Kenyon Farrow

I’ve been obsessed with the election. I admit it. I guess that makes me a bad radical. Good revolutionaries (at least in America, for some reason) aren’t supposed to be concerned with elections and the political process (I think leftists in Venezuela, Kenya, and Iran-to name a few-would beg to differ.). But I have been somewhat bitten by the bug. My cynicism is somewhat on hold, and I am trying real hard to show some restraint and not run out and get one of those “Barack The Vote” hoodies I saw for sale. Maybe that’s what’s different here-elections as commodity, politicians as celebrity. But I am joining my homie The Black Snob and am allowing myself to get caught up. Fuck it!

Well, CNN and the Associated Press have just declared Hillary Clinton the winner of the New Hampshire primary. So I guess white people in New Hampshire got in that voting booth and pulled a stunt! Barack is now addressing the audience in NH. He asked them to give Senator Clinton a round of applause-did she do that for him when she lost last week?. He’s dreamy!

It’s interesting because he’s still using the “there’s something happening in America” line. Instead of using it to refer to his historic candidacy, he’s using it to talk about the new dawn of American politics that are about compromise and not about screaming matches. He is calling his voters, and America by extension, “the new majority.”

They clearly love him. They’re chanting O-ba-ma with such fervor! I do have to say it is interesting to see a candidate that inspires so much hope in people.

To my fellow readers, friends, admirers, comrades: I haven’t lost my mind. I don’t agree with everything he says, but hell, I don’t agree with half of what you all say or think half of the time! I am worried about what his role as “Commander in Chief” is going to mean in terms of militarism and policing and prisons and what not. But I do feel inspired by a vision of something less arrogant, less violent,. Can I have that, please? LOL! I feel like I am betraying the $11,000 debt I just racked up for J-school (so I guess I’ve officially given up a conventional career in journalism. The one progressive news outlet I was trying to write for, blew me off, so the hell with it) by publicly supporting a candidate, and betraying my leftist community by being involved in electoral politics, which is a movement faux pas, from what I understand.

He ends his speech with Stevie Wonder’s “Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I’m Yours.” The pundits on CNN seem to think it was a funny thing, given the fact that he didn’t take the #1 slot (he’s now only 2% points behind with 79% of the vote-not exactly a blowout) Clinton’s speech is good, but she’s not fire like Obama, who seems to be on nothing short of a mission.

Speaking of speeches? Wanna know something about the editor behind Obama’s speeches? Read this Newsweek story.

Obama is playin the dozens now!

Last week, Senator Hillary Clinton was again talking to the press about how much experience she has, and how little Senator Barack Obama has, and why this would make her a better president. Clinton said “We can’t afford on-the-job training for our next president.”

Barack’s response could be seen as nothing less than a fierce read:

“My understanding is that she wasn’t Treasury secretary in the Clinton administration. I don’t know exactly what experience she’s claiming.”

That sounds like a line I would write! LOL!!! He must have a new black gay man on staff cranking out witty one-liners that fierce!

But he also seems to be narrowing the lead she has in Iowa and New Hempshire. Last week’s ABC/Washington Post survey show him with a 4 point lead, which makes the race really a dead heat. It’s clear that Clinton’s messaging staff is going to have to rethink her focus on “experience” because Obama is coming for her on that point, and it’s looking like Democratic voters aren’t sold on it either. A poll Reuters reported on today showed that Clinton would lose today against any of the Republican candidates if the election were to happen today. Neither Obama or Edwards would lose to them in the same poll. That’s fierce.

This weekend the two battled it out over each other’s health care plans. When I have some time, I will try to look at them both closely and offer some critique. Clinton said:

“If you go back and look, he said it was universal,” Clinton said, “[then] he said it was sort of universal, [then] he said it wasn’t universal, [then] he said it covered everybody, [then] he said it didn’t cover 15 million. He [said he had] a mandate for kids, now he’s against mandates.”

Obama responded in a statement to CNN by saying

“Sen. Clinton’s idea is that we should force everyone to buy insurance. She’s not being straight with the American people because she refuses to tell us how much she would fine people if they couldn’t afford insurance.”

The CNN story basically describes their plans briefly, and Barack is raising a question I have about Hillary’s plan, which is that her plan IS a mandate, which means not having insurance is a criminal act. That is not at all useful.

But this, my friends, is now getting interesting.