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Emily Y., I quite agree that we haven't seen the last of the rev.; he'll be with us through November and beyond. But in trying to prove that Obama couldn't stand up to the Attack Machine, Hillary put him through a pretty good simulation and wound up proving that he can so—because he just did. I didn't read Bill Clinton's body language quite the way you did; no question his wife's dramatic interpretation of gun-totin', hawg-sloppin', beer-drinkin' Amuricans was sub-par—but to me, 42 just seemed checked out. In fact, the red face, nobody's-home expression and mouth gaping open were kind of worrying.
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Nothing like a good welfare-mom-makes-good story, Emily; look what it did for J.K. Rowling. And though Obama's mom (and everybody else's, for that matter) was obviously so much more than that, this is just the kind of pithy, shorthand description that other Democratic candidates could never really manage, so I'm going to say I can live with it. For me, last night was like jumping into a turquoise infinity pool after a forced march across the desert with maybe a pack of javelina and a few locusts...OK, you get the drift. But isn't it funny how much smarter other people seem when they happen to agree with you? Last night's result suggested that even a 24/7 cable diet of Jeremiah Wright has not done Obama in. And that even a big, shiny gas tax holiday promised by a woman doing one weird Mammy imitation is too 90s for voters now. It suggests - I'm not saying proves, but leads me to hope - that we have learned something since those 1988 debates about the Pledge of Allegiance.
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I'm feeling better this morning: I agree with you, Dahlia, about the virtues of Obama's speech, and now that we've woken up to the slim margin of Clinton's victory in Indiana, the superdelegates should have an excuse to break for him and help Democrats bring this loooonnngg contest to a close. Which, for the good of the party and the nominee, they should start moving on. What's everyone else thinking about last night and where we are?
The line that jumped out at me in Obama's speech was this one: "This is the country that made it possible for my mother—a single parent who had to go on food stamps at one point—to send my sister and me to the best schools in the country on scholarships." The facts are true; the sentiment resonates. It's a good line for a candidate to utter when he's trying to shake the impression that he thinks about regular people as abstractions. And yet what an odd essence to reduce Obama's mother to. Stanley Ann Dunham Soetoro was a college student in Honolulu when she married his father and had her son. She was in graduate school there—after marrying again and living in Indonesia—when he and his half-sister went to prep school on a scholarship. In this illuminating profile by Janny Scott, she never seems at the mercy of circumstance. She may not have had much money at various points of her life, but that seems like a chosen path, and a bit beside the point. Even in his hardscrabble food stamp moment, Barack Obama is entirely unordinary. He doesn't pretend otherwise, really, but it was odd to see his mother reduced to her one-sentence politically useful self.
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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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