Dream Team: written five, long, hard months of rancor and last minute ploys to change the rules

I though right from the beginning that Barack and Hillary would be the dream team. When I started this dream I was still a Clinton supporter. I still love the Clintons. My decision to switch my support from Hillary to Barack was not because I grew tired of the Clintons, it was that I grew tired of the press coverage of Hillary, of the prospect of another political campaign with the press bringing up Ken Starr and Newt Gingrich’s greatest hits. The prospect of vitriol and mud slinging on a scale and at a volume we haven’t even imagined yet, makes me weep for what we have become—alienated and cynical. I am tired of the stridency of the press calling Hillary strident. I am tired of the press guffawing about Hillary’s cackle. None of this is Hillary’s fault, and I’m not sure she will ever be able to change the way the old white men who are the political pundits cover her, see her, talk about her.

And then there was South Carolina. I know that the large population of African American’s living and voting in South Carolina gave Barack Obama a slight edge, but what happened there made it possible for me to imagine a different democratic party—a party of unity and change—real change. It was the young people who were so energized by his candidacy that pleased me most. Without them engaged in the political process none of this matters very much—they are our future. Without them knowing the issues that will matter in their lives, this is all a pretty empty process, and they will remain disaffected. So this just might be the first time since the late years of the Vietnam war when young people are going to change the politics as usual we have become so accustomed to. It’s change long overdue.