Grassroots Democrats are a progressive bunch. I would know; I am one.
They tend to know better than the critters we elect to Congress or the White House. They believe in progress, which sadly, we haven't seen since Nixon.
The sounds you often hear out of grassroots Democrats are cursing their own leaders or slapping themselves in the face. Sometimes they collapse headfirst onto their keyboards and blog. And boy, do they blog.
They're at the forefront of politics and communication, but they're not all the way there. Not yet. They're a little too trusting. They believe in government because they believe in themselves and their fellow Americans. They're kind, decent people.
So, when one of them hurts, they all hurt. And when a dream dies or is put off, it stings. And the pain is real. So, with honest sadness, affection and understanding, I say that Hillary Clinton will not be our nominee - not because I'm hurt by it, but because all the people who believe in what I believe are.
Clinton will not be our nominee, and John McCain will be our enemy. At his back will be the entirety of the conservative political establishment - no matter what hand-wringing the anti-McCain segments of the conservative movement might be doing between now and this summer. The Republicans know how to rally around their man (and it always a man) and how to unite against their common enemy.
So, it is time for us grassroots Democrats to engage in something very basic - unity.
It is time for all progressives to understand that Barack Obama is our presumptive nominee. If you aren't firm enough in your convictions or understanding of issues and governing philosophy, then try this: If you care one whit about protecting reproductive rights, worker's rights, gay rights, civil rights or the environment, then you will vote and work for Obama. If you want government to step into the one place it really ought to be and provide health care for all citizens, then you will vote and work for Obama. If you want sane economic policies that benefit the middle class, then you will vote and work for Obama. If you want to end the carnage and senseless U.S. presence in Iraq, then you had damned-well better vote and work for Obama.
It's hard medicine to swallow for the litany of dedicated activists and formidable coalition comprising nearly 45 percent of the Democratic electorate who have been working and supporting Hillary Clinton, but the internecine slaughter has got to stop. The Democratic Party and the larger progressive movement are suffering, and this contest is sucking all the oxygen out of the room.
We have the chance to not only put a progressive into office for the first time since FDR, but we can make substantial gains on the congressional level if we concentrate our efforts on where they really matter. Beating one Democratic candidate into the ground and forcing him and his supporters to keep shaking the mud off is not how we do it.
Just yesterday, Marc Ambinder, associate editor of online magazine The Atlantic, reported that there is an effort underway for a joint ticket between Clinton and Obama, and it's got some big names (and possibly money) behind it, including prominent Clintonistas who have severed formal ties to Hillary's campaign.
On one hand, it's nice to see any sort of unity, but this is the wrong way to go about it. First of all, this effort rests upon a fundamentally flawed assertion and hope: that Clinton be at the top of the ticket. For Obama-supporters (or anyone capable of doing simple math on the back of a bar napkin) this is beyond insulting.
Floating "dream ticket" ideas are dangerous because they engineer expectations and get Clinton voters thinking that one way or another their candidate is going to be on the Democratic ticket this November, when that's absolutely not going to happen.
Take Nancy Pelosi's word for it, and excoriate mine if you think I'm wrong. But I'm not. Pelosi and her loyal club of superdelegates know more than Maggie Williams or Mark Penn - Clinton won't be on the ticket.
But Obama will, and he will be squaring off against the scion of the Bush administration that promises at least four more years of the same wrongheaded policies. Consider the following from Cliff Schecter's "The Real McCain": "[In 1992, McCain's wife] Cindy playfully twirled McCain's hair and said, 'You're getting a little thin up there.' McCain's face reddened, and he responded, 'At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt.' McCain's excuse was that it had been a long day."
Still, very important people love John McCain, and even New York Times token liberal Frank Rich has fallen prey to McCain's dyspeptic Yoda act, accusing Obama and Clinton of "libeling" McCain for simply reiterating the fact that he's willing to keep troops in Iraq for 100 years.
Cheerleading from know-it-all blowhards like Rich will only get louder as this election progresses, ignoring the fact that McCain, as Pat Buchanan puts it, "makes Cheney look like Gandhi" and is breaking Federal Election Commission laws as we speak in regards to public financing - and his entire campaign would probably screech to a halt were it not for the more than 50 lobbyists he has working in high-level positions.
All Democrats must be attuned to these things, and stop the vituperative abuse against our nominee - Obama.
Stop threatening to vote Republican if Clinton loses - if you care at all for her platform, then keep your pants zipped and consider how wrongheaded voting McCain into office would be.
It'd be like me behind the wheel of a Caprice - sure, there's impressive and well-intended braggadocio involved, but it's potentially disastrous. I'll stick to shopping carts, and Democrats ought to stick to Democrats.
Kalmbacher is a journalism senior.
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