New Hampshire

Being a political beast, Tananarive was more disappointed than I was about Hillary’s win last night. I’ve got nothing against Hillary (so sue me) and frankly, I would have been disappointed had she gone down like a punk, so to speak. After all, the Clinton’s are arguably America’s premier politicos right now. If Obama motored over them, he’s not quite human. And I’d kind of like a human being in the White House.

Also, if due to some odd set of factors he crushed her, we would learn nothing about him—although we’d learn a lot about those who support him, primarily their numbers.

Nope. You want someone who can dig in, and come back. Heck, people act as if there was some kind of gigantic upset. Really? Iowa was an upset. New Hampshire was Clinton performing closer to the way people predicted, but Obama doing better than National polls suggested. I think. It’s a horse-race.

In boxing terms, the Kid knocked the Champ on her duff in the first round, and then the Champ came back and outpointed him in the second. Ding Ding! Third round coming up…
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I think most people in this country grasp that there are both internal and external factors that influence poverty. I’ve spent my whole life concentrating on the factors that an individual can influence: goal setting, focus, continuing education, building alliances, clarifying values, and so forth. The building of political coalitions or even participating in politics (beyond voting) has never really been my thing.

So for me, the best thing about Obama is that, win lose or draw, were I say 12 years old right now, I would have the opportunity to see a black man performing at the outer edge of human capacity in the arena of politics. Intelligent, focused, with a clear message and the ability to bond people to him and raise A HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS in a year. Beloved of a huge chunk of the country. Trust me, I never saw anything like that as a child. If I had, I would have had a clearer role model for success than I ever had. I might have decided on Law School, tried my hand at running for office, or at the very least extracted from his current success metaprinciples that could influence my own life.

As long as he doesn’t implode, or get caught on video having sex with a teenaged amputee, his campaign is nothing but gravy, regardless of what happens. I LOVE this. Trust me—if he loses, there will be black people who grouse “it was race.” Of course. Like there will be women who grouse if Hillary loses. Of course. But there will be millions of black children, and little girls, who say: “he got that close? She got that close? I COULD DO THAT. I COULD DO BETTER THAN THAT.”

Role models are fantastically important, really.
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And a role model for women? If she gets elected, those who think she’s doing a good job get a powerful role model. If she DOES do a good job (by an impossible objective standard: every President has their defenders and detractors) its even better.
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I don’t think it’s really possible to determine whether blacks or women have it worse. It would be necessary to decide on some set of standards, and that would be automatically somewhat arbitrary and subjective. It would be like looking at the score of a football game and deciding that the victors were better people.
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Really, I would have no interest in “deciding” such a thing, although I do suggest my little experiment in asking black women—the only ones who could resolve the question, in my mind—for those who need a position. What I WOULD support is people being healthy, successful, and loving. Clear in their own values and committed to making a better world. Whatever such people choose to believe in and fight for, I think ultimately is for the good.

I believe in the basic evolutionary nature of human beings—in a spiritual sense as well as biological. Because that is the basic position I come from, I believe in us. I think that fear and greed, the “lowest” emotions, can be trusted to lift us up, if our eyes are clear and we actually engage with our lives fully. In my mind, all the lessons we need to become balanced human beings are applicable to also building a better world. So I concentrate my attention there, on individual health and balance, rather than on mass movements. Believe there is much to be done for group X? Go for it. Makes the world better for my daughter, or my son, or someone I care about…as long as you don’t diminish the humanity of group Y in the process, we’re cool.