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Every year for Lent, I give up speaking ill of anyone. It is a long 40 days, and it begins today. (I mention this so that if it seems like I've had my brain removed, no, I haven't, and I will be back to my old critical self before you can say mortification of the flesh.) But in the humble spirit of the season, what did we learn from Super Fat Tuesday?
1) Change is good: The single most unambiguous piece of information to come out of last night is that Democrats see the promise of change as way more important than the value of experience—52 percent to 23 percent said it was the No. 1 thing they were looking for in a candidate. And since in '08 shorthand Obama equals change and Clinton equals experience, this can only be good news for him; the candidate who wins the argument about what the election is over generally wins the election. (Only "generally'' may no longer apply, which leads us to our second lesson.)
2) Polls are caca, and all the rules have been suspended. Even more than has been generally acknowledged, this race is so fluid and voters so volatile that pollsters can't seem to keep up, and known patterns seem not to apply. The good in this is that it challenges some of our laziest assumptions and silliest stereotypes like ...
3) Conservatives are sheep who go bah, bah, bah all the way home. Not true, and I don't think it's so much that conservative talk radio has lost its influence as that it never had the authority to issue edicts in the first place; when Rush and Laura and Sean reflect conservative opinion, they do magnify it, but when they don't, voters seem to have no trouble dissenting.
4) Women across the ideological spectrum look great in red. Nah, scratch that one; Cindy McCain and Michelle Obama look good in anything. And on that positive note, one day down, 39 to go.
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Sunday was the Feast of the Epiphany, but the homilist hadn't had one while preparing his sermon—it happens, even to Jesuits—so I drifted back to the epiphanies of the previous evening's presidential debates while he struggled to connect the dots between Fra Angelico's Adoration of the Magi and children growing up now in the Darfur. (Sorry, Father, but isn't calling them "at risk'' sort of like calling Santa a not-altogether-unpleasant figure?) Or calling Mitt Romney a tad unprepared for the full-body thumpin' he got from John McCain on Saturday night? My politically incorrect husband thought Gov. Haircut could not have looked any more stunned if McCain had sneaked up and given him a wedgie in his special underwear.
It was John Edwards' night from where I was sitting—even Barack Obama was no Barack Obama—but the most intriguing moment came when Hillary Clinton convincingly mocked the notion that if some people found her unlikable, then she guessed she'd just go home and cry her poor little eyes out. As someone who would rather hide in her basement than go out and risk getting her tender baby feelings hurt, this got my attention: Clinton really seemed beyond caring, and though I've never been sure she was my brand of vodka, that is an accomplishment worth toasting.
Of all the reasons there aren't more women running for political office, fear of being disliked and rejected has got to be high on the list. Supposedly, the desire to please—and the dread of failing to do so—is drummed into us by the culture, but I have seen it more in my daughter than in her twin brother from the get-go. This year, in their first or second week at their vast new middle school, my son announced that he wanted to run for student government, an idea that his panicked sister tried to talk him out of: "But, you don't know anyone! You'll lose!'' (His response: And?)
On Election Day, I was a nervous wreck, and had chocolate-chip cookies at the ready in case he fell short and came home hurting. But when 3 o'clock rolled around at last, he ran in laughing and proud that he'd ... only narrowly lost? Wahoo, he said: He'd met a lot of kids, gotten a lot of good feedback on his Go Green platform, and figured he was well positioned for the next campaign. His sister and I were agog—as I was last night, watching one strong woman laugh at the news that she had not been named Miss Congeniality. And if that's what Hillary's time in the old boys' club taught her, then sister, I am finally all ears.
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