Write-in Votes for Hillary?

More on Hillary loyalists (which term is a bit misleading, because a loyalist would honor his or her leader's requests and back his or her leader's candidate, but that seems beside the point to a small handful of Dems). From the NYT:

Lynn Hackney and Kim Hoover might perfectly illustrate the emotions of those whom Ms. Palin counts as “not finished yet.” They had gathered 20 equally passionate Hillary supporters at their home in Washington on Tuesday to watch Mrs. Clinton’s speech. “The Kleenex was flowing,” said Ms. Hackney, who declared the speech “brilliant.”

Thursday, when 38 million Americans watched Mr. Obama’s speech, they watched a movie, “The Squid and the Whale.”

No matter what Mrs. Clinton urged, they cannot support Mr. Obama.

“To go against Hillary is not easy for us,” Ms. Hackney said. “We don’t take that lightly. We just don’t think he has a message. We don’t think he’s good for women.”

"We just don't think he has a message"?! Is she kidding? Has she listened to a word he's said? I think no. Or else she would understand that Obama's message is that common purpose unites us, common concerns connect us, common decency passed from citizen to citizen ("I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper") results in uncommon community achievment, and that with those common threads between us America becomes a richer, stronger, healthier nation. And, oh yeah, George Bush's Washington isn't working for America.

And I suspect she didn't really listen with open ears to Clinton's speech, either, because Clinton once again made the case for Obama--and even to those who could not hear praise for Obama, Clinton most certainly made the case against McCain. If these voters think they're doing Hillary a favor by writing her name in on the ballot this fall, then they are extremely disillusioned. Hillary Clinton stands to be a much more effective senator under a President Obama than President McCain. Her opportunities to do good work in the world--in any capacity--increase under a President Obama and dramatically decrease under a President McCain. Her chance at effectively improving health care access for all Americans is, to be sure, only even possible under a President Obama, and not even remotely likely under a President McCain.

And those 18 million cracks? Do Hillary's most hardened supporters think that Hillary Clinton and Democratic women nationwide worked this hard so that a woman could slip through the glass ceiling only to overturn Roe v. Wade, amend the Constitution to restrict the freedoms of American citizens, promote creationism in public schools, de-list polar bears from the Endangered Species Act, ignore modern realities regarding the need for gun control, drill her way to cozy relations with big oil at the cost of energy independence, and (based on the look of things in her "Troopergate" investigation) abuse her power for personal gain?

“It’s not about being bitter for Hillary,” [Ms. Hackney] said. Still, “I think the Democratic Party took women for granted in the primary, they didn’t step on sexism when they should have, and I can’t support them.”

Her phone, she said, began “burning up” when Mr. McCain announced Ms. Palin as his choice. “The fact that he went out on a limb to pick a woman, I’m very impressed by that.” She says she is not sure she can vote for a Republican, and will most likely stick to her plan to write in Mrs. Clinton. But, she said, “It’s opened my eyes to at least pay attention.”

Ms. Hackney and Ms. Hoover: A write-in for Hillary is a vote for McCain, plain and simple. Ask yourselves this: Do you really believe you'll be better served by an anti-choice, anti-equity, anti-progress, anti-peace, pro-establishment Republican of the most bitter, most entrenched, and most cynical stripe?

A Select Group of Hillary Loyalists

A topic that spun off from the Unite for Change party last Saturday was the issue of Hillary Clinton supporters who won't vote for Obama. Who are they?, I asked, pointing out that these oft-mentioned loyalists strike me as a peculiarly Rovian construct.

One answer, however, made itself known when a guest spoke up. Janice, a woman in late middle age whose dialect sounds a bit more back east than mountain or high plains, mentioned that her aged mother was extremely uncomfortable with commentary made about Obama by some of her Democratic peers who were (are) Hillary supporters.

Before I go on I want to mention this: when Janice told me that afternoon that I looked familiar to her, I quipped that we must be in the same extended family. By which I meant that we are both Jews.

Janice answered my question about the Hillary supporters who might not vote by attesting that, in her mother's assisted living community, the vitriol about Obama was rank. Her mother has lately avoided the central gathering areas in her facility because of the coarse and racist speech fulminating from the mouths of these aged, Democratic voters. There were words being used, Janice said, that she would not repeat in our presence that day.

Yep, I thought. Sure. I could picture it all too clearly. I remember the first time I heard my grandparents use the term schvartze, the derogatory, Yiddish slang for African Americans. I grew up pretty far removed from the holdover mindset of my granparents' generation, and pretty far removed as well from the Jewish community of metro Detroit, so I was a little older already when I first asked my parents what the word meant.

Since hearing Janice's story about her mother's peers, I've learned that my own grandmother, as it happens, may not vote this year. According to my mother, my grandmother was "very gung ho for Hillary, and now she doesn't like either choice." It's unflattering to say so, but I suspect my grandmother and many Jews of her generation of holding yet to a deeply ingrained racism and mistrust of blacks, black culture, and black leaders today.

I don't kid myself that this type of closed-mindedness is limited to my grandparents' generation. Would that it were so. In an election year which has us talking about race as never before, as we dissect a candidate who may be neither "black enough" nor "white enough" to win over crucial voter blocs, when the words "biracial" and "postracial" have become as prevalent in the electoral idiom as "bipartisan" and "postpartisan," I strongly wonder if Barack Obama won't reveal more to us about ourselves and our communities than we might be eager to accept. Optimistically, however, perhaps the candidate will prompt us to review and more carefully question those very topics in our families, in our lives, about which we do not speak. Without dialogue, at the very least, there can be little progress.

When my mom heard that I will be actively involved in this election, that I hope to engage skeptics and win over undecided voters, she asked me to begin my efforts close to home. I believe I'll call my grandmother this 4th of July weekend, and ask if we can talk a little politics.