Tuesday, March 04, 2008

A Number Clinton Could Have Skipped   [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

An e-mail:

You may’ve heard we’re having a closely contested Presidential primary here in Ohio.  I just had a young lady, age 22, call me up from the Clinton campaign to see if I had voted yet.  I said no, but it was raining, and I wasn’t sure I was going to get out and vote.  She wanted to know who I was supporting, Hillary or Obama?  I said it was difficult to choose between the two of them, and asked for her opinion.  I kept that poor girl on the line for about a half hour (work-wise, I was having a slow day).  I had her jumping through hoops on NAFTA, health care, the war in Afghanistan, etc.  No matter what we talked about, I would get squishy and head off in a different direction (that’s my usual impersonation of a lib).  I started expressing my concern that “the minority community” would feel betrayed if Obama doesn’t get the nomination.  “What will this do to future of the Party?”

The only time this girl didn’t have a ready answer was when I asked her what she thought was Hillary biggest accomplishment as a U.S. Senator?  She said she couldn’t pick one.  So I said that was okay, but just asked her to name a few of them.  Eventually, she came up with “health care.”  But I pointed out that Clinton hadn’t actually passed anything in this area.

Finally, I decided I had put her through enough.  She pressed again about who I was supporting.  I allowed that my first choice had actually dropped out of the race.  She asked who that was, and I said Fred Thompson.  She became confused, but said, yeah, she liked him on Law & Order.  I said mostly I just liked him because of his political beliefs.  She really started to slow down at that point, and then asked, but between Hillary and Obama, who do I want to win?  I said I wasn’t particular, I just wanted them both to go on vigorously contesting for the nomination, and to have a real knock-down battle at the convention.  Why did I want that, she asked?  I said because I’m a conservative, and a divisive Democrat convention would probably help elect a Republican.  The call kind of went downhill from there.  In ending our chat, I complimented her exhaustive knowledge of the politics, and enthusiastic work on behalf of her candidate, but she kind of seemed perturbed with me.

I’m wondering if the Obama people will be calling soon.

03/04 05:26 PMShare