Poetry and Prose in Politics

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is being used to describe Barack Obama a lot. Someone over at the New Yorker said that his "aura" trumps her "arguments" -- that's a nice way of putting it. But the sentiment has been all over the news and the political junkies might just have a point: Obama is poetry and Clinton is prose. Which, for those who buy into Cuomo's take on political campaigns ("we campaign in poetry and govern in prose" make him a more appealing candidate and her a more effective president. I'd buy that -- at least, think of the words used to describe them or the words they use to describe themselves: Obama is a dreamer, a thinker, an ideas man, an idealist, a visionary, a peacemaker, and so on while she's presidential, a pragmatist, a doer, an incrementalist. He was a community organizer; she's organized. If I were to guess as to their cooking styles, I'd say he's a thrower of various things into a pot and a stirrer until it tastes right (which, in the end, it does often but not always) whereas she's a baker who knows her recipes cold and turns out perfectly only the things she knows how to bake. That's what Clinton's comment about Martin Luther King and the President who legislated his "dream" was about: I don't think it was a racist comment, really I don't. But it was an illuminating moment: it showed that she viewed social change as a reaction to legislation. I'd suggest -- based on his campaign and his personal history -- that for Obama, legislation is the reaction to social change. That's where the "transformativity" of his candidacy comes in. But the question remains: can a movement also be a goverment? Can a poet translate his dreams into legalese? (It's it funny how we talk of "Obama" but never of "Clinton"? Is it because "Barack" is just too un-American a first name for the down-home boys to be able to say? How long do you think it'll take for him to become "Barry"?)

Anyway. Super Dooper Tuesday for the Americans is almost here: so here are some last minute predictions: "Clinton" will emerge with more delegates than "Obama" but by a margin that's too slim for her to carry the nomination.

More later, I'm sure.