Ok, I'm not talking about drugs here but instead the very real problem that Obama has with convincing a good part of the Democratic primary voters that he has the substance to deserve our votes. I, like so many of the folks I know here in liberal Madison, Wisconsin am an Edwards supporter who is now faced with the dilemma of picking between Clinton and Obama, and in this diary I will share some of those thoughts.
UPDATED: Thank you all for your comments. Despite the occasional insults and accusations of trollism, many readers of this diary seemed to understand that I am actually trying to advance dialog beyond the current "my candidate is better than yours, BTW yours is running out of money" stuff that has taken over this board. The funniest part of some of these flames is that being part of the group "formerly known as Edwards supporters" I find myself leaning more towards Obama sometimes and defending him, yet by exploring his weakenesses I get accused of all kinds of stuff. Whatever.
For those who wish to explore the reasons that we still have two viable Democratic candidates, I suggest the following NYT piece that supports exactly the points made in this diary (below the fold).
http://www.nytimes.com/...
The Clinton Democratic Party is the party of women, older voters, Hispanics and also some white men. A Clinton rally may not have the energy of a rock concert the way an Obama rally does. Yet the older women who have embraced Mrs. Clinton as the culmination of years of hope and other core supporters are no less passionate in their intensity and devotion.
I realize for many Obama supporters this is an exciting time. Just look at the swath of states Obama took on super Tuesday from inland to coast. I know that the conventional wisdom says that Hispanic voters were the only reason that California didn’t go his way, but nationally, I see more at play than that.
Here in the upper Midwest Obama has done spectacularly well thus far, winning Illinois, Iowa and most recently Minnesota (sorry Clintonites no one here counts Michigan since fair play dictates you can’t change the rules in mid-game to favor one side and call it fair). Wisconsin is coming up soon and Obama is expected to do well here, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Clinton does much better than expected.
When Edwards was in the race, it was much more exciting for many of us. He defined an excellent health care plan. He pointed out the economy was in trouble when most everyone else yawned and blabbered on about the "hot news" of the day. While we grimaced at times by hearing the "son of a millworker" too often, we all knew it was sincere and part of his relentless focus on bread-and-butter specifics.
When Coulter called him a faggot he knew just how to respond without propping up her pathetic ass. When Fox news tried to trick the dems into a debate he said F*CK OFF (note to Hillary supporters, could you tell her we REALLY don’t need to validate the GOP propaganda machine as she recently agreed to debate on Fox!?). In short, Edwards was sharp, in-your-face and VERY SPECIFIC.
He also admitted when he screwed up, like on the Iraq vote. It was curious to see the press refer to him as a Socialist lefty and yet the polls showed that a chunk of conservative Republicans backed him all the way. How can this be? Simple. Edwards looked us in the eye and said "I will fight for you." He would tell you what he would do, who had robbed our treasury and our pension funds and why he was the one to set it right. This is something that no one left in the race has offered.
When I see an Obama win with record youth turnout, I am impressed with his results. But when I hear him speak, I lean towards Hillary. You see, I don’t need to hear so much about change. George Bush brought a lot of change and I’m not too happy with it to tell you the truth. I want to hear that a candidate understands that not only have the corporate villains been in the cookie jar, they stole the god-damn house the cookie jar was in; and furthermore they have a plan to return the goods to the rightful owner (the American people). AND what that plan is.
So when I hear someone say "yes we can end the war...etc" that is nice but sounds like an empty slogan. Without specifics, it isn’t much different than Nixon offering the nation a "secret plan to end the war." Years later, we discover the secret plan was to nuke ‘em. Why didn’t he follow through? Civil disobedience in the streets convinced him there would likely be a civil war if he did. Good example about why some of us want the boring specifics as to how we will get out of the various messes we are in. Also a good example of how protestors helped stop the madness of Nuclear war.
Finally, I hear from many older women that they don’t trust someone as young and inexperienced as Obama. The other day someone in their 70’s asked me "Why do so many people support him? What has he done to deserve this trust? What are his plans for the economy and health care?" I really have no answers, and without Edwards to generate a platform for these two candidates I am not sure they have any direction.
I can tell you that if Obama keeps going after Clinton because her health care plan covers too many people, he will lose more folks who need specifics. Clinton has an encyclopedic command of the issues and this works to her advantage, so long as Bill Clinton stops barking so loud no one can hear her speak to the issues (or walk away in disgust).
Let’s hope that whoever wins, s/he will win the general election and make the right choices to make things right. Hope can inspire and uplift, but we need to fix health care and the economy and that is not nearly so poetic an undertaking.