06/08/2008: "Hillary Loses. Or Does She?"
Now that the delegates, super and otherwise, have made their choices, at last Hillary can relax a bit for now and let Obama lead the charge. It is a huge disappointment to me and many other supporters, say, eighteen million or so, that she did not win enough delegates to sew up the nomination. The question is: what now?
Sadly, Hillary did not do well among young women in the primaries. This is because, I believe, most of the products of today's educational system lack any real sense of history. They cannot be blamed for not knowing the struggles of women to gain equality--something that in many ways still eludes them today. Take it from one who knows, sexism in the 20th century was bad. In the 21st it is still not GOOD, but then it was very bad. To have a woman come so close to the biggest prize in politics and then lose it, well, hurts. But women have had pain before. Remember, if men had to endure the pain of childbirth, there would be no babies. Women will come back and fight the good fight. Because they must. Because men have made such a mess of things, someone will have to be there to clean it up.
Will Obama pick someone else as a running mate and toss away the eighteen million votes cast for Hillary? Many of those votes were women's and one wonders how many will stay loyal to the Democratic party in the face of yet another example of a woman hitting the glass ceiling. Answer: many will not. Many will feel disenfranchised and betrayed. If we are all very, very lucky, Obama will have smart advisors, and will be sharply focused on the realities of today's politics. He really needs Hillary--much more now than she needs him. In fact, we may see that Hillary only lost a battle, not the war.