I have no doubt about the truth of this story; I spent enough time reading blog posts and user comments on sites like Shakesville to know that the people interviewed in this report are representative of a fairly sizable chunk of Clinton voters.
But it leaves me as baffled as ever. My reaction remains a wide-eyed, "
but that doesnt make any sense".
I'm not talking about the rudeness and even abuse these Hillary supporters have suffered - that's just indefensible. I'd be angry about that too. It's the other stuff I'm talking about.
Some choice quotes:
Quote:In Washington state, Obama beat Clinton 2-to-1 in the February precinct caucuses, and Clinton supporters complained they weren't treated fairly by the large pro-Obama turnout.
What's that even mean? It was not fair of the Obama supporters to turn out in such large numbers?
Quote:Nobu Sanusi, 28, a high-school teacher in Kirkland and a staunch Clinton advocate, says she and fellow Clinton supporters have felt disheartened and betrayed by women who did not back Clinton.
"What's really sad is she's not really getting the female vote. I don't understand why women don't support women. I think that's really upsetting," she said.
What about, those women just didn't think that this woman was the best for the job? Not just a little less qualified than the guy in the race, in which case you could balance out the value of having a first woman president against a slight deficit in electability or likeliness or rightness fo the job; but weak, flawed, clearly the worse choice? There's plenty of liberal women who feel that way about Hillary. How's it a
betrayal for them to not vote for her regardless?
Here's someone who brings the weird personal enmeshment of some of Hillary's supporters with their candidate to a point:
Quote:De Rubens, 35, who worked at Microsoft for a decade, said she's found that many members of her Hillraisers groups have "related to [Clinton] on a deeply personal level, as mothers, and as women who have worked in a male-dominated fields."
She compares Obama's quick ascendancy in the national Democratic Party with some young men's quick ascendancy in the corporate world, while "women are not getting promoted, but doing all the work."
"Somewhere along the way, her [Clinton's] success became our success. I have adopted her in my gut. Before this campaign started, I wouldn't have seen that as a woman's issue, but now I do," she said. "When something happens to her that seems unfair, I feel it like it happened to me."
I mean, and they accuse "Obamatons" of being cult-like? You got a lot of people who idolise the guy to weird lengths, but I havent seen any Obama supporter say something like, "I have adopted him in my gut. When something happens to him that seems unfair, I feel it like it happened to me." Doesn't that raise a red flag for her, make her realise that this is, you know, a little weird?
I mean, any consideration of, you know, politics - the candidate's policies, proposals, track record, political skills, electability, seem to have just disappeared at this point. Hillary is her, she is Hillary, the identification is complete.
And so any perceived slight of Hillary is also taken as nothing less than a personal insult to
them, rather than as a matter of political disagreement:
