[Blah, blah about hating Bush's SOTU and loving BBC Radio 4, etc.]
New York’s Primary is on "Super Tuesday," February 5th (er—5 February), and at this point I'm planning on voting for Obama. On one hand, some of the polls scare me: they show Hillary doing much better than Obama does against any potential GOP nominee in key states like Florida and Ohio. On the other hand, I tell myself that Obama might draw an amazing wave of first-time voters and voters registered "Independent" who would help him win in November’s general election. But I'm not sure. You must realize that there are many hard-working, progressive Democrats who are legitimately concerned about the lack of specifics in Obama’s lofty rhetoric, or the almost mimicry-like quality of the delivery of his speech, which do not so much evoke Martin Luther King, Jr. as imitate him. Also, Obama’s not performed well in the debates, really. If there is one thing the Clinton’s can do, it’s fight dirty and fight to win, and they are probably better positioned to take on the gargantuan rightwing noise machine than is Obama. I think many, many Democrats’ hearts are with Obama but their heads are with Hillary . . . reluctantly. Many Democrats want to believe that Obama could win in November, but they genuinely fear that a person "of color" just cannot win in America. The question becomes: how much of a risk will Democrats take on February 5th?
Personally, I’ve been very turned off by the way the Clinton’s have become "The Clinton’s." That is, it’s no longer just Hillary’s campaign; the campaign has become the prospect of a co-candidacy or eventual co-presidency. I guess I have to confess: I'm suffering from "Clinton fatigue." Also, I think the Clinton campaign was very disingenuous—intellectually dishonest—when they attacked Obama for supposed endorsing Reagan’s legacy. He did not, clearly. He noted, simply, that the Republicans articulated big ideas and inspired, while the Democrats of the late 1970’s and 1980’s failed to. That is true. Obama didn’t say Reagan’s ideas were good! Merely that the Republicans invested in those ideas and in communicating them and finding a great communicator for them.
Yet, before that incident, Obama’s surrogates were very disingenuous—intellectually dishonest—when they accused Hillary of failing to acknowledge Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy merely because Hillary noted that President Lyndon Johnson was, in fact, the person who signed the Civil Rights Act. And it cost him and the Democrats politically to do so. This is not to diminish the fact that working towards great achievements like the Civil Rights Act cost M. L. King, Jr. far more over a far longer time of struggle, and eventually his very life!
I am not sure who I’ll vote for, but there’s a part of me that thinks that a black person becoming president is utterly crucial and somehow even more long-overdue than a woman becoming president. Okay, okay, I admit it: It’s sort of like the tardy validation of Emancipation that the heinous era of Jim Crow laws interrupted, reversed even.
I guess that if Obama was a woman or maybe if Hillary was black, I’d have my perfect candidate!
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