Tuesday, July 27, 2004
So here’s the plan
Short term: this week I finish up the first chapter of the book I’m writing, and start on the second.
Longer term:
Kerry / Edwards 2004
Edwards / Obama 2012
Obama / Bérubé 2020
-- well, why not? we’re the same age, we both went to Columbia, and we were both skinny kids with funny names. Well, he’s still skinny. And sure, he gave a terrific keynote address to the Democratic National Convention and I didn’t. And yeah, he’ll be a United States senator next year and I won’t. And OK, he’s got extraordinary political talent, both form and substance, and I can’t pull 30 percent in the race for treasurer of the local book club. But by 2020, you’ll see, America will be ready for its first African-American-Kenyan-Kansan-Hawaiian-French-Canadian-Irish ticket, and I’ll be ready.
First, though, I gotta finish this chapter.
UPDATE: No, really, I’m not that grandiose. Not even in my dreams, and not even in my dreams about flying. It’s just my way of saying I’d follow this guy into Gehenna. Here’s what I said, in a more serious mode, over at Jeralyn Merritt’s place this evening (it’s 11 pm here even though the server reads it as 3 am Wednesday): Obama’s red state/blue state riff had to be the highlight of the night. The rest of his speech was fine-- land of opportunity, Kerry will be tough, Marine from East Moline, all good-- but his deft two-minute deconstruction (we worship an awesome God in the blue states, and don’t like the feds snooping into our library books in the reds; we coach Little League in the blues and have gay friends in the reds-- I have to paraphrase from memory) blew me away, and I don’t think I’ve used the phrase “blew me away” since I was 17.
