Girl Power!
Hillary Clinton won’t say what was discussed, but she’s talked with Elizabeth Edwards about her husband’s endorsement of rival Barack Obama. Campaigning in South Dakota today, Clinton said she has a great deal of respect for Elizabeth Edwards, and that they have a lot in common. Perhaps an endorsement is yet to come? Unlikely, but this is certainly a strong signal.
The full story is from KAIT Channel 8 News. The above interview is from April 08, 2008 but I think it covers Elizabeth’s thoughts well.
Some Colour on John Edwards’ Endorsement
Over 90% of his staff migrated to Obama. His staff went to 0, his fund raisers went to 0, most of his voters went to 0, most of his grassroots activists went to 0 (and “most” doesn’t equal 55% but more like super majorities of 2/3+). His thought process over the past three months said he personally liked 0bama more, thought 0bama would bring “change”, preferred Clinton on policy. The major reason that he would endorse Clinton was he feared Obama was not tough enough to win the general election. And John Edwards cares very passionately for the Democratic Party and thinks that the longer this process goes on, the more serious problems Obama would have winning the general election.
Race was also apparently a factor. Edwards, not surprisingly given his background in the segregated South, seems to be excited about the prospect of having a black president. Remember the story a few days ago about him talking about how great symbolically that would be? Elizabeth got very annoyed at that and said something to the effect of “what about the symbolic value of the first woman president”? The annoyance was revealing. That probably wasn’t the first time he made that statement.
The official story, and you can buy this or not (I personally don’t care about why he did it. It was his right.), is that he grew concerned about the emerging narrative that 0bama can’t win white working class votes (let’s face it: that narrative is based on the assumption that a lot of racists won’t vote for him. Obama got far more white working class support than Biden. Does anyone think Biden would be unelectable? Exactly…) and endorsing 0bama would be a way to silence that talk and more importantly assuage concerns among party leaders about it. Having Edwards on 0bama’s side would assuage their concerns because they can say “well, he sucks with these voters but Edwards will be there to make the sell for him”.
That is from someone who worked in the Edwards campaign.
My Thoughts On This
I am bothered by the race thing frankly. Yes, it would be great to have a black President. But doesn’t competence matter? Obama’s inexperience and naivete is likely to blow up in his face and what will that do for another black running down the line? Duval Patrick has likely set back the cause of African-American politicians in Massachusetts, ten years. He has three years to turn it around but if not it is out the door.
Furthermore, John Edwards is not clearly examining why working class voters are not flocking to Obama. There are reasons and they are not race-based. It’s values. It’s the Reverend Wright. It is the bitter and clinging comments. It is the misogynistic remarks. It is also because it is hard to fool the working class. They can spot a fraud. Those are Obama’s problems and how John Edwards misses them is beyond me.
While Clinton’s candidacy is symbolic, I am not voting for her because she is a woman. I am voting for her because she is more experienced and because we line up on policy. And I admire her values and her dedication. Her indefatigable energy. I regret having given Edwards $2300 and I regret supporting him in the California primary if he is really this dense on symbolism. I didn’t support him because he was symbolic somehow. I thought he had the best policies. I still do but this symbolism stuff is inane.