What happened to the Obama and Clinton we watched all last summer? After watching Hillary and Barack now trade snide remarks, one wonders what went wrong? Last summer Obama was the transracial, transpolitical new candidate of hope and change who would campaign in a radically novel fashion, and Hillary was the Wellesley/Yale leftish feminist candidate of elites, who had always tried to tug her husband ever more leftward.
But now? Obama is suffering not from too much love and tolerance, but a disturbing tendency to stereotype almost everyone from his own grandmother to Middle America, as well as past associations with a peddler of hate like Wright. And Hillary? It turns out that she grew up shooting, and is now the bulwark of white middle class values, defending Middle America from snide elitist caricatures about god and guns . As for the issues, I have no idea where they actually differ, who is the more liberal or conservative, or what they might do if elected.
This election seems like 1952—an unpopular sitting President, no incumbent President or VP in the race , a war-hero, an elitist ‘thinking-man’s’ candidate, and a contested Democratic convention with lasting bitterness.