By Primo Encarnación y Hachecristo
My uncle, Jimmy “Barstool” Grobnik, has always been characterized by people who know him as “pragmatic.” Some also characterize him as “drunk,” “lazy,” “good-for-nothing,” “money-grubbing,” and “spineless.” But charitable people who know him and own a thesaurus translate “spineless” as “pragmatic.”
Even so, he threw me for a loop the other day when he suggested that Bernie Sanders and Bill Clinton were lovers. My spit-take sent Old Style beer across the polished mahogany of Pete’s Bar, but as it was a Tuesday afternoon and the only people in the place were me and Barstool, I avoided the automatic ejection. I went behind the bar – Pete was napping in a lawnchair on the sidewalk – got a towel and a refill, and asked him to run that by me again.
Turns out, what Uncle Barstool meant to say was that “Bernie Sanders is the girl you date, but Hillary is the girl you marry.” But he’d been on that same corner stool since the Cubs got no-hit by the Phillies – he may have slept on the pool table – so his transmission was garbled.
There was nothing wrong with his instincts, however, because he and the rest of the extended Hachecristo family have all made our political bones in Chicago. In Chicago, politics is the fifth sport behind baseball, football, basketball and hockey, and bloodier than all of them put together.
After he put his head back on the bar and fell asleep, I considered his point. All over the blogosphere, and the talk-o-sphere, and the main-stream meme-o-sphere, Surgin’ Bernie is the flavor of the month. Hillary better watch out! Bernie drawing huge crowds! Hillary slipping in polls! Bernie is the true liberal! Hillary dogged by scandal! Bernie flies by Pluto!
(Not sure about that last one. You don’t think I left Uncle Barstool alone all that time, do you?)
But the point is this: we’re 6 months out from Iowa and New Hampshire. Sixteen canned dullards are each vying to break out of the pack and become the Republican nominee by saying more stupid things louder than the other 15 idiots. Hillary has the experience, the pedigree, the money and enough liberal bona fides to lap the entire Democratic field – as she is now – and best of all, she’s not taking it for granted, as she did 8 years ago against a much tougher, more accomplished, better funded, much larger group of candidates featuring liberals, moderates and blue dogs.
But bloggers and talkers and screaming memees are bored and anxious and need to grab clicks, ears and eyes. The chaotic Republican race has devolved into a monotonous hum of verbal manure. And people LOVE to beat up on the Clintons. I know, because I made a whole cottage industry of it when I had a HuffPost column during the ’08 primaries.
But, like Uncle Barstool, I am spineless pragmatic: I knew Obama would win. Hillary: I had doubts as to her viability. (Who KNEW that McCain would pick Palin and the economy would provide the October Surprise? My cousin, Jesus Hachecristo, could have won that one in a walk. ) This time, I have no such doubts, because the margin of victory for Democrats has ALWAYS been provided by the women, and women will be very motivated voters from Iowa thru victory in November, voting for the accomplished, tested liberal Democratic candidate: “Hillary,” my uncle muttered in his sleep, with a damp belch.
“Marry that girl, Uncle Jimmy.”
