What, Exactly, Is A Hillary Supporter?

Many of Hillary Clinton’s supporters, in a bout of drunken loyalty to a politician (heaven only knows how that happens) are threatening not to support Barack Obama in his bid for the White House, and even to support John McCain. Where do I even begin? It was a running joke throughout the “bitter” (newsword!) “struggle” (another newsword!) for the nomination that Clinton and Barack agreed on so many policies that they had trouble distinguishing their positions from one another. Remember how showing contrast actually became a talking point for them? I mean, unless people are concerned about experience more than the candidate’s political ideology – as if competence meant the same thing to each party – I don’t understand how there is any real reason at all for a Hillary supporter to vote against Barack. Really, is experience as a tax-cutting, big-stick-wielding Republican equivalent to experience as a money-spending, air-cleaning Democrat?

But then I read a little more of the comments this fiasco is generating, and I realized that the problem is nowhere near that substantial. It has to do with people feeling that Hillary was treated unfairly by the media. Now, just to be clear, a public opinion poll is not a magic measurement of all the positive and negative things people say about a candidate – it’s a representation of how many people have decided to support one candidate or the other. So the only way media bias can affect a nomination is if it’s actually fooling people into believing something that is not true about a candidate. Right?

So what they’re really saying is, “Just enough people were lazy enough not to look into each candidate’s qualifications that the nomination went to someone who wouldn’t have won if everyone wasn’t so gullible.” Now, how is that a complaint about fairness? To me, that doesn’t sound like it has anything to do with the media, ultimately. It sounds more like Hillary supporters are just mad at Barack supporters for supporting Barack, with the corollary that many who support Barack (just enough to beat Hillary) have been fooled into it instead of actually having reasons for thinking he’s a better candidate. For this to be proven false, we don’t really have to counteract any of the media narratives about Hillary. We just have to show that Barack supporters are actually enthusiastic for Barack while knowing everything about Hillary that the average Hillary supporter knows. That isn’t hard – the average Hillary [still] supporter thinks she lost because of media bias!

Why, then, is there any such thing as a person who continues to support Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama when she is no longer (for all practical intents and purposes) being considered for nomination? Perhaps it’s that age-old liberal tendency to be condescending and ignorant at the same time. I wonder what the spiteful Democratic bumper stickers will look like when John McCain becomes President and starts provoking Russia, Iran, and China while cutting big-business taxes to stimulate the economy? How about “Don’t Blame Me, I Did What She Told Me To.”