Ether.
Prepare for one of those short, bullshit soap box joints that I hate. Something nice is cooking.
Some of you have made the plea for Obama picking Mean Joe Biden, a tough-nosed hawk, for VP. Others have made the plea for the governor of Virginia and senator from Indiana, in the hopes that one of those two could deliver states that would be hard to win without an inside candidate. Fyuck that shit. You don’t get the chance to pick a Clinton for vice president that often. When that chance comes, you jump on it.
Even if this Clinton has race-baited? Even if this Clinton has dreams of becoming President? Even if this Clinton really hopes you don’t win the general election? Even if this Clinton refused to acknowledge your victory as the presumptive nominee the night you secured the win? Even though this Clinton calculatedly floated the word and idea of “assassination” in the air when asked why she wouldn’t admit defeat?
Four. Sho!
Sure, you might lose some uncommitted independents, but what do you gain? You get the dirtiest players in the game actually playing with you. You get the candidate who probably won the popular vote in the primary. You get someone who could get some of those over 40 white women who are sad as fuck about what happened in the primary. You get a vice presidential candidate who actually matters. Hillary Clinton matters! Biden, Bayh and ol’ boy from Virginia … not so much. When was the last time a VP actually delivered a swing state?
Here’s what we know …
Republicans do not want it with the Clintons! Unlike you, no one expects the Clintons to play clean. We know that with the Clintons we get what my cousin calls “a primetime boss bitch” and “the biggest political gangsta of our lifetime.” Since Obama has to stay virtually clean, we might need that.
And I kinda/sorta don’t wanna hear from those supposed ultra left who are gonna say all kinds of legitimate, but not very pragmatic shit about Hillary’s questionable ethics or Barack’s placating the moderate left and right. This is politics. And, real talk, the political is personal. If you’ll settle for less than perfection in your personal relationships (which I’m sure you do), isn’t it okay to settle for less than perfect in your political choices for President? And if you are remotely “progressive,” will you ever get a perfectly progressive candidate for President? Remember back in day, when all the so-called progressives voted for Nader to prove a point. Four years later, they were trying to get arrested at anti-Bush rallies, talking about how utterly unbelievable this “War on Terror” has been. Four years after that, some of those jokers are still talking about voting for Nader again or Cynthia Ann McKinney. I asked it then, and I’ll ask it now: Are ya’ll motherfuckers really serious?
I’m not saying that we can’t or shouldn’t harshly critique and organize around issues that our less than perfect President fails to support. But political, pragmatic support and all out belief are two different things. I believe Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are flawed political opportunists who might be more Bush or more Bill than I’d like to admit, but they give us a legitimate chance of becoming a more loving, responsible, compassionate, critical nation (and world) across executive and judicial lanes.
Am I crazy? Let’s hear from you. Who would you pick and why?
Ether.
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13 Responses:
August 22nd, 2008 at 12:29 pm
biden might be a pretty down and dirty player too. that’s just a suspicion. i don’t know much about politics. but i know he’s supposed to be all over international scheming and he’s in that subcommittee of much power and $. but obama’s all over the international scene anyhow, as well, so maybe we would want ourselves a clinton. she seems to be more into our country’s problems within its borders, and everyone loves a clinton. they’re good at staying in office too.
August 22nd, 2008 at 8:03 pm
i wouldn’t put it past the clinton machine to orchestrate that floated assassination if she were next in line to take the seat.
just sayin’.
August 22nd, 2008 at 9:30 pm
Oh well. Looks like he picked Biden. And I hear all the hoopla about Biden being able to out “old mean white man” McCain. It’s true, but Biden couldn’t even get a significant amount of support as a Presidential Candidate. Remember? He couldn’t excited an populous to care about him or his politics. Does he really get Obama any more votes than he would have gotten before? That’s my question. Hillary Clinton would turn off some folks, but can you really imagine Obama supporters not voting for him because of Hillary? And most importantly, she would get him millions of folks who might otherwise not vote for him or vote for McCain. Biden was the safe pick and I hope it works. I’m just worried about what this smack in the face means to already pissed Hillary Clinton folks who will continue to argue that she got fuct out of the primary. We needed that Clinton evil pushing this thing through the finish line.
August 23rd, 2008 at 8:51 pm
I was excited about the Biden pick until I read this and remembered that he was a failed presidential candidate. It makes sense to pick Biden but whatever could not connect him to voters as a Pres. candidate will fail to connect him as a VP. Did you see him call Barack “Barack America”? WTF!
August 24th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
here’s the question: what voters do you get with the biden pick that you couldn’t get with any white man pick? i appreciate and respect joe biden but he brings not substantial heat. in terms of impact on the populous, he’s the most overrated politician in the country. i know that white men have most motherfuckers in this country scared out of our wits, but we do not need older white men to win this election. we don’t. and they know it. obama has the younger vote on lock. hillary would have helped him deliver a significant amount of the over 40 white woman vote. if you get the youth, and you get enough over 40 white women, you win.
now, i’m worried that those over 40 white women and pissed as fuck and not going to support this nigga. i understand the pick. i just don’t think biden brings the ticket anything substantial and whatever he brings, the diss of clinton does more to hurt him … unless both clinton bust their asses and really campaign as if hillary clinton was on the ticket.
this shit saddens me. last thing i’m gonna say about it.
August 25th, 2008 at 10:31 am
was she ever a serious potential pick? i think you’re right about the potential that a obama/clinton team would’ve had, but i wonder a lot about double whammy anxiety. that is, going from the standard double white man blandy to a black man/woman whammy. just speculation, but i wonder to what kind of lengths the republican/far right machine would go to prevent that kind of office. we know it’s been dirty with barack, but if mccain is already putting out ads juxtaposing barack and britney, then can u imagine the field day they’d have with barack and hillary?
this is me wondering how far this country has come from that kind of anxiety.
and that’s just the campaign. i wondering about the election. we saw what the repub machine did to fellow blandies in 2000 and 2004. i’d venture to say that they’d put on the craziest show yet for the whammy.
or at least they’d try.
like i said, i think it’s a brilliant concept. dangerous as fuck, but brilliant. and so gangsta.
but i wonder so much about his thoughts/reasoning about not picking her, and how much those thoughts had to do with whammy anxiety. maybe not much at all.
and what about michelle? not sure if she has ambitions like hillary, but she ain’t laura bush. i know that much. she’s powerful, and is clearly going to be an active first lady. she might not have factored in this at all because her role would be so different, but i wonder how hillary would feel if bill had a female vp?
August 26th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Michelle Obama went a long way toward connecting with middle-aged (and younger) women and mothers last night. The reactions from white women I’ve read can be summed up with one word: awe.
Michelle was resplendent: she exuded class, stature, beauty, and intelligence.
And man can she represent.
Put it this way: she makes Barbara Bush look like she (Barbara Bush) is qualified for nothing better than being the head of a local Girl Scout Troop, teaching the basics of cooking, good hygiene, and knitting mufflers for your hardworking man. Just as Barack makes George W. look like he should be selling barbecue tongs at the local hardware store in Crawford, TX. The Bush’s are about as ordinary as you get, and they never deserved to sit in the White House.
Kiese, I agree with you about Obama not hooking up with Hilary for VP. I would have enjoyed the intense political dynamism of that match-up. It would have been wonderfully volatile.
But I’m not too worried about the Biden choice. Not all old white men are the same, as much as the look like it. It was quite telling that JB was called over to Georgia right before he was nominated–absolutely affirms why he’s on the ticket. Looking at the Obama/Biden ticket nervous white men from Ohio and Pennsylvania (man I hate Ohio!! The spineless fucking heartland–it needs a bypass) will be less likely to cringe knowing that half the ticket looks like them.
August 26th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
despite what the white boogeyman has told us, sometimes we might not need white men to achieve, authenticate or legitimate our goals. just a thought …
August 27th, 2008 at 9:10 am
I’m curious about who the white “boogeyman” is? Isn’t he just a paranoid projection? A product of fear-based blame games? Isn’t it more useful to be concrete and name names? Cite historical evidence?
I’m also not sure what motivated this post about not neeing “white men to achieve, authenticate or legitimate our goals.” Is it part of the Biden discussion in this thread? Are you suggesting that the Biden pick reflects a need black men have had to be “approved” by white men? Or that at the very least this choice of Biden taps into a vein of African-American male experience, demeaning but understandable, wherein “success” in American society requires the that “minorities” be embraced by the dominant culture or approved for entrance into elite centers of power? Has this been part of Obama’s own developmental drama?
Isn’t it possible that the very opposite of what you say has happened? First, look at the incredible historical irony of Obama’s achievement. He’s OUR first African-American presidential candidate (by the way, no race owns him, he’s an American candidate). His presence on the platform tomorrow night signifies a tremendous transformation in American political history. (Talk about cognitive dissonance…and the great cultural distances we’ve traveled in the last few years). Two things astonish me–that fact he’s there and the fact that we’ve gotten used to that fact so fast. This tells me there’s obviously been a profound realignment in this country in the politics of power and race (this is absolutely undeniable). This also tells me that, because I’ve so quickly become used to Obama’s presence at the top of the Democratic ticket, I welcome, I embrace (as do millions of others) the change that he represents–racially, politically, ethically.
There’s a paradigmatic shift happening, and again, look at the historical irony of the situation. Obama is reaching down to an older white man, reaching down to him–you see this don’t you?–and elevating him (Biden) to a position of power that he would not likely have otherwise seen in his lifetime (Biden’s one of the perma-Senators, like Kennedy).
So, as I started to say before, I think the opposite of what you say is happening. It’s Biden that needs Obama to legitimize him (Biden), to authenticate him (Biden), to help him achieve his goals (Biden’s). Biden is in a position of seeking the approval of an African-American presidential candidate–so that he (Biden) can find a place in what is fast becoming a multi-racial (or multi-ethnic) political power structure.
This is the huge historical irony I was talking about above.
OK, now it’s time for the readers of the blog to tell Rhetor to chill because he’s taking up too much space.
August 27th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Thanks for the clarification, S. A couple more points: 1. It is significant that Obama won the Democratic race by himself, without “the nod of approval” of a white man next to him, right? In fact, he won partly because hundreds of thousands of white males like me (anonymous fucks in the weeds of this nation) supported him. That gives me a hell of a lot of confidence in him. He also won this alone against the most powerful political machine of the last 20 years, the Clintons. 2. An inter-racial ticket makes demographic sense and political sense. 3. Thanks for the clarification about who the white bogeyman is. But I think your answer is a bit pat, a bit too easy. Is institutionalized racism a permanent unchanging entity? Is it as oppressive, say, as it was 10 years ago? Doesn’t the fact that Obama won the nomination mean that government as an institution is less racist than it used to be? What institution are you talking about? Isn’t it more helpful to imagine a society of intersecting institutions, not all of which are bedeviled by the same specter of racism? Look at the military. It is historically the most progressive (in terms of both gender and race–with the possible exception of its heteronormativity) institution in the country.
August 27th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
[...] My friend and colleague Kiese Laymon says anyone but Hillary Clinton as the chief [...]
August 31st, 2008 at 11:28 am
i’m with S on this. rhetor, maybe i’m misinterpreting you, or maybe you’re just playing devil’s advocate, but it feels like you’re asking us to slip into that blissful,ignant place of contentment where tokenism equals significant racial progress. white people, liberal and conservative alike seem to love that place. my hunch is that it’s because for them it means that they can calm the coloreds (by this i mean all people of color) by throwing us a bone every now and then from gates that they still control. i mean, one colored pres out of 44 ain’t bad, right?
let’s be serious. yes, america is changing, but let’s stop congratulating ourselves for minimal progress.
we still live in an america where a mediocre white candidate has the same if not better chance of being elected as a superior colored candidate.
we have a military that accepts all kinds to die for our country, but dares to ask many of its soldiers to hide parts of their identity.
our current democratic candidate can’t publicly discuss/rejoice in the full weight of the history he’s about to make for fear of losing because it’s not the type of history the gatekeepers want to recognize or validate.
because full recognition of that history would be an implied confession of the advantage they’ve carried over the past 224 years. and no one wants to admit that their victory was won on an uneven playing field. no one wants to believe that they may not have been the best after all.
etc…etc…
the bottom line is that we’ve not even reached a point where race can be publicly discussed without choosing between dishonesty or political ruin.
and if we can’t talk about it honestly, then we can’t tackle racism in a real way.
and if we can’t tackle racism, then the gatekeepers win, and then they, not us, will keep the tokens flowing… or not, depending on the era and who’s at the gate.
and none of this will truly progress america.
should we be excited about obama? absolutely. should we use this occassion to proclaim the end of the racial nightmare? hell no.
we’re just getting started.
i can’t speak for others, but i ain’t looking for tokens or bones, man. i want full integration. and that white boogeyman at the gate? i want to run him over and bust through that thang.