A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
by Christine Bowman

Here they are in a nutshell: Now choose!

It's been said we could gauge how Obama or Clinton would govern as president by what they would show us between January and August of 2008. We're at the halfway point of that timeline now, so let's review what they've shown us. Surely there's enough there for any undeclared superdelegates and the remaining voters to make their decisions?

Candidate Hillary Clinton is the seasoned politician. She's strategic and a fighter. She reacts quickly to surprises. She's adept at focusing media attention and playing to her strengths, which include great debating skills and a sharp mind. She can use to advantage Bill Clinton's legacy of advisers and deep party support and corporate backing. She commands respect. She knows her way around Washington and the campaign trail. She's feisty, fiery, familiar.

Describing the obverse of those strengths, though, one also might feel:

She has been unprincipled, inconsistent, low-down. She's guided by the old Clinton administration power brokers and has-beens. She disregards and maneuvers around new party rules meant to ensure the Democratic Party can win and grow. She's financed by big business fat cats who'll want their payback. She runs on sound bites and polling, not principles. She has run her campaign reactively and erratically, repeatedly ousting and reshuffling top advisers. She adapts hot-button and wedge issue Republican attacks to her own purposes. She's got baggage. She's not just "Hillary," she is "The Clintons."

Turning to what candidate Barack Obama has shown us since January, he is an exceptional speaker and a big picture guy. He has powerfully organized voters and small donors and his very disciplined campaign organization. He shows restraint. He believes in America's promise for all and has reawakened that dream for many. He's idealistic and has inspired the young. He's a stylish, fresh face in government who projects confidence and calm looking to the future. His approach is steady and deliberate with attention to rules. He and his supporters transcend old categories. He appeals to our better selves and gives other countries new optimism in regard to America's leadership on the world stage.

Obama's same strengths, turned inside out, would be:

He seems naive and too willing to trust. He is too intellectual, too soft, too new, too foreign. We don't know him. How can politics be based on concepts like hope and change? His big crowds scare us. We've been inspired before by lofty sounding Democrats, and some broke our hearts by losing or by lying. Instead of cool, is he just effete? Does he intend to lead us, or confront us?

Of course, spin can go either way, but the candidates' actual achievements and demeanor since January bear close consideration.

Before reaching any final conclusion, let's also give the candidates' resumes and biographies one last look. What do their lifelong histories show us in terms of values and priorities and possible predictors of presidential success?

Hillary Clinton: Traditional upbringing in comfortable, conventional, suburban, Republican middle-American family. A mixture of public and elite private schooling. Fast rise and key alliances in Washington as young government lawyer in the anti-war, post-Watergate days. Bill Clinton's wife. Corporate lawyer in the South. Wal-Mart board member. Twenty years as First Lady in Arkansas and U.S., with a mix of achievements (advocating for education and children) and failures (health care reform). Scandal-tested due to Bill's adultery. Survived and learned from Ken Starr and Karl Rove. Successful as center-right Senator in right-leaning, GOP-dominated Congress.

Barack Obama: Untraditional middle-class upbringing in unconventional family and far-flung locales. Biracial, single mom, absent African father, raised in teen years by Midwestern white grandparents. Mixture of public, parochial, and elite private schooling. Stood out as exceptional at Harvard Law and thus voted president of the Harvard Law Review. Chose career as grassroots organizer, helping displaced steelworkers and mobilizing church and community activists. Put down roots on Chicago's economically and racially diverse South Side, joining a church and marrying into a solid and conventional black family. Taught the Constitution and represented a liberal, urban district in state politics before running for the US Senate. As Senator, started cautiously and helped on bipartisan efforts.

How these contrasting histories and recent performances get weighted will depend on each judge's own values and goals. But there's enough to judge by.

Undeclared superdelegates and the remaining undecided voters need to choose now.

They need to block out the spin and politics and judge which candidate's narrative rings truer, which fits these times, which person has demonstrated the right values, which person can best reverse the Bush legacy of mistaken strategies and misguided ideology. They need to judge which one can lead us as a people and help shape the world.

The Democratic primary is not a board game or sport or entertainment or a test for pundits.

Democrats should wait no longer, or the Republicans will choose for us. Democrats have to pick one.

And come November, Americans will have a new leader.

* * *

Superdelegates who haven't committed to a candidate* [1]

(*Contact them. And please comment below.)

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS

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