Obama really is the Magical Unity Pony!

By BJ

Because magic is about the only explanation I could come up with for this when I read it. John Cole, today:

Should we set up an ActBlue account to try to offset some of the debt, or will that not go to retiring the debt? Does anyone know? If it does, maybe if we start an ActBlue account, perhaps others will follow. It certainly seems like Clinton has been acting in very good faith, and we should as well. If anyone can definitively state that money donated today will pay down her debt, I will set one up ASAP.

I can�t believe I am contemplating fund-raising for the Clinton campaign.

You can't believe it? I'm still trying to come up with a reasonable explanation for the folks at work for why my chin was dragging on the floor all afternoon!

I mean, this is the guy who, when "bittergate" broke, ran a not inconsiderable number of posts with some variation of "F--K Hillary" in the title!

This is the guy who said things like:

I will say this one more time. All the times over the past few years when the Republicans would repeat their mantra that the �Democrats are worse,� they were not talking about the Democrats, they were talking about the Clinton family.

And they were probably right.

And

As a personal aside, I found that the self-immolation of the most narcissistic campaign ever washes down really fucking well with a Pinot Noir. Fuck off and good riddance.

And

Obama is giving mad praise to Hillary. Good thing he is the nominee and not me, because I would wave a giant foam middle finger and then moon her.

That last all of a week ago, as part of an entire category he created for the purpose: I Can No Longer Rationally Discuss The Clinton Campaign.

Now, Cernig pointed me to a site where they'll exchange old Clinton signs for new Obama ones, which is a nice little gesture, and part of what I see as numerous attempts to reach out to Clinton supporters to help unify the party behind Obama, a decidedly large task. As Will Durst puts it:

Unifying Democrats is like trying to herd a clew of worms over a chicken wire walkway onto an electric waffle iron. Like nailing lime Jell- O with carrot shreds to a tree. Reconstituting the original ingredients of a bouillabaisse. Unburning a bridge.

What Cole is suggesting here goes far beyond that, though. He's not suggesting ways to reach out to Hillary's supporters, he's actually looking to help out Hillary herself, the main source of much of the anger and rage he and others have spewed across the intertubes these last few months, myself included. (Seriously. Looking through the buildasign site above, I saw "wooden stakes" under accessories and my first thought was, "For Clinton?" I've apparently some ways to go before I'm over the primaries.)

Given recent history, it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise that Cole has come under some fire from his comments section, (My personal favourite so far, "Are you trying to cure your CDS by taking part in some new drug experiment?"), though not nearly as bad as I might have thought. While more than a few have less than sympathetic comments regarding Clinton, the biggest stumbling block seems to be the possibility that Mark Penn might benefit, a sentiment I can't disagree with. For the rest, Cole had this to say:

. . . a lot of you have laughed when I pointed to pro-Hillary bloggers and noted that they have a lot of work to do walking their bloggers back from the cliff. Apparently that is a two-way street. I don�t like a lot of the stunts Camp Clinton pulled in the primary (and I hate Mark Penn), but it is over. She is on the right side now. If helping her pay off her campaign debt quickly gets her out there stumping for Obama every day, I will be the first one to chuck in 50 bucks. Paying down her debt now is not a validation of her campaign tactics- the loss invalidated them.

Something for you to think about when you lash out- you look to Clinton supporters much like the weirdos in the Taylor Marsh comment section look to us.

Nothing less than the truth, and it is going to take a fair bit more time before many of these people remember that they're on the same side again. I think this sort of gesture should help considerably.