Please say no to Hillary Clinton in 2016!

[SheilaT]

143. Thank you for your appreciation.

I try, although I don't always succeed, to make worthwhile posts here. I am truly disturbed by the Hillary worship, both here and outside of DU. To me it's a blind fascination with a particular possibility, in this case the First Female President. We saw it in 2008, and I had many arguments both here and in the world outside of DU. The scary thing back then was the fierce determination of the Hillary supporters not to give up. They were labelled PUMAS -- Party Unity My Ass -- for those of you too young to have experienced this. There was a genuine possibility that the PUMAs could completely undermine Democratic unity if the Hillary supporters simply picked up their bats and balls and left the field. On one hand I admire such loyalty -- I was an original Deaniac and so I understand -- but on the other there was a real chance these die-hards would either destroy the party, or at the very least lose the election for us. In the end, thanks in no small part to Hillary's genuine graciousness in defeat, we hung together and won in 2008.

But there's a sense of, "Okay, now it REALLY is Hillary's time" that ignores the reality of the current political situation.

I'm a genuine political activist. I've run for office. I've given money. I've met many of the major players. And this is NOT Hillary's time. The time is for someone else. I'd like it to be Elizabeth Warren, but I'm no prophet. I do know that if we reach back into the past and nominate Hillary Clinton, even if she wins, we'll be aligning ourselves with a lost and obsolete past. We need to be looking to the future, as a party and as a country.