Hey, I'll have you know I once leaned elsewhere, too.

In high school, when I was only starting to wake up to the mere notion that there was more to life out there than just this insular stuff I was doing. So I was a "USA! USA!" kinda gal. I think I did it because everybody else did and it seemed the proper thing to do - "America, love it or leave it." Mindless, really. I mean, when you're 14 and 15, it seemed to me, a rah-rah-rah-America kind of person was really the only thing to be. You didn't question, and it didn't even occur to you that anything could EVER be wrong. Your country was perfect! In the mid-60s, it was possible still to be wistfully remembering the Kennedy years, before we shifted through LBJ who started with the nation's sympathy after JFK's assassination, but then with Vietnam blowing up, and student unrest and women's marches and the draft and civil rights issues particularly acute in the Black community - all forcing people into the streets with marches and protests. Then came Nixon and Watergate and this widely-documented national disillusionment that set in. And meanwhile, whatever fleeting thoughts I gave to anything like politics went only so far as student elections for Pep Club officers early in high school. I soon moved a little more toward the left, later in high school, and found myself working on two unsuccessful campaigns: the Student Coalition for Humphrey-Muskie and the first Tom Bradley campaign for L.A. Mayor (he won on his second attempt). As I moved on to college I continued leaning leftward.

And sometimes it's where you're from, and who your parents talked about, at the dinner table. My dad was conservative and MAN did he love ronald reagan. My mother mainly just talked back to the television all the time - kept up a running commentary throughout whatever the news was. We watched the NBC Nightly News every evening while eating dinner. I liked that ritual. Found it increasingly interesting and compelling. And as time went on, it started to dawn on me that stuff my father approved of - I didn't agree with. Like ronald reagan.

LONG-WINDED way of saying that one shouldn't necessarily jump to suspicion, mistrust, or condemnation when saying Hillary was once a Goldwater girl or worked on something related to the Nixon campaign against Kennedy. All that means is that she's capable of evolving. All that means is that she won't stay static, as her experience through life has shaped, reshaped, and leavened her thinking. All that means is that she will be flexible, not rigid. All that means is that she won't be one of those who decided they knew what was good years ago and By Crackey if it was good then, it's good now. Cuz things change. Things CHANGE. And you either respond to it and evolve with it yourself, or die (or get left behind and become irrelevant). I think time must have moving parts. Because it can't stand still.

I know what you mean, my friend!

During the ceremony taking down the Dixie Swastika, I was looking, HARD, for white faces. I found some! Actually - I found quite a few. And I want to see that MORE and MORE. Just as I did during the memorial President Obama attended, where he gave his incredibly and justifiably amazing "Amazing Grace" speech. I looked for white faces. I looked for white faces in the march across the bridge. I looked for white faces among the candlelight vigils in Ferguson. I looked for white faces among those laying flowers down in the spontaneous "shrine" that grew in front of the Mother Emanuel church after those murders.

It actually changed my mind a wee bit about Lindsey Graham - when he acknowledged how moved he'd been, listening to the forgiveness of some of those family members - through their agony and tears on that Friday where they faced the young, and seemingly indifferent mass murderer. Wow, I thought, Lindsey Graham actually has a human heart. I'm totally surprised! He really was moved. And he was actually moved to change his mind about keeping that damn hate rag up on its public flagpole. I seriously hadn't expected that of him - or anybody else on that side of the aisle. Sometimes shaming is a good thing. I think he became ashamed of it, especially after listening to those families. At least I HOPE he became ashamed of it. Whatever worked was a good thing in my opinion.

I swear, I cried for two days straight after watching that. I don't know how ANYBODY could have remained unmoved after that. nikki haley too, although I don't trust her and I know she's probably gonna use it to appeal to people outside the GOP confines - as a potential VP nominee. She's gonna exploit that all over everywhere to try and prove "Oh NOOOO, We're Not Like THAA-AAAT". Bet on it.

I am indeed. Doing much the same thing as you are, but without the yard work!

And loving my dog, too!

Dayum!

Some people just nail it in two short paragraphs. Spot-on analogy, lovemydog!

Really great points, BainsBane!

Totally.

AND because a lot of us have had to struggle

through, and try to get beyond, the same battles. I'm certainly one of those, except hardly at anywhere near her level. And I just don't have an easy time understanding why there are such virulent objections to her. For those who just won't see it, please don't waste your time trying to go over it again and again. I suspect such objectors won't be able to convince me of their views any more than I could convince them of mine.

And, with all due respect, I wish it would cease - while I can still honestly say I like Bernie Sanders. Some of it just is really starting to push me hard away from him and I don't want to go there, for the sake of keeping the White House in Democratic hands.

Actually that happens to be true.

Fabulous points, Sancho!

I remember reading something about Marian Wright Edelman's Children's Defense Fund and how a just-out-of-college Hillary went to hear her speak. When the speech concluded, Hillary went up to her and said "I want to work for you."

I read your post, Sancho, and the posts of a couple of others here too, and I find myself just astonished - "how on earth can anybody object to her candidacy? How on earth could anybody on our side of the aisle NOT want to vote for her?" I realize I'm probably inviting the inevitable avalanche of objections and protestations and even outrage against such an assertion, but whatever, I guess.

And someone else here pointed out a couple of things that hadn't occurred to me:
1) Hillary has an intimate grasp of the issues that minorities face every day because SHE herself happens to BE one, as well (as a woman - especially one making her way in a man's arena). I actually identify with that, personally, myself, as a woman who broke into broadcasting during the 70s when THAT TOO was pretty exclusively a man's world.
And 2) I totally get how PoC would identify strongly (and favorably) with President Obama and probably would take it personally when his enemies keep going off on him and trying to hobble and negate and fault-find every damn thing he does! It's probably even read as a betrayal when some of his loudest and most strident critics, incomprehensibly, come from THIS side of the aisle. No wonder there's such a disconnect.

It's mighty frustrating, and not a little bit bewildering.

Other interesting speculation in the Wonkette piece...

Btw - I did find this one.