Are there still any Clinton supporters left on this site??

i aplaud your intentions, but your efforts may not invite desired discourse.

Once Hillary fades away, disposed into the dustbin of history, most of her supporters will realize they'll be screwing no one but themselves if they don't support the democratic party candidate.

I think most people are looking at personalities at the moment, so voting for Obama at this point seems like a surrender and a favor for Obama, but as the curtain on Hillary falls, most people will begin to acknowledge voting democrat is a favor not to Obama but for themselves.

Hillary must get out of the way before commencing any "healing" process

But she won't go away. And unless the SD's quit putting their personal agendas and/or Clinton's egos ahead of what's best for the DNC and our country, she will keep it going. We must unite and focus on the general election. As a registered Independent, my loyalty is with America, not a political party. Anyone wanna bet she's still hanging on in July - trying to win at all costs?

Can we start one of these for angry Obama supporters too?

But arent all Obama supporters angry? A disparaging post by a clinton supporter is pointing out that Obama has a pretty thin resume. A disparaging post by an Obama supporter is a hateful screed filled with profanity and insinuations that anyone who votes for HRC is a racist. Sorry, big difference and yes, I am really pissed off that the Obama supporters are so easily manipulated by the right wingers. But then again, most were playing t-ball during the 90s.

Why would Hillary supporters vote for McCain?

Maybe the Koolaide's starting to take effect.

They've been told ad infinitum by Obama supporters that there's no difference between Hillary and McCain.

Unfortunately, Ripper, the real targets of your request for dialogue are people like this:

http://riverdaughter.wordpress.com/2008/05/18/sunday-sweeties/

There's no reasoning with them. It just makes them angrier because they have their own geometry with its own theorems that rejects our postulates and substitutes their own.

This page, which Ben Smith felt the need to link to, did at least result a realization about the diehards that I really should have come to sooner. We've all noted the entitlement mentality that seemed (to us, at least) to surround Hillary's campaign since the middle of last year. Problem is, I was viewing that sense of entitlement through the eyes of her senior staff and high level supporters, the Clinton clique within the party. They always seemed to feel that the party owed the nomination to her (and/or to Bill) and that anyone who tried to mount a serious effort to stand in her way was an interloper and a usurper.

The high level Clintonista's sense of entitlement, however, blinded me to the profoundly different sense of entitlement that was growing among her core female voters--the boomer first wave feminists, the single working class white women, and, hell, for that matter Gerry Ferraro. They don't feel like we, as a party, owed the nomintion to Hillary. They feel that we owed it to them personally., They think we had an obligation to them, as women, to ignore any and all misgivings we had about Hillary as a person, and what giving her more power might do to her and to the country, as well as any misgivings we might have formed about her as a candidate on the basis of her mismanagement of her own campaign, simply and solely because she was the first woman with a shot at winning.

Don't get me wrong. They love her and believe nothing bad about her, no matter how strong the evidence and how credible the source. They hate Obama and believe anything bad about him, no matter how thin the evidence and how incredible the source. But that's, unfortunately, not unusual conduct among rabid partisans. Indeed, one can find many scholarly articles in the social science literature describing the phenomonon. And, that's the kind of thing that can dissipate once the choice is no longer between cake and pie, and is, instead, between eating dessert and eating a big plate of congealed rancid grease.

What's different is their belief that our failure to nominate Hillary is a personal insult and slight to each and every one of them, a slap in their faces grounded solely in sexism and misgynomy. It is all of a piece with every slight, every slur, every episode of sexual harassment, every promotion given to a man that they think should have gone to them, every instance of unequal pay they discovered, and every act of infidelity or abuse they personally every endured.

I don't know how to fix that. I don't know that its possible to fix it, even if Hillary devotes herself to fixing it with all her heart.

I do know its not even possible to fix it until she says "I'm done" and that she makes it worse every time she does stuff like calling a "victory celebration" that Obama says he's not planning to have a "slap in the face" to the people who voted for her.

Am I as guilty, in my own way, of simplistic stereotyping as those among her supporters who think Obama's supporters are naive children who have fallen into a cunning trap set by diabolical Republican operatives? Possibly. But, I've got to say, there seem to be an awful lot of people on the Intertubes who seem determined to live the stereotype.

OK as a woman who has had the life long desire to see a woman become president who went through the 60s and 70s empowerment era I understand the frustration and anger many of these women feel.

A life long dream, so close, being snatched away. I agonized over my decision between the two candidates. It was difficult but I decided to place my country's future above my own desire to have a woman president. I chose Obama because I believe he is exactly what this country needs after Bush.

Reaching these disappointed supporters will require a thoughtful arguement from feminists who have chosen Obama over Clinton.

So the question should be "Why Obama and not Clinton".

1. Change, not change for change sake but a real departure from politics of old, change from the usual Washington insiders and lobbyists, change from Republican policies. (Also, a change from a potential two family control, Clinton and Bush. I could just see if Clinton won, that Jeb Bush would follow, then later Chelsea would be old enough to run...)

2. Something, it seems to me, not reported or noted about this election which is unique, at least in my lifetime, and that is: it is the PEOPLE who have chosen a candidate, rather than Party insiders. I think the insiders at the DNC and DLC are still in shock that the PEOPLE actually rejected their choice of Clinton whom they thought would be annointed.

3. It is all well and good to support a woman, just not this woman! After my primary vote for Obama, the kitchen sink was thrown at Obama and I saw an ugly side of Hillary that made me very angry. It made me very proud of my vote for Obama in his poised demeanor and thoughtful responses.

4. Democrats have been a party of inclusion. Clinton has, during this primary, actively inspired racism by repeatedly stating she appeals to "white working class, under educated, making under 50K". My response is that the Republicans can have all these racist votes! You can't be a party of inclusion while seeking support from those who are exclusionists. After the primary every Democrat who speaks in the media must affirm that Democrats abhor racism, period.

5. Inspiration, hope, and a future vision that lifts America up and rejects fear. Boy do we need this now! Obama is right about the "fierce urgency of now". Couple Obama's oratory ability with his keen intellect and we have the makings of a great president. He has the potential to repair rifts within America and with the International community as well.

6. Clinton is a policy wonk. She has a handle on details, these are great qualities for the Senate. She can effect a lot of change from the Senate if she is the leader she claims to be. She can write legislation that advances her interests regarding Health Care and childrens issues.

7. The most important reason, not this woman, is the irrational but real hatred the right feels about the Clintons. Republican congressional members would fight anything she tried to do tooth and nail. The divisions of the last number of years will not just continue but I fear would be heightened and all Americans will lose.

This is getting too wordy to continue but I just wanted to get some points across to those women who are steadfast, for now, against Obama.

I just want to ask Clinton supporters to open up their minds and their hearts to an Obama presidency. Then we all can proclaim Yes WE Can to ending the nightmare created by this president and defeat the Republican successor, McBush.

Math rocks.

1. GOP = bad. 2. John McCain = GOP. 3. Therefore, John McCain = bad.

Perhaps I'm not the target audience, because I'm not "angry," per se, but I am disappointed. That disappointment doesn't come from any fierce love of Sen. Clinton, however; it comes from a lingering mistrust of/lack of belief in Sen. Obama. And his winning the primary has not changed that sentiment just because he'll be the one leading my party. It will take a lot more work to convince little ol' me that he's up to the job, but I suppose that it's possible. Perhaps I'll get all carried away by the convention and get on the bandwagon.

I've never been one to feel like I needed to strategically vote -- i.e., the whole hold-one's-nose-for-the-party kind of vote. I know all the reasons that having a Republican in the White House is worse than having a Democrat, but for me, it's more complicated than that. That said, I wouldn't vote for McCain either. Some of my fiercer friends have declared that they'll write in Sen. Clinton... if I were going to do a write in, it would probably be for Dodd or Edwards... but at the same time, that feels kind of silly.

All that said, I live in Massachusetts, where Obama is sure to sweep, so you can rest assured that my non-vote won't matter much. And what's more, I personally think that the Democrat will win this year, no matter what.

I honestly can't see the point of all the hand-holding with Clinton supporters. Supposedly they are adults, since they are old enough to vote. They can make up their own minds.

I don't see that sitting down with them by the Rivers of Babylon for a good cry is helping anyone. And yes, I'm principally interested in "unity" to get Barack Obama elected. Damn straight.

Hillary will be Barry's VP or McCain gets middle America, the rust belt and bible belt which results in the POTUS. I've never voted for a GOP President, if Barry is the DEN nominee w/o Hill, I vote McCain and so do most over 45 year old white males & females nationwide.

pistma --- In my opinion, that's a very valid reason not to vote for someone. Over the last 7 years I've watched some close and respected colleagues who had voted for Bush start having trouble meeting my eyes (and possibly their own in the mirror) As a result, I decided that I would never myself cast a "hold-one's-nose-for-the-party kind of vote." My voting or not may make no real difference (I live in NY so same as with you), but it is my only real, concrete power in all this and what I do will make a difference to *me.*

So while my own observations and reactions led me to a quite different place (I realized months ago that I could not vote for Clinton - not out of pique but because I had lost belief and faith in her principles.) So, I understand and applaud your position - even if it makes some legitimate and thoughtful party people cringe.

If I may make a suggestion, consider reading Sen. Obama's books, especially the first one. It may or may not convince you that he is someone you can support, but at least you will be able to know him in some depth. No one has ever suggested or suspected that the books are the work of anything other than Obama himself, way down deep. So it's an unusual election in which you have the chance to get to know at least one of the candidates to a startling degree. I've gotten a copy Sen. McCain's autobiography -- it is co-written with someone else, so I doubt it's the same thing at all, but I will read it even though my vote is pretty well decided.

to judge an opposing side's supporters by seizing on the most obnoxious comments submitted in a given thread and treating them as representative

The sad thing is they are representative.