We Are Family

Quite an interesting spectacle from here in the heartland: the mediated message almost embarrassingly transparent; the Clintons, the old masters of politics, with carefully chosen words that place Hillary in a good strategic position whichever way the die should fall ("vote your conscience, delegates" sounds so Democratic and so self-serving in the same breath); Obama's televised visage looming over his children in a vaguely threatening big-brotherish way--oh wait, I get it, that was god talking--(but why is it that a smart woman has to spend so much time convincing us that she is a good mom when it is self-evident anyway); the appearance two days later (no wait, they just messed up, that should have been three days) in real life--or to be more accurate, in first level mediation--of the chosen one, whom it turns out is just hawking tickets to the next show. "And now for the historical perspective we turn to..." and you know that Jim Lehrer is my chauffeur ("Gwen Ifill" -- I need say no more).

But I am loving it. It would be my choice, right now, to be mingling with the delegates shouting "Yes we can! Yes we can! Yes we can!" I am a sucker for sappiness and emotional appeal; I love being pandered to. I feel latent tears well up in my eyes as Beau-boy Walton talks, addressing us before he goes off to fight the good American fight in foreign lands. I read mom Biden's lips saying "that's true" to her neighbor in affirmation of a story Joe is relating that is much too good and too heroic and too American to be true. Tonight, I am willing to accept the story. I am caught up in the tide washing from Denver through my television set and spilling out in my living room (and you DO realize that we Iowans gave Obama his start, don't you). In my own private war between hope and cynicism, hope seems to have slight edge right now. Perhaps it is not the hope that the organizers envision--I am hoping that the Democrats can hold this constructed image together for 69 more days. Nonetheless it is hope.