Some people just can't be won over. Had Hillary won, we'd be hearing about angry Obama supporters threatening to stay home. It's just how politics works.

There was one just like this on the radio today. She said she was a Hillary supporter and was voting for McCain. The commentator asked her if she cared about reproductive rights. She said "not as much as I care about getting Hillary the votes that were STOLEN from her". The commentator said, "you would be willing to give up the supreme court for this" and she said "John McCain IS pro-choice so it does not matter." The commentator said, "Planned Parenthood just gave John McCain a ZERO out of one hundred for dealing with women's issues and pro-life America has come out saying that McCain has been pro-life for twenty five years". The woman said, they are lying. ARRRGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! Do not confuse these people with the facts!

I was really mad, but then realized, well, this woman is just flat out wrong. I think we will have a few of these women, but I also think that there is an underlying prejudice that they will not admit. You cannot win them all. Even if you give them the facts, obviously.

That is why I believe strongly that Hillary has not done NEARLY enough for all the divisiveness she has caused and SHE needs to get out and change some minds. I place the blame on this misinformation squarely on Hillary's shoulders and her screams of sexism and unfairness that were neither.

Never in my memory has there been a candidate that caused such rancor and said so many negative things to someone in their own party. I am a middle aged white woman and Hillary embarrasses the heck out of me. I would have never voted for her, and the cries of sexism were so terribly misplaced.

I think we all just have to relax and wait for Hillary's holiday this week to be over and for her to come out and defuse them. She has masses of time in which to do it. There'll be all her surrogates out there doing it with her - Wasserman Schultz, Boxer, Feinstein etc.

Then when that's combined with exposing just how incredibly anti-woman McCain's policies are:

he is FOR criminalisation of abortion!

Time's the best healer. We have it.

Give the I'm so worried about Hillary supporters meme a break. There have been 20 or 30 posts about it now. Hillary's supporters are going to vote their own interests in November. If Obama serves those interests, they'll vote for him. If not, they'll stay home or vote for McCain.

With all due respect: I wasn't really trying to tap into a "meme" here, so much as to say that these people are pissed, and they're friends of mine. What to do what to do...

What I find interesting, is that once they buy into the idea that there is sinister behavior afoot on the part of the opposing campaign, it's difficult to have a rational discussion. (This cuts both ways, of course).

I can imagine that it feels insulting to Hillary's supporters to suggest that Obama's campaign represents a "new" kind of politics, but on the other hand, social networking and grassroots (which, admittedly, began with Dean, but ran aground with the "scream") is new, and is a departure from the favor granting and old-style-big-donor fundraising practices. All starry-eyedness aside, his supporters genuinely feel like he is *their* candidate, and this is new.

There are many reasons one would want to vote for Hillary:
1. She's a woman.
2. She's older / has more experience.
3. She's better known / wife of an ex president.

How to convince one that voting for McCain would be a REALLY bad idea obviously varies a little depending on the main reason. But it involves the following points:

1. Obama is not the enemy. It's just the nature of the primaries that candidates have to "fight to the death". It just so happened that she was defeated by Obama, but it have could just as easily been the other way round. And of course the main opponents are the Republicans. For an illustration of what they would have done to Hillary if she were the nominee, search for "Hillary The Movie" on YouTube (produced by Republicans).

2. If you supported Hillary because of her policies, vote for Obama and you'll get 95% of those (plus, Obama's program will likely be further adjusted to pick up some of the good ideas from Hillary and other Democrats that he may have missed). Vote for McCain and you'll get nothing of it.

3. If you just wanted a woman to be president, that's understandable, but it's not really what politics is about. What's important though is that women are taken seriously as presidential candidates, and that's that Hillary HAS ACHIEVED! So that's taken care of, now it's time to make sure that her policies get implemented.

4. Stop taking it personally. Strong emotions can prevent you from seeing what's really at stake here. Take a deep breath and educate yourself on the candidates and their policies. If Obama wins, Hillary wins too, in a way; if McCain wins, Hillary loses completely.

5. McCain obviously has more experience, but would that make him a better president? Far from it. Hillary is smart and experienced as well, that's why 95% of her program is the same as Obama's - because it's the only sensible thing to do.

I can give you two examples of Hillary supporters who do currently do not intend on voting for Hillary.

The first is my step-mother who claims this is no different than any other situation where a less qualified man gets a job over a more qualified woman. She intends to vote for McCain, and her history indicates that she will do what she says. However, she votes in Louisianna, so it almost certainly won't matter. Say what you will about the 50 state strategy, but any state that will elect Bobby Genital Governor will not vote for Barack Obama.

The other example is me. I really don't want to vote for Obama but I realize I probably will. I don't want to vote for Obama because when I see him on TV I want to throw things at the TV and scream, "What he's saying doesn't mean anything!" I don't do that because I have children who don't yet think I'm crazy and I want to keep it that way as long as possible.

Obama says, "we are the ones we've been looking for", and as my dinner is coming back up into my mouth I think - He'll catch hell for this, his supporters will realize he's selling snake oil. But no, you, you stupid shits, swoon.

Asking questions helps--get THEM to say more than you do. In many cases, when people are upset, they just want to be heard.

Also, consider trying the "shoe is on the other foot" policy. For example, when ardent supporters complain that Obama didn't defend Hillary from sexist behavior, ask if Hillary defended him against racist behavior--surely they don't expect Hillary to have gotten special treatment, right? When Clinton supporters exclaim that the party-elders sided with Obama, ask why they think that is, considering that no party elders are black while one is female, and that there are 16 women in the senate and only one black man. Try to show a more even playing field.

Hey, it's worth a try.

I, too, have spent way too much time considering this same issue before I realized the truth (at least what I believe is the only logical reality):
The reason women who say they are Hillary supporters and in disappointment and/or frustration and/or misplaced vow to vote for McCain were only voting for Hillary because she is a woman!
There is virtually no significant policy or issue that Hillary and McCain have in commom. Whether it's the war, economy, women's rights, supreme court nominees and/or almost anything else, if they were really supporting her for any 'valid' reason one would use in making this most important decision they couldn't even consider voting for McCain.
Therefore, Why were they so fervent and supportive of HRC? It's all about gender. Or, it's about race. Nothing else computes. Oh yeah, there is one other thing, but I'm not 'writing it out loud'.
And speaking of HRC, go here for what we already knew was in play: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/11/america/11clinton.php

You can check out my last 3 posts or more, including following the links to Daily Howler, Digby & Shakesville. Daily Howler archives in particular are a wonderful source of historical perspective even if the style sometimes drones on and on a bit.

What to do when talking to Hillary supporters. First drop the condescending attitude.

What people want even more than revenge is recognition for their suffering. Here's something you can try:

"I agree with you, there was a lot of sexism and sexist remarks made during this campaign."
"It sure was close, she put up a valiant fight and really worked hard."
"We sure are lucky that she's been so gracious and is willing to put aside her disappointment to work for the party, I admire that in a person and would sure want to emulate it if the shoe was on the other foot."

Empathize, recognize and acknowledge, the new ERA movement.

Well, I don't know, I suppose I consider myself perpetually disillusioned... ;-)

What I guess I find frustrating (perhaps that's a better word to describe both sides) is how quickly each side has chosen to accuse the other of sinister "Rove-ian" behavior. Here I will grant that these things are subtle: is Hillary's "as far as I know" line about Obama's religious beliefs really calculated to allow the possibility that he is muslim to linger in people's minds? probably to some degree yes. Was David Axelrod's response to Hillary's invocation of RFKs assassination intended to draw (in my opinion legitimately) incendiary media focus on the quote? Probably to some degree yes, his disavowals after the fact notwithstanding. These people are professionals after all.

But my feeling remains that if Hillary is the victim of anything it is her own poor HR (Mark Penn) and her loose cannon of a husband, which I think were tragic for her. I say this after having been stalwart in my support of Clinton's contention that he was the victim of a smear campaign, a position I have had at this point to re-think.

Further, in the end I think that a) characterizing her as a victim was itself a campaign mistake, and b) it has riven the party with genuinely deep divisions that will take time to heal. I'm interested in trying to figure out how to heal them among my own personal acquaintances (thence my post), but I think I can say, without condescending to anyone, that they exist and are to a large extent a byproduct of her own campaign and its management.

I think she has, herself, to work hard to heal these divisions. She got off to a good start with her concession speech. Obama and his campaign also have to continue to emphasize the issues and concerns her campaign rightly used to generate as much enthusiasm as it did. In the end I'm hopeful that focusing on blending the platforms themselves will be a potent force toward unifying the voters. Time will tell.