As we awoke in a pool of our own heat wave induced sweat at 4AM, we were left to ponder the conclusion of the Democratic nomination 'battle royale'. Then we rose up and punched the wall Raging Bull style in anger that we were not asked to write one of the gazillion Op-Eds on the subject. With bloodied knuckles, we promise to keep it short.
We were pretty neutral on the candidates when they began the race a'yonder. Really, any warm body in a blue Hazmat suit that wanted to clean up this mess would have been fine with us. Hillanevitability aside, Barack Obama was against the war in Iraq before it was cool.(+1) He spent his first night in NYC in an alley we walk by every day, when the neighborhood, it was not so safe. He plays pickup basketball, and comes off as a real human being. For awhile there, he even held out against the lapel pin mafia. So, we were sold.
The more states Hillary lost the worse her behavior became. A couple with a reputation of doing/saying whatever it takes to win, the Clintons started doing/saying whatever it took to win (Maureen Dowd called, and she wants her shtick back --Ed.) By the end of the race, she was touting a tardtastic gas tax abatement and watching the first two seasons of 24 on loop.
Hillary's campaign picked up in a string of Appalachian states. She changed her slogan from the unsuccessful "More experienced than Obama, yet less than McCain" to the focus-group approved "Hey, I'm white!". She did really good in those states, where 20% of white voters routinely claimed race as a factor. She did even better with those voters.
But what about the many voters for whom race was a factor, but would not admit to a pollster/themselves of that fact? Well, we called our grandparents(s) today and brought up the presidential race. Our grandmother(s) likes Hillary and said "Now it's not because he's black, but..." before launching into a David Dukish endgame scenario. Eesh. You have your work cut out for you Barack, güten glück!
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