Organizing for America | Maxim Thorne's Blog: Fair Play!

Fair Play!

By Maxim - Mar 17th, 2008 at 6:57 pm EDT

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Fair play! Barack Obama has an unchanged lead of over 100 delegates over Hillary Clinton. Mathematically, she cannot catch up with him. Fair play! That’s what we are told this country is built on, what makes us special. This is the way to succeed- you play by the rules, and you play them fairly. Even when the rules may not be fair, we play fairly by them. This is why we are a sports-obsessed nation. We like the idea of set rules, of competitors playing by them, and championships settled by them. We don’t add a tenth inning or a fifth quarter to change the fortunes or a losing team, we don’t strip a team of their best player to ensure their defeat, we don’t say to a winning team, well, gee, the losers really deserve it more because they are older, or they don’t have a title yet, or their fans have traveled farther to come to the game. And when we suspect the rules have been broken, that unfairness was allowed in, Congress gets into the fray. We are a nation of fair play, of rules, of true victors being acknowledged and losers being gracious. Unless you are running for the Democratic presidential nomination this year. While we are so busy clapping ourselves on the back for having a woman and a Black man battle it out for the nomination, we are averting our eyes from the political assassination of Barack Obama developing in these final months of the campaign. By the rules, by fair play, Barack Obama will end up in Denver as the nominee. Even if Senator Clinton were to eke out wins in all the remaining contests (and looking at the calendar it is unlikely she can win more than four of the remaining dozen, if that), it is Senator Obama who will come to the convention in Denver having won more states, more popular votes, and more delegates than Senator Clinton. That was true two weeks ago, it is true today, and will be true in August. But yet, we are being told by Senator Clinton and her camp that this is not the way it should be. That, yes, these are the rules, but guess what, the rules don’t matter. Senator Obama played by the game and won in Iowa. Then suddenly caucuses were bad and primaries good, until Obama swept the South Carolina primary. Then the Clinton folks said primaries with heavy Black turnout shouldn’t really count, so the order got taller now for Obama, the states that counted now were outside of the South, where few Blacks live. Then he swept to victory in places like Utah, North Dakota, Alaska, and Idaho. But those were caucuses in red states, what about primaries in white, true-blue states the Clinton folks demanded. And Senator Obama won primaries in white, true blue states like Delaware and Connecticut. Ok, so those are small states where any Democrat could win, what about a big bellweather? Senator Obama took Missouri, the ultimate bell-weather. Hmm, the Clinton folks said, but what about Latinos. Senator Obama won the Latino vote in Colorado and Virginia. The Clinton response? Those aren’t the right kind of Latinos. Then the bar was set at a big, downtrodden industrial state, the kind of place where race relations are less about the Civil War and more about the working class turf wars of the 1970s and 1980s, and he walloped Clinton in Wisconsin. So the Democratic party of the Clinton imagination is left with this: no Blacks (until the general election, when no Democrat of any color can win without their support), only the right kind of Latinos (Colorado and Virginia Latinos out, Texas and California Latinos in) the right Jews (New York Jews in, California Jews out), no one making over $50,000 or have more than a high school diploma, no young people, and God forbid, no one enthusiastic enough to brave the bitter cold and spend some time participating in caucuses with their neighbors. That is the Democratic party of Clinton dreams. And of course, while we’re at it, let’s knock Georgia and Alabama and Virginia and Illinois down a few notches, and give American Samoa its rightful place at the top! Hillary Clinton’s attempted political assassination of Barack Obama must stop. She’s lost. She is Huckabee without the charm. And worse, she is back to the old sickening game of fear mongering and crass politicking that has scarred this country. Her playbook is now about the lofty words (read uppity Negro), the not quite Christian enough (middle name), not ready (affirmative action?). Play by the rules. That’s the mantra we’ve all been told as Americans (and particularly minorities) in this country. Yes, the rules themselves and their application in the past may have been problematic but they are what we have, they are the great equalizer. Until, we win by the rules. Then, there are new rules, and when we win by those as well, it comes down to this: forget the rules, you just won’t win anyway. This may sound completely un-American, but this is what Hillary Clinton is up to as the Democratic nomination fight moves forward.

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