A Mixed Bag Kind of Day

I still have nine minutes until midnight here on the Left Coast, so if I hurry, I can keep my promise to myself of a post per day. I'd better make it short.

The primaries were the news of the day, aside from the awful news about Senator Kennedy's brain tumor. Hillary won Kentucky by about 65%-30%, and Obama is winning Oregon by about 58%-42%. The good news is Obama now has a majority of the elected delegates, which means he's the undisputed (well, to impartial observers) winner of the primary process. When delegates are totalled up for this evening, he should be only about 60 delegates away from the nomination.

What I really wanted to mention was the problem with the way Hillary has won Kentucky and West Virginia, and a portion of her votes in other states. I think it's going to be very difficult for the media to spin this any other way than the simple fact that Bill and Hillary catered to the bigot vote. There was no significant issue with "hard-working white voters" in Oregon, obviously, nor has there been in many other states, including here in Washington. The problem is that Hillary was perfectly happy to receive votes from those who weren't ready to vote for a black man, and worse yet, she implicitly encouraged it.

I seem to remember a presidential candidate who felt a need to express these sentiments: "If you wouldn't vote for Barack because he is black, or Hillary because she is a woman, then I don't want your vote." (Hint: John Edwards) Those would have been great sentiments to proclaim all through these primaries, especially in West Virginia and Kentucky. It's a great shame that not every candidate felt that way.

I understand David Gergen, the former Clinton aide, expressed similar sentiments on CNN this evening, although I missed it. But my point is, I don't think even media mindlessness or Clinton spin can gloss over the truth of what has happened to the primary process in Appalachia this year. It stands on its own as a mute reminder of one wing of a political party gone horribly, disastrously wrong, preferring to trade its core principles of equality for personal power. I was born and raised in Appalachia, so I have a pretty good understanding of the forces that have been in play for the last few weeks. Parts of America have been very cynically misused, so much so that I think the raw truth will have to come out and be discussed if we're to begin the healing process.

There's so much healing we need to do. I'm not sure how it's going to happen if we continue to intentionally wound ourselves.