Erin Kotecki Vest wrote Dear Senator Hillary Clinton, Please Step Down, which is an open letter to Senator Clinton, 3 days ago at her blog.
This is what I consider "the money quote" :
I thought that with your candidacy, would come reason. I thought that you would be able to get a fair shake by main stream media, by voters, by sexists, and by soccer moms. I thought over time people would begin to see that you really are an effective politician.
I was wrong.
Tonight, I’m typing as I watch you speak in El Paso, Texas. I’m sad. There really is no other way to put it-I’m sad.
I truly believed you would be the best person for the job, and I had this nagging thought in the back of my mind that is now at the forefront. The thought that drove me on Super Tuesday to Vote for Senator Obama and the thought that is the driving force as I write tonight: Senator Hillary Clinton divides this country.
It’s not fair. It’s not right. And under just about ANY other circumstance I would go to the mat for you. However we are a wounded and deeply divided nation. We are a nation at war. We are a nation at odds with each-other. It’s ugly. I thought you could get people past it. I really did.
When I told myself it was gender that got people going, I refrained from asking and wanting you to step aside. Simply on principle, I wanted to see you run and win because they said it couldn’t be done. Because it was my belief, this was all about being a girl.
It’s not, and I was wrong.
I firmly believe while the gender issue has given you a handicap I hope we all one day overcome, it is NOT the reason people have a gut reaction to you or your campaign or your legacy.
Enter the Senator from Illinois, and what I think could be your true legacy. If you were to step aside now, shockingly early and shockingly un-Hilllary-like, you could galvanize an entire nation behind your party. If you were to throw your weight, and your tremendous political clout behind Senator Obama you could still change the world and make your mark in a way no one would expect and everyone would admire.
I don’t want to see you throw in the towel because the fight is too hard or the mountain too tall. I am asking you to throw it in because history is on the line.
This post by the numbers so far AND UPDATED WITH CORRECTIONS:
140+ comments on its thread with 55 of them coming from bloggers with their own audiences. Some of them are incredibly influential like our own Morra Aarons or with massive audiences like Jenn Satterwhite of Mommy Needs Coffee.
2964 Diggs with 300+ comments : It's Digg. It's not like it's a mommyblogger friendly place.
Google Blogs shows there's 12,000+ blog posts with the words HIllary Step Down. Technorati shows 6,000+ entries (that are now populated by the news of John Lewis' defection to the Obama camp).
On the other hand, Technorati's number are minute and Google show link parity with only a bit over 20 blogs linking to the post.
Either way, one thing to keep in mind about mommy bloggers : They are coveted by marketers and producers everywhere because they are the ultimate, in-real-life agents of word of mouth campaigns.
So if I were a campaign consultant, I'd keep my eyes on the mommy bloggers. As I said at culturekitchen :
Erin is one of the top mommybloggers in the country. She also happens to be "white". What she is saying, along with the 140+ comments on that thread, is something that's going through the heads of a lot of white middle class suburban women just like her.
Erin's network, via BlogHer, is HUGE. If you have been to any of the BlogHer conferences, you know exactly what I mean when I say,
DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE IMPORTANCE OF MOMMYBLOGGERS.
Why? Most of the women on that thread have blogs and their own audiences. Erin's post is going to be spread like wildfire.
And it did. Erin just told me, as I am writing this post, that her hosting company was taken down by the weight of the Digg traffic. Not just her but the whole company.
You want icing on the cake? Erin one of the editors of BlogHer's Election '08 coverage. The weight of her letter has even more meaning to the BlogHers who responded to her post.
Go read the whole letter, NOW!
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Hi Liza - I posted Erin's letter a very short time after she wrote it - both on my blog here and at The Moderate Voice. It's a great letter - I'm not 100% sure if I agree with the need for Clinton to step aside, but Erin wrote a fantastic letter.
The one point I'd like to add, though, in case Erin didn't already, is that BlogHer is NOT just mommybloggers. I'm a mom and a blogger, but there's hundreds if not thousands of single women who utilize BlogHer and contribute to it. So - it's a community of women, from what I understand is the way the founders typically look at BlogHer. I could be wrong - Erin and Morra would know best. But I just wanted to say that it's not just moms. You may know that too - but I think it's important to say that it's a community of women, and moms are, of course, women too. :)