Democracy for Vancouver

Former Hillary Clinton volunteer Carol Anderson of Vancouver, who is attending the Democratic National Convention in Denver, made New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd’s snarky political column Wednesday with her less-than-charitable observations about Barack and Michelle Obama.

Anderson stood in the back of the room at a meeting of the Democratic Women’s Caucus wearing a Hillary T-shirt, a hat signed by the New York senator, and a “Nobama” button, Dowd wrote. She booed, Dowd said, every time a speaker mentioned Obama’s name.

“She’s voting for (Republican John) McCain and had nothing nice to say about the Obamas,” Dowd wrote. “What about the kids, I asked. ‘Adorable,’ she agreed.

Well, I said, Michelle raised them.”

“‘I think her mother does,’” Anderson shot back, adding, ‘I wonder if Michelle would give the Queen one of her little knuckle punches?’”

I was among those who believed that the “PUMAs” voting for McCain were truly Republicans at heart, and so jumping off the Democratic bandwagon wasn’t a big deal for them. But I’ve been proven wrong: Ms. Anderson has been a Democratic activist (and Hillary fan) for more than a decade. This makes her switch to McCain even more bizarre than her bitchiness about Michelle Obama.

I believe Ms. Anderson was one of the two women who came over to the Obama side during our county Democratic convention to convince us to switch to Hillary. It was her that I had in mind when I wrote this:

Obama’s voters are looking toward Obama as a standard bearer, as a point man for the change they want to see in the country. Hillary’s supporters, at least the older women among them, are voting for their surrogate: because they want to see a woman in the Oval Office before they die, and because they themselves were denied so many opportunities for advancement in their own lives.

You could see it in the eyes of the supporters who came over to the Obama side to try and win converts, that fragile hopefulness that verges on pleading. Can’t you see it’s our last chance?

I do not doubt that they also desperately believe in Hillary Clinton, but their investment in her goes much deeper than politics. Hillary Clinton is proof that they had it in them all along, the fire, talent and creativity, and they could have been leaders but for the glass ceiling that seemed to rise only inches a decade.
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What we Dems on the Obama side need to do in the meantime is to let these Hillary voters know how much we respect their accomplishments, and understand their need to see one of their own make it to the top.

If only the hard-core Hillary supporters like Ms. Anderson could return the favor.