Clinton v. Obama: Pin the tail on the donkey already!
April 22nd, 2008 by JILL MILLER ZIMON
Thinking about the outlook for today’s Democratic presidential nominee primary in Pennsylvania is like being at a birthday party, blindfolded, wrist flexed back with a dart between your thumb and index finger, trying to decide where to pin the tail on the donkey. You just can’t figure out, after having been spun around and around and around, where to place the darn dart.
In the case of the race between Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, why is this so? Why are we unable to stick the dart in but good?
Sure, the candidates and their campaigns keep moving the wall and their donkey. But we expect that in politics.
As the ones holding the darts, however, the voters are unable to stick the dart in because, no matter what the campaigns do to the target they’ve embraced, the choice between these candidates represents a choice between options that can both be assessed as ones that will lead to success. Or failure. But that’s not the problem.
The problem is that Independent and Democratic voters lack a consensus as to which candidate is more likely to win, or lose, in a time when we are desperate for certainty. (This desperation to be certain results from the fast and loose play by President George Bush and his administration with our trust. Who wants to be fooled or feel like they’ve been fooled, again? Likewise, this desperation for certainty in choosing is at the root of the assertions by firm supporters for one Democratic candidate or the other that they will vote for John McCain should their instinct for where to place the dart on the donkey not get the nod and McCain’s campaign plays on this desperation daily.)
Compound this problem with the fact that so many of us don’t want to trust anyone else to make the choice for us: this results in us voting in record numbers to make our preference known. But, in this election cycle, we’re pumping up the preference statements for both candidates - not a majority consensus for one over the other.
As residents of a Democratic country, we tend to think, Bring It On when it comes to participation. But with so many of us encouraged to vote and actually voting, and expressing our preference, we see how diverse our condemnations and praises can be for either candidate and imagine, maybe having fewer people consult on where to place the dart would be a better thing after all.
This deliberation process is similar to moot court argument preparation, familiar to present and former law school students. Though if you’ve ever been involved in a lawsuit, or a tug of war with a teenager or significant other, you understand what it can take to build up your side in an attempt to beat the other side:
You must line up and launch your best arguments, your secondary arguments, your if everything else fails arguments, and your “even if we take everything the other side says as true” arguments in order to compete.
Clinton and Obama seem to have an endless array of points underneath each of these categories. But they are primarily variations on the same theme: I deserve your vote and my competitor does not.
Where does that leave us? What is it that finally gets us to put the dart in the wall?
At a birthday party, it’s when the host says, no cake until we finish the game. Or, more simply, your time is up.
But either way, you can choose to decide when you’re done deciding, or someone else is going to make that choice for you and you have to shove the dart into the donkey under pressure.
The voters’ lack of consensus thus far indicates that they’re willing to let the dart be shoved into the donkey under pressure because, as is the case with the host and the party, likewise it is with elections: there will come a time when the hand will be forced.
Of course, the problem with that result in politics is how people feel when their hand is forced: as though the entire decision-making process - including the time consumed trying to figure out where to put the damn dart in the first place - was a waste. And that often leads to anger, rather than relief. Then the anger? It leads to an inability to accept the final choice and a possibility of disengagement and, ultimately, loss.
Here, on April 22, with no clear victor for the Democratic Party’s nomination, the outlook is that Pennsylvania’s voters’ votes will keep the dart in the air and a consensus from forming.
But by September, will the chosen donkey have any strength left to eat the cake?
Cross-posted from Zimon’s blog, Writes Like She Talks.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008 at 7:30 am and is filed under Young Voters, Democratic Party, Voting, Newsweek Blogitics, Pennsylvania, Primaries, Democracy, Elections, Independent Voters, 2008 Elections, Democrats, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Politics. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
