Tuesday, May 06, 2008 - Posts
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Emily you’re right: It would have been bad enough if this Democratic primary had seen voters tearing the party in half over the war or immigration or health insurance. But it’s dispiriting as hell to see them ever more hardened along race, class, age, and gender lines. These very angry, very personal fissures in the party make Obama’s insistence tonight that “we may not look the same or come from the same place, but we want to move in the same direction” more dubious than ever. Many people who desperately wanted to believe that of themselves last January spent the better part of April torching their neighbors’ lawn signs.
Still, if tonight’s speeches were any indication, Clinton may be going down fighting, but she is going down. Without the fire of her Pennsylvania speech or scoring a knockout by any definition, she actually gave about the same speech as Obama—health care, gas prices, mistreated veterans, icky McCain, economy, fond nod to the grandparents—but somehow hers was all about Hillary, while his was all about us.
And if Clinton was going down fighting, Obama looked like he was finally, after months of wheezing and gasping, prying himself off the ropes. Somehow, Clinton is at her best when she’s on offense. Also when she’s on defense. But Obama reminded us tonight that he is at his best insisting that both offense and defense require games of “names and labels” and "distraction" and "exploitation." To that end, both he and Clinton congratulated the other, and each sounded welcome notes of reconciliation and party unity. But while she talked about “winning” and “victory” and “teams” and “tiebreakers,” he’d moved beyond it. Finally.
And just by stepping back from these increasingly small fights, he maybe reminded us that we, too, are bigger than all that.
Read more XX Factor reactions to the Indiana and North Carolina primaries.
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Another night, another split decision, another unrelenting headache. (This according to CBS, which called Indiana early for Clinton, and Obama's clearer win in North Carolina.) Torie is right, we at the Gabfest have looked high and low for the best sports metaphor to describe the Obama-Clinton marathon, and our listeners sent in lots of great entries. But I'm going biblical tonight, and it's not the candidates I'm after. It's the voters. They remind me of King Solomon threatening to split the baby in half—without, necessarily, the wisdom to call off the operation before it's too late. The baby is the party, straining as it's pulled in two directions, a tug of war apparent once again in exit polls that show black people line up behind Obama (92 percent in North Carolina, according to a number that just flashed across my TV screen!) and white women, and to a lesser degree white men, trot to Clinton. The baby is also the eventual nominee, and the heady promise of unity and purpose that this primary season once held. Remember how Democrats used to marvel at their choice between two great candidates, and may the best man or woman win? Now they both look weary and torn asunder and highly unmighty.
King Solomon took out his knife to teach a lesson, and to figure out which of the baby's professed mothers was the true one. I'm not sure what lesson these endless elections could possibly have to teach (other than that too much inclusivity is a bad thing, and that the Republicans' winner-take-all system looks pretty good right now?). Or how these King Solomon voters could possible identify the true candidate. Maybe because there is no such thing, or because the knife has already drawn too much blood. Or maybe because my metaphor falls apart in the end. Fittingly. Superdelegates, save us.
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