Trunkless legs in the sand

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" -Shelley (1818)

Discussions of how the battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama will play out, the relative effects of black skin and female gender, whether particular messages and talking points each side employs will prove effective, what the Clintons will try after throwing the kitchen sink and making Tonya Harding their role model, whether Obama will escape from the taint of his discredited former pastor, and so on make for entertaining television and blogging. A fight is going on and it does pit candidates whose obvious differences and similarities are being analyzed to death. Whether you watch Fox, CNN or MSNBC and whether you read and comment on HuffPo, the Caucus, or the WSJ, smart and knowledgeable pundits are filling the screens and pages with their clever observations and bold predictions; for, isn’t that how they make their names (if not the big bucks)? However, to frame the Democratic presidential primary race as a fight between two ambitious political leaders with contrasting personalities, demographics, and ethics is to miss the real story.

The real story is about what those leaders are leading. We could use the language of Thomas Kuhn and say that what we are seeing is a paradigm shift; but, the real story is more than just that. We are not only observing but taking part in a critical transition in the evolution of our political culture, the ongoing experiment in living democracy set in motion by such as Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Ben Franklin and still unfolding as each of us plays our small part. While we write and talk and blog away, suffering such leaders as Dick, W, and Condy, an old system of political power that has outlived its usefulness is dying; and, a new dynamic structure is in the process of supplanting it. The demise of the old model is certain regardless of the last ditch, fight-to-the-death by the old-timers of the Clinton campaign, a mortal effort to win one last time for the traditional political game. The Old Guard senses that this is their last stand and they might as well have the pipes play Garryowen and die with their boots on.

http://www.us7thcavalry.com/legend.htm

Consider Ozymandias, the historic Pharaoh Ramesses II the Great, who won battle after battle, war after war, living for 90 years until his demise in 1213 BCE. No matter how many armies the Pharaoh defeated, how many people he subjugated, how many monuments he caused to be built, how many chariots and goats and bolts of purple cloth he amassed, his death was inevitable and no one could stop it from happening.

Hillary Clinton is merely the last of the Democratic Party Pharaohs, the post-Vietnam idols, a breed of deal makers funded by wealthy fat cat liberals, of amoral manipulaters and spin doctors who got people to vote for them or against the opponent by creating illusions and activating irrational psychological states, of ear-mark grubbing scavengers who traded favors for votes. As they die off, they are being replaced by leaders who will surf in on a wave of wired in decision-makers, millions of whom can be mobilized in minutes to contribute large and small sums of money and to fire off emails and to assault the blogs to let their elected representatives know what laws they want enacted and what policies they want to see scuttled. These are people who think for themelves, who perform their own due diligence, who don't need to reduce a complex reality to narrow categories such as "liberals" and "conservatives," who are loyal to reason and principle, not to fallible individuals.

The great Democrats of our time are placing their bets and lining up with their horse: Bill Nelson, Barbara Boxer, Walter Mondale, and John Murtha cuing up behind the Clintons; Ted Kennedy, John Kerrey, Chris Dodd, and Bill Richardson taking Obama’s back. In a great irony, it happens that Hillary Clinton is a woman and Barack Obama has an African father, dark skin, an Arabic name, and an eccentric former pastor. These incidentals distract us from the truth: that Sen. Obama is only the first in a line of new leaders who will assume office as the memories of the old politics take their place in the history books, the public squares, and the museums that future archaeologists, scholars, and tourists will ponder and admire. His skin-tone and gender are anything but the real story.