Why Am I So Afraid

Why am I so afraid that the Democratic Party is shooting itself in the foot?

The Dems are far from perfect--in any time--but here we are in what has to be a Democratic year and it looks again like we are self-destructing.

We have two great candidates--one a hard working, never give up eager beaver, and one an inspiring, heart-leapingly brilliant stallion. Both have their merits. Both care for what Democrats are best at caring for--working people, children's and women's rights, financial realism.

Both acknowledge the health care crisis, the environmental depredations of the GOP, the huge lurking menace of a war that costs 12 billion dollars a day and gives us nothing--unless we are war profiteers or blow-yourself-up fundamentalists. Both are poised to take back the country from the plutocrats and their endless tax cuts for each other.

And yet we have had great candidates before--think Al Gore--and lost to the low-level conniving, smearing and swift boating of the GOP (Grandiose Old Plutocrats).

The GOP stands for nothing today but looting the national treasury for the rich. George Dubya Bush once addressed them as the "haves and have mores"--clearly he is one of them--but maybe he will have less now that the Carlyle Group is running out of money. Maybe he'll have a little rachmones for the have-less and have-nots, though I doubt it.

If anyone in Washington read history, they'd understand that any empire that spends more in war than on its people eventually goes down in flames. The Persians, Greeks and Romans proved it--see Herodotus--and the British, French, Belgians, Dutch and Germans proved it all over again in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. But does anyone care?

Apparently not. It's a rule of history that when an empire gorges on guns and forgets butter, that empire winds up on the scrap heap of history.

Dubya could have learned this at Yale had he not been drunk or stoned all the time and figuring out ways to avoid going to 'Nam.

But he doesn't know and doesn't care. He thinks, "The surge is working." Dick Cheney and Condi Rice tell him so. And now McCain echoes them. And our idiot corporate press--which has no time to read or think or dig for information (too busy getting pix of Kristen-Alexandra's tattoos) doesn't give a shit either. Leave that to the book-writers. That's safe enough since Americans don't read--especially not big thick books about history.

Meanwhile our two clever candidates have been sucked into the rigors of campaigning. They're tired. Dog-tired. The stallion makes heart-stopping speeches. And the beaver just beavers along. remembering how she won over upstate New York when everyone called that impossible. And called her a carpetbagger. And the stallion is drunk on his own rhetoric. Why not? It's great rhetoric.

We need beavers and we need stallions. Beavers get the work done. Stallions inspire us. And they both have limitations. Stallions have fragile legs (think Barbaro). And beavers are nothing without their teeth.

It's not a matter of choosing between inspiration and hard work. We need both. We need to be inspired and then we need those who will never give up till they execute the inspiration.

Any fool knows that. The Democratic Party ought to know it too. And the sooner they bring the beaver and the stallion together, the better off we'll all be. There is no choice here. There ought to be no ego, no genderizing and no racializing.

Americans are neither black nor white. We are all as mixed as Brazilians. We are a honey-colored race--with Africans, Europeans, Asians and Native Americans intermingled in our DNA. That's the glory of America. If Dick Cheney is genetically related to Barack Obama, what more do we need to know? DNA only goes so far politically.

So let's stop talking about race and gender and let the beaver and the stallion both serve our country--in their own inimitable ways.

Comments

[slow2]

My Dear Erica,

It is a challenge to respond to your work at huffpo. I have been nice, like mommy said, and my nice words (no four-letter ones) don't make the comments.

Once more, just for fun, I'd like to express my extreme dismay at your inane approach to analyzing the Democratic campaign for presidential nominee.

In the most delicate way possible, may I say that this piece is trivial, that it is unworthy of any of your previous works even of fiction, that your animal images are ridiculous?

Thank you for allowing my humble opinion. Here's hoping you begin very soon to work on your next novel.

[stupidme]

Isn't there a movie about a "beaver," and I do mean beaver, that has teeth?

[GoreyFantod]

Well, there was an IMAX film about the rodent version - it's titled, conveniently enough, "Beavers."

http://imdb.com/title/tt0094718/

There are also several films focused on the Vagina Dentata. A recent one is "Teeth."

http://movies.nytimes.com/2008/01/18/movies/18teet.html

Not sure which type Ms. Jong had in mind.

[stupidme]

Thanks, It was "Teeth" that I was thinking of. WIth respect to Ms Jong --- even sarcasm deserves a rest once in a while.

[fitfavored]

Absolutely!

[barkingdog]

Hillary as a "beaver." What a unique mix of childishness and pornography.

[S1m0n]

The party isn't shooting itself in the foot; Hillary Clinton is.

Why is your buddy Hillary refusing to withdraw from a contest she has already lost?

[HypocrisySlayer]

Obama struggles to limit damage in pastor row as white voters slip away


· Presidential candidate has worst week of campaign
· Clinton ahead in North Carolina and Pennsylvania


isten for a few minutes to Joey Vento, owner of a south Philadelphia institution that serves gut-busting sandwiches through a takeaway hatch, and the scale of Barack Obama's problems become apparent. Obama is having the worst week of his campaign. It is, some believe, a week that threatens his chances of becoming president.


"That minister, that was terrible, all his sayings. He's preaching hatred," Vento said. "The thing I didn't like about Obama; you're telling me for 20 years you been going to that church and you never heard that?"


Vento, 68, was speaking about Obama's former pastor and spiritual adviser, Jeremiah Wright, whose sermons have been aired repeatedly on US television denouncing the US as racist.


The clips have alienated the white voters, such as Vento, that Obama needs in his next contest with Hillary Clinton, to be held in Philadephia and the other towns and cities of Pennsylvania on April 22. But it goes further than that. The danger for Obama is not just that he could lose badly in Pennsylvania but that senior Democrats will wonder whether the loss of white votes could cost him the November general election.


The latest poll in Pennsylvania by Public Policy Polling puts Clinton on 56% and Obama on 30%. The same polling organisation showed her having overtaken Obama in North Carolina, which is also still to hold its primary: she has 43% to his 42%.


Phil Singer, spokesman for Clinton, told reporters: "It's no secret that the Obama campaign is in political hot water."


Obama attempted to defuse the escalating row with a speech on Tuesday in Philadelphia in which he spoke in detail about his relationship with Wright and race in the US. It was widely acknowledged as one of his best. He wrote it on Monday night after his wife, Michelle, and their children had gone to bed. Although acclaimed by the media and political activists, his speech has failed to win over voters such as Vento.


Obama has since redoubled his efforts. Usually reluctant to offer himself up for interview, he began touring media outlets and appeared twice on CNN, first on Wednesday night and then again on Thursday. His campaign team announced yesterday that Obama had received the endorsement of the former Democratic candidate Bill Richardson, the governor of New Mexico.


But the sight of Wright calling on his congregation to sing God Damn America instead of God Bless America is not one from which Americans are going to be diverted easily. A theme that emerges from the bars and diners of white Philadelphia is suspicion that Obama's failure to disown Wright and his presence in his church for almost two decade suggests that he himself is secretly resentful towards white people. A stray comment during an interview may have helped contribute to that suspicion when he referred to his grandmother, who had voiced her concern about being mugged by a black person, as a "typical white person".


In Chickie's and Pete's restaurant and sports bar in Philadelphia, John Fernandez, a chiropractor, said Obama must have known what Wright was preaching. "How can you be that tight and not know or share some of those opinions? I was leaning toward him a little bit, but that took it over the edge," Fernandez said, hollering to be heard over the din of the bar and televised basketball game. "You got to go to another church, or you share those opinions."


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/22/uselections2008.barackobama


BARRY IS SOOOOOOOOOOOO FINISHED!!!

[HypocrisySlayer]

OBAMA IS A RACIST, HATE MONGERING, ANTI AMERICA FOOL AND WILL NOT LEAD THIS COUNTRY!

DEAL WITH IT, LEFT-WING MORONS!!!!

[SethBullock]

Wow, it's going to really burn when he's the President, huh Slayer?

[dawlishgal]

Aha.....another Clinton disciple, preaching love and tolerance everywhere he goes on this, one of the holiest of holy days..

[sassafra]

uh....you don't get out much do you, you poor thing?

[NoMoFearNoMoHate]

This article is so disingenuous.

Can you name one piece of evidence that Barack Obama is not hard working? Or that suggests that Hillary Clinton works any harder than he does?

Yes the world is black and white. Yup. Barack Obama is ONLY inspirational and Hillary Clinton is ONLY hard working.

I'm sure my kindergartner will know who to vote for thanks to the great piece above.

Now, if you could only come up with an article detailing the differences for us adults! That would be great!

[AlphaDoc]

>remembering how she won over upstate New York when everyone called that impossible. And called her a carpetbagger<

I live in upstate NY, and I've called her a lot worse. And on that subject, be prepared to be called out by some nutjob pseudo-feminist for using the term "beaver." And by others for the wishful-thinking contained in your "stallion" analogy. So Obama is nothing more than a stud with a lovely-sounding whinny? Jeez.

Hey, bartender, pour me one of whatever Erica's drinking!

[dawlishgal]

THANK YOU! You are HILARIOUS!

[cinecity]

Stallions? Eager beavers? Will Erica Jong ever write anything remotely high brow? Can this space be given over to Jackie Collins? At least she might say something interesting.

[GoldCanyonGal]

OMG! (Laughing out loud) This was really a poor choice of words, wasn't it? I'm surprised you didn't say 'Black Stallion', Erica...that's the only thing that might have been any worse. And Beaver...reminds me of that scene out of 'Thelma and Louise' where they blew up the guys truck...OMG! ....really bad choice of wording...sorry!

[TrueBlue]

OMG, this is going straight to Stephanie Miller's beaver stack! By the way, is it dangerous and scary when the stallion is on top of the beaver? Just asking.

[Hufffan]

Okay...I was once diagnosed with a "reading and comprehension" deficit.disorder thingy....but I don't think it's wise to call Hillary a horse!
er...maybe I'll reread your post Ms Don..g ...er ..Ms.Jong:)

[OtayPanky]

No, no, no. Your all confused.

In Erica's world, Hillary is BEAVER. And Erica wants us to LEAVE IT TO BEAVER - or as she's said more than once: Vote for the Va-jay-jay. Why? Because she's soooo tired of the Pink Men - and the stallion Barama is half pink and a man to boot.

Don't thank me. I'm here to help.

[dawlishgal]

I'll thank you anyhow for being so funny! This line is a hoot!

[DietrichMoody]

Could it be, Ms Jong, that you are afraid because you are suffering from FEAR OF THE FUTURE PHOBIA.

I'm beginning to think that it is a serious disorder affecting a few million Democratic voters around the United States these days like you. They say a cure for this is visualization. Good luck.

[jungpatawan]

This should go down perfectly in Philadelphia:

And in this corner... fighting out of Chicago Illinois... weighing in at 165 pounds soaking wet... the next Presidential Champion of the United States.... the Hawaiian Puncher, the ILLINOISAN STALLION

Ba-ROCKY Oooo-BAAAA-MAAAAAA

[RobertAndropolis]

"I don't know how somebody in second-place is offering the vice presidency to somebody in first place."

I'm not sure what the author's motivation is in writing this op-ed piece, except to rather transparently attempt to perpetuate the by now dead issue of a Democratic dual ticket. To use kindergarten metaphors is perhaps a less than prudent way to deliver her message.