Monday, 9 June 2008

Years ago, in her novel Speedboat, Renata Adler commented on the reversibility of everyday life. The Nixon tapes, of course (Adler was writing in the early 1970s). Divorce. Abortion. I was in a period of my life when I did not trust my own choices - who was I and what were the decisions that would stick? I was too young to have learned that life is not an orderly progression (from high school to college, from college to grad school and career and success), that even the straight-A student can falter and fail.

(I learned another lesson later, that the straight-C student, the one who worked his way through school, social chair of his fraternity, son of a single mother, might have advantages I had not know existed in my orderly world. But I digress.)

But there are no do-overs in political campaigns. There are attempts - if they work, they're called reframing, and if they don't, they're tagged as flip-flopping - but one can't rerun the past six months - or even take back a single dumb remark.

Campaign critics are in full analytical cry: what went wrong, tarnished legacy, etc. But what really are the lessons learned?

I went to a Jewish funeral a few months ago. This is Alvin Fine's version of the traditional prayer:

From defeat to defeat to defeat-
Until, looking backward or ahead,
We see that victory lies
Not at some high place along the way,
But in having made the journey, stage by stage,
A sacred pilgrimage.
Birth is a beginning
And death a destination.
But life is a journey,
A sacred pilgrimage-
To life everlasting.

Sunday, 8 June 2008

So Hillary has suspended her campaign. In two weeks, a week, we will have moved on - there's no room for nostalgia in the day's headlines. But today I mourn. Her campaign was flawed - one could argue that she found her voice only near the end. But she persisted, withstanding more abuse - from the press, from the (white middle-aged) man in the street - than we saw with any other candidate.

One shouldn't get involved in politics if one can't withstand defeat. That's what I said to my neighbors a month or so ago, back when I was still speaking to them. Back before he (white, retired, a self-described lifelong son of the left) sent the email calling Hillary a bitch.

I haven't known what to do with the email or the friendship. No one would call Obama a nigger or Bloomberg a kike (I can barely bring myself to key in those nouns). So why is it ok to call Hillary a bitch? And why would my erstwhile friend send that email to me, knowing I support Hillary?

Neighborhood politics is not for the fainthearted.

But let's close with Hillary:

Now, being human, we are imperfect. That's why we need each other, to catch each other when we falter, to encourage each other when we lose heart. Some may lead, some may follow, but none of us can go it alone.

The changes we're working for are changes that we can only accomplish together. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are rights that belong to us as individuals. But our lives, our freedom, our happiness are best enjoyed, best protected, and best advanced when we do work together.