About
one thing Hillary Clinton should be feeling pretty good just now. While
her campaign to become the Democratic Party’s nominee looks to be
tanking, and the party leaders appear to have abandoned her, the party
may have done Hillary a huge favor. Hillary is about to discover that
Hillary, in the words of that old Negro spiritual will finally be able
to sing, “Free at last! Free at last!”
Oh, the irony.
The woman who was born
calculating her future has met it, and her future appears not to be the
future she had dreamed for herself. The girl from Park Ridge, Illinois,
the daughter of a domineering father who insisted that his little girl
be the best that any boy could be, had aspirations of becoming an
astronaut. When she learned that NASA wouldn’t accept a woman into
training, the young Hillary Rodham set her goal to become the first
women president of the United States.
Over the years, every
breath she breathed, every move she made was focused on achieving that
goal. Her life was far from easy; life couldn’t be easy for a girl
living her life playing in a boy’s field. From law school to wife, from
first lady of Arkansas to motherhood, to politician, a partisan, wife of
the president, victim of the president, retooled the Senator from the
great State of New York; Hillary Rodham became Hillary Clinton and
finally 2008 was to be her year because she had a dream that one day she
would grow up to be president.
Her dream had not
included Barack Obama.
We all have our dreams
because dreams are the magic of which our lives are made. Hillary
dreamed big. The risk for people with large dreams is that when the
dreams are not achieved the disappointment is equally large. But
disappointment is not loss and achievers know that. Dreamers become true
winners when they learn to turn disappointment into advantage.
Hillary’s dream to win
the 2008 nomination may be slipping away. If Barack Obama does become
the Democratic Party’s nominee, however, that leaves Hillary Clinton in
an interesting position. People who have lost their dream can become
increasingly powerful people; a person without anything to lose is the
most dangerous. The Democratic Party and the pundits are so enamored
with Barack Obama they are ignoring the danger that Hillary Clinton
poses to the party.
The vitriol of the party
elite towards the Clintons is at least equal to the hatred of the
right-wing conspirators who tried to take Bill Clinton down not so long
ago. Many Obama surrogates are pushing the envelope. I think of the Ted
Kennedy remarks in particular.
The corpulent, aging
Senator during an interview on Al Hunt’s show on Bloomberg Television
commented on the possibility of Clinton taking the second spot on an
Obama ticket: Mr. Obama should pick someone who was “in tune with his
appeal for the nobler aspirations of the American people,” Kennedy
quipped, adding, “If we had real leadership — as we do with Barack Obama
— in the No. 2 spot as well, it’d be enormously helpful.”
Rather bitchy, Senator
Kennedy.
But to be expected from
the head of the party’s left-wing, the group out to annihilate the
Clintons, first by asking her to leave the race, no forcing Mrs.
Clinton out of the contest, when the decision to drop out should be
hers. The party is slowly and inextricably and most essentially
stripping away any and all of Clinton’s options.
So what does a woman do
in the face of such ingratitude, humiliation and defeat by ones own?
What does a woman do who has worked her whole life for the party to have
that party cast her to the wind? What does a woman who has focused her
entire life on her goal to become the first woman president of the
United States do when she watches her dream drift from her grasp?
Does she reach for the
second spot on the ticket? Possibly. But Kennedy seemed to be signaling
to Clinton’s dedicated supporters that that option isn’t on the table.
Does she go back to the Senate and hope for a key committee chair?
Boring. Does the party offer her the position of Majority Whip?
Unlikely. Governor of New York? What, and move to Albany? Brr. Doubtful.
Head of the DNC? To what purpose?
So, what is left to
ponder is will Hillary Clinton soldier on, be the good Democrat despite
the disrespect shown her and her husband by the party they’ve dedicated
their entire lives to and brought back from the brink? Will Hillary be a
good little party girl and stomp vociferously for Barack Obama?
The question is why
should she? Do her beliefs in the Democratic Party’s ideals outweigh her
sound defeat by her own? Does there remain a place for the Clinton’s in
the new party coalition? Does she consider that while she may not get
the nomination in 2008, there is always tomorrow? Will tomorrow come
sooner if Clinton lends Obama only her half-hearted support and McCain
becomes only a one-term president?
Before she makes her
decision Hillary Clinton will have to redefine her dream, and she will,
because that is the strength of Hillary Clinton. And when she does, she
can turn to the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. for comfort.
“I say to you today, my
friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow,
I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American
dream.”
Thanks to the abominable
treatment of the Clintons by the Democratic Party, Hillary is free to
pursue that dream anyway she likes, whether they like it or not.