McPhee: Why Hillary should keep going

During the presidential race in 1968, Robert Kennedy declared that he was “loyal to the Democratic party,” but added that he felt “stronger about the U.S. and mankind generally.”

That statement was made 30 years ago at a time when the country was mired in the chaos of war and economic insecurities. Racial strife was a familiar hot-button topic on the campaign trail. The Democratic Party was in tumult. In fact, Robert Kennedy was branded a “Judas” by Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, who saw him as a dangerous and divisive figure among the Democrats.

Sound familiar?  Think about it. It is now 2008. Once again the nation is embroiled in a war that most American people do not support. Gas prices are staggering and working-class families are struggling.

Racial strife is rampant. The Democratic Party is being ripped apart by internecine fighting. Hillary Clinton has been branded a Judas. 

Essentially, not much has changed in three decades.

And that’s exactly why Hillary Clinton needs to stay in the race. She has come to embody the fortitude, the tenacity, that Robert Kennedy showed during his short-lived campaign.

Hillary Clinton spent yesterday celebrating Mother’s Day on the campaign trail in West Virginia. Despite the seemingly insurmountable loss of her pledged delegates, Clinton has refused to give up, and I admire her for it. We all should.

Love her or hate her, there is something about Clinton that is the embodiment of Mother’s Day. She is the candidate that speaks to the parents of Stephen Odom — the Dorchester couple that lost their young son to a misfired bullet squeezed off by a cowardly thug last year as the 13-year-old walked home from a basketball game.

The only candidate to address what Robert Kennedy called the “mindless menace of crime in America” is Clinton, who released a crime plan reminiscent of her husband’s – which helped provoke the Boston Miracle in the 1990s. As Kennedy said, “victims of the violence are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown. … And yet it goes on and on and on in this country of ours.”

That is as true today as it was in 1968. Which is why Clinton needs to stay in the race. 

The Michele McPhee Show can be heard on 96.9 FM WTKK weeknights 7 to 10 p.m. and Saturdays 9 a.m. to noon.