Why the Hillary hate?

I've openly admitted my support for Hillary Clinton on Dakota Women, though I'm honestly not upset at all about Obama's sweep of this weekend's Democratic primaries/caucuses. So I want to make it clear upfront that this post isn't about how Barack Obama is evil and terrible, and only Hillary Clinton can solve the problems that face the United States, blah blah blah - first of all because I don't believe that, and secondly because that's become a really boring conversation to have.

I guess I'm surprised, however, by the level of vitriol being directed at Hillary Clinton from all sides, both nationally and in the local blogosphere. Ken Blanchard's recent post about Clinton's losses and the shakeup of her campaign does not appear to me to be absent of some amount of glee regarding the situation in which Hillary finds herself. From the left, I don't consider Cory's assesment of Clinton vs. Obama to be entirely fair to Clinton.

Friends of mine, particularly those who live in states that have had their Democratic primaries, assure me that some Clinton supporters are pretty unreasonable as well, but I simply haven't personally seen that. I really haven't. Obviously, no candidate for political office is above criticism, but it's quite rare that I observe valid criticism leveled against Clinton (and believe me, there are a lot of things for which conservatives, progressives, feminists, LGBT activists, etc could fairly criticize Clinton). Mostly I see random, senseless hate.

Nationally, take a look at DailyKos. Literally. Look anywhere on the site. It took me about five seconds to locate a really awful, unfair comment about Hillary Clinton, and a couple of minutes, maybe, to find a commenter who referred to her as a 'bitch.' The user diaries are filled with literally thousands of vile posts about Hillary Clinton and how awful she is. And these people are, allegedly, "progressives." A few women bloggers have suggested that this environment has caused Clinton's supporters to be ashamed to publicly mention their support for her, which is something that I felt for a long time - and still feel when discussing politics with the largely male, largely Obama-supporting people I spend most of my time with here in Montana. One of my former students is active in the College Democrats here, and traveled to Idaho to volunteer for Obama. He told me all about his experience, and then asked who I supported. When I said I thought I would probably vote for Hillary (and I hedged like that, even though I would vote for Clinton, without thinking twice) he said, "Oh...I suppose you WOULD like her." I asked "Really? Why is that?" and he stammered a kind of non-answer, as though I would have no logical reason to hold a differing opinion from his. Like clearly the only reason anyone supports Clinton is because she's a woman.

There comes a point when a positive case needs to be made for your candidate, whoever that may be. I think the women who post here have done that, which is something that makes me feel good about the people participating in the conversation here at Dakota Women. But for everyone else, seriously, support whoever you'd like, but when discussing your views, leave Hillary Clinton out of it. Try it. Just once.

There also comes a point when kicking a candidate who is clearly down gets pretty tacky and childish. A lot of the "criticism" of Clinton went beyond tacky and childish long ago.