Tightening the Democratic Belt

Now that Barack Obama is the presumptive nominee for the Democratic Party, it’s time to officially move to the next stage in the Party’s game plan to take back the White House. Among other things, this means that we will (finally!) get a break from all of the intra-family fighting and the supporters of both Clinton and Obama can (finally!) re-direct the aim of their scopes onto the real opposition, instead of each other. As I’ve said a couple of times already on this blog, I’ve been both tired and disappointed by the rhetoric of the primaries of late, so I am happy to slough off that nonsense. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty…

The thing is, I think we’ve got a LOT of “sloughing off” to do. All of those slings and arrows that Obama and HRC threw at each other over the last few months have landed on the other’s person like blobs of adipose tissue. The DNP pretty much hung out every last bit of its dirty laundry during the primaries, and all the extra sound and fury has made us bloated, distended, distracted. I think we may have inadvertently gotten a little fat and lazy during the primaries and, as we know from elections past, we’re going to have to bring our leanest, meanest A-Game if we want to have any hopes of beating John McCain and the Bush League in the fall.

So, for these reasons, I really hope that Obama and HRC “make up”– though, for the record, I think it’s a bad idea for them to share a ticket. And although I’m not sure this is possible in this election year, I wish we could really, really slim-down the Democratic message. Something like: It’s the war, stupid. (Except, of course, that it’s also the economy, stupid. And the environment, stupid. And don’t forget about health care, stupid. Alas.)

My point, I guess, is that I think we need to remain cognizant of the very real possibility that we could still be a big, fat loser come November. It’s time to shape up.

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ADDENDUM: Please take time to read the comments of Paul Zeleza on the “political wonder” of Obama. Zeleza, by the way, is one of the most brilliant people I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. (Full disclosure: Zeleza was on my dissertation committe, but as far as I know, he’s not compensating me for promoting him.)