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Let me say that I started out this process fairly convinced that I was never going to vote for Hillary in the primary. Just on general principal, I never support "The Establishment" candidate in primaries since I think primaries are equally about setting an agenda as they are about choosing a candidate.
But I was never openly hostile to Hillary. I just didn't feel that she deserved to be the presumptive nominee based on her last name.
I was actually probably an Edwards backer early on since I had voted for him in the 2004 Primary. I was intrigued by Obama but wanted to see if there was any "there" there. And then he won me over.
And then slowly, the Clintons began to turn me off. And then upset me. And then outright anger me. And to be honest, I still think she is being foolish and destructive by dragging this campaign out.
But then Edwards spoke and I was reminded, "Hey you know what? Hillary's ok. I may think her behavior the last three months has been awful, but it is a race for the presidency and that office makes people do nutty things."
So, now, I'm pretty convinced that a classy concession speech sometime in early June is all it will take for me to get back on the Hillary bandwagon. I still don't think she should be VP - nor do I have any idea why she would want to be VP. But I think any Cabinet post she wants should be hers for the asking, even if I think what she should really want is Senate Majority Leader.
Anyway, I'm a veteran of a lot of small-town political races. (My mom got a Jim Crow Era law overturned in 1978 for God's sake in order to run for city council). I've seen nastiness that you wouldn't believe (I had a cousin drop dead of a heart attack during a council debate once). And in the end, people usually forgave each other, or at least found detente. So, I'm fairly confident today.
A big HOWEVER.....If Hillary takes her fight to the floor of the convention, all bets are off. I think it would take years for the party to recover from that.
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