Once again, I'm referencing the great Billy Bragg, whose "Levi Stubbs' Tears" just might be the greatest song ever recorded. And I'm fessing up to how in the tank I"ve been for Mrs. Clinton. But as I've previously written, I'm saying "uncle" and hoping for the best.
When the Robert Kennedy fracas broke I couldn't help but think of my favorite quote, the lines Bobby Kennedy spoke in apartheid South Africa about "acts of courage and belief."
Lately I've been asking myself, is it a that a description of Hillary Clinton's exit from the presidential campaign? I'm sure it feels that way. Adlai Stevenson conceded his race with Abraham Lincoln's line about "a little boy who had stubbed his toe in the dark. He said that he was too old to cry, but it hurt too much to laugh." Hillary probably feels something similar.
Still, I think she'll pull up her socks, as the namesake of my college used to say, and work harder for the Democratic ticket than any losing candidate ever has. Of course, that will be even easier if she's Vice-President but I wouldn't bet on that happening. (Although as I've often noted, I'm usually wrong).
I just don't see why Barack Obama would want a running mate who got just as much press as he did, and whose husband would always be called "Mr. President" too.
It's much more likely that David Axelrod and a bunch of expensive focus groups are testing all the usual suspects, from Ted Strickland to Oprah Winfrey. Obama may believe in the "politics of hope," but he wouldn't say so unless it tested well.
Something else I'm sure came from a focus group is Obama's new "out of touch" line about McCain--it no doubt beat "wrong on Iraq" and "old and creepy." Maybe Hillary could lend Barack her "strength and experience" line...or she could follow the advice of this important op-ed in today's New York Times and become a 21st century Eleanor Roosevelt or Elizabeth Cady Stanton. As they say in Mary Poppins, "Well done, Sister Suffragette!"
Comments