Hillary, the Wedding is Off

Has an American national political contest ever been so utterly transfigured in so short a time as the race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama?

Just a few short weeks ago, we were falling inexorably, willingly into the waiting arms of the woman we knew would protect and provide for us. Sure, we flirted a little bit with the boys at the bar. We felt a thrill when our hand "accidentally" brushed John Edwards' knee under the table. We admired Bill Richardson's Latino éclat. But we were just having a little fun before settling down to eight years of blessed sanity and nutritious policy.

The prospect wasn't exciting, but we'd had enough excitement to last our lives. Our previous relationship left us broke, disillusioned, and inclined to flinch in response to any sudden movement. We had learned our lesson, and we were determined to exercise better judgment this time. Hillary cared for us, we knew. Might not respect and admiration blossom into a warmer devotion in the fullness of time?

And then... There he was.

He had been there all along of course. Why didn't we notice? Was he wearing a new tie? Had he shaved off his goatee?

Or was it the incandescent bolt of heaven's white light that set his chiseled profile aflame?
Our heart raced. Our blood rushed. Our minds went all higgledy piggledy. And we think we might throw up.

Oh my God, we're in love.

Political campaigns pass from phase to phase in ways that often seem predictable in hindsight, and this latest turn of events is no exception. We watched Barack and Hillary debate prior to Super Tuesday and vainly endeavored to detect meaningful policy distinctions. We were like a child trying to choose between two cupcakes in a bakery display. Does one have a more icing than the other? We closed one eye and bent over to get a fresh sight line.

Then there was a flash. And when our vision cleared, it was a new world. And we discovered that our two cupcakes could not be more different.

Obama's astounding Super Tuesday comeback, in which he erased a double-digit deficit to achieve near-parity in a mere two weeks, attests to the sea change that occurred. Much of the credit for the turnaround is due to the man himself and his magnetic appeal. But there was calculation as well. He and his staff envisioned this transmogrification and consciously positioned themselves to reap the windfall of the moment, lighting match after match under the Democratic electorate and praying feverishly that the flame would catch before it was too late.

But if the punditocracy was caught off guard, it was because they were so busy watching the spark that they ignored the tinder. In short, they underestimated the magnitude and intensity of latent emotion in American voters. It seemed that the race would be about a return to competence and stability, that political cynicism was so deeply ingrained in the American psyche that it could only be courted, not confronted.

But now it is clear that we were primed for an emotional outpouring. We were a super-saturated solution just waiting for the faintest touch of the catalyst that instantaneously alters everything. Obama is that catalyst, and what is precipitating now is a genuine political fervor. This was supposed to be Hillary's moment. Didn't she check all the right boxes? She's smart, hardworking, right-thinking, and intimately associated with a past that most regard--with their usual selective and myopic recall--as days of wine and roses.

But in the context of this new narrative, the promise of competence and safety is underwhelming, and to wish for a return to the familiar ways and faces of the Clinton years seems an act of cowardice.

Yes, we enjoyed Bill's homespun wit, his studied good-old-boy affectation, and his bedroom eyes. He charmed and soothed us, and he was a perfect match for his time. Oil was at $10 a barrel and the stock market was juiced. Who wanted to make waves?

And he left us with fond memories. That's why when Hillary asked if it would be alright if he lived in our basement for a while after the wedding, we agreed.

But no cabinet post. And he buys his own groceries. And as soon as he gets a job, he has to find his own apartment.

We concede Hillary's impressive resume and talent. But let's not pretend the choice before us is purely one of head versus heart. Obama is not some smooth-talking Lothario looking to seduce an America on the rebound. There's a reason that the most educated segment of voters trend strongly his way, and it's more than his dreamy eyes. But at the same time, it's undeniable that the Obama juggernaut is driven by emotion. Does that mean we are setting ourselves up for disappointment? Is the excitement imbuing us with a fleeting and fickle courage doomed to evaporate in the face of adversity?

No.

This outpouring of faith and feeling does not displace our hopes for administrative success, for legislative progress, for remade international relationships and a thriving economy. Rather it is an indispensable vessel to carry those hopes to fruition. Those who think this enthusiasm speeds us on a fool's errand, consider: For many decades we have repressed all traces of political idealism within ourselves, always seeking safety, predictability and stasis. Doing so has served, at best, only to ensure that as we marched drearily into poverty and disrepute, we did so to a steady beat.

Now, the problems we confront are more daunting than any in our history. Global warming requires an internationally coordinated response for which no prior model exists. Our economic woes are the product of suffocating debt and permanent resource scarcity; if there is a cure, it will not be pleasant. Our relationship with the international community is going through a change more profound than any since the end of the second World War. Policy alone, no matter how brilliant, simply will not bring us intact through the challenges to come. We'll need a leader who knows how to cultivate the qualities of optimism, restraint, and selflessness within us, and how to wring out every ounce when the going gets rough.

That is why this tide of emotion is more than relevant. It is the crucial prerequisite of whatever success can follow.

But the biggest change we will make is the one we've already begun.

You see, Obama doesn't talk about what he is going to do. He talks about what we are going to do. And in that phrasing, he expresses the most frightening truth that any politician can utter. A truth so terrifying that no President has whispered it in almost 50 years. He is telling us that the problem has never been our leaders.

The problem is us.

It's a mortifying realization. But if we broke it, doesn't that mean we can fix it too? So we're going to solve our problem. We're going to say "yes" to the notion that government can be better than it has been. Whatever comes after, we will never regret it. Because saying "yes" isn't the precursor to a triumph. It is the triumph.

So that's it, baby. It's not you. It's us. We're sorry it had to end this way. We never meant to hurt you.

You can keep our CDs. But we want our superdelegates back.

Republicans are Chickens

Dear Barack,

Your letters are becoming a nuisance.

At some point you will have to learn to formulate your own message. I cannot always be there to whisper in your ear from offstage and to vet your speeches. I have responsibilities of my own. A family to feed and a demanding job in waste management. The waste will not manage itself. Believe me, I have given it every opportunity.

Must I do everything?

Very well then. But listen carefully--I will only say this once.

I can see that you and your democratic co-candidates are showing signs of shaking off the enervating spell cast upon you by the Republicans. The spell that compels you to respond in kind to their message of fear. For too long you've let them frame the debate. All they have to do is say the word "terror" and, like Skinnerian rats eager for a pellet of food, you respond with mechanical bombast and bravado, promising to begin each of your Presidential days by feasting on the still-beating heart of suspected terrorists, relishing the warm infidel blood that runs rich and red down your neck.

It will never work. If the Presidency is to be awarded to the candidate most eager to flay heathens, can any Democrat possibly defeat the holy warrior Huckabee? The bloodthirsty cannibal Giuliani? Romney the Guantanamo doubler? Or that veteran of Vietnamese tiger-cages, Rambo McCain?

You know this. And you are beginning to see that the Republicans are bluffing when they play the fear card, and that each time you respond in kind, you strengthen their hand, validating not only the perceived reality of the danger but also their ham handed, rusty-knife approach to confronting it. You have begun to experiment with a different formulation, nervously watching the polls to see whether the public is open to something other than a vengeance-based policy.

But half measures won't suffice. You can't just say their bluffing. You will have to actually call their bluff.

Edwards can't do it. He's too busy rousing the rabble, invoking the ghosts of the Grange and William Jennings Bryan. Has he been asleep for the last sixty years? Is there anyone left in this country that even knows what a mill is?

Hillary can't do it either. She is a machine. She may, in fact, be the perfect machine for running the country, an unstoppable policy-making leviathan who will vaporize all resistance like some terminator of the French enlightenment. But she has not oratory beyond that suited to automated corporate telephone systems.

For English, press 1.

This message has to be delivered with the clarion call of trumpets, with fatherly assurance, with the easy courage that dispels doubt.

I know Hillary says you get elected with poetry, but must govern with prose. But note that you haven't been elected yet.

Do you have a pencil ready? This is the message:

The lying is going to stop. Now.

Starting today, we are going to live up to our most noble aspirations rather than be slaves to our basest fears.

For seven long years we have been told that if want to remain powerful, we cannot allow our fate to be bound up with the rest of the world's community of nations, but must instead think and act only in our own interests.

For seven long years we have been told that the preservation of liberty in our own land could be assured by achieving military domination in others.

For seven long years we have been told that if we wanted to preserve our system of justice and our freedom from physical threats, we would have to torture people, we would have to wiretap people, we would have to shoot first and ask questions later, we would have to consider people guilty until proven innocent.

In short, we were told that we had to make a choice. If we wanted to have self-determination, safety, and freedom for ourselves, we must deny it to others.

And so, despite the nagging sensation that we were abandoning our commitment to fair play, our compassion and our humanity, we chose the path of safety.

But these policies have failed. In seeking to preserve our power we have been weakened. In seeking to preserve our liberty we have been constrained. In seeking to be safer, we have inflamed and emboldened those who would do us harm.

Today America is in anguish, more fearful than ever, pessimistic about the future, and convinced that our country is headed in the wrong direction. Not because we have failed to achieve the security we sought, but because we forfeited so much of that of which we were justly proud in the process.

I have some good news. The good news is that we don't have to choose between safety on one hand and honor and humanity on the other. There is only one path to a better future, and it will take us to the safety we seek in a manner consistent with our highest ideals.

We can be the first in an international family of nations again, leading by the power of our example rather than the threat of compulsion.

We can be a true advocate of liberty around the globe, and in so doing, pacify the animosity that put us at risk.

We can be guided by law and justice, and we will once again be a beacon to the world, a country that even those from other lands feel is their own.

When I think about what has transpired in the last seven years, I think we have been like survivors in a lifeboat, abandoning a damaged ship, still trembling with the terror of our brush with death. Of course, we didn't tell themselves that it was fear that denied us the will to go back and save others. We told ourselves that it would be hopeless to try, that there was no more room in the lifeboat, that those still on the ship should have gotten off faster, and had only themselves to blame.

That is not cause to be ashamed. I believe with all my heart that we are good people, striving to be the best we can. We are human, and so sometimes we are weak.

But the measure of our mettle comes after the flush of fear subsides and we see ourselves with clear eyes. There are still some in our life boat who are spreading fear, who seek to cultivate all that is mean and cowardly in us. But in most I see a new courage, a new resolve, and new clarity of purpose.

Yes, it is true that we cannot escape the challenges we face. There is nowhere for our little lifeboat to sail where our safety and ease are assured. So perhaps returning to cast our lot with those we left to try to save themselves is our only choice. But we are going back not because we have to, but because we want to. Because this is an act that will be frozen in time, and we will relive it every day for the rest of our lives. And we will not have it be to our shame, but to our renown.

This new course we are on will not be an easy one. Change is never easy, and there are, of necessity, profound changes lying ahead. But this change is coming, whether we will or no. To survive in a storm, a ship must put its prow to the gale. We will go forward, confident that our course is both wise and right, and at peace in the knowledge that our triumph will be all the greater for the trials that lie ahead.

Thank you, and gesundheit.