Things I Don't Get (IV): Personalizing the Primaries

Prior to Obama's victory, much was made of Obama-supporters' willingness to support Clinton vs. a major unwillingness of Clinton supporters to support Obama in the event of his victory. Although there's plenty of time for this to still cool off, thus far it's been pretty rancorous still. When watching Clinton's speech last Saturday (in which she unequivocally urged her supporters to support Obama), there were noticeable boos and thumbs-down signs given when she mentioned his name. People who would easily identify with a majority of Obama's positions if it were a generic "candidate-A or candidate-B" issue are vehemently against him because he beat their candidate, even diving to such amazingly stupid lows in reasoning as to claim that they want to do "what's best for America," and if that means voting for McCain (an aside: it doesn't mean that), then so be it. Really - the vitriol is so fierce among some Clinton supporters, they seem absolutely blinded in fits of pure selfishness that their candidate was not the victor, and so they're (at least right now) more willing to fuck the U.S. over for at least another 4 years by voting for McCain instead of supporting the candidate whose views are far more in line with their own.

I personally cannot ever remember (or even remember hearing from others about) a time when politics became so personalized. That's really what seems to be at hand here: that Clinton supporters have so closely tied their support for her to their own being that her loss is like a personal assault upon her supporters themselves, that the repudiation of Clinton has turned into a personal repudiation of her supporters as basic human beings. And to me, that's just crazy, and I can't figure out why (seemingly suddenly) a particular group of Democrats have so fiercely personalized the failure of their candidate. (And I know that there are millions of Clinton supporters out there who already are behind Obama, but they aren't the ones dominating the news now, nor the ones that could be a major concern for the Democrats down the road, nor the ones who are being so obnoxious and selfish).

I've been trying to figure this out lately, but with no success. I really don’t think it’s due to racism. Sure, some people, particularly in the Appalachians, openly said they wouldn’t and didn’t vote for Obama due to race, but I’m just not convinced A) that that group is really that large, and B) that, come a general election, sexism wouldn’t also be a factor in their vote. It may be the case that they would vote for Clinton over McCain but not Obama over McCain, but I’ve yet to see any compelling evidence or hear any strong argument as to why that would be the case.

Nor do I think it’s because of charisma; while Clinton was a fine candidate, she didn’t have the charisma of some leaders. She wasn’t awful (she seemed more compelling than Kerry did in 2004 by light years), but neither was she great. While I’m no expert, I’ve studied the role of charisma in popularity of leaders to some extent (mostly in Latin America), and Clinton really didn’t fit any general notions and theories on the role and definition of charisma that I’m familiar with. I understand that a lot of people were drawn to her for her presentation, but to a large extent, I can’t help but wonder if it wasn’t her own personal charisma that drew supporters, but rather the symbol they personally perceived her to be.

I suppose it could be the cult of the Clintons, built up by the myth of Bill being the party's "savior" in the 90s when he became the only two-term democratic president in the last 40 years, a myth the Clinton machine and it's supporters have openly built up. But even there, I'm not so sure; if this primary campaign proved anything, it's that Bill was far from infallible even among some of his most strident supporters, as he was heavily criticized even from the rank-and-file for some of his comments during the campaign. What's more, now that it's over, many insiders are blaming Bill at least in part for Hillary's failure, so I'm not even sure the "Clinton mystique" is nearly that strong (or that it ever was).

In short, I just don't understand this. Can anybody ever remember any election, general or primary, presidential, state, local, congressional, etc., where voters took the loss of a candidate so personally? Why is this happening with Clinton's supporters? Will this last, and potentially ruin the 2008 election? It's just really, really weird to me (the only close comparison I can come up with is Nader in 2000, but even then, his supporters didn't take his loss personally as much as critiques that he cost the Democrats the election in 2000), and I'm not sure how we can explain this. Anybody else have any thoughts on this?