177 To Go

177 to go.



My phone was ringing off the hook last night from friends and acquaintances who know I am up to my ears in the minutiae of this primary.

"Why hasn't she dropped out yet?"

"What more do they want from him?"

"Why isn't this thing over yet?"

"What trick is the Clinton Camp going to pull next?"

For people who don't follow the political goings on in their own town, for those who could normally care less about the national political scene "because they are going to do what they want anyway", this is a harsh introduction to watching big time politics. There are so many conflicts within the Democratic Party right now - young versus old, black versus white (will come back to this one in a minute), the future versus the past, the many versus the few - that it will take a while for all of these things to settle down.

I wouldn't want to imagine being Hillary Clinton right now. This would have been an easier pill for Obama to swallow - remember, as he puts he, he wasn't supposed to get this far. But to be the front runner, the favorite, the one to beat - to already know what changes you were going to make in the White House bedroom to get rid of the stuff you didn't like the last time you lived there - it has got be one of the most horrible political and personal experiences a candidate has gone through in generations, somewhere up there with the"Wilkie Wins" headline THAT presidential hopeful went to sleep on.

I've told my friends to turn their TV's off - to go do something fun, or get some sleep, or reconnect with their families, or whatever it is they normally do to kill time - because everything else from here on out is just noise, mindless chatter to fill the airwaves until the conventions.

And for my more conspiratorially minded associates, I've had to reassure them that there will be no secret ballot, no "stealing" of the nomination, no magic wand that will help her snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

Rest easy, I've told them - Barack Obama will be the Democratic nominee. "You can take that to the bank."


177 to go.

Watch Out For The "Jedi Mind Trick"

This quote:

White folks, and white men in particular, have always found ways to alter, bend, or just totally ignore the rules they've made up when something doesn't suit them.

from my very own "The Black Folks Guide To Survival" resonated - DING! - inside my skull as if I had been hit over the head with a frying pan while reading THIS QUOTE from Mark Penn, the Clinton campaign's chief strategist:

Two days later, after Obama’s eighth straight victory, Penn told reporters: “Winning Democratic primaries is not a qualification or a sign of who can win the general election. If it were, every nominee would win because every nominee wins Democratic primaries.”

Dude! One of the boldest uses of the Jedi Mind Trick (trying to get me to believe the opposite of something I know to be true) I've seen in recent days. "Winning" is now meaningless. Damn!

The amount of chutzpah it must take to be able to say this with yet another likely loss staring you in the face has to be incredible. This guy has got the wrong job - he should be selling ice to the Eskimos.

But back to my own words. This section:

"alter, bend, or just totally ignore the rules THEY'VE made up"

strikes at the heart of what we see when we look at politicians and corporate chieftains - an unwillingness, in many instances, to deal squarely with the facts as they stand before them.
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