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I'm an Obama supporter and I just got back from 4 days of volunteering for him in Philly. I feel proud because I helped to achieve the huge turnout there that gave him a bigger margin than expected in the city. I felt an enormous amount of pride helping to get out the vote in dilapidated parts of the city with mostly African American neighborhoods, where there was clear economic distress but yet Obama's candidacy brought so much pride and hope. But I have a heavy heart, because I have a sinking feeling that this country is just not ready.
A conversation I had today while canvassing an Italian neighborhood in South Philly forced me to accept that there may be just too much racism in this country to overcome. A young Italian guy who was doing roof repairs stopped me and asked what I was doing, and I got into a lengthy conversation with him about Barack. He said he did not like any of the candidates and did not plan to vote today, but I thought I had made progress convincing him to go out and vote for Barack. But when I asked him at the end of the conversation, he thought about it for a minute, then said point blank that he just could not bring himself to vote for a black man. He knew that Obama was only half black, and claimed not to be racist, but he said "don't you think we give black people enough for free in this country?" and said that he just couldn't vote for a black candidate. He claimed his grandmother would disown him if he did.
As much as I support Barack, and as much as I had been hoping he would decide to run, sometimes I wish he'd waited. If only he'd waited 4 or 8 years, more people from the Jim Crow era would have died off, more people like my 17-year-old cousin who came canvassing with me would be old enough to vote, and Obama would struggle less with the perception that he lacks the right experience to be president (a notion I fiercely disagree with, but that's another conversation).
I am in no way renouncing my support, but I don't want him to get the nomination if he can't win the general. If we are going to lose I'd rather Clinton be the nominee so Obama will get another chance in 4 years. Maybe a Clinton/Obama ticket is a win/win for him...either he becomes VP and gets to run again in 8 years with more experience (and after more people from the Jim Crow era have died off), or he spends 4 more years in the Senate and is basically the presumptive nominee four years from now with 4 more years in the Senate under his belt.
I know that Obama has the lead in pledged delegates, but I think we need to evaluate whether the nomination will be a prize worth winning if things continue to go the way they did tonight. If he simply runs out the clock he'll go into the convention lacking momentum, and a divisive convention will make it that much harder to unite the party. Getting the first African American president elected is not going to be easy (nor would it be easy to elect the first woman president), and if we are going to succeed we need all hands on deck. If too many people are bitter because they feel their candidate was wrongfully denied the nomination, it's not going to happen, and we won't stand a chance in November.
This is painful for me, because I have never had a candidate I respected and admired so much, and yet I am terrified of him getting the nomination, because I am terrified that this country is still too racist and close-minded to vote for him. I want him to be president more than anything, but deep in my heart I have a sinking feeling that there is no way it will happen this year. So I don't know where to go from here, or what to do. I don't want to give up on Obama...I will never give up on a candidate I believe in so much. But I am afraid of succeeding in the nomination fight only to lose the general, and that's the worst of all worlds for everyone.
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