I understand and can empathize with Clinton supporters who feel frustrated, angry, pissed off, and mad.  If the shoe were on the other foot, I would feel the same way.  I think the anger is particularly acute because Clinton is a smart, tough candidate who was very much a part of an Administration that presided over relative peace and enormous prosperity, and who was understandably seen for that reason as the likely Democratic nominee.  Then here comes Obama, from Chicago, with that smile and that charm and the "Hope" and the big speeches and the rallies, and boom boom boom just like that he wins Iowa, and Hillary is in third place, and the sweats take hold.  And then boom boom boom there goes South Carolina and 11 other contests and suddenly political obituaries are being written.  All in the span of eight weeks.

Yeah, no shit I'd be pissed off.  I'd be pissed at Mark Penn, Patty Solis Doyle--who quite honestly should be tried for malfesance given her handling of the finances--and I'd be pissed at all the other campaign advisors who started convincing Hillary to take different tacks after she successfully found her voice in New Hampshire.  Oh yeah, Cholo, I would be muy muy pissed off.  

And I completely empathize with the reaction from that anger being directed at Obama.  Clinton supporters prefer to varying degrees, from mild to deep-to-the-marrow conviction, Clinton over Obama.  That is why they are Clinton supporters.

So I think it is natural that Obama takes the heat of that anger.  It is very easy (too distressingly easy, in my book) to confuse his charm and easy manner with arrogance and elitism.  Plus, yes, I can see how the whole rock star quality of his campaign annoys people.  Oprah annoys me for that reason, and yet I have never really listened to her or watched her show.  It's a uniquely American cultural thing.  People hated Bobby Kennedy for that, they really did, if you can imagine.

Add all that up and you get a pretty strong anti-Obama sentiment from Clinton supporters.  And vice versa, for different reasons.

All that is fine, and tolerable.

But if you are going to vote for McCain because you cannot vote Obama, or are not going to vote at all, then my empathy stops at the shore of your vast ocean of unreason.  

If you care about the very issues that your candidate cares about, if your candidates' views are the reason you are going to battle for your candidate on the blogs everyday--because you want the war in Iraq to end sooner rather than later (or never), because you want healthcare for as many Americans as possible, because you want to see the restoration of basic fucking civil rights that are at the core of the Constitution (and yet which have been so blithely tossed aside by the current Administration with the assent of almost all other Republicans, including McCain), if you want a Supreme Court that looks more like America and less like a meeting at the Willard Hotel of the Fedewralist Society, if you want a better plan for restoring the economy, growing jobs, improving education, and protecting the environment...

If you care about all of that, but still announce you are going to vote for McCain, then you do not believe what you say you believe.  Either that or you are not thinking clearly.

In which case I must be mistaken.  Because I thought unthinking and spite were characteristics of Republicans, not us.  Not Democrats.