A Personal Confession Leading To A Strategic Hypothesis

I’ve worked hard during the last 20 plus years to recognize and curb my negative impulses. I paid a high, but fortunately not the ultimate price for being unable to resist these self destructive inner directives when in my 20’s and early 30’s.

Whatever you wish to call it, whether superego or Jiminy Cricket, it or he is now firmly ensconced in my cranium. I’m always been pretty good at recognizing what the right thing to do is, but now, and much more importantly, I’m able to do that right thing, even in the face of temptations to backslide a bit. This took no small amount of work and time. I’ve always fallen on the introspective side of things, and although it was painful, did some fairly harsh self-examination that helped to build up the inner strength necessary to move on and lead a productive and some would say successful life.

Here’s what this has to do with Hillary Clinton and her inability to beat John McCain:

I know that, though I’m currently an Obama supporter, should Clinton win the nomination there are a multitude of reasons to vote for her, what with potential Supreme Court nominations looming large and imminent, and the need to repair the perception of the United States in the eyes of much of the world. I believe that she and her team will be better able than a McCain team to accomplish these and other necessary tasks, both on the domestic and international front. There’s quite a mess to be cleaned up; much worse and insidious than the one President Clinton’s staff may have made on the premises when they departed the White House.

Even knowing this, I can feel my own resistance to voting for her. I’m not saying I won’t, but the impulse, once the curtain is closed, to either vote for an essentially decent person like Mr. McCain, or not vote at all, is there. To answer the unasked question, I am ready for a female President, but maybe not this female President.

If I, with this knowledge of the right thing to do, coupled with having developed and acquired what may well be an above average ability to resist the dark side, might not be able to vote for her, what will other Americans, who are not as convinced of her positions, are rubbed the wrong way by her presentation, and perhaps have not had the need or desire to train themselves to listen to the angel whispering in their ear, do when it’s time to cast their ballots?

They will either not vote or when they do, in private, they may well vote for Mr. McCain, regardless of what they tell the pollsters, either before or after they act. With the turmoil and fragility facing us today, whether geopolitical or domestic in nature, the Democrats must put up a candidate who can win. Mr. Edwards had an overarching world and domestic view that I found compelling, but Mr. Obama, with an even greater global perspective, can create the positive fervor required for a crucial victory.

In response to the inevitable and glib but incorrect retort that Senator Obama, as a black man, will be subject to the same unspoken biases, the recent primaries and the increasingly diverse demographics of his constituency indicate that he’s making more progress in this difficult to quantify psychological area than Senator Clinton is.