Father of Night

There's definitely something mythical, if not Biblical, about Obama's repudiation of Jeremiah Wright. The word "jeremiad," which the OED describes as "a complaining tirade," comes from the Lamentations of Jeremiah in the Old Testament; he was a prophet who kvetched before there was a Yiddish word for it. Wright's arguments, advanced tirelessly between Friday and Monday, were not with the Lord but the world -- particularly the political world his most famous former flock member inhabits.

A few pundits have already labeled this Obama's Sister Souljah moment, -- but the black activist Bill Clinton condemned before the Rainbow Coalition back in 1992 was nothing to him. She was just a way of making a point: that he wasn't beholden to "the black community." Wright was Obama's pastor for 20 years --he married him and baptized his children -- and in breaking with him, he breaks with one of his spiritual fathers. As Maureen Dowd noted in her column today, "The Illinois senator doesn’t pay attention to the mythic nature of campaigns, but if he did, he would recognize the narrative of the classic hero myth: The young hero ventures out on an adventure to seek a golden fleece or an Oval Office; he has to kill monsters and face hurdles before he returns home, knocks off his father and assumes the throne."

I found myself thinking about Falstaff, whom Henry IV rejects in Part II of Shakespeare's bio-plays. (It's been said that only men appreciate the drunken, lecherous Falstaff -- a character in a Richard Ford novel says he's like the Three Stooges in that regard -- but legend has it that Queen Elizabeth was so taken with the old rogue that she ordered Shakespeare to bring him back, as he did in the Merry Wives of Windsor.) The old scalawag taught the young Hal plenty about the ways of the world (and how to have a good time) before he was headed for the throne. But by the time the king confronts the corrupt courtier and his posse at the end of Part II, the thrill is gone:

How ill white hairs become a fool and a jester!
I have long dreamed of such a kind of man,
So surfeit-swelled, so old, and so profane,
But being awake, I do despise my dream.

Not that Wright is obese ("surfeit-swelled") or even a fool and a jester...much. Though watching the replays of some of his remarks, especially the Q&A period of his speech before the National Press Club, I wanted to yell, "Stop clowning!" The stakes are too high; this isn't about you but the whole country. And if this is but part of our hero's journey, it's the part where he begins to cut away the obstacles from his past that would weigh him down. As King Henry says to his former mentor,

Presume not that I am the thing I was,
For God doth know, so shall the world perceive,
That I have turned away my former self,
So will I those that kept me company.

Too bad Hillary can't brush off Bill like that! Now there's a man who's been in touch with his inner Falstaff...

posted by Sean Elder @ 11:47 AM  0 comments

Bite-sizing Wright

For anyone who might have thought, "I wish I knew more about what the Rev. Jeremiah Wright really thinks about our country," the last three days have provided an embarrassment of riches. Wright has been MIA since an edited version of some of his sermons rocked Obama's campaign last month but he returned with a vengeance on Friday, appearing on Bill Moyers' show for a fairly decorous (and heavily edited) return to the public eye. Then last night he spoke to the NAACP convention in Detroit in manner more familiar to those who have seen more of his sermons than the snippets from the infamous YouTube tape. Then this morning came the piece de resistance, a speech (picked up by all the cable news networks) to the National Press Club that was more secular (and sarcastic) than either previous performance -- followed by a Q&A period in which all hell broke loose again.

Asked about his comments comparing the terrorist attacks of 9.11 to "America's chickens coming home to roost" (an echo of Malcolm X's response to the assassination of JFK), he said, "You cannot do terrorism on other people and not expect it to come back on you." And questioned about his patriotism he replied, "I served six years in the military, does that make me patriotic? How many years did Cheney serve?"

Over at Fox News the Pepsodent twins they have hosting the morning news were beside themselves with glee, poring over their notebooks, as excited as kids who just got a pony for Christmas. Rather than rip into Wright themselves (they like to leave the heavy hitting to the show's evening stars, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity), they let the initial condemnation be voiced by one of the network's house Negroes, Juan Williams, who clucked in predictable fashion over the reverend's failure to disavow his own beliefs. At CNN, on the other hand, the reaction was slightly more tempered. Wright's speech was listed at the top of the hour (9 am EST) as one of three major stories breaking (fires in California and the man who kept his incestuous family in an underground apartment being the other two), and their morning crew (again, not the sharpest knives in the network's drawer) turned the damage estimation over to CNN commentators Roland Martin and David Gergen. Gergen, a political gun-for-hire, predicted bad things for Obama while the more Barack-friendly Martin (who had covered the Detroit speech the night before with Soledad O'Brien, the two of them dressed in matching dashikis) said it was the senator's challenge to distance himself from his former pastor. "He needs to remind people, 'I am the one running for president.'"

True dat. But even those who might be leaning Obama's way are going to wonder, who brought this guy to the party? Personally, I find Wright a dynamic and compelling speaker. The best thing about Moyers' show were the longer clips from the infamous sermons that put his controversial remarks in context, and it would be worth looking at the tape to get the full story. And having been to a few African-American churches, and heard a few preachers who come from the same tradition, I got some of the street-based humor and calculated outrageousness that stitched together his speeches last night and this morning. (He said Jesus was "playing the dozens" when he called His enemies a "brood of vipers.")

But most voters don't want the full story, as previous elections have proven time and again, and most white Americans don't know from the African-American church tradition -- sing-song hyperbole, passion and playfulness all mixed up -- and don't want to. The campaign can console itself with knowing that Wright rejected Obama for rejecting (if not disowning) him and promised that if he were elected, he would give him a hard time, too.

Right now, that looks like a big if. The success of Obama's campaign going forward will depend on how he handles the questions about Wright, something he feels like he has already done with his speech on race in Philadelphia this month. But just as Wright tried to win back his own story -- his life, his dignity -- by setting out to speak for himself instead of having his identity nibbled to death by sound bites, so Obama must now try and set his record straight. Tell the voters of Indiana and North Carolina, if not the nation at large, where he differs from his former pastor, and why. He no longer has the luxury of following the advice Wright says he got from his mother: "Better to be quiet and let other people think you a fool than open your mouth and remove all doubt."

posted by Sean Elder @ 3:42 PM  0 comments

When the Music's Over

My wife and I attended the Annual Dinner of the White House Correspondent's Association last night, held at the Washington HIlton Hotel, aka the "Hinckley Hilton" where President Reagan was shot. I saw a lot people pointing to the actual sight of the attempted assassination, but no reenactments taking place.

The association has been hosting these events -- part roast, part comic revue -- for decades but it's been in recent years that the media organizations that bought the tables started bringing Hollywood stars in to add celebrity wattage to the luster of DC's deepest dweebs. I mean, I like Sam Donaldson and Joe Klein as much as the next guy, but they can't hold a candle to Padma Lakshmi or Kal Penn, two of the attendees I saw adding an international flavor to the festivities.

In an attempt at bipartisanship, the meal consisted of salmon AND beef, nestled against each other in a way that would nauseate your average vegetarian. So it was with the evening's entertainment: once the thousands attending the black-tie do were settled in the cacophonous ballroom beneath the hotel, they proceeded to ignore association president Ann Compton as she gamely tried to announce the recipients of the college scholarship awards they dole out each year. Despite her attempts to shame the crowd into honoring the students, the assembled wonks and demi-stars paid her no mind, intent as they were on mingling and schmoozing with each other. ("If a bomb were to go off here now," I asked a woman from the Obama campaign who I happened to be seated next to, "would the world be a better place?")

Then the president took the podium and the entertainment began. Bush is famously inept at prepared remarks, though my wife met him before the show and swore he was much more of a relaxed joker in private. Maybe he's just glad to be getting out of there. I sensed some relief among those in attendance at the prospect of seeing him no more. Though his jokes were equal parts game and lame, there was a great sigh when he said, "I'm going to leave you now..." Yes! His last gag, in which he led the US Marine Band, waving a baton like Mickey Mouse commanding the brooms in The Sorcerer's Apprentice, after declaring, "I always wanted to do this!"

Later that evening, Washington correspondent Carl Cannon, son of Reagan biographer Lou Cannon, called the moment "classic Bush."

"He is the frat-boy-in-chief," he told me, "but a lot of people would like to do that." Cannon and his father coauthored a book comparing Bush to Reagan (not altogether favorably) and he's had opportunities to defend him before. "Anything he does is by definition presidential. That doesn't necessarily mean dignified."

I'm all for being undignified (you should have seen the shirt I wanted to wear with my tux, the David Lee Roth number my wife vetoed) and I don't mind Bush pretending to lead a military band. It's him pretending to lead the military I have problems with.

The closer was late night comedian Craig Ferguson -- "another case of an immigrant taking a job Americans don't want," as the Scotsman (and newly minted American citizen) put it. It's a thankless task: after Stephen Colbert excoriated the media in attendance at the 2006 dinner, the association ran for cover by hiring Rich Little to do the honors last year. Little, who I literally watched when I was a kid, is best known for doing impressions of people who are no longer alive.

Ferguson, who is both an author and a recovering alcoholic, has famously broken the fourth wall of late night TV comedy a few times, as when he talked candidly about the hypocrisy of celebrity bashing last year. For this event, though, he generally hewed to a sort of safe middle-ground, making fun of his native peat ("Al Qaeda tried to bring a religious war to Scotland. You're a thousand years too late!") and such safe targets as the New York Times, which was too cheap, I mean principled, to buy a table at last night's event. His only real shot at the press there came when he said, "It's your job to watch the government and make sure they don't exceed their power -- well done on that, by the way."

posted by Sean Elder @ 4:30 PM  0 comments

Baby Mamas

I'm having trouble writing this since I'm bouncing a baby on my right knee as I try and type. I haven't had to do this in about 14 years but, like riding the proverbial bike, it comes back to you pretty easily. This baby is simpler than most; though he cries every 90 minutes or so, you don't have to feed or rock him. You just take a little key and stick it in his back. Then dandle him on your knee for a while.

My daughter is taking care of an electronic baby for extra credit in her health class. The electronic-baby gag was developed for kids in inner city schools years ago, as a way of showing girls who might be thinking of getting pregnant (or who might be thinking that getting pregnant wouldn't be so bad) the harsh realities of baby care. As any parent knows, taking care of a real live infant is not so simple as putting the key into the slot. And much more rewarding.

Because Aidan, as he had been named pre-assignment, is about as realistic as one of those surrogate women you can buy in porn shops (or so I've heard!). He's about the right dimensions of a healthy seven-to-nine month old, but aside from crying like clockwork, doesn't do much.

"Has he made his happy coo?" my daughter asked me, getting out of the shower. Not yet, I replied. As parents of real children know, the happy coo, accompanied by the adoring smile, is what keeps kids from being catapulted out the window by sleep-deprived parents.

I was initially skeptical of this assignment. After all, my daughter's expensive NY school is hardly the place where kids are sitting around harboring "Ms. Jackson" fantasies about the good life of being a grandmother at 35. Or so I thought. Then my daughter told me about an exchange she had with one of her friends who was also doing the baby thing. For Franny, the experience has confirmed her belief that having a baby -- certainly anytime soon -- is not an option. But her friend got all dewy-eyed and claimed that any woman who didn't have one was unfulfilled, and that getting up every 90 minutes was the meaning of life.

In a North Korean prison camp maybe. I was just happy to hand it back to her so she can take Aidan to school on the subway, getting dirty looks from people (because she's Latina, she insists) though one fellow did offer her his seat. Before they split I heard Aidan make the happy coo. A small victory for life, if not modern technology.

posted by Sean Elder @ 7:27 AM  0 comments

Cue the Arabs

After Clinton's decisive victory in Pennsylvania pollsters need to parse the effectiveness of her last-minute advertisement, employing images of Pearl Harbor and Osama bin Laden. She was expected to win the Keystone State anyway, of course, and Obama's people were quick to remind folks that they had narrowed a 30-point lead to a 10-point victory over the course of a few months. And most of the voters she got (older, whiter, bluer of collar) were ones many had ceded to her long before the bitter-voter brouhaha.

But did that fleeting image of bin Laden help persuade some of those last-minute voters she looks to have won? It couldn't have hurt, her people must be thinking, in which case you can expect to see more subliminal images marching through her ads: earthquakes, floods, Vesuvius erupting. "It's the toughest job in the world, you need to be ready for anything," the announcer declares, and only a superhero (aided by her league of superdelegates of course -- join now and you could be looking at an ambassadorship to someplace nice in about eight months!) can save the planet.

I don't want to add anything to the opinions already out there about the toll this is or is not taking on the party. Like Will Rogers, I only know what I read in the papers, and seeing the coverage of last night's primary in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal side-by-side was an instructive reminder of the importance of perception. "Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton scored a decisive victory over Senator Barack Obama on Tuesday in the Pennsylvania primary, giving her candidacy a critical boost as she struggles to raise money and persuade party leaders to let the Democratic nominating fight go on," ran the Times lede -- a scrappy kid-says-in-the-picture story that goes on to say that "her victory nonetheless gives her a strong rationale for continuing her candidacy in spite of those Democrats who would prefer to coalesce around Mr. Obama."

The Journal's take was slightly more downbeat, at least if you're a Hillary supporter. "Hillary Clinton kept her presidential candidacy alive with a decisive victory in Pennsylvania's Democratic primary, but still faces long odds in her quest to overtake front-runner Barack Obama on the road to the party's nomination," begins the report, going on to note that her campaign was struggling for money and that her margin of victory probably wouldn't change the conversation.

The Murdoch-owned Journal has arguably been more Obama-friendly in its coverage of the election in general, but its worth remembering that the Murdoch-owned New York Post started being friendlier to Clinton when it was obvious she would win her senate seat the second time. Is it just because he likes a good news story? (Look at the paper's coverage of the departure of the WSJ's managing editor, also on the front page: "Editor Out as Murdoch Speeds Change at WSJ," making it sound like Marcus Brauchli was old and in the way.) Or does he know something the Times doesn't, ie, when to back a winner?

More disturbing than invoking the Evil Cave Dweller before the closing bell were remarks Clinton made about Iran. "I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran," she smiled sweetly on ABC's Good Morning America yesterday. "In the next ten years, in which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them." Actually, we're able to totally obliterate them now. Maybe she was thinking of her opponent. Or maybe she just wants to assure any Democrats leaning toward McCain that she remembers the Beach Boys too.

posted by Sean Elder @ 7:46 AM  0 comments

Tough love

One of the great things about a hotly contested political campaign is that you get to see the opponents change roles, sometimes several times over the course. "The loser now shall later be win," as Dylan sang in his usual challenging syntax, or more accurately: the loser now shall later act like a winner. Or the underdog who should be winner. Or the person who used to complain about getting ganged up but who now says ganging up on the lead candidate is an all-American sport, like horse shoes, or shooting at birds just like I did with grandpa when I was a little girl...

After Obama complained about the tenor of Wednesday's debate, Hillary saw this as an opportunity to call him a weenie again. "We were both asked some pretty tough questions," she told a local TV station in Pennsylvania yesterday. "That's part of what happens in a debate and a campaign," she said. "And I know he spent all day yesterday complaining about the hard questions he was asked. But you know, being asked tough questions in a debate is nothing like the pressures you face inside the White House. And in fact when the going gets tough you can't just walk away..."

Actually you can walk away from the helicopter, cupping a hand over your ear to indicate you can't understand what reporters are shouting. Be sure to smile, and have someone cue the dog.

Obama, in all fairness, spoke more about the level of the discourse in the debate, and the rather three-pronged nature of the attack: At times ABC moderators Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos played hoods to Hillary's Sinatra ("Okay, boys, that's enough"). But blaming the press is a chump's game. The anchors who moderate these things are the worst kind of media prima donnas; surrounded by sycophants, they come to actually believe that their opinions matter. And a candidate's press corps, the people who gamely follow them around from one stop to the next, on planes and busses, are already beleaguered. (Think of your last plane trip, multiply that by 1000, and add the joy of listening to the same stump speech every day for months.) You can't afford to have them turn on you. Look at what's happening with McCain's coverage now that he's doing less straight talking and more spinning. Feed the animals and maybe they won't bite.

Later, after Bill Clinton (who hates the press with a passion) accused Obama of "whining," his wife came back for another swing of the bat. "Having been in the White House for eight years, and seen what happens in terms of the pressures and stresses on a president, that was nothing," Hillary told kids at a high school in Pennsylvania, confusing, once again, being on the premises with having had the job. When she speaks of her eight years in the White House as the cornerstone of her experience I think of little kids, behind those toy steering wheels, who believe they are driving the car.

But if turnabout is fair play, as the former frontrunner seems to think, she must have relished the release of her own secret fundraiser tape. Speaking to supporters at a closed-door event after Super Tuesday (note to candidates: there are no closed doors anymore), Hillary decried the effect of MoveOn in the election, both its money and its zealous supporters. "So they flood into these caucuses and dominate them and really intimidate people who actually show up to support me," she complained. But wait -- I thought you were the tough guys? And that with MoveOn it was not just about Obama: they have had you in its sights ever since you gave George Bush a blank check in the Middle East.

Personally, I think Hillary and some members of the media may be doing our man a favor by laying out the GOP playbook for him. He does need to respond to stupid, offensive, beside-the-point lines of attack without looking pissed off. The most difficult part of being a politician is probably learning to smile when people say imbecilic things. The primaries are like a tryout before the real battle. A true hero needs to be challenged, as Joseph Campbell reminded George Lucas and others. Sometimes they even have to die before they come back.

posted by Sean Elder @ 11:46 AM  0 comments

Don't need a weatherman

Did somebody say Sybil? I was worried there, for a minute; Hillary came out soft, her cheeks looking particularly dumpling like, for the early minutes of last night's debate but then, with the predictable hand from ABC's Charles Gibson (who, on top of everything else, holds a Nobel Prize for his work in economics), she got going on the bitter tea of General Obama.

First, the teachers tried to make them dance. Quoting some wacko idea of former NY Gov. Mario Cuomo about the candidate with the second-most votes becoming vice-president, Gibson asked the two candidates if they would pledge to name the other as running mate should they win the nomination (what is this, Washington-Adams?). Long, awkward silence. ("Go on, hold her hand, it's not going to kill you") Followed by kind, never-in-a-million-years dissembling from both candidates.

Then, not being able to resist anymore, Gibson mentioned Obama's remarks regarding those embittered, bible-thumping, gun-toting voters in the lost hollers of Western PA. "Do you understand that some people in this state find that patronizing and think that you said actually what you meant?" asked the anchor, sounding pretty patronizing himself.

Obama made another attempt at an apology and then Clinton weighed in, reminding people of her midwestern Methodist bonafides and talking about the "wonderful," "positive," "resilient" people she has met traveling that great state. But she couldn't stay on that high road for long. With more help from Gibson and former Clinton lieutenant (and co-moderator) George Stephanopoulos, she got to rag him about Rev. Wright again, even claiming that his remarks about 9.11 were all the more hurtful because the attacks occurred in "my city of New York." (You know: Hillary from the block.) Now it was open season on Obama, and out came Louis Farrakhan, Hamas and, most surprising of all, former Weather Underground activist William Ayers.

Ayers, as part of the SDS splinter group, helped bomb a number of government buildings during the Vietnam War. He hosted a house party for Obama's campaign for state senate, 12 years ago, but more importantly, he said he wished the Weathermen had blown up more stuff, and those remarks were published on 9.11. Get it? Stephanopoulos thought the affiliation cast Obama's patriotism into question, and the senator used the moment to ridicule his interlocutors and the silly season in general.

"George, but this is an example of what I'm talking about," he said. "This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who's a professor of English in Chicago who I know and who I have not received some official endorsement from. He's not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis. And the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8 years old, somehow reflects on me and my values doesn't make much sense."

Well, it's not about sense. But before the media and Obama's enemies (and don't worry, Hillary will be out of the running soon) twist themselves into too many contortions trying to find the next Swift-Boat, Willie-Horton, flag-burning-amendment issue to take him down with, remember the millennials who don't give a rat's ass about who did what during the Vietnam war, who went to Woodstock, who fought the man. Even September 11, 2001 (put your hand over your flag pin when you hear that date!) seems like ancient history to them. For those voters, who could very well swamp this election come November, the old dogs won't hunt. They want to know that there might be job waiting for them and that they won't have to live with their parents forever. Their parents want to know that they'll be able to retire someday and won't be spending their golden years dumpster diving. And both want to hit Reload, change the channel, pull the pitcher. The same old teams don't cut it anymore.

posted by Sean Elder @ 3:53 PM  0 comments

The bitter dregs

We approach the prospect of one more debate with a sense of nausea. It's like going into one of those all-you-can-eat places around Times Square: you look behind the glass at the steam tables, the ham that was sliced hours ago, the mashed potatoes that are getting crusty around the edges, and whatever hunger you had disappears. You know exactly what it's going to taste like before you even try to crack a dinner roll.

But debate they must, and those who think Hillary will try to go out on what may very likely be her last face-off with Obama on a high note are dreaming. While some would say her shrinking poll numbers might be enough to convince her that the game is over, they are forgetting the Clinton never-quit mantra, one chanted more incessantly as the corner becomes tighter. Though the press has been thumping the "fall out" over Obama's "bitter voter" comments, hoping a bigger story will appear amidst the dust, voters don't seem to care all that much. Even Governor Ed Rendell, her biggest friend in Pennsylvania, said he thought the controversy won't cost him "more than a couple of points at the margin." Thanks, Ed.

No, I predict that Hillary will try and remind those who may not have heard of what Obama said in San Francisco last week, even if moderator Charlie Gibson doesn't give her an early assist with a question about those gun-and-bible clinging townies --- and she may very well be booed for her trouble, as she was at a union conference yesterday. Then don't be surprised if she says something noble and compassionate about her opponent. This could be a political feint but at the risk of playing pop psychologist, I think it might be something she learned from having a temperamental dad.

No judgment here: I had one myself, and as anyone who grew up with an alcoholic for a parent can tell you, you never know what you're going to get: that's part of the fun. Where your singing at the breakfast table might have earned you a kind word yesterday, it could get you slapped this morning ("What is wrong with you?"). Until children of alcoholics figure out the rules of the game, they are left in state of confusion. And sometimes they adapt the behavior of their oppressor.

Hillary Clinton is a loyal party animal and I am certain that when Obama becomes our nominee, she will endorse him with conviction and urge her followers to lay down their resentments and get behind the man. But she must also be facing some bitter truths herself: if Obama's remarks aren't enough to alienate voters and/or convince some superdelegates that he is unelectable, she's out of ammo. She can keep going through Indiana and North Carolina, and perhaps she must, but in her heart she'll know she's finished. That means back to the Senate with her future presidential aspirations very much in jeopardy, and more years of living in close proximity to Bill. That could drive any wife to drink.

So look for Sybil tonight and in the closing days of the campaign, a hydra-headed beast who must learn to accept the bronze medal with a smile and a wave but who must also curse the day that this skinny soul brother in the Motown suit snuck up and stole her crown. It's enough to make anyone bitter.

posted by Sean Elder @ 4:51 PM  0 comments

Money walks

After my second day of canvassing some pretty beat neighborhoods in East Philly for Obama, I had a couple of people tell me that no one from Hillary's campaign had been by to visit. And these were Hillary supporters, at least the ones who weren't gone or too old to answer the door. For the most part they seemed to enjoy the fact that some nice young (well, compared to them) man had dropped by and even pronounced their name right. And at least a few of them let me engage them and answer what questions they had about the junior senator from Illinois. No, he was not a Muslim. No, he was not an anti-semite. Yes, his mother was white and his father was from Africa, and no, he did not come from a wealthy family.

One of the organizers at the East Philly Obama headquarters had a theory about why there were no HIllary supporters working those streets next to me. "The Democratic machine in Philadelphia still believes in giving people money to go around neighborhoods and help get out the vote," he said. "That machine is working for Clinton but since she doesn't have the money for them to grease the supporters, there's no one ringing those bells."

It's what they used to call "walking around money" in places like Chicago and even here in Brooklyn. (I saw it in action during the last state assembly election when winos were passing out fliers for party favorite Hakeem Jeffries. He won, of course.) "What Obama wants to do is reform the party from the top down," my man in Philly continued, "which is why he poses such a threat to these people." Maybe. But it's that kind of zealotry that alarms some people and makes them think of his campaign as messianic. They were the ones Jon Stewart was making fun of when he told Larry King, "Obama cured my leprosy!"

Though the older, largely Catholic and Jewish voters I met yesterday were not too interested in Obama, only a few were overtly hostile and Hillary supporters said they would support the Democratic candidate in November no matter what. (These were registered Democrats, after all, though I met one old woman who was supporting Nader. "Ah, you're the one," I said.) More importantly, perhaps, were the non-whites I encountered: recent immigrants from India and the Middle East; an African caregiver at a halfway house; a Chinese-American woman who sold me water and sunscreen at the local supermarket. They were the ones who signed my forms and took my literature and made it clear that the only reason they wanted to vote was to help elect Barack Obama to the White House. The people whose houses they now lived in were like the voters who turned me away: older and more set in their ways. Some of them had moved on while others were literally dying, shuffling off this mortal coil in a neighborhood that was changing colors.

posted by Sean Elder @ 6:52 PM  0 comments

The view from the ground

I'm in Philadelphia this weekend, ringing doorbells for Obama, and have a few observations to offer, based on a pretty small sampling of some pretty beat neighborhoods in East Philly. No one has yet mentioned his comments about the bitter voters of small-town Pennsylvania, in part because they may not have heard them (the TVs I saw were tuned to baseball and NASCAR), though I'm not sure these folks would have disagreed.

We're talking mostly white voters who are worried about the cost of gas, the cost of prescription medicine and how to get through the month. Some of their homes were in various states of disrepair (missing screen doors, cardboard in windows) and though I did not hear any particular bitterness, neither did I witness a lot of hope. Only a handful of the voters I visited were completely in the senator's camp, though more than a few were curious to know why I liked him and what I thought he was going to do for the country. I met at least four women who were hardcore Hillary supporters, but mostly because she was a woman and they all said they would enthusiastically support Obama in November. Primaries are the time to vote your heart.

I only heard a couple of total misconceptions. One McCain supporter told me he thought Obama was a socialist, while another said that "he always denied having a white mother." Uh, no, I demurred (the campaign discourages arguing with people, especially if there is nothing to gain, but it's okay with setting the record straight); he wrote a whole book about being raised black in a white family, he's been talking about it for years. A couple of Indian immigrants seemed to only know a few words of English, one of which was "Clinton," which made me worry that our outreach to those communities is not all it could be.

The local ads are plentiful and most of the ones I've seen from both candidates are issue specific. (I heard one Obama ad on a local rock station that made him sound like a traveling band, with lots of cheering and nothing more specific than "hope" or "change" mentioned.) I'm sure it will get uglier in the next nine days but from this vantage point, I'm not sure the bitter remarks are going to move the dial much. In part because it was one sentence out of hundreds of thousands, and he has already apologized, saying "I didn't say it as well as I could have". In part because Clinton has already asked for slack for "misspeaking" about being under sniper fire in Bosnia. (As CNN's grumpy old man, Jack Cafferty said to Jeffrey Toobin, who was trying to defend Hillary: "Have you ever been shot at? It's not actually something you would forget.") But in part it's because people are bitter, and have a right to be.

"I don't think he has anything to apologize for," said Ali, one of the volunteer coordinators in East Philly who sent me out with a packet of names yesterday. The real mistake, in my mind, was the use of the verb "cling" when discussing people's faith and love of guns; it smacks of delusion and that is what I think Obama was really apologizing for, the truly inartful language he used. But I think it is far more hypocritical for the multi-millionaire Clintons and the the admiral's son McCain to talk about these end-of-the-road blue collar people as if they were the seven dwarves, whistling while they march off to the jobs that don't exist anymore. Obama has always been clear about the need for the more fortunate of us to sacrifice -- one of the reasons I'm here, today -- but he also recognizes that some folks have nothing left to give, that it's all been taken away. And that just might make you bitter.

posted by Sean Elder @ 8:49 AM  0 comments

The listening tour

I've been too busy to blog this week, which was a slightly calamitous one for the Clinton campaign. First she was forced to fire Mark Penn for supporting (after having people stuff money in his pockets) a Colombian free trade agreement that she opposes, causing some to wonder if she didn't deserve a refund for the millions she has given the master of microtrends to explain the American people to her. Then she had to tell her tone-deaf husband (who also supports the Colombia deal, for much the same reasons) to shut up about sniper fire in Bosnia. He chose to bring the matter up again in Illinois, using it as an opportunity to bash the media while reminding people that his wife is getting older and maybe forgetting things at the end of the day, which is all the more disconcerting since her campaign would have us believe she is good to go at three am...

So they must have felt like they caught a huge break when a tape of Obama emerged yesterday in which he was caught telling backers (in California's Marin County of all places) that people in small town Pennsylvania were "bitter" for having been shunted to the side of the American dream sweepstakes. Hillary seized on it immediately and will be talking about his remarks every day from now until the primary election (April 22). "Well, that's not my experience," she told a small crowd at Drexel University yesterday, doing that head-nodding thing she does when she is agreeing with herself."As I travel around Pennsylvania, I meet people who are resilient, who are optimistic, who are positive. . . . They're working hard every day for a better future for themselves and their children. Pennsylvanians don't need a president who looks down on them. They need a president who stands up for them, who fights for them."

Hillary embarked on a "listening tour" when she first ran for senator in New York, and folks in the hinterlands (some of the same land-time-forgot rust belt areas Obama was talking about) wondered what she might possibly know about their experience. She might want to put her ears on again. First, it is worth listening to Obama's remarks in context (posted on Huffington Post). "You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them," he said in response to a question about the challenges he faces there. "And they fell through the Clinton administration and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are going to regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

But this game ain't about context, of course. The sound bites, seized on by Fox News and Lou Dobbs, were those evoking people "clinging" to guns and religion, and hating furrners -- to say nothing of who Obama was talking to (Marin County, where rich people still bob for brie in their hot tubs). Next they'll get a photo of him windsurfing. He needs to remember that everyone is wired, every word will be recorded and taken out of context (including "out" and "of"). I think he's far more honest about the bitterness some working Americans feel but honest, of course, does not necessarily win the race. Look at our current president.

I hope to be doing some listening of my own as I travel to Philadelphia this weekend to knock on doors for Obama. I'll let you know what I hear there. Sometimes it's good to just shut up and listen.

posted by Sean Elder @ 7:33 AM  0 comments

The real class warfare

Movies about the Iraq war are dying at the box office, as an article in the New York Times noted this week. The Valley of Elah, Rendition, Lions for Lambs and now the MTV-produced Stop-Loss have each sunk without a trace as audiences stayed away in droves. Now Lionsgate is trying to break the spell with The Lucky Ones, a stateside road picture modeled on Hal Ashby's Vietnam-era The Last Detail and despite high marks from critics who've seen it, the producers are understandably trepidatious.

The president of the studio is quoted saying "nobody's going to movies that look like homework"; people are sick of war (as polls indicate); and those who might want to see a film about it are leery of having it all explained to them by Hollywood liberals like Susan Sarandon (the mother of the slain soldier in Elah), Meryl Streep (Lions) and Sarandon's husband, Tim Robbins, one of the stars of The Lucky Ones. Though it could also be that people just want a happy ending.

The 1973 Last Detail was not a hit. It got good reviews (notably for Jack Nicholson's memorable performance as Navy Sgt. Billy "Bad Ass" Buddusky: "I am the motherfucking shore patrol!") but ended on a dire note, in keeping with those dire times. Though the script (by Robert Towne) never mentions Vietnam, the war's shadow falls over its doomed characters, and informs their hatred of the military. It was Ashby's 1978 Coming Home that connected with audiences. It was a classic wounded-soldier story, a romantic-triangle film and a hell of an advertisement for cunnilingus.

It was also made three years after the war ended and no one needed convincing that Vietnam had been a fiasco, and taken a terrible human toll. With no end in sight, the war in Iraq is one rabbit hole a lot of moviegoers would rather avoid -- especially on a date night. (Might I suggest more cunnilingus?) But without the draft, the nation faces a different divide than the one that existed over the Vietnam war. How many people do you know who have served, or have children who have served? The Iraq war is, in part, a class issue, as demonstrated daily by the candidates who oppose it but must dance around the delicate issue of the brave men and women who etc. It's not their kids who are dying.

Maybe when this mess is finally over there will be some Coming Home equivalent, or even better: something along the lines of William Wyler's immortal post-WW II film, The Best Years of Our Lives. That film managed to do the impossible: cross class lines, heal broken families and even make Americans take a hard look at soldiers with missing limbs, and contemplate their own loss. Maybe somebody could just try and remake that film. I see Bob Dylan in the Hoagie Carmichael role...

posted by Sean Elder @ 4:09 PM  0 comments

Children of the Corn

Do you a remember an episode of the Twilight Zone that featured Billy Mumy as a farmboy named Anthony who had special kinetic powers? On a whim he could put an extra head on an animal or change the weather, and when his experiments went awry -- as they did when he turned a man into a human jack-in-the-box -- he sent them into the cornfield. The adults who lived on the farm with him were scared of him, because he could also read their thoughts, and whenever he did anything gruesome they would force themselves to smile and say, "That's a real good thing what Anthony did!"

I thought of that episode the other day watching the regulars on CNN interact with Lou Dobbs. The once mild-mannered business reporter has turned into a bloviating machine in recent years as his obsession with illegal immigration has made his show a ratings juggernaut, and the Dobbs brand a household word. He writes books, he has a radio show, and he is fond of answering email from adoring fans. "You are a breath of fresh air!" read a typical Valentine from last evening's cable broadcast. "Thanks for holding Democrats and Republicans accountable."

Whatever CNN's faults (and they are legion), most of its political reporters are sober, objective types and when they appear interacting with Dobbs, as they must, they smile and nod and don't scream what many of them must be thinking ("Shut up already, you pompous windbag!") because, like those folks on the farm, they are afraid -- afraid of his following. His show averaged about a million viewers in March, about a half a million less than the network's 2000-year-old-man, Larry King, and significantly less than Fox's Bill O'Reilly, who enraged about three million people a night that month, mostly with footage of Reverend Jeremiah Wright. If they aren't nice to Lou he might just up and move to Fox.

Not that he would necessarily fit in there. As a self-proclaimed defender of the middle class, Dobbs loves to tweak the US government for its dealings with China, or US corporations for shipping jobs oversees -- unpopular positions at the Murdoch owned, business-friendly Fox. But he likes his vendettas almost as much as O'Reilly does and for good old-fashioned Obama hating, he gets marks for persistence. Last night's panel of regular suspects (former Huckabeee flack Ed Rollins, Clinton-friendly Daily News columnist Michael Goodwin, and Clinton-pledged superdelegate Robert Zimmerman) provided the amen chorus before the backdrop of Dobbs's question of the evening: "Do you believe there is a media bias against Hillary Clinton in favor of Barack Obama?"

Dobbs is best known, though, for frettin' about our friends south of the border. His broadcast is a litany of NAFTA-bashing, drug-smuggling stories and decent folks who've had enough of wetbacks stealing their jobs. His gravest nightmare is probably captured in this video which features a norteno of the future recruiting accountants and programmers from the sidewalk, where they have lined up, looking for work ("But you must speak Java"). Me, I keep wishing CNN would send this guy to the cornfield. When he got there he'd find out that everyone spoke Spanish. After all, America runs on Mexican.

posted by Sean Elder @ 5:32 PM  0 comments