Friends, it's time to channel our anger about the direction the Clinton campaign has taken into action. It's time for us in the netroots to lobby our Democratic elected officials, particularly those who are uncommitted or have already endorsed Clinton, to withdraw their support for her campaign, or at the very least, use their influence to demand that she dramatically change her campaign's tone.
Do elected officials really want to remain associated with a campaign defined by fear-mongering, race-baiting, and gratuitous slanders against the rising star of our party?
Below the fold, I've attached my letter to Rhode Island Senator and Clinton campaign co-chair Sheldon Whitehouse. Please feel free to suggest improvements to it, and better yet, to adapt it to your own purposes for lobbying your own elected Democrats. It's time for action.
Dear Senator Whitehouse,
As you may recall, I fundraised and volunteered for your campaign in 2006. I am a passionate Democrat and a strong supporter of yours.
I know that you admire Barack Obama, but have endorsed and indeed co-chair the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, citing your loyalty to Bill Clinton, who helped you launch your own public service career in 1994. Nevertheless: I am writing to ask you to publicly withdraw your support for the Clinton campaign at this time.
The Democratic primary process is quickly turning into a disaster for our party, and the blame for this can be laid squarely at the feet of the Clinton campaign. At this point, Senator Obama has an insurmountable lead in pledged delegates, which no realistic margin of victory for Senator Clinton in the remaining primary states could possibly overturn. Any attempt by superdelegates such as yourself to reverse the results of the voting would lead to chaos and rebellion. Quoting Jonathan Chait in the New Republic:
Clinton's path to the nomination is pretty repulsive. She isn't
going to win at the polls. Barack Obama has a lead of 144 pledged
delegates. That may not sound like a lot in a 4,000-delegate race,
but it is. Clinton's Ohio win reduced that total by only nine. She
would need 15 more Ohios to pull even with Obama. She isn't going
to do much to dent, let alone eliminate, his lead.
That means, as we all have grown tired of hearing, that she would
need to win with superdelegates. But, with most superdelegates
already committed, Clinton would need to capture the remaining
ones by a margin of better than two to one. And superdelegates are
going to be extremely reluctant to overturn an elected delegate
lead the size of Obama's. The only way to lessen that reluctance
would be to destroy Obama's general election viability, so that
superdelegates had no choice but to hand the nomination to her.
As Chait predicted, Senator Clinton's strategy has indeed become "repulsive" and bent on "destroying" Obama's viability:
- she has explicitly and repeatedly said that John McCain is better qualified to be president than our party's near-certain nominee;
- she has explicitly played the "fear" card, reinforcing Republican frames that Democrats can't keep the country safe;
- when asked whether Obama is a Muslim, she weakly replied "not as far as I know", reinforcing slanders about Obama's religion;
- she has introduced race into the contest, most recently by not forcefully rejecting Geraldine Ferraro's despicably racist comments about how Obama has only gotten to where he is because he's black. Please watch this video: http://tinyurl.com/... .
The only logical explanation for Clinton's recent actions is that she wants to destroy Obama's viability, either to win via the antidemocratic superdelegate path, or more likely, to clear McCain's path to victory, in order to improve her own chances of winning in 2012. I judge her actions to be despicably self-serving.
Senator, I believe the time has come for our party's leaders such as yourself to withdraw your support for the Clinton campaign, and rally behind our inevitable nominee, Barack Obama. The success of our party's prospects this fall, and therefore of our political agenda and most deeply held values, depends on putting a rapid end to the divisive, race-baiting, fear-mongering, self-serving Clinton campaign before it can do more damage than it already has.
I await your response.
Sincerely,
XXX