Obama’s landslide victory last night in South Carolina has provided crystal clear answers to several fundamental and burning questions about this year’s campaign. And none of those answers bode well for Hillary, Bill or the Clinton legacy. But maybe, just maybe, the answers bode well for America.
Boy oh boy! What an exciting primary season. Last night I stayed up for the first time to watch the results come in live and to follow the discussions on CNN, the BBC, English language Al Jazeera and on the Internet.
With Obama’s overwhelming victory
we have learned what this election is really all about. We have also gained great insight into what’s going on inside the minds of today’s voters.
The voters of South Carolina have said in no uncertain terms that they want Change with a capital ‘C’. Not merely a change in the ruling party or only a welcome change in basic policy directions. The last 15 years in general and the last seven in particular have been about grid-locked partisan politics of the worst kind. And according to the voters in South Carolina at least, they are sick and tired of seeing their politicians behave that way to the clear detriment of citizens on all sides of the political and social divide.
On that score, the alternative between Obama and Clinton became crystal clear: a man who has the potential to create strength from diversity versus a wife and husband team who represent acceptable policy but within the bounds of traditional partisan politics. And the voter chose strength through diversity and rejected traditional Washington partisanship parlor games.
The voters in South Carolina also sent a message that they are no longer susceptible to political campaigning as usual. The often misleading and vindictive campaign that the Clintons ran in the last several weeks received a resounding thumbs-down. South Carolina voters saw through that and said loud and clear those hounds don’t bite anymore.
And finally, and on this score I am sad, we now have the answer to a question that has plagued many Americans, Democrats in particular, for fifteen years. Who is the real Bill? Is that Bill the Politician? Or is it Bill the Statesman? Is he Bill the Caring or Bill the Opportunist?
Well, what we now know about Bill is the following: When push comes to shove Bill chooses for the pushing and shoving and betrays the uplifting. When it comes to self-interest and short-term gratification versus hope and long-term lasting values, Bill chooses for the former and turns his back on the latter.
That’s apparently just the way he is. It’s that short-term need for ego gratification that made it impossible for Bill to keep it in his pants with Monica Lewinsky and that’s what made it inevitable that he would turn a potentially inspiring and uplifting election into nothing more than sordid politics. And that flaw, apparently one both Clintons share, lost them South Carolina big time and perhaps the Democratic nomination.
And what is most surprising, most gratifying and incredibly inspiring is that we learned all this not in some traditional ‘blue’ state but in a traditionally red Southern state. That Obama beat Hillary in 16 out of 20 major demographic categories based on gender, age and/or race in a Southern state is the most wonderfully hopeful and inspiring statement America has made about herself in many years.
No we know. And ain't it grand!
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