Primary Hangover

I can’t tell what was more dispiriting about the most recent primaries–watching Hillary Clinton win Texas and Ohio or watching Barack Obama lose them. Clinton did what she does best: old-style, old-school machine politics, garnished with a dollop of fear. What surprises me is how unprepared Obama seemed for what even my kids knew: she was willing to do anything to win those states, especially after her ham-handed husband announced her firewall in advance.

Obama may have been raised in Hawaii, but he has spent his entire political life in my hometown of Chicago, where people vote early and often, and cutthroat politics is the name of this game. I don’t want to see Obama forget what it is we love and respect about him–his high ideals and inclusive vision. But there are times when people who want to lead have to fight, and it’s time for him to start fighting for the presidency he wants and our country needs. I’m not persuaded by Clinton’s experience argument; she has faced exactly the same number of foreign policy crises as Obama–none. I am persuaded by the judgment argument; Clinton has been wrong–and unapologetic–about invading Iraq, the biggest single decision our Congress has faced in the last decade. I can’t help but ask how many other times will she follow along with others–her long-time friends in the Senate, for example, rather than make the tough decisions in the lonely job that is President of the United States.

I believe Obama can make those tough choices, but only if he starts making tough choices now–about how to sharpen the distinctions between himself and Clinton, and about how to turn the conversation toward the things he wants to talk about, not the things she wants to talk about. I hate to say it, but the speech he gave in Texas struck the wrong note–it was his version of the valedictory Clinton gave after the debate. And as a former journalist, I have to say Obama didn’t help himself by complaining about media coverage during the last news cycle. It’s not the media’s fault that his people weren’t ready for Clinton to do what she did, especially about the NAFTA meeting between one of his advisers and the Canadian government.

But it will be just as complex for Obama to go after Clinton, and if he does not have a set of deft and nimble writers at his disposal, it will be trouble. Why? Because he is a black man, and for all of our desire to live in a time in which we have both acknowledged and transcended race, part of Obama’s success can be attributed to his “non-threatening” presence and demeanor. He is calm, he is unflappable, he is not the kind of black man who is liable to go ballistic and emotional and scare white people, many of whom are still trying to wrap their minds around an actual black person who is comfortable in his/her own skin. The more aggressive he is with Hilary Clinton, the more likely he is to evoke all those images of threatened white womanhood that remain embedded in the American consciousness despite all our progress. And don’t think the Clintons don’t know that. They are probably counting on it, especially in Pennsylvania– famously described by Democratic strategist James Carville as a state with Pittsburgh at one end, Philadelphia at the other, and Alabama in between. (I know that’s right; in all the many years of family car trips since our children were born, the only place we have ever been denied the use of a bathroom was when we stopped at a diner in the middle of Pennsylvania. Yes, this happened in modern times!)

So Obama has his work cut out for him in the next six weeks, which is forever in news cycles! Though he’s right that it’s a numbers game, (he’s still got more delegates) he’d be foolish not to send some pretty clear signals that Clinton’s free ride, courtesy of his campaign, is over. On behalf of those of us who believe Barack Obama is our last best hope for a dignified, inspirational and effective presidency, I say: Senator, please, get fired up and ready to go!

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