How Soon is Now?

Let’s get it over with already, no? Perhaps just maybe once this is settled the Obamaniacs can cease their inane chatter. Sacre Poutine! They remind me of apologists for x-tian rock when they insist and ceaselessly insist that their campaign is cleaner than HRC’s, their tactics the noble strides of holy warriors against the X chromosome chicanery of the infidel; let us be clear, what is passing for a ‘new’ kind of politics is the politics of the inexperienced and the naïve. Perhaps, again, when all the dust here settles we will begin to see it for what it is; once the Republicans have their attack ready and rolling.

Obama isn’t going to like it, Michele definitely isn’t going to like it, and these Obamazoids would rather drink hemlock than admit it, much less consume the requisite crow required to get behind it, but this rarified campaign is going to need the grit of a Clinton to win this election and that’s the end of it. When they have extinguished the empty calorie diet of femo-bashing and find themselves again with a policy-less, indefinable concept of change and little more than an elite guard of over-educated, wide eyed liberal, plastic saber waving monkeys to get them to the White House, what is to say then? This is not to include the ninety percent of black Americans voting Democratic in these primaries and caucuses thus far; as a group always an important segment of the party’s voting base and, it appears obvious, showing more strongly than ever before. They certainly form a backbone that can not be forgotten in this race; but where they could not be ignored in the past (in far fewer numbers, the others disenfranchised and uninterested in the democratic process (in 2006 29% of black Americans expressed no confidence in the country’s election system and that they did not believe their vote would be counted accurately), nor can another, larger segment: the white, working class voter. Alay, I know, I know, I know what that is supposed to sound like! Nom Dieu! All of a sudden we are paying attention to the voice of the, how you call it, cracker? It is hardly romantic politic, in the Thomas Paine style, I know, but what can you say? These are different times and we cannot define them by ourselves. Is Jim Webb going to bring a unity to the party? Bill Richardson? And don’t begin to say the name of Edwards! In the parlance of your football, this is like giving the ball to the quarterback of interceptions! You may as well put Kerry, or Gore, back in the game with ten minutes remaining. I don’t think I need to remind you of the season record. The Republicans have won seven contests to the Democrat’s three since Nixon first won the presidency in 1968. Available on the sidelines right now are members of two of those winning teams. But no, it’s ok, I completely understand… it would not be right, I’m sure you have all that you need to blame her later with… after a war hero with a hot wife wins the moms of soccer in the final minutes of the game. You will feel noble in the defeat.

This is politics. Like rock and roll it can not be half assed, watered down, or explained. Madonna or Amy Grant? Metallica or Seventh Day Slumber? Ronnie James Dio or Michael W. Smith? Let’s go, Americans! Get with it!

Obama, Save Me From Your Followers!

As much as I love, you know, to see nuns get their comeuppance, I have to ask: were the twelve nuns who were denied the opportunity to vote in the Indiana primary a very small part of a larger attempt by the Obama campaign to stymie the Catholic vote, which did not show well for him in Pennsylvania?

Alay, the howling for Clinton’s inevitable dropout increased in decibel level this week and it still sounds the same as it has since February; an activist media conjoined with a blind, faith-based fever squad of followers at once angry and frightened that someone, a woman, is keeping from them what they’ve perceived is theirs by divine right. I am reminded of the documentary Capturing the Friedmans in the scene where television reporters have descended on the pedophile’s home for the first time and the family is in the yard, one son donning his own tighty-whiteys over his head and yelling delirously in order to distract from the horrible discovery. And no, mes bon amis, I am not linking the Senator to some exotic child porn ring; rather it is the followers, the pundits, and certain terrified Democratic Party leaders who shriek and cry for fear it might be discovered that the party’s primary system is as decrepit and unsafe as a loose-bolt roller coaster. Their multi-grain blend of caucuses, primaries, and superdelegates is some Montessori nightmare game where everybody gets to tally their own points and cry when they aren’t declared the winner after all.

Though late in the game, I suppose it was I who was naïve when I encountered a music writer and friend of artist Shepard Fairey and ran against that still dumb and twinkly eyed glow which perceived me as, not being a native, working class white person (I am, as you know, a stunning Quebecour and standard bearer of tangy journalism and Canadian Hip-Hop!), surely in the Obama camp. He blissfully regaled me of the beauty of the impending change would only the monster leave the room, and my queries as to what that actually meant, policy-wise were met with ranting about crossing of the aisle. When I suggested that Obama had really yet to demonstrate the ability to cross party lines, he looked at me like I was an out of order ATM, withdrew his card and walked away.

I, for one, will be happy to know that at the very least, an Obama presidency would change the way millions of children think with regard to the wells of possibility from which they may draw in their lifetime, but am mortified that the road upon which that is laid is so populated by reeling fanatics unable to grasp the political realities of backing an unseasoned candidate.