The Presidential RACE

I've finally come to understand something. It's about the candidacy of Barack Obama. Everybody talks about how great it has been that he is a black candidate who transcends race, and that really IS great. But what makes him even more special, even more important to our history is that fact that, even in transcending race, he never fails to be fundamentally BLACK. It is a wonderful thing that liberals in America will someday soon be able to unite behind a truly inspiring candidate, and that for the first time ever in the History of the world, that candidate is of African descent.

In this light, I cannot blame Hillary Clinton for having made her candidacy a referendum on Feminism, although I can and do still think she ought to be ashamed of herself for the condescending attitude she has taken towards her opponents, almost ALL of whom have been really spectacularly qualified for the post of President of the United States. What is really shameful is the way she has taken a field of candidates that, when I looked at them standing on stage during any of the various debates they held together, it made my bleeding Liberal heart swell to the edge of bursting with pride in the generation of leadership coming of age this election; Clinton has treated them all like petulant playacting children. This is a group of nine (more fairly seven) really, really good leaders, Clinton included, leaders who, if unified, can move this whole country in an incredibly revolutionary direction, a direction completely opposite to the disastrous path we have been treading these last 20 years. Yet Clinton has painted them all as inept, unprepared, unready to face the challenges that SHE WOULD NEED THEM TO HELP HER MEET, in the unlikely event that she were to become president.

Sadly, it is SHE who is unready to be president. A president is a LEADER. Not THE ruler, not the most powerful person in the world, but the first among equals, the leader of the most powerful nation, the most powerful government in the world. Hillary Clinton tries to DO IT HERSELF, and in the end, she cannot DO IT HERSELF, she cannot do ANYTHING without the aid of a willing and motivated congress.

Why was Bill Clinton's presidency derailed? Is it because Republicans threw every slander they could think of at him? NO. I know this will strike the reader as a strange statement, seemingly at odds with the obvious reality. But the truth is that Republicans could have thrown any slander they wanted to at Clinton, and it would have had about as much effect as throwing mud against a brick wall, if Clinton had not squandered his party's majority in Congress IN HIS SECOND YEAR IN OFFICE. No Democratic congress would have impeached a democratic president over a drop of CUM on an intern's dress. It never would have happened. So I maintain, that his trouble in office, is HIS OWN DAMN FAULT.

But that's besides the point. ANY of the democratic candidates would have pursued historic changes in the course of American government. And either of the current contenders represents an historic change in the demographics available to the office of the presidency. Expansion of the availability to aspire to the presidency either to black Americans or female Americans would be an UNPRECEDENTED change in the demography of the office. And it just happens to be Black America's turn. That's no indictment against feminism, nor against Hillary Clinton, that's just the way the cookie has crumbled. Obama is a LEADER. Clinton is a conqueror. Sadly, she is a conqueror who has never successfully conquered a substantial opponent. She lost the fight for Universal Healthcare in the 90's, the only fight that ever reached it's conclusion, and she ran unopposed for senate after Rudolph Giuliani dropped out of the race when a scandal that she had nothing to do with bringing to light made his candidacy untenable. She is now losing to Barack Obama. She is about as successful a general as the emperor Octavian, who, granted, was a good emperor; beloved, stable, able, and successful. But never because of his fighting skills, he never won an important battle, he secured the principate by entirely other means. I'm not saying she would not be a good president. I'm just saying that she should wait eight years for another turn at it. Now it's Obama's turn.

Let's have this conversation about race. Let's welcome the opportunity to examine the way life is for black people in America. It was GREAT that Obama was able to go this long in the race without having to make his candidacy about the fact that he is black. But now that it is an unavoidable issue, LET'S DO IT. No one would be better suited to it that he is. I can't wait to see John McCain try to pin his ears back for his skin color. John McCain will GET HIS ASS KICKED in that fight. Let's see Barack Obama debate Mr. Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran, let's DO IT. Hillary Clinton, and her supporters with her, ought to be ashamed of themselves for obstructing the country from having this argument. We can and will get to the women's movement in due time, of that there is no doubt. WE NEED THIS ONE NOW; they should be ashamed of themselves for delaying it.