I watched Senator Clinton’s speech this evening on MSNBC with my eight month-old daughter on my knee. She was in an especially good mood tonight, happy and bubbly. It was an outstanding moment I had with her, considering school has started again- another thing to balance along with trying to bring in enough income to keep our family afloat and deal with the dynamics of our relationship with my daughter’s mother.
At times, I had to supress my urge to get up and pump my fist in the air. The baby was giggly and kept laughing out loud; of course, she didn’t know what was going on, but it fit the mood. I finally saw through any of the accumulated bitterness I’d saved over from the Primary season at Senator Clinton; I saw a true precedent and hope for my daughter, that she could truly follow in the footsteps of this woman and become the President of the United States someday, if she wanted to.
One bit from her speech stuck in my mind, in particular, and of course you’re probably familiar with it:
Those are the reasons I ran for president and that is the reason I support Barack Obama. Were you in it for me or were you in it for that young Marine…or were you in it for that young boy and his mom surviving on the minimum wage…were you in it for those who are invisible.
My intrigue was piqued at that one. Here was a totally unequivocal statement in support of Senator Obama, and disavowing the PUMA movement, all five-dozen of ’em. I broke my months-long “strike” I had on visiting PUMA sites, and ventured into the abyss.
Do you think I was surprised by what I found?
Well, if you judged the answer to be “no” by the title of this diary… you were right.
I didn’t see even one mention of that phrase on any of the PUMA blogs I visited. Plenty of other ones; hell, Alegre’s apparently off her thorazine and actually defended McCain over Clinton (apparently Clinton lied during her speech- did you know that?). MyDD and Kos were bashed, a few of the PUMAs turned in amongst themselves when it seemed like a couple of them were moved to possibly take Senator Clinton’s message for what it said.
But Senator Clinton’s words suddenly made the actions of these PUMAs resound even more strongly with me. I realized, no, these people were never in it for anything that Senator Clinton stood for.
They were never in it for the people Senator Clinton mentioned, and they were never in it for me.
I just got health insurance back, after a several month gap; I ended up paying a few hundred dollars because my daughter got a yeast infection while were had no insurance. I had no safety net during that time; I thank God every day nothing else happened to us. We’re barely makng it by as it is, trying to get me through clinicals.
My mother is 57 this year, and she has a Master’s degree, but she’s having an incredibly hard time finding a job. Oddly enough, two of the jobs she was turned down for hired less-qualified, younger men for the positions. Since she divorced my father, she’s had no health insurance, either. She was a strong advocate for Senator Clinton this primary season because of that.
But Alegre, Flowbee, SoCalDarlin’, Grlpatriot- they don’t care. They don’t fucking care about me. They don’t care about you. They really don’t. It doesn’t matter what hardships we’re facing. They don’t care about the cancer patient Senator Clinton talked about, or the boy, or the Marine. They don’t care about anyone but themselves. Period. Hence, the title.
I mean, how idiotic and selfish can you get? Really? Instead of a yeast infection, my daughter could’ve gotten dreadfully sick, been put on life support, run up a huge hospital bill, and required extensive care the rest of her life. That’s no problem- just ask grlpatriot, or NewHampster, or campskunk. As long as they can have their personal little hissy-fit.
I understand that they’re all incredibly well-off compared to me; driving BMWs, living in a McMansion in the DC Suburbs, while I’m driving a busted ten-year old Pontiac and down to counting the pennies to make sure I can pay all my bills. But their candidate, whose net-worth is in the hundreds of millions, demonstrated to me she actually cares about my plight. Apparently, these folks just ain’t that classy or empathic.
I know, I know. These people aren’t indicative of real Clinton supporters, and they represent a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percentage of the electorate- and so really my responding to them in this diary is doubling or tripling the amount they matter to anyone- but, still. If there was ever any doubt in anyone’s mind… viola.
No matter what happens in November, these people aren’t welcome back to the Democratic party, as far as I’m concerned. I don’t want them back. Why would we want them back? Why would we want to work with people like this, ever again?
And if Obama loses, well, at least I can say that these people will truly get the government they deserve.
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