Thursday, March 27, 2008

What Obama and Clinton Can Do to Unite the Party


In the wake of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy, Sen. Barack Obama took to the podium and delivered the speech of his political career. It was a heartfelt, sincere and thought-provoking address on race relations in America. And it worked. Since this critical discourse, Obama's momentum appears to be surging if current polls are any indication. Now it's time for another well-timed, forthright, brilliant speech. For this one, Obama must share the stage with his rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton, and issue an impassioned plea to Democrats. The gist of it should be something akin to:

Obama: "Good evening America. We stand before you as the two candidates vying for the 2008 Democratic nomination for president. As many of you know, we have been engaged in a very intense, often bitter campaign. There have been moments where we've made seemingly angry statements directed at each other, and our two camps have certainly traded barbs and added fuel to the fire. There have indeed been times when one side clearly has offended the other. It's be a long, hard, frustrating, stressful and hotly contested struggle. Only one of us will eventually win.

Clinton: Regardless of what you've seen on the campaign trail, each of us has the utmost respect and admiration for the other's experience, dedication, qualifications, patriotism and ability to lead this great nation of ours. We believe that either of us would, on every measurable level, serve our country better than our Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, whether it's in dealing with the war, the fight against terrorism, the struggling economy, health care, education, and in transcending partisan politics so that we can unite Americans under the common goal of living in peace and prosperity.

Obama: Our battle for the nomination may continue in the weeks and months to come. That's politics. This year we have a close race for the first time in 50 or so years. And that's ok. That's ultimately good for the country. The ability to hold free and open elections is the bedrock of our Democracy. But make no mistake about one very important fact: that no matter who stands before you at the Denver convention in August, as the party's eventual nominee, the other will be standing right beside him or her. And we stand before you today pledging that 100%, unequivocal support.

Clinton: If Barack is our nominee, I will do everything in my power, everything humanly possible, to help him win the presidency. I will campaign long and hard for him, and I will dedicate whatever resources I can to ensure his victory.

Obama: And if Hillary wins, I will do exactly the same for her. We stand before you today united. United in our ultimate support for each other; united in our goal to defeat John McCain in November; and united in our commitment to our party, to you, the American voter, and to our great Democracy. And we implore you to do the same. We cannot do this without you. All of you. You can support Hillary or myself until this contest results in victory for one of us, but when that day comes, we need you, our party needs you, America needs you, to move beyond the emotions and tensions raised in the primary campaign and unite alongside with us. I say to my supporters, if Hillary wins, you must vote for her in November against McCain. While she and I have some personal and policy differences as Democratic candidates, one thing I am certain of is that, against John McCain and the Republicans, we are of equal mindset. Our values, our goals for America, our commitment to the poor and middle classes..the elderly...college students...the sick...our veterans....is the same. It is unwaivering. We share the same respect for the Constitution and protecting your civil liberties. We want to end the Iraq war and not let it drag on for 100 years as McCain suggests. I say to you, my supporters, if you believe in me and what I stand for, then you must vote for Hillary in November if she becomes our nominee.

Clinton: And I agree with everything Barack just said. I say to my supporters, no matter the outcome of this primary campaign, no matter if I lose and Barack wins, you must support him. You must stand with me as I stand beside him in our collective fight against the Republicans. We cannot afford four more years, and possibly eight, of a Bush-like Republican administration. We must stand together, united, come November.

Obama: The successful future of our great nation--the achievement of peace and prosperity--rests with Democrats. The survival of our party this year, and in years to come, now rests with you. Again, we stand before you--as political opponents in the current primary contest--but as a brother-and-sister-in-arms--in the November general election. Together, we can unite the party and America, by standing together with you, our supporters. Come November, we again implore you to please join me and Hillary in supporting the other, no matter who wins. Thank you."

It's time we hear a speech like this from the candidates. It would be historic in nature, and do wonders for party unity.

27 comments:

Anonymous said...

Obama lied yesterday, but hasn't yet been called out on the carpet for it. In a speech yesterday, Obama was discussing the Hate Preacher, he said the Hate Preacher has been holding 3 masses a day for 30 years yet "they" (implying conservatives or the Hillary campaign) reduced the Hate Preacher's career to a 30 second sound byte.

The truth is the Hate Preacher had those racist video clips on a video distributed by Obama's Hate Church.

When will Obama start being honest with the American people about his racist friends?

I'm looking forward to Sidney the sphincter's comments on my post.

Sidney Condorcet said...

Great post, Andy. It's exactly what is sorely needed, but regrettably it won't happen as you no doubt know.

Ahh, the fissiparous commenter is back and in no way comments about Andy's actual post. No one viewing this blog cares to read yet another of your nonsensical screeds. Why don't you actually make a comment regarding Andy's posts?

Anonymous said...

Obama's latest lie was during his March 26 Kansas City speech. Anyone find a transcript ?

Vote Hillary!

Anonymous said...

Sidney,
Are you the only one that is allowed to rant about whatever you want?

Sidney Condorcet said...

Rant all you want about Obama's preacher. It would be nice if you ranted about something useful every so often, though. What with the many problems besetting America and the world, surely there is something to strike your interest other than a religious figure who is not currently running for any elected office, and whose comments, though loathsome, have been taken wildly out of context. (Even Anderson Cooper was forced to apologize after actually reading/viewing the entire "chickens come home to roose" sermon, and realizing it was not nearly as incendiary as the media and the likes of you have made it out to be.) (Though, I still find the "AIDS" comment to be heinous, however there's no reason to impute that thought to Obama, though you seem intent on destroying Obama by any means possible.)

Anonymous said...

Sidney,
You are just blowing smoke. I tried to have a legitimate and intelligent debate with you yesterday but you resorted to baseless name calling.

You are a 21st century McCarthy type.

If you are interested in a debate, go back to yesterday's discussion and try to respond to the facts in my post that you couldn't address without your baseless name calling.

Anonymous said...

Your right Andy,it would be great if such a thing could happen.But lets face some facts,hillary hinted at a joint ticket 2 months ago,the obama group ruled that out and decided it was easier to make hillary a white racist,while the whole time knowing they were going to have to face the preacher problem,it's just the right-winged media who have played the obama people didn't keep the story hid intill Obama was crowned the leader of the democratic party,they were hoping it wouldn"t catch on so popular on U-tube till after the crowning(OOhhpps).Corporations have learned through time how to make people believe anthing they want.they want Obama against Mccain come hell or high water,they are achieving that goal. Obama's people are just starting to come to thier sence's,just look at sidney,over the last week,he has actually had afew nice things to say about hillary,the problem is the scorched earth policy they practiced,burnt to many bridges

Anonymous said...

I really think Obama and Clinton need to run together, but I just don't see how it could happen.

Anonymous said...

The way to unite the party if for Obama to drop out of the race, or denounce everything about Dr. Wright and his teachings. Even with Hillary as the candidate for the presidency, I would no more vote for a ticket with Obama as vp than I'd vote for him for president. We see the harm Cheney as vp has done. Or, what if Obama became the president? I do not want a president whose allegiance is not to America and only America; I do not want a president who does not love America. That's the issue -- all the rest is talk.

Anonymous said...

notice carfully how sidney will use bill's impeachment to make his point,if sidney was any type of real lawyer, sidney wouldn't use bill clinton's impeachment for anything seeing's what got bill impeached was only gained through a tape recording that was deamed illegally made by miss trip.Bill clintons rights were violated and no one gave a shit,people like sidney love to say bill was impeached,they forget to say the senate anuld it.so much for being a good lawyer

acetylyne said...

for all you hillbots still sucking on the rev. wright story like it's a teat that will never run dry, why don't you do some investigating into your own candidates even shadier religious ties?

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2003/03/0079525

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080331/ehrenreich

Anonymous said...

looks like the reverand(OBAMA'S)is a gift that just keeps on giving.Now the sunday sermon sheets have come to light,showing what the sermons were about.show there's not a snow ball's chance in hell of obama not knowing what the reverand was preaching.He knew what was being preached sssssshhhhhhhh HE LIED

Sidney Condorcet said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

sidney,take a chill pill,your on a site that see's both sides,some have drank the obama kool-ade and got hooked,some of us have a enough will-power to see the light,we're looking at 4 years more of a repuk in the whitehouse

Anonymous said...

Do you really think that Her Royal Clintonness would ever be so gracious? Gimme a break!

Anonymous said...

Back to Andy's essay...yes it would be a dream. And instead... according to MoveOn..."..a group of Clinton-supporting big Democratic donors are threatening to stop supporting Democrats in Congress because Nancy Pelosi said that the people, not the superdelegates, should decide the Presidential nomination..."

Anonymous said...

I have become more and more confused reading Ostroy's blog contributors. For example Anon. 317 attributes his long piece to "Andrew Sullivan" who is a British born author, award-winning jounalist, noted conservative, political blogger" who by the way has just stopped his own very conservative blog for the time being. What's the point of that?

After reading Sidney week after week and noticing that the always gets off subject and instead takes up space childishly arguing with another contributor williing to take up space on subjects that have nothing to do with the blog, or in some cases, Hillary or Obama, the recent subjects of Ostroy's article.

I conclude that they, and especially Sydney are closet Republicans, purposely using irritating and worthless means to sabatage and distract sincere readers of this blog from the subject. Not only distract but disgust -- another Republican attribute. I also believe that when no one takes Sidney's bait, he responds to himself (Sidney) as an anonymous.

It would be wise if we all skimmed past their nonsense and kept to the serious discussion Ostory's blog promotesl

Anonymous said...

4:20 is a perfect example of the point 5:11 made. Republicans are so devious and obvious.

Yet, it could be that Sidney is really the only mole who is taking different roles. He seems to have no other use for his time than posting on this blog. Maybe he's getting paid and this is his job. Repugs, in the past, have appeared on this blog and distracted.

Anonymous said...

Does anybody mind if I, a sincere Democrat, get a word in. I am worried that the Obama Wright baggage is not going away and that he will lose the election for us if he's either the presidential candidate or rhe vp candidate. One of his defenders on TV said that OBama didn't join the church for the theology but for the fellowship. That mean his friends in church were probably fellow-travelers of the preacher and they were Obama's associates. However, very few go to a church just to make friends, especially friends who have different life beliefs.

Sidney Condorcet said...

Oh my lord! I am not a Republican mole. On this site's comment boards, I have consistently argued against the Iraq War, generally argued against McCain's candidacy (with one exception where I noted that he may be able to move the Republican party back to the middle), and have repeatedly argued for Senator Obama. Though I was a Republican (a moderate)once, I've been an unapologetic and unabashed liberal ever beginning in 2002. I canvassed for General Clark in New Hampshire in 2004, voted for John Edwards in the NY primary in 2004, voted for Kerry-Edwards, worked as a legal monitor in Pennsylvania for Kerry-Edwards in 2004, voted the Democratic line in 2006, contributed to the NY State Democratic Party, contributed to Senator Obama's campaign on multiple occasions, voted for Senator Obama in the 2008 NY primary. In fact, if you click on my name, you are taken to my blogger profile. Click the link to my own blog and you will notice that every entry is from a Democratic perspective. I did not blog for months as some sort of elaborate ruse to fool the readers of Andy's blog. Get real! Sure, I'm not in the Clintons' corner. I hope and expect Senator Obama to be the nominee. But I'm not a Republican mole, although I do think this site is populated by quite a few of them. Alright, this liberal is signing off.

Anonymous said...

Sidney seems to be in the clear. It sounded pretty much authentic to me. Or, he could be more clever than I think. No matter, there is an admitted mole who on another occasion confessed that he/she assumed different "anon" identities to get at us Democrats. Just don't get sucked in and afford a distraction, if you don't mind my giving advice.

Anonymous said...

Here's an idea:

Ignore the BS propaganda stories about people's pastors and all the other nonsensical, irrelevant drivel that the media snakes throw out at everyone.

Pay attention to the ACTUAL issues that need to be solved.

In other words, grow up and stop being sheep.

Anonymous said...

For a brilliant analysis and comparison of the policies of the three candidates everyone should read Paul Krugman's column in the NY Times today.

Anonymous said...

7:53 you are wrong. The beliefs, purposes, advisors, religions, and the content of the heart and mind count. A person in power is not a blank slate; he has beliefs and ideas and a history that informs his decisions.

Only recently Romney was dumped because feared his Mormon religion would determine his decisions.

Anonymous said...

I love the hypocrisy of deleting my post at 1:41 because I said, "Obama is a typical black man".

I was not being racist in this post, I was pointing out a quote from Obama, "my grandmother is a typical white person"

So why is there no outrage of Obama's racist "typical white person" quote yet my post is not suitable for posting?

Anonymous said...

It says 1:41 is Sidney and he deleted it himself. What's going on?

Anonymous said...

Sidney is the closet Repug that vandalizes Andy's prestine blog.