Wow, that was fast.
On Monday, I was marveling at how smoothly, and quietly, Barack Obama had co-opted the word “change” and turned it into invaluable name identification. It worked because it was not about him and campaign promises, but about us, and our need. We are Americans in the seventh year of a game between the Nation and the Bush Administration, and the Bush team is ahead 100-0, with a year remaining until the final gun.
Then during and after the Iowa caucuses, Obama reached us with this word, “change.” It reached us because it was about us, and Obama understood. On Monday, I was proposing a campaign button showing one word: “Change.” Anyone seeing the button would instantly identify it with Obama. Today, I am thinking there should be another one-word button: “US.” It would not be a button of a candidate, but of the people, Americans captive in our stadium from hell until Bush finally retires to the locker room. What an irony. Over the weekend, Bush the Divider became Bush the Uniter. In 2008, there are now three candidates in the presidential race: a Democrat, a Republican, and US. Thanks to Hillary Clinton, New Hampshire made that clear.
Hillary, or Hillary and her people, saw what happened after Iowa. They understood Obama’s brilliance in transforming “Change” into “US.” Hillary, conducting an old-style campaign that was all about her, and failed her badly in Iowa, desperately needed to get into the US act. The polls had her trailing Obama by 10 or more points in New Hampshire, and editors were already dummying her campaign obits into the front pages.
So in the space of a 60-second soliloquy about pain, she became one of US. Her voice cracked, tears gathered in her eyes, doubt clouded her clarity, testifying to her humanity. Bill used to say, “I feel your pain,” which was hokey but good enough to be remembered. Hillary said, “Please, feel my pain,” which was dynamite and gave US a feeling of power that we couldn’t wait to use. Tuesday evening, the New Hampshire chapter of US announced its dominance over the traditional purveyors of presidential campaigns – polls, promises, press – and accepted Hillary into the bleachers.
“Something is happening here,” both the objective and pundit press were saying on Wednesday, and it reminds me of the 1960s, the time of young people starting to speak their minds, including the Buffalo Springfield in their anthem, “For What It’s Worth:” “Paranoia strikes deep, into your life it will creep; it starts when you’re always afraid, step out of line the man come, and take you away . . . “
For what it’s worth, in our age of paranoia, there’s something happening here. What it is ain’t exactly clear, but clearly enough, after New Hampshire, it’s of the people, and by the people, and with two candidates so far having seen the light, no doubt, in the months to come, for the people.
Cross-posted from my blog.