My Democratic Friend in Florida

As I speak to lifelong Democrats, I am seeing an interesting pattern emerge, over the course of time. Those who were formerly strong Hillary Clinton supporters, sometimes showed through with their true colors.

Back in June, they seemed to be going through the stages of grief, the first one being “denial” as in, “This cannot be happening to us! Arrgh!” The first comment –the ‘This cannot be happening to us!’ was actually said by a lifelong Democratic friend in Florida. I threw in the ‘Arrgh!’ for emotional effect.

After the DNC meeting where the issue of Florida/Michigan was resolved, her response was the second stage of grief—‘anger’: “Why Hillary? She’s a victim. It’s not fair! Wahhh!”. Again, I threw in the ‘Wahh!” for emotional effect.

The next stage---‘bargaining’, was somewhat combined with ‘depression’, the fourth stage. This was evidence by the realization that Senator Obama was actually now the presumptive candidate, and that the best they could hope for was a Hillary VP spot. “I will consider supporting ‘Bama [at this point, she still was somewhat in stage two ‘anger’, and continued to call Senator Obama, ‘Bama’], but only if my Hillary is chosen for Vice President.” Notice the ‘my Hillary’ comment. Strong ownership there.

This was combined with the fact that although Hillary is most likely on the short list for VP, the fact that there is ‘a list’ that she shares with others, is very ‘depressing’ for my Florida friend. And I did not even need any other comment for emotional effect.

The final stage is ‘acceptance’, as evidenced by my Florida friend’s comment of, "It is what it is. I guess I will vote for Obama [see the change from ‘Bama’], but as long as he supports Israel.”

The 'Florida friend' is my mother, Pearl, and she was pleased to see Senator Obama visit Israel this week. So, she is now over her Hillary grief, and will be a good Democrat again.

Go figure.