The Dem's Primary cafeteria is a citizens gourmand's Envy - they have a simply great set of choices this year - can't lose the General Elections with any of the current options, including Edwards!
But it is critical for all of them to understand the answer to Drum's question (how did Hillary win NH?)
Firstly, do understand - Hillary, Barak and, yes, John too are more alike than not!
Each of them are, in their own way, trailblazers, and sometimes the positions they take that make many of the hairsplitters angry, are done mainly to counter the stereo-typed image that the media has, and presents, of their key demographic identifier.
Thus the story so far..
Hillary as the Woman has to work twice as hard as a man to prove she's tough - some of her pro-AUMF, anti-Iran votes, I think, were to insulate her against charges that she'll be soft and womanly, and ironically these have worked so well she has had to work hard to do the opposite!
Barak, (first names for all, as required by my EEOC advisor) as the black/minority of the group, has to work hard to prove that he does not just represent another victimized, marginalized, minority point of view as would an Al Sharpton or a Civil-Rights era politician - so he has the 'inclusive, work with the right, the left, the rich and the poor' message - it's not the '2 Americas' message he wants to deliver, but a message of reassurance that he's not going to be exclusively the Poor Man's President in the richest nation in the world - so Insurance cos. and (white) Business leaders, have nothing to worry. He could so easily be an Al Sharpton, but he picked the harder fight, to play in the old (white) boys' sandbox.
And John, the only Christian White Male has to fight against the "Me, Myself, and I" image of the stereo-typical privileged White Male and so rallies the country in favor of the downtrodden and the hard-at-the-heels American of all colors.
They could so easily stay within the stereo-typed molds that society and the media have prepared them. But each of them choose to carry the tougher message.
That is until now!
I think Hillary broke the post-Iowa tie with Obama because of two things - for one, her extensive back and forth question/answer lecture tours last week at NH demonstrated her intimate grasp of policy, and then there was THE tearing up. I liken that to the moment where Shakespeare draws the audience into his M of V story and invites empathy for that much-reviled figure of 16th century society - Shylock, the moneylender, the social outcast, through the latter's rants - If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh?
Hillary's tearing up humanized her, I would even say, it underscored her gender that which she has been working so hard to deny! In fact that was the second time in a week she let her gender guard down. The coy response to the NH TV anchor's likeability question was another girlish response for Hillary. I have no problems with it - whatever each thinks is needed to win, is par for the course, as long it's not a race-baiting Willie Horton ad!
Oh wait, that's the epilogue to the story - is the MLK-LBJ controversy a damning with faint praise version of the Willie Horton strategy from the Clinton camp?
Whether the Obama camp's response can be called playing the race card or not, where is this going to lead us?
For one thing, in simple numbers there are more white women than black men - or do you compare white women and non-white men? or white women against non white men and women?
Advice to Obama - pick your constituency thoughtfully and you may be able to mine a gold field!
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