in limbo

it's taken a while, but hillary supporters at harvard are starting to come out of the woodwork. it seems that the threat of an obama nomination--or, perhaps more accurately, the threat of a non-hillary nomination--has induced some students to assure me of their support. people whom i had never thought to support hillary (it's quite a thing for me not to know who supports hillary and who doesn't, really) have taken me aside, their voices grave, asking me for my thoughts. and my thoughts--at once optimistic and resigned--are of no comfort.

it feels like it's the beginning of the end. when senator clinton won indiana and lost north carolina--and when barack obama gained a total of twelve delegates out of more than two hundred possible--i thought there was hope. hillary won indiana, after all, even though she was heavily outspent in a state that neighbors obama's home turf. and so, when the press declared hillary's campaign dead for the third or fourth time, i was rightfully pissed off. meanwhile, pundits the world over declared that the democratic party was fractured, citing exit polls in indiana suggesting that a large number of hillary supporters would rather vote for mccain or stay home than vote for barack obama.

my first reaction was skepticism. though it isn't unprecedented or without basis, the argument that long primary seasons harm the candidates involved and engender bitterness between the two camps is somewhat simplistic. it's natural to think that months of negative ads raise the negatives of both candidates, that jibs and jabs adversely affect each candidate's supporters. and polls have suggested that both obama's and clinton's negatives have risen (an unfortunate thing for hillary, too, because hers were already pretty high). nevertheless, i prefer the counterargument: that this extended fight for the nomination is a good thing, especially if barack obama gets the democratic nomination, because it's prepared the candidates for the much more specious attacks to come from the Evil Republicans.

but now i'm beginning to see something different. my mother--my very own mother! a democrat!--recently told me that she'd rather stay home than vote for barack obama, but only if hillary isn't on the ticket. (my response: "we'll talk about this later, and i'll make you change your mind.") another one of my friends approached me in the library a few days ago, bemoaning the changed tide in the race, declaring, "i'm just so pissed off right now that i don't think i'll vote for him out of bitterness." one of my teachers from high school, a life-long republican whom i persuaded to support hillary over john mccain, was more explicit in her disapproval of obama: "just about all of what he promised in his NC acceptance speech cannot be accomplished. when he is finally President (if he makes it), the huge bubble he has created will develop a hole and all the air will leak out." (to be fair, she also called john mccain "a wet dishrag right in the face.")

my point: i'm beginning to see the signs of disenchantment that the punditocracy blathers about endlessly. still, i'll work tirelessly to make sure we have a democratic president for the next four years. obama--though hardly my first choice--is a great man, a great american, and a great candidate. he is promising. and if he isn't particularly inspirational to me, the fact that so many of my peers are inspired by his candidacy is, in itself, pretty inspirational. i've come a long way in my resignation that he's the presumptive democratic nominee. but at this point, to fight the more bitter feelings of millions of clinton supporters, he might have to buck maureen dowd and ask hillary to be his vp.