Adolph Reed, Jr., a Clinton Supporter

Adolph Reed, Jr. turns out to be a Hillary Rodham Clinton supporter, mainly on the basis of electability.

And, as many Progressive readers may know, I'm hardly a Clinton fan. I'm on record in last November's issue as saying that I'd rather sit out the election entirely than vote for either her or Obama. At this point, though, I've decided that she's the lesser evil in the Democratic race, for the following reasons: 1) Obama's empty claims to being a candidate of progressive change and to embodying a "movement" that exists only as a brand will dissolve into disillusionment in either a failed campaign against McCain or an Obama Presidency that continues the politics he's practiced his entire career; 2) his horribly opportunistic approach to the issues bearing on inequality -- in which he tosses behaviorist rhetoric to the right and little more than calls to celebrate his success to blacks -- stands to pollute debate about racial injustice whether he wins or loses the Presidency; 3) he can't beat McCain in November.

Frankly, I suspect that Clinton can't beat him either, but there's no way that Obama will carry most of the states in November that he's won in the primaries and caucuses. ("Obama No," The Progressive, May 2008)

That just about negates almost all valid points of his Obama criticism (now marred by his citation of other Clinton supporters like Paul Krugman and Sean Wilentz), for what Obama does HRC does also, except she isn't Black, so she can't celebrate her success as "Black success" (but that's not a point in her favor, is it, since this difference is a matter of social identity -- she celebrates her success as "female," even "feminist," success). Reed should have stuck to his earlier declaration that he would be "sitting this one out."