In Dreams

An Obama-Clinton dream ticket could unite the viciously divided electorate and form a juggernaut to defeat McBush and his fractured and failed Republican policies, heralding a new era of progressive cultural and political evolution not seen in this country for decades.

Or it could become a nightmare of an administration, its structural bedrock being the sniping, dysfunctional relationship between its two profoundly dynamic components, rendering the Democratic party incurably inept, demoting the presidency even further from its Bush curb level credibility and causing the rest of the world to finally write off America as a punch-drunk old pain in its ass.

But in actuality, the idea of Obillary or Hibama or whatever the presidential partnership would inevitably be dubbed is nothing more than another media construct, another treacly, commercialized version of a momentarily interesting but critically flawed notion generated by the 'round-the-clock news/entertainment divisions of the Mainstream Media; graphic designers and computer artists in their employ are abandoning their foosball and X-Boxes and already starting to come up with catchy chyrons and poignantly patriotic banners that will wave, pulse and pixelate across our screens and into our reliably reflexive hearts. And the days and years would be filled not with the lusted-for change but with more cover story fodder, glitzy, gossipy innuendo and inane reductions of its monumental significance to mass-consumed, mindless, distraction, a.k.a. business as usual.

Why not let the presumptive nominee presume to choose his own administration with the same sound judgment with which he assembled the team that waged the powerful, inventive campaign we've witnessed? Why not trust him to do as he's shown, having already remained imperturbably positive despite being kneecapped by the sundry spiritual advisors and invective-hurling knuckleheads that are drawn to anyone who dares activate the up-till-now hopeless millions? Hasn't he already administered his way through terrain that would have hobbled all others to arrive at this historic and epiphanic point in our country's ongoing transformation? By giving in to novelty store suggestions of an Obama-Clinton dream ticket he would turn his hard fought struggle into a clunky, three-legged race one would find at a rickety state fair.

Still, after all their War of the Roses level squabbling, Obama and Clinton's agendas have barely a whisker's breadth between them. Perhaps he would do well to embrace her core issue of health care as she defines it, thereby embodying his promise to consolidate and heal and leading this country's citizens to the brighter, cleaner, healthier, stronger, wiser future they deserve.

For her part, Ms. Clinton should loudly sound the call for unity, allaying the zeal of those whose dreams of a woman president may have been presently deferred but certainly secured in the very near future by her own powerful and impassioned campaign. Hillary should not be marginalized by the presumptive nominee nor their solidarity-craving party but rather used to her greatest effect as an exemplar of everything the Republicans have not been in decades and might not be anytime soon. She may have been defeated in this battle between candidates but she will have been instrumental in the triumph over the disfiguring ideology that held this nation hostage for 8 grim years.

So, no shotgun weddings, no concocted couplings. Let the courage and character of both democratic champions flourish without the fetters of banality, so unworthy of the talent, patriotism and hope their lives and work personify.