An open letter to the two candidates left standing

For months, I've been trying to decide who I was going to vote for today. One by one, the various candidates dropped out, and though their names remained on the ballot I cast about three hours ago here in Massachusetts, only two really mattered anymore.

And so I was left with a difficult decision. You see, based on the way they have run their campaigns, the policies they have been promoting and promising, their conduct and the conduct of their staffs, their voting records, their rhetoric, and myriad other concerns, I felt like I could choose to decide between the better of two adequate candidates, or I could write in "Russ Feingold" as a protest, as a mark of what kind of Democrat our eventual nominee should be.

Because the worst rhetorical excesses and abuses of the most rabid partisans notwithstanding, what Senator Obama's supporters have criticized so loudly about you, Senator Clinton, is largely true, and what Senator Clinton's supporters have criticized so loudly about you, Senator Obama, is also largely true.

Perhaps that's not a surprise; in so many particularly salient ways, you are so similar. You have similar voting records on most issues; you support similar policies; you have similar histories of overcoming unfair and unjust obstacles that never should have been put before you in the first place. You are both remarkable human beings, eminently qualified to be President of the United States.

But just because you're qualified doesn't mean you should be president.

Your similarities, unsurprisingly, mean that what the supporters of each of you criticize in the other is mirrored by the other side -- and not merely as a matter of deflection, but as an accurate depiction of your respective flaws. When one of you criticizes the other, you might as well be pointing at yourself.

Don't get me wrong, whichever of you eventually wins the nomination, I will support wholeheartedly and enthusiastically. I'll volunteer for your campaign; I'll go door to door for you; I'll do whatever I can legally do to help you get elected.

But today, I voted for one of you -- never mind which -- not because I'm inspired by you; not because I think you're the best person for the job; not because I think you have demonstrated your presidential mettle.

I voted for one of you because it was a hard choice that needed to be made, and voting for anyone else would have been taking the easy way out. But these are difficult times, and it's not my place to rest on my laurels.

So much more so for you who seek to lead us.

A lot of us here on dKos and elsewhere in the progressive blogosphere and the Democratic Party are in the same boat. I think mcjoan summed it up pretty well for us (read the whole thing, but here is the key excerpt to me):

What I want to know is that you see and understand just how massively off-track our country has gone, and that you have some idea about how to right it, and the ability to do so.

I want to know that you will be willing to tell the American people what we need to hear, not just what we want to hear.

I want to know that you can be a leader.

I want to know that you will give us our country back.

I want to know all those things too; worse, I think we all desperately need to know all those things.

Nearly four years ago, when a canvasser showed up at my door to ask me about who I would support in that year's presidential election and why, I responded that I wanted a president with some gravitas. Someone who understood that decisions should be made based on evidence rather than faith. Someone who believed that the words of the Founding Fathers, that "all men are created equal," or all people given the sociological realities of our time (and thank goodness for that bit of progress!), do not mean "unless they're GLBT or not Christian-of-a-certain-variety." Someone who understood that the "We the People" of the Constitution do not consist of Enron, Exxon, and Halliburton. Someone who knew that the proper place of government was to ensure the genuine safety of all, and especially to protect the least of us from those who would use their power and resources for selfish gain against the common good.

That's what I told the canvasser I wanted in our next president because after four years of the worst president in US history, we needed better. We needed a great leader, someone who could be one of the greatest presidents in US history. Now, after eight years of the worst misadministration in US history, our need is more dire, the consequences of failure exponentially greater.

I don't know what will be the outcome of today's votes yet. I don't know if one of you will win enough delegates today to become the nominee, or even to become the prohibitive favorite, or if you'll still be deadlocked. There is a lot of time between now and the convention in Denver, and you could conceivably be battling each other for the nomination until then.

And I understand that neither of you got where you are today by taking huge risks in elections. You're both "safe" politicians. "Safe" politicians, "safe" leaders, are always needed and useful. But we need one of you to take a big risk for the good of the nation. We need one of you to tell us all the things we need to know, not the things you think we want to hear. We need one of you to take a real stand for progress. Not just rhetoric. Not just "universal" plans for healthcare that leave millions of Americans without the help they desperately need. Not a "comprehensive" plan for ending the war in Iraq that doesn't bring all our troops home. Not a policy intended to break our untenable national dependence on foreign oil by 2080 -- far too late. Not educational plans that leave students functionally illiterate by the time they get to my college classroom. For far too much of your campaigns so far, your plans and promises can be summed up in one of my fiancee's favorite expressions: "There's no there there."

We need more and better substance.

We need more and better clarity.

We need more and better inspiration.

We need more and better leadership.

We need one of you to show us that you are the great Democratic hope, someone who can lead us out of the abyss of BushCo, who deserves our vote not because s/he is the best candidate left standing but because s/he is genuinely the best candidate.

We need one of you to step up.

You haven't done it yet.

Do it and you'll win in a landslide. But far more importantly, do it and you'll become one of the greatest US presidents -- you'll do more to fix the damage BushCo has done to our nation and the world than anyone dreamed possible.

That's what we need. It's what we want. I'd like to think it's what we deserve as a nation, often in spite of ourselves.

You have 6 1/2 months to do it. But the truly great leader our next president should be wouldn't wait that long.