift boat tactics, I included Sen. Clinton’s remarks to the convention when she asked, “I want you to ask yourselves: Were you in this campaign just for me?" That touched at the very heart of all of us since an election is more than just one person, but our shared future. According to the AP account, “She urged them instead to remember Marines who have served their country, single mothers, families barely getting by on minimum wage and other struggling Americans.” Even after she said this, one of her supporters whom I have been in contact with for years refuses to listen Sen. Clinton and continues to send out anti-Obama material. How is that honoring Sen. Clinton? I then asked this supporter this question, “May I Ask if You are Voting for McCain?” I was shocked, but not really, when I read her response, “It pains me to say this but I am voting for McCain. If Obama had selected Hillary I would have voted for the ticket but he didn’t.” While this Clinton supporter states that it will “pain” her as she votes for McCain, there are millions more out there feeling true pain, who are suffering at the hands of the Bush administration and will continue to suffer and feel real pain under a McCain presidency. These are the people whom Hillary wanted to help if she became President. And in no uncertain terms, she told her supporters that this help is only possible now by electing Sen. Obama in November. In her speech to the convention, Clinton used the operative word, “suffer” to describe what has happened to many Americans during the past eight years and said it is time to end this suffering felt by these tens of millions of Americans, a far greater number than the 18 million who voted for Clinton in the primaries. McCain’s campaign has exploited those still upset that Clinton did not become the Democratic nominee by airing a commercial where a Hillary supporter switches allegiances and says “It’s really okay to vote for McCain…Really.” Last year, I appeared on CNN international to speak of a little Iraqi boy named Youssif who was badly burned by masked mad-men as they doused him in gasoline. Thankfully, Americans opened up their hearts and wallets to bring him to this country so he could be operated on and not be scarred for life. This is the war that McCain backed and still backs whereas Obama has been an outspoken critic of from Day One. Is the pain that any Clinton supporter feels greater than Youssif’s? Is the pain that a disappointed Clinton backer worse than the pain of those forced to go to food pantries where I live on Long Island? Such as the case of the DeRosa family? “Food and gas costs so much, and with everything else — rent, electricity, car insurance and car payments — we’re just not making it,” Mrs. DeRosa, 36, said while picking up a week’s worth of groceries at the Food Action Center in Englewood. These are the people who have been hurt by the Bush administration, whose policies have been supported by McCain 95 percent of the time. As a new hurricane, Gustav makes its way towards New Orleans it was the Bush administration that ignored those devastated by Katrina in 2005. As I wrote previously, “According to FactCheck.org when it came to voting for independent investigations after Hurricane Katrina hit the gulf coast, … ‘McCain actually voted twice, in 2005 and 2006, to defeat a Democratic amendment that would have set up an independent commission along the lines of the 9/11 Commission.’” What about the pain of Katrina victims? It is their pain that should and must count more than the disappointment of Sen. Clinton’s supporters. In my e-mail to the Clinton supporter, I wrote, “This race is far more important than just the Clintons and the Obamas. It is about my neighbor who I will use as an example who does not have any health insurance, who hurt his back last weekend and summoned up the courage to go to the ER knowing he couldn’t pay. “His wife had to wait for her paycheck in order to go get his meds filled at the pharmacy. Don’t they deserve at least a chance for a change or more of the same as Bill Clinton eluded to [Wednesday night]? Will McCain help my neighbor? Oh and by the way, they lost their home due to foreclosure.” In speaking with my neighbors each and every day, while they are proud people who do not like to complain, they are feeling the same pain that millions more around this country are. They need relief. I will even use as an example that many like me fear the winter season when the cost of filling our tanks with heating oil will break us. For my next delivery on Saturday, I asked that only 100 gallons be delivered since I cannot afford to fill my tank. The price of oil has sky rocketed under the Bush administration as he has paid off his friends in the oil industry. Where exactly has McCain been as millions of Americans suffer and feel the financial pain? What about the true pain being felt by military families all around this country? Sen. Hillary Clinton, to her credit, has been outspoken on the health-care crisis facing this nation for decades. Presently there are 47 million people who do not have it and those numbers should count more than the 18 million who voted for her in the primaries and are now disappointed. Sen. Clinton has graciously stepped aside so that these people who do not have health insurance can have a chance at getting it under an Obama administration. Do these Clinton supporters, such as the one I e-mailed, think McCain will hear the cries coming from those who have felt pain during these past eight years? No, it will be more of the same. Isn’t it up to those Clinton supporters even thinking of voting for McCain to end the true pain and suffering felt by their fellow Americans? During the primaries, I too questioned Obama’s experience, but it was former President Clinton on Wednesday night who noted how his own detractors used that same argument against him when he ran in 1992. One only has to look back in history as a young president, John F. Kennedy, stared down Nikita Khrushchev during the Cuban missile crisis. … Sen. Clinton has often spoken out of the pain and suffering being felt by Americans each and every day at the hands of George W. Bush and John McCain. … She put country before self and for that we are all thankful to her. Mary MacElveen is a writer living on Long Island. Her e-mail address is [email protected] To comment at Consortiumblog, click here. (To make a blog comment about this or other stories, you can use your normal e-mail address and password. Ignore the prompt for a Google account.) To comment to us by e-mail, click here. To donate so we can continue reporting and publishing stories like the one you just read, click here. |
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