A Morning After "What If...."

All the exit polls from Kentucky (and previously West Virginia) tend to show what I feel is a very disturbing trend. It is of course the racial divide that gets overwhelming votes to Senator Clinton over Senator Obama. Even some interviews shown on The Daily Show from other sources in West Virginia showed that people voted against Obama because he was Muslim (False!) and that his middle name was Hussein and "I'm tired of this whole Hussein thing."

Andrew Sullivan at The Daily Dish quoted from the Associated Press:

[T]he exit poll shows that one in five voters openly declared that race was a factor - and 81 percent of them voted for the Clintons. So one fifth proudly said they voted against a black man.

And of course many of those will either not vote in November, they say, or will vote for McCain.

What deeply, deeply saddens me is that a candidate will allow this to be used for her benefit and as part of the strategy to get the nomination. She will point out that she is getting a lot of votes without pointing out where they are coming from. She will say this shows that she has broader appeal than Obama. Probably because there are more white voters than black voters?

So what if tomorrow or next week or on June 3 Clinton has the courage and earns her true street cred by standing up and saying:

I am pulling out of this race and supporting Senator Obama because I cannot take the nomination that I won by racial division. I want this to be a united nation where race (like gender) doesn't matter. I want this to be a country where a black man is as likely to get elected as anyone else.

Yes, what if....

As Bobby Kennedy would regularly quote:

Some men see things as they are and say, "Why?"

I dream of things that never were and say, "Why not?"