Elizabeth Alexander in Salon.com reminds us that Toni Morrison’s anointing of Bill Clinton as “the first black president” 10 years ago never meant what people have lately taken it to mean. He didn’t get that moniker because of what he did for black people; he got it because of the way he was mistreated by the establishment.

Morrison wrote at the height of the Lewinsky scandal in the fall of 1998, when the House was considering impeachment proceedings.

African-American men seemed to understand it right away. Years ago, in the middle of the Whitewater investigation, one heard the first murmurs: white skin notwithstanding, this is our first black President. Blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children’s lifetime. After all, Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald’s-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas. And when virtually all the African-American Clinton appointees began, one by one, to disappear, when the President’s body, his privacy, his unpoliced sexuality became the focus of the persecution, when he was metaphorically seized and body-searched, who could gainsay these black men who knew whereof they spoke? The message was clear: “No matter how smart you are, how hard you work, how much coin you earn for us, we will put you in your place or put you out of the place you have somehow, albeit with our permission, achieved. You will be fired from your job, sent away in disgrace, and—who knows?—maybe sentenced and jailed to boot. In short, unless you do as we say (i.e., assimilate at once), your expletives belong to us.”

P.S. Morrison endorsed Obama today.

Reading this weekend that Caroline Kennedy and Ted Kennedy were endorsing Barack Obama, I got to thinking about what might have been.

What could JFK Jr. have become if he had lived?

Would he have continued coasting along as a socialite, perhaps founding another magazine or dabbling in philanthropy? Or would he eventually have entered politics, perhaps running for the U.S. Senate from New York and eventually for the presidency?

Today, JFK Jr. would be the same age as Barack Obama. The two men were born only about 8 months apart. Instead of someone who reminds people of John F. Kennedy, could we have had the real deal?

JFK Jr. never showed much academic achievement. He didn’t have a great academic record and it took him three tries to pass the New York bar exam. If he’d entered politics, he might have been a Democratic George W. Bush, a scion of a rich family who wouldn’t have amounted to much without his connections and didn’t want to work very hard (but without W’s scary messianic certainty and faux-hokiness).

But perhaps not.

We’ll never know.

After Obama’s unexpectedly large victory over Hillary Clinton in South Carolina yesterday, I’m leaning toward voting for him again.

Bill Clinton’s been pissing me off lately. My opinions of him have changed over the years. When he first started running in 1991 and into 1992, I thought he was a big slimeball. This northern Jew would never vote for a slick Southern small-state governor. And then somehow things changed; was it when he picked Al Gore as his running mate? Was it when Ross Perot dramatically dropped out of the race mere hours before Clinton gave his stirring acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, allowing him to make a fresh appeal to dissatisfied voters and catapulting him into the lead with the greatest post-convention poll bounce in 50 years? (This article sums up that crazy week in which Bill’s fortunes changed.)

At any rate, I fell in political love with Bill Clinton. He was incredibly smart. He knew everything about everything and could talk about all of it. On top of that, he loved the New York Times crossword.

I winced at all his missteps in early 1993. I felt personally hurt when the Republicans took back Congress in 1994. I supported him for re-election in 1996, even if I cringed at his bland, substanceless “build that bridge to the 21st century” claptrap. I supported him wholeheartedly during the impeachment crisis, even though I was disappointed at what he’d done to cause it.

I was sad when he left office. I missed him whenever I watched George W. Bush give an Oval Office speech or a State of the Union address. I was impressed with the Clinton Global Initiative. Bill Clinton seemed to have turned into a real statesman.

But in the last few weeks he’s gone down into the gutter. I don’t like it, and I don’t like how Hillary is letting Bill do her dirty work for her. It just seems — well, unfair. Not only that — it also gives the Republicans great ammunition for the fall if Hillary gets the nomination.

I like it when Bill attacks Republicans. I don’t like it when he attacks Democrats. He won’t be attacking any more Democrats if Hillary gets elected, but if she does, is she always going to have to pull him out of her pocket when the chips are down?

This is sort of odd, because I’m making a judgment based on what I think other people are going to be thinking about. If it turns out that the majority doesn’t mind Bill having a high-profile role in a Hillary presidency, then, good. But if the majority does mind, then, that’s not good. The problem is, I don’t know what the majority thinks. If perceptions are going to create reality, and we don’t know what the perceptions are, then things are murky.

But if I had to vote today, I might very well vote for Obama.

Well, that sure was an uncomfortable debate to watch last night. You think maybe Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama don’t like each other these days?

I think last night’s debate was more of a meta-debate. It was less about the candidates’ positions on the issues and more about how the candidates handle conflict and challenge. And Obama disappointed me there.

This piece explains it: Big Speech Obama is not the same as Debate Obama. Clinton played loose and unfairly with the facts at times, — for instance, harping on Obama’s “present” votes in the Illinois legislature. Obama tried to explain those votes, but I don’t totally understand his explanation, even with the help of this. Then she attacked him for what he’d said about Reagan, totally distorting his words. It was dirty.

But unfortunately, the meta-debate is what mattered last night. And Obama is just not good at arguing with Clinton. He’s not good at arguing with anyone — not good at the rough-and-tumble, while Clinton excels at it. She is tough. I think she’s going to get the nomination and she’ll be a much better candidate than Gore or Kerry was. I was thinking last night that I can’t wait to see her in a debate with the Republican nominee next fall.

Obama has had the misfortune in these primaries to go up against her, because she seems to be the best debater out of all the candidates in either party this year. But honestly, if you’re not good at the rough-and-tumble, you won’t make a very good president. Obama defenders, feel free to disagree with me, but that’s where I see things.

I think Clinton’s going to get the nomination. And it’ll be nice to have the person who plays tough and dirty be on our side for once. We don’t need another milquetoast Democrat running against the Republicans.

I like this article from Sunday’s Times about Obama’s 26-year-old speechwriter, and not just because he’s cute.

When Mr. Obama’s White Sox swept Mr. Favreau’s beloved Red Sox three games to none in their American League 2005 division series, the senator walked over to his speechwriter’s desk with a little broom and started sweeping it off.

(OK, I just realized I’ve linked to New York Times articles in my last three posts. Need more sources!)

As a U.S. history buff, I like this idea:

[Barack Obama] is more likely to be remembered as the first authentic 21st century presidential candidate–as arguably Theodore Roosevelt was the first 20th century candidate and Thomas Jefferson the first 19th century candidate. As such Obama, like Roosevelt and Jefferson before him, transcends traditional categories we have constructed to analyze and understand presidential candidacies.

My hero Michael Chabon weighs in on Richard Cohen’s guilt-by-association hackjob the other day on Obama.

[Update: “hackjob”? Perhaps I meant “hatchet job.” It’s not like he hacked into Obama’s computer or something.]

I found this quote from an old profile of Barack Obama in the May 31, 2004, issue of The New Yorker:

Jan Schakowsky told me about a recent visit she had made to the White House with a congressional delegation. On her way out, she said, President Bush noticed her “obama” button. “He jumped back, almost literally,” she said. “And I knew what he was thinking. So I reassured him it was Obama, with a ‘b.’ And I explained who he was. The President said, ‘Well, I don’t know him.’ So I just said, ‘You will.’ ”

Sign of the future: the New Hampshire primary is unusual because it’s an open primary — independents can vote in it. But in exit polling, among registered Democrats, Clinton beat Obama 45% to 34% — better than her showing among independents who voted in the Democratic primary. This is to Hillary’s advantage as the race continues goes on to states that have closed primaries.

We went to the theater tonight. As soon as we got home at 10:15, I turned on the TV to see that Clinton was leading Obama. What the hell? Twenty minutes later, news organizations began projecting her as the winner.

Despite being undecided, my heart sank. Does this mean I support Obama after all? I don’t know. But all the commentary in the last few days predicting a long-awaited end to the Bush vs. Clinton culture wars made me happy and excited. I was ready to wipe the slate clean. An end to political conflict.

And then I foresee Clinton winding up the nominee, and we get the same old politics; if she somehow gets elected, we return to the old Machiavellian-Clintonian tactics of the 1990s. Is that good or bad? I don’t know. I’m so confused. I thought I liked the Clintonian tactics. But although I’m a huge fan of Bill Clinton, his little rant today about the Obama “fairy tale” pissed me off.

Anyway, what this means is that we’ve got a race after all. Which is probably a good thing. The longer we go without a candidate, the longer we go without giving the Republicans a clear target.

If there hadn’t been any polls, this wouldn’t be such a shock. It would just be a result. The New Hampshire outcome is still close — it appears to be Clinton 39% to Obama 36%. This means they each get 8 delegates in New Hampshire.

This is so incredibly exciting. I love it. Even if I don’t know who the hell I support.

In this great piece about Obama, Gary Kamiya (one of Salon’s best writers) captures much of what I’m feeling.

Those who support Obama argue that he will be able to work more effectively with Republicans and independents than his rivals. Those who support Clinton or Edwards argue that Obama is a political naif who will go down singing “Kumbaya” while being eaten alive by the right wing. His critics also claim that Obama is too inexperienced to be entrusted with the nation’s highest office, but that argument smacks of bogus “war-on-terror” fear-mongering — Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz, who helped bring us the Iraq war, had decades of experience. It’s a false argument in any case: Character and brains count more than decades of cutting deals and shoveling pork through Congress.

The truth is, it’s impossible to know whether Obama would be a more effective president than his opponents. The question of whether bipartisan gentleness is more effective than tough confrontation is meaningless, both because there’s no single answer to it and because we have no way of knowing how any of the Democrats will actually govern — for all we know, Obama may turn out to be a harder-edged negotiatior than Edwards. So it’s really about intangibles. In the end, it may come down to how one feels about the great divide that was so painfully revealed in the 2004 elections.

I would love to know what Bill Clinton’s thinking right now.

On the one hand, he supports his wife, the mother of his daughter, his life partner of almost 40 years. Like Bill, Hillary’s incredibly smart and a policy wonk, and she’d be able to restore the Clintons to the White House, which would only help burnish Bill’s legacy.

Bill has said a few times that he’d be campaigning for Hillary even if they weren’t married.

But you just know that’s a lie. Bill’s got to be looking at Obama right now — a young, fresh-faced, incredibly talented politician with terrific communication skills — with a mixture of admiration, envy, and recognition, and I’m sure there’s a part of himself that wants Obama to win. If he weren’t married to Hillary, he’d totally be supporting Obama. And if Obama gets the nomination, he will be — not just out of party loyalty but out of sheer joy.

Chris Bowers points out that even if Obama wins every primary before Super-Duper Tuesday on February 5th, Clinton could still have the most delegates and win the nomination:

Collectively, Clinton’s advantage in Super Delegates, Michigan, and February 5th home states provides her with roughly a 500 delegate advantage on Obama. If she were to also win Florida and California, which combine for 555 pledged delegates, it would be impossible for Obama to be ahead on delegates after February 5th. He could win every other state between now and February 6th, and never make up that sort of delegate deficit.

There are flaws in this analysis, as various commenters point out. But isn’t this fascinating? When was the last time the race was so fluid that people actually had to pay attention to delegate counts?

As for the Republican race – in which nobody seems to be a front-runner right now — I could see a scenario where February 5th doesn’t decide anything. If that happens, the last thing the Republicans would want is for a fight to break out at their nationally-televised convention in September, so there’d probably be some sort of brokered deal before then.

What a year.

I still haven’t decided who I’m going to vote for in the New York primary next month.

I watched both the Republican and the Democratic debates last night. I watched the former for entertainment and the latter for information. I thought Obama and Clinton both acquitted themselves well. Edwards doesn’t seem to have much of a message other than “powerful people stand in your way,” and I’m sorry, but anger isn’t a plan.

One thing to keep in mind is that unlike in the general election in November, most Democratic presidential primaries are not winner-take-all; delegates are assigned somewhat proportionally to the vote the candidates receive. Therefore, if your favorite candidate isn’t polling among the top two candidates, you shouldn’t worry that you’d be throwing away your vote on that candidate or casting a spoiler vote.

Still – I honestly don’t know who I support.