
Acting like super delegates, mainstream media pundits are pushing for Sen. Hillary Clinton to cede the Democratic presidential nomination to Sen. Barack Obama in the name of party unity.
This is the first time that a black man and a white woman are the only two viable candidates for the nomination and it is probable that either one will become the next president. That both are compassionate and brilliant is also history making.
Each inspired hundreds of thousands of people to become voters. Also significantly, both have made every single state and territory count in their push to the nomination.
Before this year, the states that held primaries and caucuses after the Feb. 5 Super Tuesday were ornaments to the democratic process.
This year, they are the foundation for democratic process even within the confines of the undemocratic caucuses, in which not everyone can participate.
Cutting off the potential participation of 10 million voters in the next 10 primaries and caucuses would be a salute to Politburo politics.
Clinton and Obama each have received about 14 million votes. He leads in the popular vote by about 500,000. He’s won more states and delegates, mostly where caucuses have been held. He lags in Super Delegates by a about 100.
If the Florida vote were counted, Clinton would lead in popular votes, super delegates and big state wins.
Yes, the spin of each side is now boring, amusing, pathetic, The Single Most Important Item in The World. Certainly, the spin is a lifeline for each camp.
But is also the awakening of a dream deferred to millions of voters who see in their candidate a bit of justice restored.
Racism hasn’t ended. It is a palpable in every corner of society, from newsrooms that tell our stories to boardrooms to the disenfranchised kitchen staff that enthrall blissfully unaware diners even here in the Pioneer Valley.
Just three years ago the Bush Justice Department had to intervene in Springfield and three other Massachusetts cities for violations of the Civil Rights Voting Act. People of color had been denied equal access to voting materials in their own language.
Sexism secretes its venom every day as well, including in Northampton, where women are supposedly as strong as ridiculously expensive latte. It was here that an abused woman was killed in front of the police station several years ago, around the corner from the mural on Masonic Street celebrating women.
Sexism is the invisible ‘ism.’ Hardly anyone cares that women are victimized by political policies set by men, that crimes against women are still considered minor infractions, that living in poverty is what you get for being a single mother, that a smart woman is a cold bitch if she tries to achieve anything, including the top job in the White House. That women still earn far less what men make for the exact same job is passé, man.
Obama reluctantly joined the conversation on race when his pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, made white people cringe because in sermons he had said things like white people run the country and damn the injustices that have befallen people of color.
Obama had not wanted to be seen as a black candidate, apparently thinking that such a narrative wouldn’t draw white voters, necessary to win big. Clinton never tried to hide the fact that she is a woman, possibly because she knew the tactic would hurt her credibility.
Silly politics aside, Obama delivered a strong speech where the personal became political. He talked of his own family, a snapshot of the United Nations. He acknowledged that his blackness led him to a church where whiteness is the target of rage.
The bumpy and exhausting road to the White House has dulled the shine on Obama. For Clinton, it’s been an insult fest for from day one. Pundits such as Maureen Down cling to her bitterness against the Clintons in every column.
Yet, their complexities still come through in the most hyped, most expensive job interview in history continues. His money advantage can’t sway people to him; her experience can’t convince the yuppies.
They don’t seem to like one another, but a shared ticket would keep the voters in November and serve as a united front face against a world of leaders who don’t the country.
The breakdown of their voters by race, gender and age would be terminally demoralizing if one didn’t remember that Clinton and Obama are writing a beautiful chapter in American history. They are repairing the frayed gorgeous mosaic New York Mayor David Dinkins once called the only city in the world where everyone lives and which today is the entire country. They are the redeemers and the upcoming voters want to be part of this breathtaking chapter.

Will the editors at the Washington Post kindly point ‘Columbia’ in a map? I think it’s somewhere around West Harlem, but I’m not sure.
After a long battle within the Chilean courts, the Constitutional Court of Chile on Friday blocked a government-sponsored program that distributed emergency contraceptives to women as young as 14 free of charge.
Lest the presidential campaign season take over this blog, the Houston Chronicle reports that former INS chief Doris Meissner said that reviving immigration reform is near-impossible .
Two issues of note. San Francisco, which long ago declared itself a sanctuary city for immigrants, has taken the step of publicizing that undocumented immigrants need not fear the police and that social services will continue to be extended to all regardless of immigrant status.
Since the first caveman set three grunts to music, the vast majority of songs have been for and about women. To woe us, to compliment us, to bemoan the one that got away. Women have, for the most part, reveled on the attention, or just ignored unwanted serenades.