To Obama and Clinton: Sheathe Your Swords, We’re About to Make History

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Mary Lyon

I don't know - we must all just be crazy. It's not bad enough that slams of sexism and racism are flying through the air between the Clinton and Obama camps. That's just a little bit of it. But all of it bothers me.

We Democrats are on the rough end of what could be the most revolutionary, history-making, and earth-shaking presidential election ever. If our side prevails, at least from the assessments this early in the game, we would be witnessing the ascendance of either the first female president or the first African-American president. EITHER ONE would symbolize a huge leap forward for our country, considering how both women and blacks have been the largest groups to live with disenfranchisement through our history, and what distance both groups have had to travel toward equal footing in our society.

Clinton and Obama/Obama and Clinton, should NOT be sniping at each other. For one thing, the knee-jerk media loves nothing so much as a fight. Guess what will keep getting all the coverage? Now, it's stories about "Democrats in Disarray" when we're supposed to see that label laminated to the GOP now. For another thing, if that's all reporters and pundits can see, that means no attention whatsoever paid to other worthy voices like John Edwards and Dennis Kucinich, who are as deserving for their views and policy proposals as the so-called "top two." We're not only better than this, we have much better things to do. We should be making history, and preparing the talking points and perceptions NOW: that the new century is effectively starting THIS November - a few years late, almost a full decade into the second millennium. The years we've just been through since January 2001 should go down in history as little more than an aberration, a large but temporary boil on the skin, perhaps an abnormal pimple on the complexion of our young country, a bad, but momentary flare-up of political acne, if you will. No outbreak of leprosy. Just a big, fat zit.