He never promised us a rose garden

There are an awful lot of Obama supporters who apparently didn’t take him at his word on this issue or that and now say they are disappointed — or worse — that he’s actually keeping his promises.

Not surprisingly, this began with Obama’s choice of Hillary Clinton to be Secretary of State, though there were enough observers who saw this as brilliant, even logical, on Obama’s part, so that the fuss soon dwindled away.

Then there were complaints that Obama’s cabinet picks included too many old Clinton hands, in spite of the obvious logic of choosing people who would not need on-the-job training, whose qualifications had already been tested. Want to hit the ground running? Hard to do with neophytes, wouldn’t you say?

Clearly there will be time and space in the new administration to bring in new blood, so let’s get the darn engine running before we try to hot-rod it.

There have been complaints that more women should have been included; there were suggestions that he hadn’t chosen enough Latinos; and of course some people thought that progressives were underrepresented. The rationale was often that if a particular interest group voted for him then that group should be repaid.

As if he owed them something just for voting for him.

The way I’ve always understood these things is that a candidate offers himself (or herself, ladies) together with his (or her) vision, and if the voter likes what he (or she) sees, the vote will follow. The voter owes him the vote because it’s in the voter’s interest, not the other way around.

And y’know what? The guy worked really, really hard over almost two years to get elected so that he could deliver on his vision. Think of it this way: It’s a 24/7 job requiring enormous stamina and commitment. Anyone here think you could do that?

On the contrary, those who wanted what Obama offered and helped him win now owe him, as he gets up and running, their trust that he intends to do what he said.

From the time he came on the national scene, Barack Obama has talked about bringing people together, of the uselessness of polarity, of the value of listening to different voices, of the importance of compromise.

But when he started acting that way during the transition, some supporters went into shock.

I’ve said before: Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Can't help thinking of the old Lynn Anderson recording,

I never promised you a rose garden. Along with the sunshine, There's gotta be a little rain sometimes. When you take, you gotta give, so live and let live, Or let go.

Most recently we have the kerfuffle about Pastor Rick Warren, of Saddleback Church in Southern California, being invited by the Obama folks to deliver the invocation at Obama’s inaugural ceremony.

Previously mostly famous for his book, The Purpose Driven Life, Warren has become newly well known for his opinions as to how gay folks should live their lives. This is not to say that those opinions are anything new; the uproar is about choosing him for the event.

Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen should have thought about it a little longer before he objected to the choice, saying,

There you have the thinking of the man Obama has chosen above all other religious figures to represent him in this most solemn moment.

He missed the point. Obama chose someone who represents a significant chunk of the American people. It's not all about him, remember?

Singer Melissa Ethridge, who is gay and open about it, had a different perspective, and wrote this on the Huffington Post:

Well, I have to tell you my friends, the universe has a sense of humor and indeed works in mysterious ways. … I received a call from Pastor Rick, and before I could say anything, he told me what a fan he was. He had most of my albums from the very first one. What? This didn't sound like a gay hater, much less a preacher. … When we met later that night, he entered the room with open arms and an open heart. We agreed to build bridges to the future. … I will be attending the inauguration with my family, and with hope in my heart.

Barack Obama, the Democrat who will soon be president, said he would be president of all the people, and all the people include Rick Warren and his followers; no matter whether you agree with all of his opinions, there are many areas for agreement with the Obama folks -- not least the genocide in Darfur and the need to help the poor -- where everyone is on the same side and we can do great things together.

Imagine an audience at La Scala, or the Grand Ol’ Opry, hissing and booing before the show begins. Shame on them.

Barack Obama meant what he said, and he said what he meant: I expect him to be faithful one hundred percent.

We’re already seeing it at work.

Team of giants

In what may be one of the most brilliant political moves ever, President-elect Barack Obama has just nominated Hillary Rodham Clinton for Secretary of State in his administration.

It might not surprise those who've been here before that I’ve been a long time coming to this conclusion, given the givens, as we say. But bear with me, here.

In the beginning — that is to say, when the possibility first was raised — the idea seemed absolutely daft. After all, Hillary (her campaign name of choice) had fought fiercely (an understatement, actually) to capture the nomination for President, and once the others had dropped out she and her husband strove with every Clinton fiber to defeat Obama as a rival.

It wasn’t pretty.

Around the time of South Carolina I came to wish for the end of the Clintons, politically, with every fiber of my own being.

And when Obama won the nomination I still worried that the Clintons might have some ace-in-the-hole to play to wrest it away from him. When that didn’t happen, I joined the celebration — but still wondered what they might be up to. After all, when you’re talking about the Clintons, you just can’t help wondering.

There was a bit of cat-and-mouse with Bill during the general campaign but, by golly, in the end they said and did all the right things and Barack Obama was elected President of the United States.

So now we have Hillary Clinton with us again. Secretary of State? You’ve got to be kidding! In the immortal words of more than one pundit reacting to the news, “She just never goes away, does she?”

The arguments against such insanity are legion: She voted for the Iraq war resolution whereas Obama opposed it; she called him “naïve” for proposing to talk to our enemies; she is calculating; she hopes to see him fail so she can run for President; she would build up a parallel power structure that would undercut him; she brings Bill.

For all of these reasons, plus just plain fury, I have been opposed to the very idea of bringing Hillary into the administration, especially at such a high level.

But then, like a good citizen, I began listening to other voices, and here’s what I heard: Remaining in the Senate, Hillary would truly have a power base that could challenge Obama’s agenda, whereas as a member of the Cabinet she would be completely disarmed; the President sets the policy, and his appointees carry it out — and serve at his pleasure; you want to keep your friends close and your enemies closer; love ‘em or hate ‘em, the Clintons have great credibility and admiration around the rest of the world and that will be an asset. And here’s one I particularly like: No way Hillary will be anywhere near health care reform!

Beyond the obvious positives, Barack Obama has shown, with this bold appointment, that he is not daunted by his foes and that he intends to be in charge, a good beginning for a President. He has made a selection that will quell any remaining resistance by the Hillary holdouts while comforting some of the hawks about the Iraq war, though I think this latter issue will soon become moot.

Interestingly, the rollout of Obama’s first national security appointments made it clear that it’s a team of giants, with Robert Gates to continue as Secretary of Defense, Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, General James L. Jones as National Security Adviser, Eric Holder as Attorney General, Susan Rice as Ambassador to the United Nations, and Janet Napolitano as head of Homeland Security. Hillary Clinton is just one of the team.

In the final analysis it comes down to this: Barack Obama will be the President of the United States, a fact that has already got the world abuzz. Around the globe, the chatter is in amaze mode: America has elected an African-American to be its President! They really mean what they say!

(The most visible spokesman for Al-Qaeda, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, didn’t know what to make of it, trying weakly to foment trouble by suggesting that Obama is only a “house negro,”which shows how clueless he is.)

A Saudi journalist, Samir Saadi, summed it up: “Given Obama’s name, his background, the doubts about his religion, Americans still voted for him and this proved that America is a democracy. . . . People here are starting to believe in the U.S. again.”

Saadi’s conclusion? “The U.S. has won the war on terror.”

Early Thanksgiving!

Election night was unbelievable. Literally. Down at Democratic Headquarters several dozen folks had gathered to watch the returns, yet the room was strangely quiet over an almost unbearable two hours, as the patient assembly tried to make sense out of the myriad maps and graphs displayed on TV news reports. Then, suddenly, the screen filled with the announcement that Barack Obama would be the 44th President of the United States.

The room erupted into noise and motion as people shouted and danced and hugged and cheered, the emotion of the moment even driving some of us to tears. How to believe that this moment in American history had arrived – and that we had been a part of it?

And yes, everything did change. The rest of the world celebrated right along with us; news flashed from all around the world, like the rolling reports of new years' celebrations, except it was all at once.

It was thrilling, no doubt about it. Especially for those of us who supported Barack Obama for the better part of two years, way too long by some standards, but that’s a problem for another time.

For those who are less than thrilled, but would welcome some good news, let me offer at least one thought.

The election is over.

And another: The winner was Obama, not Clinton.

And this: Rahm Emanuel, known as “Rahmbo,” is to be Chief of Staff at the White House. This appointment likely signals that the Obama administration will be disciplined, and that it will not be pulled to the left by the left-most members of the party. (That could be a whole separate column, so trust me for now.)

There was some collateral damage, too, in that the hapless campaign run by McCain and the Rove acolytes he listened to may have been the death of the Republican Party. And no, I don’t find that cause for celebration, because I believe in the usefulness of a loyal opposition.

But that opposition should be honorable and I think that the Republican Party, after it was hijacked by radicals, lost its moorings. Without those moorings, it will likely be a very, very long time before American politics regains its balance.

How is the Republican Party to become viable again? Certainly not by returning to the slash-and-burn tactics of Rove and Gingrich, now thoroughly discredited as party visionaries. These guys, along with Grover Norquist, are where the blame really should go once the dust settles.

How about revisiting the ideas of William F. Buckley, one of this country’s truly thoughtful intellectuals, about whom George W. Bush said, “Bill Buckley was one of the great founders of the modern conservative movement. He brought conservative thought into the political mainstream, and helped lay the intellectual foundation for America's victory in the Cold War and for the conservative movement that continues to this day.”

Buckley often spoke out strongly against the “neoconservative” approach to government. In a conversation with George Will (no slouch in the matter of conservatism), speaking about the Bush doctrine of spreading democracy abroad as foreign policy, he said:

It's anything but conservative. It's not conservative at all, inasmuch as conservatism doesn't invite unnecessary challenges. It insists on coming to terms with the world as it is, and the notion that merely by affirming these high ideals we can affect highly entrenched systems.

The thoughtful conservatism of Buckley was overrun by radicals like Grover Norquist, head of the euphemistically named Americans for Tax Reform; Norquist once told NPR, “I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” Starve the government of revenue and you can do away with foolish things like, oh, national defense, public education, Medicare, Social Security, and FEMA.

Norquist was co-author of Newt Gingrich’s 1994 “Contract with America,” and had a long association with Karl Rove. He was instrumental in securing early conservative support for George W. Bush in the lead-up to the 2000 race for the presidency.

In 2003 Paul Krugman, who this year won the Nobel Prize for Economics, wrote:

Here's how the argument runs: to starve the beast, you must not only deny funds to the government; you must make voters hate the government. There's a danger that working-class families might see government as their friend: because their incomes are low, they don't pay much in taxes, while they benefit from public spending. So in starving the beast, you must take care not to cut taxes on these "lucky duckies." (Yes, that's what The Wall Street Journal called them in a famous editorial.) In fact, if possible, you must raise taxes on working-class Americans in order, as The Journal said, to get their "blood boiling with tax rage."

If I were trying to rebuild the Republican Party I’d get out a new broom and run these guys out of town.

The loveliness of the Obama victory is that it did not involve viciousness (pleas by some worried supporters notwithstanding) and remained calm and thoughtful throughout. And it paid off: Obama won in almost every identifiable constituency, including college graduates making more than $100,000.

Question for Karl Rove: Does this mean that to build a permanent Democratic majority all we have to do is provide college education for everyone that wants it?

The past is prologue?

If some of our more partisan conservative commentators are to be believed, Bill Clinton and his administration are to blame for anything and everything that’s gone wrong in this country since 1992, including bin Laden, Katrina, the subprime mess, and of course the present worldwide economic crisis.

In the latter cases, the line of thought seems to be that the present crisis can be traced back to the Community Reinvestment Act, originally passed in 1977 and furthered during the Clinton administration. Here’s how it’s described on the Federal Reserve’s own web site:

The Community Reinvestment Act is intended to encourage depository institutions to help meet the credit needs of the communities in which they operate, including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods, consistent with safe and sound operations. … The regulation was … most recently amended in August 2005.

The gist always seems to be that lending to minorities is what got us here, and that it is all the fault of the Clinton administration.

Just a couple of observations: First, you’ll note that the Community Reinvestment Act required banks to operate in a way “consistent with safe and sound operations.” And, second (and perhaps most significant), the Act was “most recently amended in August 2005.”

Daniel Gross, writing in the October 7, 2008 issue of Newsweek, summed it up best:

The Community Reinvestment Act applies to depository banks. But many of the institutions that spurred the massive growth of the subprime market weren't regulated banks. They were outfits such as Argent and American Home Mortgage, which were generally not regulated by the Federal Reserve or other entities that monitored compliance with CRA. These institutions worked hand in glove with Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, entities to which the CRA likewise didn't apply. … Nor did the CRA force the credit-rating agencies to slap high-grade ratings on subprime debt.

Though I believed from experience that there have been many, many foreclosures that weren’t necessarily related to subprime lending, the Gross article offered some detail, pointing out that, for example, a builder of high-end condominiums in Florida filed for bankruptcy just a couple of months ago:

Very few of the tens of thousands of now-surplus condominiums in Miami were conceived to be marketed to subprime borrowers, or minorities—unless you count rich Venezuelans and Colombians as minorities.

And it’s a myth that lending to poor folks or minorities is in itself risky. Gross cites a recent New York Times report that

... a long-running initiative to build homes and sell them to the working poor in subprime areas of New York's outer boroughs, has a repayment rate that lenders in Greenwich, Conn., would envy. In 27 years, there have been fewer than 10 defaults on the project's 3,900 homes. That's a rate of 0.25 percent.

The villains in the subprime lending debacle were in it for the money. The loan fees for such loans are higher than those for conventional loans, and I’ve seen for myself cases where the buyer who would have qualified for a conventional or FHA loan was pushed into a subprime loan because the loan officer was greedy. And, of course, there were loans made that should never have passed underwriting because the loan officer was simply dishonest.

Even so, if you want to blame it all on Clinton, what do you do about the fact that, when the Act was amended in 2005, the Presidency and both houses of Congress were under the complete control of Mr. Bush and the Republicans?

Hm.

I leave the reader to think about it while I point the finger in another, more sinister, direction.

Back in 1996, in what may have been a prescient letter to the New York Times, I wrote:

I believe now that Newt Gingrich, with the perhaps unwitting support of the famous “freshmen” he so carefully recruited, programmed and brought to Washington, does have it in his mind to dismantle if not destroy our federal government. I think it’s time for someone to openly question whether his intentions are honorable.

His unrelenting “Newtspeak” attacks on existing government programs, his vilification of anyone opposing him, his brazen moves to destabilize Wall Street, his cultivation of discord and fostering of anarchy, and finally his dismissal of public disagreement with comments that amount to ‘progress is painful, but I know what’s good for America,’ suggest that Americans had better pay attention when he calls it ‘revolution.’ Those who call him brilliant would do well to recall Hitler, for one, among those revolutionaries of history who used similar tactics to take control of the existing government. It is increasingly apparent that Gingrich’s agenda includes a revised constitution that he intends to write and a ‘revolutionary’ government that he intends to control.

Judging by the ineffectiveness of our scattered protests, he seems to have convinced the American people that we cannot stop the inevitable.

Every politician in Washington claims to care most about “middle class Americans.” Well, the working people of America — the true middle class — had better stand up for themselves, or suffer the consequences.

During the recent turmoil in Washington while Congress tried to decide what to do, it was reported on good authority (Andrea Mitchell) that ol’ Newt had been working furiously behind the scenes in opposition to the “bailout” legislation – before he came out in support of it. There was also mention of the possibility that he is preparing a run for President in 2012.

Another something to think about.

Slide talk

As she strove to justify her claim that she should continue to seek the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton got herself into a heap of trouble with almost everyone — Democrats, Republicans, undeclared delegates, print journalists, an array of columnists in print and on the internet, the expected TV talking heads, and of course bloggers — for what might be minimally characterized as an injudicious reference to the assassination of Bobby Kennedy in 1968.

At first reluctant to join the made-for-opinion pile-on because it would be too easy, I thought about it a little harder and soon realized how few of her critics seemed to have noticed that her argument was completely flawed.

Hillary had told the editorial board of the Argus Leader in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where one of the last two Democratic primaries was to take place June 3rd, that it was completely reasonable for the contest to go into June because, “You know my husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June,” she said.

But it’s apples and bananas. It’s a false analogy. Back in the day we would have called it “slide talk.” Different from spinning — offering the best possible interpretation of something — or lying, slide talk is telling the truth in such a way designed to manipulate or give a false impression.

In 1992, California didn’t hold its presidential primary until June. In 1992 Bill Clinton held the lead, though not the lock, on delegates until the California primary voters clinched the nomination for him in June. In short, in 1992 the process wasn’t quite done until then.

In a December 2007 conversation with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, Mrs. Clinton agreed with him that the process has become much more compressed since 1992, as various states moved their primaries up in the hope of wielding more influence.

One of those states was California; from 1996 through 2004, Californians voted in March, but then moved up again to February for the 2008 election.

In other words, the process Hillary Clinton has been talking about was really pretty much all over on this year’s Super Tuesday, February 5th, when 24 states including California held their primaries.

And in that December 2007 conversation, she had said, “We are competing everywhere through February 5th. … I’m in it for the long run. It’s not a very long run — it’ll be over by February 5th!”

No, ma’am, there is no valid comparison between where we’ll be in June this year with where we were in June of 1992, and I’m disappointed that this point has not been made in the general commotion about her remarks.

As for the part of her statement that drew most of the attention, it was her intent, she explained, simply to offer examples of campaigns that ran into June: “We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California.”

Do we? I remember that it was California, where I lived at the time, and I remember where I was when the news broke, and I remember the despair that swept the country. But that it was June?

And can it be that an intelligent, well-informed person with 35 years of political experience really couldn’t think of any other such contest between 1968 and 1992? Or didn’t have the sense to stop with the 1992 example?

Remember: California’s primary this year was in February.

No, this is a woman who does not make an unplanned remark, who calculates every statement down to the punctuation marks. She said what she meant to say, and in true Clintonian fashion apologized — sort of — later.

“The jury will disregard that remark” popped into my mind. That’s shorthand in some circles for a trial lawyer’s tactic of eliciting inadmissible testimony that is certain to cause his opponent to object, after which the judge sternly informs the jury that it must pretend the remark was never heard. Right.

But if in fact Mrs. Clinton truly misspoke so grave an allusion, then she is clearly unqualified to serve in the one office in the land where such an error may bring disastrous consequences for the country.

Alice in Wonderland

I have the urge to scream when I hear commentators and political experts, who should know better, assert that Clinton and Obama “need to stop bickering,” that “they” are hurting the party. Comments like these don’t square with the reality as I’ve come to know it.

The Clintons are the ones doing the damage here. They have been very successful at framing the race, which isn’t hard to do if you just keep on the attack. Last week they absurdly accused Obama of “playing the race card” after Clinton supporter Geraldine Ferraro’s remarks about his race.

It’s Alice in Wonderland time.

The only thing Obama has done to Clinton is to aggravate the heck out of her by (a) not engaging at her street-fight level, and (b) winning more states, more delegates, and more votes.

But Hillary Clinton claims that she has proven she is the most likely winner against John McCain because she won “all the big states” in the Democratic primaries.

It’s faulty reasoning; to accept this you have to believe that California, New York, Ohio and the rest of the big blue states (Obama won Illinois) would automatically fall to the Republicans in an Obama-McCain match-up. Hard argument to make.

If Obama would only cede to Clinton the race he is winning — one in which she cannot now legitimately overtake him — all would be peaceful. Like a spoiled child, she seems determined to nag, browbeat, whine and stubbornly hold on until everyone else is exhausted and just gives in.

Some of those same misguided pundits and politicians suggest that the perfect solution is to put these two on the same ticket. I don’t think so.

Clinton has run a mean, dishonest, cynical campaign. The idea of both running together is idealistic to a fault, in my opinion. And not a good idea politically.

Nonetheless, the Clintons would have you believe they would offer Obama the vice-presidential spot, but if you trust a word they are saying you aren’t learning from history. The lying and cheating they’ve engaged in has completely alienated me, of all people.

But just for the sake of argument, imagine a Clinton/Obama ticket: That would present a near certainty that Mrs. Clinton’s high negatives throughout the country would (a) draw out more Republican voters and (b) cause not just a few Obama folks to just stay home — precisely because of the negative campaign she has run against him.

For that matter, can you imagine her choosing as VP someone who would outshine her? Or, for that matter, someone to whom she owes no favor?

Now imagine Obama/Clinton: If Hillary were the VP candidate, because of those high negatives, she would drag down the vote in the states Obama could win without her. The result would be losing many down-ballot races, so that even were Obama/Clinton to win it might well cost the Democrats important congressional seats.

Anyway, why would the guy who is in first place accept second place? Especially knowing that he would end up being part of a threesome, outnumbered by Clintons?

Finally, have you thought through what another four or eight years of Clintons in the White House would be like for the country?

I think she figures that she will by God be the nominee and devil take the hindmost; if that gives the election to McCain — who is better qualified anyway, according to her — then, so what? He likely would serve only one term and then she’ll be baa-ack!

People in the know have almost to a person acknowledged that in fact the candidates’ positions are so close on matters of substance, with differences primarily in how they would implement this or that idea, that it really has come down to which style of leader we want.

My own personal take on the choice is this:

Do we want someone who will tell us what to do, or someone who will persuade us to do it? Do we want secrecy, or transparency? Do we want calculation and triangulation, or is it time to play it straight?

And, finally, do we want another four or more years of drama with all the same old players, or do we want a fresh start?

Is a sore loser inevitable?

It was only a couple of months ago that I suggested in this space that the primary season would soon be upon us, but I never imagined that it might be Texas that would determine the winners!

On the Democratic side, the race is so far too close to call and our primary on March 4th will be significant — when’s the last time you had a chance to vote in a Presidential primary knowing that your vote would actually matter?

I wrote then:

We haven’t seen a lot of the candidates here in Texas, of course, because Texas doesn’t get to vote in a primary until next March, by which time it may be all over.

Wrong!

And then:

What I’d give for the old days of “brokered” conventions!

Maybe wrong again: I should have remembered that old admonition, to be careful what you wish for! It certainly looks like that’s where we are headed, and it’s not pretty.

On the one hand, events have — I believe happily — proven the pundits’ assessment of Clinton “inevitability” to be dead wrong!

On the other, there could be a destructive battle to decide who will seek the presidency on behalf of the Democratic party.

There is already anger and bitterness in the air, mostly, it seems to me, flowing from the Clinton campaign and certain of its supporters demanding, each time they perceive a setback, that some rule or other be changed to their benefit.

The anger is on display when Bill shakes his finger at his audience, when his wife attacks the press for treating her unfairly, and most recently in the form of a screed written by Robin Morgan, a prominent feminist, blaming “sociopathic woman-hating” for what’s going on.

These activities are disturbing because of what they tell us about the candidate. And whether you believe it or not, as tempting as it is to have a candidate who will do anything, change every rule, to defeat the Republican candidate in the fall, it is already settled in the minds of many Democrats that they really, truly, want an end to this kind of politicking.

Clinton’s decision to portray herself as inevitable from the get-go did not work, though it seemed at first it might. It didn’t work for two reasons: The voters turned out not to appreciate the arrogance and sense of entitlement that seemed to underlie it; and Barack Obama turned out to be, as even Bill Clinton acknowledged the other day, the more exciting candidate.

But, she argues, Obama hasn’t been truly “vetted” so no one knows what his opponents might dredge up to throw at him, whereas everyone already knows everything there is to know about her.

Well not quite: There is still the unresolved request for her White House records and tax returns to be disclosed, and the influence of Bill’s rather eclectic business dealings.

In any event, as Barack Obama himself somewhat amusedly pointed out, there is no doubt that whatever can be dug up against him would most likely have been uncovered by the Clintons by now.

Mrs. Clinton’s claim that she will be “ready from Day One in the Oval Office” has always struck me as somewhat peculiar, given that the first day in the Oval Office doesn’t arrive until almost three months after the election — a space in time designed by our better-angel forbears to allow for the smooth transfer of power and plenty of preparation, Cabinet building and the like.

And then there’s Bill. What can I say?

Now, there were some fine accomplishments during the Bill Clinton presidency, most notably a healthy economy, but there were also more some not-so-wonderful events — most notably the failed health care plan and the passage of NAFTA — and more problems than you could shake a stick at, problems no one wants to take on again, not to mention a level of inter-party rancor that does not appear to have faded.

That in mind, Hillary Clinton argues that she is the best qualified to withstand attacks from Republicans because of all that she has endured; what folks need to consider is that those attacks were leveled at the Clintons!

Which means one thing does seem inevitable: If Hillary Clinton is the nominee, and if she were to win the White House — certainly not a certainty — we’d be right back where we left off in 2000, rancor and all.

I don’t see what I believe America needs, and I do see what I believe America most assuredly does not need.

Beginning with early voting on February 19th, Texas now has the rare and remarkable opportunity to change the course of American politics for a good long while. The calculation even by folks in her own campaign is that if Hillary Clinton does not win Texas — and win it big — the race will be over and Barack Obama will secure the nomination.

You can talk all day long about “superdelegates” but the consensus continues to be that Texas can decide the outcome and maybe even help to save the world!

The Clintons constantly deride Barack Obama’s rhetoric as “poetry” contrasted with the “prose” she offers. So a little spin here is irresistible:

“Prose” is the root of “prosaic,” and if Obama is the opposite of prosaic, then, according to the thesaurus, he is extraordinary, imaginative, inspired and inspiring — just what we need in a leader!

Bring it on!

Sometime during the snows of Iowa, the Clintons realized that the upstart fellow who was challenging Hillary’s entitlement to the presidency was making great gains and might actually win the nomination.

While Barack Obama was drawing larger and more dynamic crowds, electrifying them with his optimism and his conviction that America can actually find a different and better way in the world, the Clintons were drawing large crowds too, but there was something missing.

It would be cheap to simply call it hope.

Never daunted by the worst of times, the Clintons set about to improve Hillary’s chances, taking on the very delicate task of making sure the contest became about race.

Bill Clinton charged into the spotlight to characterize Obama’s record of opposition to our invasion of Iraq as “a fairy tale.”

He insisted that a vote for this graduate of Harvard Law School and constitutional law professor, veteran of effective community organizing on the mean streets of Chicago, eight years in the Illinois state senate and now two in the US Senate, would just be “rolling the dice.”

The way voting for Abraham Lincoln was, I guess.

Clinton surrogates spread out to remind us that their opponent, as a teenager, had experimented with drugs. Not only that, he has a middle name that is very popular within the Muslim communities around the world and identifies the ruling family of the Kingdom of Jordan!

Truth became innuendo: according to Robert Johnson (known for heading up BET, a purveyor of “gangsta rap”), Obama was “doing something – I won’t say what, but he wrote about it in his book” back in the neighborhoods of Chicago. He went on to liken Obama to Sidney Poitier playing the movie role of a very educated and “mannered” black man who was finally found acceptable by his white in-laws to be, in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.”

Andrew Young, veteran of the 1960s civil rights movement, declared that Obama is “too young” -- notwithstanding that he is 11 years older than the age of qualification set forth in the Constitution, three years older than JFK was when he became president, and a whole year older than Bill Clinton was at the time of his inauguration!

Young said Obama should “wait,” that “his time will come and the world will be ready for visionary leadership.”

Isn’t the world ready now?

All the while this was going on, the Clintons chided and tsk-tsked; this remark or that email may have been regrettable, or even “out of bounds,” but they would NEVER, EVER engage in race-baiting, and if there had been any injection of race into the campaign, well, then, “He started it!

True, the Clintons were not technically race-baiting; they were merely making sure that every single voter in South Carolina (a) remembered that Barack Obama is African-American and (b) had a chance to wonder whether he can win. Their intention is to do the one thing that Barack Obama had just about overcome: They want voters to see him as “the black candidate,” with the almost inescapable corollary that he would concern himself most with “black” issues.

I heard a commentator remark that the Clintons have a history of leaving a trail of damage believing they can always fix it later. Will it work this time? And is the country really not ready?

Maybe elders in the black leadership like John Lewis, Andrew Young and Charlie Rangel, bearing the scars of literal and figurative batons and dogs in the long and dreadful struggle for equality, are accustomed to think like this; they believe that a Democratic victory will almost certainly move the country forward again, yet are still, 50 years on, afraid to believe in their own successes.

But all around America, the younger generation, black and white, north and south, are turning out in droves to hear and see Obama, to register to vote, and to participate – many for the first time -- in the greatest democracy in the world.

The topic of race in America has become an undercurrent of the campaign, to the apparent satisfaction of some Clinton supporters and to the dismay of others. The former believe that it will drive not only more white voters to Clinton but also blacks who are fearful that Obama must lose because they dare not believe anything has changed in all these years.

Some of those whose reaction is dismay are tempted to want to make it go away by not discussing it at all: “Let’s get back to the issues, to the candidates’ differences, their likely style of governing; we don’t want this to be about race!”

There are pundits and politicians who like to describe what’s going on as “bickering” between the candidates.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you a truth: It’s not bickering, it’s deadly serious, and it’s not going to go away. Unless we haul it out into the sunlight and challenge it, we will be gone another generation before anyone tries again.

To those who say “Americans will not elect a black man, so there’s no point in trying, it isn’t time yet,” I say: How do you know that? Just when will the right time be? Why can’t we find out?

I’m not sure we’ll ever have this opportunity again.

I challenge the black and white and brown Americans who want to make the leap into a new place, to once again pass the torch to a new generation, to tell the doubters and the timid and the cynics:

“Bring it on!” Let’s get this over with and go forward.

I believe that this movement of hope has caught hold, that hundreds of thousands will emulate the past by marching, this time to the polls.

Now that Barack Obama has won the South Carolina primary by two to one over Clinton, agreed by all pundits to far exceed even the most generous predictions, I dare to believe that, just maybe, America has overcome, after all.

All over America voters have come to believe, because of the Obama campaign, that we may finally realize the American dream together.

For if not now, when?

Political Spin

Let’s just talk about political spin for a moment. And why I hate it.

To “spin” a comment or event is to, literally, twirl it about to make it sound the way you want, so you can use it to win the argument, the day, the election. In some cases, it is a way to turn truth into a convenient lie.

Barack Obama said, last week, in an in-depth interview with the Reno Journal-Gazette editorial board, that the coming election was similar to 1980, when President Ronald Reagan “changed the trajectory” of the country. He explained that in 1980 the voters:

. . . felt like with all the excesses of the 60s and the 70s and government had grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think [Reagan] tapped into what people were already feeling. Which is we want clarity, we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.

I think most folks would agree with that simple observation.

Obama went on to say that he thought that, for “large chunks of time” over the last 10-15 years, the Republican Party had actually been more a party of ideas than the Democrats, “in that they were challenging conventional wisdom.” He included in this observation that he did not necessarily agree with those ideas.

SPIN TIME: The Clinton campaign immediately trotted out the notion that Barack Obama had spoken “very favorably” of Ronald Reagan, and that Obama had said the Republicans had better ideas. Hillary went on to suggest that Obama must therefore be in favor of privatizing social security, eliminating the minimum wage, cutting healthcare benefits and giving goodies to the pharmaceutical companies. Bill Clinton made it clear he was not happy.

Anyone see a problem with this?

If you agree with the Clinton spin, then I had better not tell you that Mussolini made the trains run on time, or you would think I was a fan of his. And, of course, it I told you that Hugo Chavez has brought radical changes to Venezuela it has to mean I just LOVE what he’s doing to his people.

One of the difficulties in running for office is divining just how your most thoughtful remark might be understood — or misunderstood.

Now, sometimes a little spin is warranted, can be done without lying, and doesn’t really offend anyone.

Take the results of the Nevada caucuses this past weekend.

On the Republican side, Mitt Romney did such a walkaway there was nothing left to spin, unless you cared to say it was just because of a huge Mormon turnout, which would not necessarily be the case as he moves along.

And on the Democratic side:

It was a great victory for the Clintons, for whom 51% of the voters declared.

It was a great victory for Barack Obama, who came from behind to win 13 delegates to Hillary’s 12!

All true. Quite spinnable. No harm, no foul. No lies.

And no clear winner, apparently, since the State party chairman has pointed out that everything could change at their county and state conventions!

Golly, those people get to have all the fun!

The Clintons don't make mistakes, do they?

Thinking about the Obama-Clinton race, it occurs to me that the more folks become familiar with Clinton, the less they think of her as a woman, and the more they get to know Obama, the less they think of him as black. Voters are getting past the novelty and into the serious business of character and issues.

And with this development has come, just in the last few weeks, a drip, drip, drip of remarks by one or the other Clinton or Clinton aide that cannot fail to remind us that Obama is black, even as other seemingly random events and behavior cannot fail to remind us that Hillary Clinton is a woman.

Now, far be it for me to suggest that the Clintons (yes, there are two of them running) would be so calculating as to make this happen, but it’s hard to dismiss, given what we know of them. Consider this:

If I’m right and the voters are beginning to look past race and gender, and the Clintons worry about that because they want to be sure (a) women vote for a woman and (b) primary voters go back to worrying about whether a black man can win in the general election, they sure don’t want them to forget her gender and his race, right?

Tell you the truth, from the ambiguity of Bill’s calling some of Obama’s campaign statements a “fairy tale,” and Hillary’s assertion that President Johnson was the only reason Martin Luther King, Jr. accomplished anything, to the scurrilous remarks by Robert Johnson, whose gifts to the black community have included bringing "gangsta rap" to his BET audiences, the inevitable criticism and reaction from the African-American community further serves to remind voters that Barack Obama is, indeed, black. Unintended consequences? I think not.

Now, I don’t think for a minute that either of the Clintons is a racist, and I’ll defend them on that point forever.

But I am easily persuadable that a scheme to remind voters to worry about Obama’s race is, well — Clintonian.

Nothing wrong with the polls!

I am perfectly satisfied with the analysis offered on Keith Olbermann's Countdown a couple of days after the election. He and Craig Crawford, of Congressional Quarterly, went through the numbers, and if I recall them more or less correctly, it came out that the percentage of the vote predicted for Obama (between 34 and 38) was just about right — he landed at 36%.

The number that was wrong, that had been forecast for Clinton, was 28%, obviously low. But then the number of UNDECIDED or MIGHT CHANGE votes was over 40% or so.

Looks like the majority of those broke for Clinton, maybe because of tears, maybe because of sympathy, etc., or maybe just because a lot of Clinton voters held back until the last minute. And it's reported that lots of those were women over 45 who (anecdotally) felt HRC had been mistreated.

Some independents who voted for McCain did so, they said, to stop Romney, but only after they were assured by the polls that Obama had it nailed. That would explain McCain's unexpectedly high numbers.

In the end, the POLLS weren’t to blame — the interpreters were.

On the Clinton candidacy

There is some buzz among the blogs that negative comments about her campaign by talking heads in print and on TV may have driven voters to Clinton, because she may have been perceived as badly treated.

Speaking as a devoted activist and admittedly an Obama supporter (full disclosure), I do think that folks who feel driven to vote in a particular way by the comments of others do the country a disservice. Yes, we wish that this commentator or that op-ed writer spoke with more restraint, said different things, but we all know -- or should know -- that they are in the opinion business.

We are responsible for how we vote, and it is our responsibility to assess events for ourselves.

I am a woman, and I was a strong supporter of the Clintons (both of them) during his presidency. But not this time.

I would love to see a woman president. But the Clintons don't really comprise a woman candidate; they are a team and that's what is running, and that's what we'll get if they win.

It's time to move on.

Authenticity 2, Money 0

Indeed, the events in Iowa last week must bring joy to the heart of every American who has despaired at the increasing influence of money and power in our politics, lamented the prevalence of sound-bite speechifying, all but succumbed to the feeling that too many seeking office see us, the voters, as dopes.

Whatever else the pundits may make of the outcome of the Iowa caucuses, it is abundantly clear that Americans really want change, but even more, we want authenticity.

Barack Obama, the only Democratic candidate who is not old news, has captivated his audiences (which have been huge and continue to grow) with his Kennedyesque ideas, coolly intelligent speaking style and wit, talking to his listeners as “you” instead of talking about “I.” He handily won the Iowa caucuses, thrilling supporters and cynics alike.

Obama, a youngish “skinny man with a funny name” with roots in Africa, won the first vote of the 2008 election for president of the United States! Can you imagine how that will play around the world?

Hillary Clinton, much to everyone’s surprise (most notably hers and her advisers’) came in third, 9 points behind Obama. Writing in this space a few weeks ago, I suggested that her claim to “strength and experience” was mostly myth and manufacture, and I do think that is part of what hurt her in Iowa; also hurting her was the omnipresence of her husband, which had the effect of reminding people that he was her only real qualification for the job.

For reasons probably having to do with what I call the “re-run factor,” John Edwards, notwithstanding a popular populist message, managed to eke out only slightly more support than Clinton. But that’s not the story here.

Now, some folks claim there is very little difference in what the two leading Democratic candidates offer; I disagree with that, but that’s another discussion. The difference is in how they offer it: One candidate appears completely comfortable speaking without a script, the other seems to need one; the former seems to speak from the heart, the other from calculation.

Over on the Republican side, Mike Huckabee, despite a slightly oddball outlook on some matters and absolutely no national or international experience, routed Mitt Romney, described by many in the media as the “perfect” presidential candidate.
Interestingly, the difference was almost exactly the same 9% as Obama’s lead over Clinton.

Huckabee exudes a genuine, unpretentious affability with a down-home flavor; you could call him the real McCoy. He, too, despite a wariness of his strong evangelical support, has charmed the media — though not, apparently, much of the Republican establishment.

Republican stalwarts from the Club for Growth and the Weekly Standard to Rush Limbaugh have attacked him on issues from taxes to immigration (“We shouldn’t punish the children of illegal immigrants for their parents’ acts,” he once said.) It’s panic in the streets as the Republican Party tears itself apart to keep a true compassionate conservative from winning.

Huckabee is unfailingly described as sincere and “authentic,” whereas Romney, described by wags as the “Stepford” candidate, has won rare-if-ever anti-endorsements from two conservative New Hampshire newspapers.

According to the Concord Monitor, “If a candidate is a phony, we assure ourselves and the rest of the world, we'll know it. Mitt Romney is such a candidate. New Hampshire Republicans and independents must vote no.

And the Union Leader, which had endorsed McCain, chimed in: “Romney has all the advantages: money, organization, geographic proximity, statesman-like hair, etc. But he lacks something John McCain has in spades: conviction….He has spoken his lines well, but the people can sense that the words are memorized, not heartfelt.”

According to the folks who like arithmetic, the legendary amounts of his own money that Romney, a multimillionaire, invested in the Iowa campaign amounted to more than half his total; his overall expenditure in Iowa worked out to about $250 per vote when the final count was in, contrasted with Huckabee’s $35 or so.

Does this mean you can’t buy an election? Time will tell, but for now we know with certainty that you can’t buy Iowa.

Now, unless the New Hampshire primaries blow away my theory, we’re on a roll. It looks like America may finally be on the verge of something big, something positive, something authentic, and above all, something new.

What You See . . .

This may come as a shock to a reader or two, but the season is upon us and beginning in just two months voters will participate in what may be the most important decision Americans have had to make in a lifetime: Who can best lead our country out of this mess?

The next President of the United States will be presented with what I liken to a pile of pick-up-sticks, each with its own label:

Iraq. Iran. Israel. Pakistan. The economy. Mortgage crisis. Health care. Medicare. SCHIP. Foreign policy. Education. Taxes. Drugs. Crime. Trade. Energy. Immigration. Environment. Social Security.

And those are just the ones we can see from here.

Where to begin? Which one to try to extract first from the stack — ever so carefully, so as not to collapse the whole?

Democratic and Republican candidates for President have been on the road for what seems years (well, in one or two cases I guess that is true) in search of support among various constituencies north, south, east and west, and interest groups however miniscule, and the question “Did you watch the debate?” is most often answered, “Which one?”

We haven’t seen a lot of the candidates here in Texas, of course, because Texas doesn’t get to vote in a primary until next March, by which time it may be all over. Or so the pundits tell us. Personally, I dearly hope not.

What I’d give for the old days of “brokered” conventions! Where the party faithful noisily got together in some welcoming city and listened for several days as an array of Presidential hopefuls and their supporters sought their votes; back when they engaged in debate, argument, negotiations and sometimes even arm-twisting to arrive at a chosen candidate for President!

Well, we have what we have, and we have to deal with it.

And first of all we have to ignore the pundits, who do a public disservice in declaring the “inevitability” of one candidate or another. I can’t quarrel with publishing the results of legitimate polling — that’s just news (and may in fact serve as a call to work harder for some candidates!). But the folks who tell us the numbers need to stop there and let us decide what to make of them.

We have a responsibility, with so little time left (at least a good chunk of which will be pretty much consumed by the holidays), to pay as close attention from now on to what the candidates are saying and doing as if our lives depended on the outcome, which may be the case.

For starters, take the Democratic “front-runner” — please!

Now I suppose if I weren’t worried about this I’d love the idea of inevitability, but I do have some concerns and I am worried (though this may be surprising to some): I don’t see what I believe America needs, and I do see what I believe America most assuredly does not need.

America needs a leader who is strong, yes, but you could say that anyone who can endure the slings and arrows and the grueling trek of an almost two-year presidential campaign just about qualifies.

And a lot of candidates talk about the importance of having one kind of “experience” or another, but the truth is there is no experience that in itself can prepare you for the singular position of world leader. It’s the people around the President to whom we should pay attention, for there you see what you are likely to get. As we ought to know by now.

Anyway, Hillary Clinton’s so-called “strength and experience” is mostly a myth. The former consists of committee appointments she sought out when she came to the Senate, some legislative moves cynically calculated to make her look tough and war-like, and an occasional war-like statement on the stump.

Her “experience” includes voting in the Senate (following President Bush) to ban flag burning and in favor of bankruptcy legislation the credit companies loved, not to mention in favor of allowing Bush to take us to war in Iraq and for legislation that might allow him to take us to war in Iran, and oh yes, before that living in the White House when her husband was President.

And of course there was the disastrous health care plan, put together in secret meetings with unidentified advisers (remind you of anyone?), that she couldn’t get through Congress despite having the full force of the White House at her disposal. So we take all we learn from listening and watching and then try to envision the kind of presidency we’d have. And here’s my problem:

I don't see a single decision being made without calculation as to reelection, and I don't see the political climate getting any better. Most troubling, I see a continuation of the kind of outright secrecy and dissembling that we've lived with throughout the current administration's tenure.

Now I don’t offer this as a comprehensive evaluation of this candidate; I just wanted to show the reader why it may be useful to pay really, really close attention to what is being said and done by those who want us to trust them with our country and our world.

I know that a lot of women, regardless of party, are supporting Hillary because they understandably are thrilled at the prospect of a woman president (as I would be, were it the right one). The perfect irony is that if she weren’t the wife of Bill Clinton she would be practically unknown.