Yes, we are better than this. That’s why I won’t be supporting Hillary Clinton.

Yes, we are, which goes to the point of this post, I think — when you make the calls, talk to real-life people, the vitriol of the blogs tends to fade.

But I’m disturbed that so many Democrats are perpetuating the Republican smears on Senator Clinton. It’s kind of frightening to me to a degree. And it’s prevalent on some of the more-read blogs here in Virginia. And now that she’s won in Nevada, I even read a very disturbing blog entry that belittlied Latino working class women who voted for her. Aren’t we better than this? Doesn’t look so.

Hope is an important thing. It’s where progress begins, it’s how we dare to set goals. Goals help us define plans. Plans help us guide our actions. But it’s action that’s the key to progress. It’s true that nobody ever achieved anything worth doing without having the daring to dream of something better, but it’s also true that no one ever accomplished anything without a plan or action, except by accident.

I’m perfectly comfortable having someone challenge my candidate of choice to define how he’s going to translate optimism into change.

Stay tuned next week, when the Democratic field piles on Dennis Kucinich when he states that “I don’t think we really appreciate the contributions of President Taft as much as we should.” He will defend himself for two days before apologizing and backing off his previously held beliefs.

In all seriousness, though, Spotter, I don’t think you get it this time around. If you look at the polling data, you ought to notice that Obama voters are far more anti-Hillary than Hillary voters are anti-Obama, and those Anti-Hillary voters have been nasty, angry, vociferous people far longer than Hillary’s supporters. It distresses me because I feel more and more disinclined to group myself in with the rest of the Obama supporters. I can’t even go to the rallies and meetups anymore because I’m simply not meeting fellow optimists anymore, they’re crowded with bandwagoneers and Hillary haters who only make me feel more cynical than I did before.

So I’m just going to sit around here and lament the declining tone of public discussion and hope that eventually we can get to talking about what sort of nation we want to be in the 21st century and how we’re going to address the challenges facing our country at home and abroad.