My first couple of years in college were spent at the University of Delaware. A Philadelphia native, I was a graduate of the Philadelphia HS for Girls and had managed to secure a full tuition scholarship to UD. (There's an affirmative action diary in here somewhere that I'll come back to at a later time.)
Anyhoo, there were a decent number of black students from Philly at UD, the most infamous of whom was Tellis. I knew of him before I actually met him. Rumor had it (I think pretty accurately) that he was from Richard Allen (a housing project in Philly). He was involved in the Nation of Islam, had assumed his "X" and on a campus where black students made up fewer than 3% of the population with both institutional and overt racist incidents, those white folks in violation* just "didn't want it with him," as we like to say. I cherished him. He made it much easier to be strong while feeling help(hope)less.
So one afternoon in the Center for Black Culture, I found myself teaching Tellis how to play chess. I went through great pains to tell him how each of the pieces moved and tried to show him my basic understanding of chess strategy: the pieces that mattered, the pieces that were expendable, and a few subtleties of the pacing of the game. After all of this explanation, we played.
In our very first game, he ran the chess board. He simply took all of my pieces, whether they were significant or not, and had absolutely no problem sacrificing any of his important pieces. I tried to explain to him that this was not how chess was played. He looked at me and said - "You're trying to be checkmate my King, right?" "Yes," I answered. He shrugged his shoulders and said, "If I take all of your pieces, you can't checkmate my King." And there it was - my first experience with the 50-state strategy. He beat me.
It was the best set of life lessons I had in college - Look to your endpoint; Strategy & Execution are everything; Don't play to your opponents expectations - play to your own. Experience is only an asset to the end that it allows you to devise better strategy.Let's talk strategy: HRC has a "big state" strategy. So when all is said and done, for her, the nomination should be clinched by the time of the last "big state" vote, (North Carolina) Perhaps Clinton should encourage all of her supporters in the non-mattering states to support Obama, in the interest of party unity. I'm sure if her spreadsheet were leaked we would all be able to talk about how magnificent her strategy is - no doubt she is exactly where she planned to be. (supersnark) Instead, we are talking about how comfortable she is in the kitchen (ironic)and how great it is that she raised enough money in the last 24 hours to at least pay up her debt to Mark Penn until now - who knows how much she'll owe by June? Why didn't she have a way to pay for her election plan? Poor strategy - poor execution.
Obama's strategy, however, has been on point from the beginning. The numbers they predicted for the campaign - on point. I don't have a link to the leaked spreadsheet - sorry. This is a well planned and well executed campaign. I wish the Obama campaign could balance my checkbook for me they are so good with managing money. I wish the Obama campaign could help me to appoint the people I need in my life they are so good at hiring the right people for the job. I'll go one further - had Iraq been justifiable, I wish Obama was in charge, because I guarantee you a winning war strategy would have been adopted. One in which the American people actually knew what "winning" meant. The bills are paid, the campaign is in the black - what's the problem?
Back to Tellis...what fascinated me about this experience was the fact that I had never in a million years thought of the strategy that he used. It never occurred to me once. So I learned that some people, whether by experience or some innate strength, have a broader and deeper understanding of things. What do I mean? For me, the first decision about our chess game took place at the first move. It was a game. I believe that Tellis began to strategize when he asked me to teach him the game. In his mind, he was in full execution mode by the time the first piece on the board moved. Chess was not a game - it was a tool.
Perhaps the best part about this campaign has been what I consider to be the most important part - Obama makes it much easier for the rest of us to be strong while feeling help(hope)less. I called the police department the other day to set up a community watch in my neighborhood. I only came to truly care because I was a precinct captain for Obama and got to know some of my neighbors while canvassing. That is an exceptional trait of leadership. (You don't learn that playing chess.)
DISCLAIMER *So since I used the 'white folks' phrase, I'm sure the temperature went up a couple of degrees since we're being postracial. Chill. I added "in violation" to describe persons in the majority party who might have had tendencies toward racist behaviors.