Democratic Primary @ MindSay 
Painful path from diversity to tribalism
BOSTON
Is there anyone who still remembers the folksy winter tableau? Eight Democratic candidates against the picturesque backdrop of Iowa and New Hampshire. It was a feel-good photo-op of diversity. The Democratic Party was black and white and Hispanic, male and female and proud. Our party, its leaders said, looks like America.
As for Barack and Hillary? Yes, there were the predictable magazine cover stories asking whether America was "ready" for an African-American or a woman. But these were not long-shot candidates, a favorite son or daughter running to prove a point.
Obama presented himself as the American sum of his roots. He wasn't "the African-American candidate" but the post-racial, post-divisive orator whose presence and eloquence promised to turn that page. For her part, Clinton seemed to leap over the old gender barriers simply by being the front-runner. For once, a woman was the experienced candidate, the tough guy in the race.
Now what? The sense of freshness, the pleasure of breaking barriers, has been nearly exhausted. We've gone from party lovefest to food fight, from having our eyes on the prize to feeling like partisans at a prizefight.
Look at any blog where opinion-hurling — Racist! Sexist! — has become a bitter sport. The pollsters have sliced and diced us into demographic tidbits of race, gender, class and age, producing self-fulfilling prophecies of splinter. Now national polls say a quarter of all Hillary supporters won't vote for Barack. And the feeling is mutual.
This is what America looks like?
As one supporter told Hillary in an e-mail, "It's not over until the lady in the pantsuit says it is." But the campaign obits are written and waiting for release. So, for many women, the feel-good tableau is tainted by a 5 o'clock shadow of bad feelings. A historic campaign has opened fissures along historic fault lines.
The deepest is between women and our culture. The campaign was rife with reminders of how women charging forward are pushed backward. Hillary supporters aren't the only women who have rediscovered a word rarely spoken outside of women's studies class: misogyny. How else to explain the focus on Hillary's cackle and cleavage, the T-shirt that read "If Only Hillary Had Married O.J. Instead"? Or the casual use of the b-word? Or the "hilarious collectible" given to the husband of a prominent politician on his birthday: a Hillary nutcracker?
All season, cable news anchors displayed boorish contempt for a woman Chris Matthews called "Nurse Ratched." In offices, sly jokes are forwarded by e-mail and women who do not laugh are accused of being "too sensitive." Women who protest are accused of playing the gender card.
There are fractures as well, long dormant, between African-American and white women. Sisters and sisterhood. Who defines a double bind? Who limits that identity?
And the generation gap? Has it become an unbridgeable chasm? Many feminist elders see Obama as just another man leapfrogging over a qualified woman to the corner office. Many post-feminist daughters describe the former first lady as "old politics" and define progress as voting for the person, not the gender.
As for class divisions? Many urban professional women whose lives followed the same arc judge Hillary as if she were running for Perfect Woman while down-the-economic-ladder women identified more with this Wellesley graduate for president.
And as if that weren't enough, at the last minute there was a wedge driven into the reliably Democratic pro-choice community. In a gratuitous slap, NARAL Pro-Choice America (its former name was the National Abortion Rights Action League) pre-emptively endorsed Obama, prompting one among thousands of angry pro-choice women to write: "Et tu, Brute?"
I am sure there will be endless postmortems and Ph.D. theses written on this primary. How did race and gender tip the balance? Was this a loss for women or one woman? Did Hillary blaze the path or leave an ugly footprint for the next woman?
Time and the specter of John McCain may patch these crevices. But we have watched the political become (too) personal. We have watched the first optimistic blush of diversity get bloodied with tribalism.
Both Clinton and Obama brought new voters and energy into the compelling narrative of this campaign. But how hard will it be to rebuild the Humpty Dumpty of diversity into the portrait of what America looks like . . . at its best?
E-mail syndicated columnist Ellen Goodman of the Boston Globe at ellengoodman@globe.com.
Pennsylvania Primary
Today is the long awaited Pennsylvania democratic primary.
I think it is funny how Clinton (who wants to make any win seem big) and the media (who wants to cover the drama till the DNC) has portrayed it. Even though Obama has never been expected to do great in PA, and Clinton can't win big enough for it to matter later, this is THE big event according to the media.
When I estimated the outcome of the democratic primaries to May 20th (at which point I think no argument for Clinton staying in the race can be made), I believe I gave Clinton 95 of the 158 PA delegates (the others are superdelegates). This is probably more generous than most people have been, but I believe that she can pull that off in PA. It is pretty much everywhere else that I think she will fail to pull of a big win, and many of the remaining states she will "lose" to Obama.
Basically, today will once again decide nothing.
But it will be fun to watch.
UPDATE:
9:00pm
The first numbers are coming in, and Clinton is the projected winner. However, the margin is as of now much more narrow than I had predicted, and already they are saying that based on this, Hillary will probably go on.
I was looking over the numbers in Indiana and North Carolina, and I think that Obama is going to win more delegates there than I initially predicted as well, making this even more hopeless for Clinton. Combine that with her campaign being out of money... it isn't looking good. The question at this point is... will her win here get her more money?
I think it is funny how Clinton (who wants to make any win seem big) and the media (who wants to cover the drama till the DNC) has portrayed it. Even though Obama has never been expected to do great in PA, and Clinton can't win big enough for it to matter later, this is THE big event according to the media.
When I estimated the outcome of the democratic primaries to May 20th (at which point I think no argument for Clinton staying in the race can be made), I believe I gave Clinton 95 of the 158 PA delegates (the others are superdelegates). This is probably more generous than most people have been, but I believe that she can pull that off in PA. It is pretty much everywhere else that I think she will fail to pull of a big win, and many of the remaining states she will "lose" to Obama.
Basically, today will once again decide nothing.
But it will be fun to watch.
UPDATE:
9:00pm
The first numbers are coming in, and Clinton is the projected winner. However, the margin is as of now much more narrow than I had predicted, and already they are saying that based on this, Hillary will probably go on.
I was looking over the numbers in Indiana and North Carolina, and I think that Obama is going to win more delegates there than I initially predicted as well, making this even more hopeless for Clinton. Combine that with her campaign being out of money... it isn't looking good. The question at this point is... will her win here get her more money?
Obama Got A White Mama
Praise our Lord.
The buffoon at the pulpit is Pastor James David Manning of the Atlah World Missionary Church. Now while Pastor Manning may be a colossal douche he does bring up something that I have seen for myself lately.
Namely that some black people, who once saw Bill Clinton as the "1st Black President" and held Hillary in very high regard, now seem to hate the Clinton's with an unexplained passion.
In barber shops, basketball courts, message boards and chat rooms, showing support for Obama isn't enough. No, to truly support Obama means you have to hate Hillary (and Bill by association) all of a sudden.
And what really gets me is that no one I have spoken to can give me a clear reason why they hate Hillary.
It can't be her politics because aside from the difference in gender and race, Obama and Hillary are almost identical politically.
My theory on this is that the specter of race is hanging over this primary, the flames of which are being fanned by the lazy press and sensationalist 24 hour news networks to combine to make people who are already overly sensitive start to see racism in every remark. Any criticism of Obama is now being taken as a direct attack on him as a black man and no matter where the attack is coming from the blame is being pointed squarely at the Clintons.
The buffoon at the pulpit is Pastor James David Manning of the Atlah World Missionary Church. Now while Pastor Manning may be a colossal douche he does bring up something that I have seen for myself lately.
Namely that some black people, who once saw Bill Clinton as the "1st Black President" and held Hillary in very high regard, now seem to hate the Clinton's with an unexplained passion.
In barber shops, basketball courts, message boards and chat rooms, showing support for Obama isn't enough. No, to truly support Obama means you have to hate Hillary (and Bill by association) all of a sudden.
And what really gets me is that no one I have spoken to can give me a clear reason why they hate Hillary.
It can't be her politics because aside from the difference in gender and race, Obama and Hillary are almost identical politically.
My theory on this is that the specter of race is hanging over this primary, the flames of which are being fanned by the lazy press and sensationalist 24 hour news networks to combine to make people who are already overly sensitive start to see racism in every remark. Any criticism of Obama is now being taken as a direct attack on him as a black man and no matter where the attack is coming from the blame is being pointed squarely at the Clintons.
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