2008 Presidential Campaign
Why Hillary Clinton Must Stay In This Race – By Patricia Melton, President of the Coffee Club, Mineral City, Ohio
I’ve seen an election or two, or twelve, in my day. I’m 58 years old and ran for a thing or two myself, like President of the Ladies Guild at our church. Whenever these people on the TV complain about this election being “too negative” or going on for too long, I think to myself, “Those fools have never seen the Ladies Guild”. I fought for that presidency tooth and nail and made my husband Earl stay up well past 8 making buttons for me with this button-making thing I bought off the TV. You can find all sorts of gadgets like that on TV, if you stay up late enough and have a husband who can make buttons for you. Of course, the buttons Earl made turned out terribly, so I told people children made them for me. Everyone smiled and thought they were great then, when they believed children made them. If I had told them Earl made them, I don’t know what they would have thought.
As great as the TV is, sometimes it lies. Well, that’s not really true. The TV itself doesn’t lie, unlike the toaster. The people inside the TV lie. I keep a notebook next to my chair in the living room in which I write down interesting things — and lately I have been keeping track of all the lies I hear about this election. One of the biggest liars is Tim Russert, who I think looks like Mr. Potato Head. My husband Earl says that’s not a very nice thing for me to say, and I tell Earl “I’m not running for Mother Theresa!”. And, I remind Earl, that I can think of a lot worse things to call Mr. Russert than Potato Head. I can, in fact, think of things to say to Mr. Russert, or about Mr. Russert, that would make the paint peal off the wall. And I’d hate to do that, because it’s the lovliest shade of apricot (Martha Stewart’s paint), and it really goes well with my drapes.
In my Book of Lies, as I’ve dubbed it, I have numerous liars on the TV saying this election is over because Barack Obama is ahead by one-hundred and some delegates. But, Pennsylvania is coming up, and after that a lot of other states, and Puerto Rico too, which isn’t a state, technically, but is a very nice place to visit nonetheless. So, if all these states, and nice places like Puerto Rico, have yet to vote, then how can anything be over? Would someone please explain that to me? Why are people spending money to hold these elections in upcoming states if everyone wants to end the race before these elections happen?
This same thing happened when I was running for President of the Ladies Guild. My opponent, and mortal nemesis, Anne, had locked up the entire church choir (those vicious harpies) and most of the Gentleman’s Auxiliary (weinies!) against me. This was all due, in large part, to the fact that I hosted that year’s Wooly Bear Festival in my barn, when Anne wanted to have it at some country club, somewhere. I don’t know how you can have a Wooly Bear Festival at a Country Club. If someone on TV could explain that to me, I’d write it in my book too, because that would be a LIE as well. You can’t have a Wooly Bear Festival at a Country Club! IT JUST WON’T WORK! I get so mad thinking about this that my husband, Earl, tells me to calm down and I tell him to go back down to the basement and futz with his model trains. That man knows nothing about politics!
The snobs of the church wanted to do their own thing, even though the majority of the people in church wouldn’t have a good time at a country club. If you are reading this and are not from Mineral City, you might not know what a Wooly Bear Festival is. I feel very sorry for you, because it is a great time. Children laughing, food a-plenty, good music, dancing, and Wooly Bears everywhere. Sometimes we get Dick Goddard, the weatherman up in Cleveland, to come down and talk about Wooly Bears with us. Those talks don’t last long, as there’s not much to say about Wooly Bears, but Mr. Goddard is a nice man, and always eats a second piece of my apple pie but never eats a second of Anne’s, so I like this man very much.
The President of the Ladies Guild should not be the person that the snobs in the choir, or their husbands in the auxiliary want. It should be the person who will do the best job for the church, and who will put on the best Wooly Bear Festival. That’s because I listen to people, even when I don’t like what they have to say (in that case, I tell them they’re wrong, but I listen all the same). Well, Anne, being Anne, tried to lock up the election early and said that we didn’t need to waste time having a vote because she calculated she’d win the election with the choir and the auxiliary behind her. I told Anne that an election was scheduled in the church bulletin and that if it was on the calendar it was going to happen, whether she liked it or not. I didn’t have Earl make all those buttons for nothing (even if he did make them all lop-sided and people thought talentless children made them). Anne said, “You’re just being stubborn,” and I said, “Your breath stinks,” because it did (Anne has something called halitosis, which I believe is Greek for hatefulness).
In the end, Anne lost the election. She may have had the choir and the auxiliary, but I had the regular people who wanted to have a traditional, normal Wooly Bear Festival instead of some high-fa-luting country club shindig. Anne didn’t speak to me for a whole month — and it was the best month I can remember.
So, this is what’s playing in my mind when I hear Tim Russert, Chris Matthews, and Keith Olbermann rambling on the television about how Hillary Clinton should just pack up and leave the race before Pennsylvania votes — even though she is ahead there, and is ahead in most of the other upcoming states. She should leave the race even though Obama isn’t going to reach the magic number of 2500, or whatevr it is, to secure the Democratic nomination until the convention — if he ever reaches it.
My friends and I get together every morning to talk about the news, politics, Wooly Bears, and whatever. We call ourselves The Coffee Club and are made up of very different points of view. We all, except Anne, of course, support Hillary Clinton and root her on as she continues to fight in the upcoming contests. Anne tries to rain on the parade, and keeps insisting Obama is going to win this so why should we keep fighting for Hillary. “Oh really”, I say. “So, he’s going to win this race the same way you won the presidency of the Ladies Guild?”. And then Anne just shuts up and stays quiet for a few more minutes. And those, let me tell you, are truly golden minutes. We call Obama “Slim Slick” around here; women like us are why he lost Ohio by double digits, and why he’ll lose Pennsylvania in April. Women like us are why the Democrats will lose Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Florida to the Republicans in the fall if Hillary Clinton is not the nominee. That’s because no woman, regardless of her politics, ever wants to be told to sit down and shut up. As much as I don’t like Anne, and in truth, I truly do hate that woman, I still invite her over for Coffee Club every morning because she has a right to come to the discussion if she wants to. It’s not my place to tell her to go home, no matter how much I disagree, and no matter how much I don’t like her (I hate her).
Hillary Clinton has millions of supporters and volunteers. If Michigan and Florida are counted in her totals, as they should be, Obama and Clinton would be virtually tied. After Pennsylvania votes, and the other states weigh in, Obama’s current lead will have sizably dwindled. There is no more reason for Hillary Clinton to drop out than there was for me to drop out of the Ladies Guild race. Anne wanted me out because she wanted to win, and wanted to pull dirty tricks to get there (because she is a horrible, horrible person). Obama, and his supporters, want Hillary out just because they know she’ll finish these primaries within a small margin over Obama. She will more likely than not have a greater share of the popular vote when all of this is said and done, as well. And that scares Obama and the media, the same way Anne w
as scared in our church election.
So, I say to Hillary, you just keep fighting, and we’ve got your back. We outnumber the Obamaniacs here in Mineral City 8:1. I have a feeling the same’s true in Pennsylvania, where they’d never dream of having a Wooly Bear Festival inside a country club.
And I bet Obama doesn’t even know what a Wooly Bear is!
