Matt beat me out of the starting gate on the righteous indignation front this morning with his post calling out the die-hard supporters of Hillary Clinton who have decided that the most constructive thing they can do now that she’s conceding the race to Barack Obama is to instead vote for John McCain.

I find this distressing on a number of levels — a lot of people are raising the banner of unspoken racism in the charge that “There’s just something about Obama that I don’t trust.”  There’s also that e-mail running about accusing Obama of being a “secret Muslim” (intriguing, given the whole fracas over Obama’s connection to his decidedly un-Muslim pastor), with the unspoken set of equally racist charges that implies–to whit that, by vent of being a secret Muslim, Obama is actually the leader of the Great Islamic Fifth Column who will reveal his true form once in office and make his first act to send the military into private homes and staple veils on everyone’s heads.  It’s amazing what some people believe is possible.

That whole brouhaha aside, I must raise the question: for the past eight years, we’ve had a President who thinks he’s God’s warrior, and look where that’s gotten us.  Even if Obama were secretly Muslim or the anti-Christ, as some have charged–could he really do that much worse that the current occupant of the White House?

Back to the split in the Democratic party.  It’s been a long campaign, and it’s not over, even if we’re feeling a resolution to a long, drawn out process that we all expected to end in February.  Despite the fact that the two fought a relatively clean battle themselves, their supporters have entrenched, and I understand that for the Hillary-ites, defeat is not easy.  But John McCain is an easy way out, not a noble sacrifice.

Hillary, for her part, isn’t helping much by making overtures for the vice-presidency.  If she continues to push the issue, she paints Obama into a corner: if he picks her, then he demonstrates that he’s weak and that she’s the more powerful politician on the ticket, even if she’s running in the Number 2 slot.  If he doesn’t pick her, he risks alienating her supporters even further.

For the record, I think that when it comes right down to it, the biggest danger is that Hillary’s supporters won’t vote for McCain – it’s that they’ll stay home in November and not vote for anyone.  And no self-respecting homo should vote for a Republican, <em>period</em>.  Not after the past 8 years.

I have to wonder whether a lot of this is just posturing in the wake of defeat — maybe, once the Obama-McCain race truly starts, Hillary supporters will be able to move on and support the Democratic party.  For the sake of our country–heck, for the rest of the world–I certainly hope so.  I don’t know if we can wait till 2012 for a change — if we keep going down the path we’re on, there may not be a 2012.

Tags: barack obama, elections, hillary clinton, politics