I still believe in a place called ‘Unity’

June 23, 2008

We learned last week that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton would campaign together, for the first time, on Friday, marking something of a milestone after the longest, closest nominating fight in presidential campaign history. The next question, of course, was where.

Go to Michigan again? Or how about a swing state like New Mexico? Or maybe a Rust-Belt state where Clinton enjoyed strong primary support? Speculation was so rampant, the Politico ran a feature item with possible locations for Friday’s event.

Now, we know. And as it turns out, someone at the Obama campaign deserves a lot of credit for being very clever (and more than a little lucky). From a press release I received via email:

Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama announced today that they will hold a “Unite for Change” Rally this Friday in Unity, New Hampshire. Both candidates received exactly 107 votes in the western New Hampshire town in the primary.

Let me get this straight. They found a town called “Unity” … in a swing state … where the two received exactly the same number of votes?

If I’d read it in a novel, I would have found it unrealistic.

Greg Sargent added, “You can’t make this stuff up. What was the likelihood of finding a place called ‘Unity’ for a unity event — let alone one where both candidates pulled exactly the same support?”

Update: In case you were wondering — I was — about how else might attend, the AP added this report:

Former President Clinton does not plan to appear with his wife and Obama, ceding the spotlight to the two former foes.

The rally will be the day after Obama and Clinton meet privately Thursday at a Washington hotel with former Clinton donors. The former first lady will introduce Obama to her financial backers who have been slow to embrace her one-time opponent.

Clinton, a New York senator, suspended her campaign for the Democratic nomination earlier this month after Obama, an Illinois senator, secured enough delegates to clinch the nomination. “I endorse him and throw my full support behind him,” she said at the time.

Clinton spokesman Mo Elleithee said she will make the same pitch to her supporters that they should support Obama “with everything we still need to accomplish and with the stakes as high as they are.”

“Unity, New Hampshire”.

I like it.

  • I call these “God Winks”: surrendipitous events that “accidentally” happen for the unanticipated benefit of those involved.

    I am committed to Oneness(Unity) through Justice and Transformation

    peace,
    st john

  • I grew up in the next town over from Unity, NH (Goshen). It is at least a hour and half drive Northwest of Manchester, NH.

    Unity is an extremely small town, as you can guess by looking at those vote totals and basically fits your stereotype of a small New Hampshire town.

    Kinda wish I still lived in that area, because I would love to go to this event.

  • Oh, btw, there are several potential towns that this Obama/Clinton tour could hit up on that same day after going to Unity.

    Claremont, Sunapee, Newport, New London are all within a 1/2 hour drive of Unity. Claremont is a city and the biggest population wise in the area, and its residents are for the most part pretty poor. Plus it is for the most part next door to Unity, so easy to get to from there. I would think it would be a receptive town to Obama/Clinton’s message.

    Also the campaign could go to either Keene or the Lebanon/Hanover area fairly easily after the event in Unity if they wished.

  • Chris G, OK I’ll bite. I actually have no idea what a stereotypical NH town is like. The closest I can think of is the old Bob Newhart show in VT with Larry, Darrell and his brother Darrell. Is NH anything like that?

  • And as it turns out, someone at the Obama campaign deserves a lot of credit for being very clever (and more than a little lucky).

    Typically, you immediately give Mr. Sleight of Hand the credit for what was probably an idea stolen from Senator Clinton. Don’t worry — women are used to men presenting our work as their own and watching other men gush over their brilliance. Also, holding this event in New Hampshire is a sly way of denying Senator Clinton her win in this state. If Mr. Speak with Forked Tongue were serious about “unifying” Clinton supporters, he’d hold this event in a state in which he got creamed, like Texas or Indiana.

  • Hey—if an avalanche can begin with just a single snowflake, then the grand alliance that brings about the final destruction of the Bush/McCain cartel can begin in a little place in NH called Unity.

    Let’s just call it “the Irony of Justice….”

  • Mary,

    Why the hostility to Senator Obama. He is the nominee. Obviously you don’t like him. What has his slight of hand been? What exactly is your problem with the Senator? I would have voted for the lady had she been the nominee. I would not have like it, but I will never vote for a Repuglican again. I voted for McLame when I was living in Arizona. By the way he has always been thought of a carpet bagger by us native Zona’s. However money won out. Again if you are voting for McLame you are delusional. McLame would roll back employment rights for women and minorities. Appoint Judges that would overturn Roe and keep the corporate culture of rob from the poor and middle class and give to the rich in place.

  • At least in the race for the White House, the gods are smiling on the Democrats.

    I also chuckled at my first reading of the syntax from the AP report:

    Former President Clinton does not plan to appear with his wife and Obama, ceding the spotlight to the two former foes.

    How nice of President Clinton to cede the spotlight to “two former foes”, one of which is his wife. With sloppy writing like that, is it any wonder people aren’t buying newspapers — or what’s said in them?

  • abigman: As keeps being said, “Mary, Mother of Odd” is a spoof of the real Mary who posts here too frequently. But this is becoming so frequent a misunderstanding that maybe the spoof one should find another nick.

  • Mary – I think you’d better get your facts straight. Obama actually won more delegates in TX by winning the caucus, and Sen. Clinton barely eked out her win in Indiana.

  • Mary — I think NH is a very good choice, especially given that Hillary’s win here kept things close with Obama. I remember the weekend before the primary, every pundit polluting my fair state (thank goodness they don’t visit often) seemed to be predicting a big win for Obama & exulting in Hillary’s imminent defeat. But the way things turned out, Hillary got a much-needed win here.

    I have some serious problems with Obama, btw. I think he’s too religious, for one thing, and we’ve had about as much as we can sustain of religion mixed with politics in this country already. & I have grave doubts about what he may do with all those nifty new unitary executive privileges, especially in light of his support of that FISA “compromise.” But a huge point in his favor is, you know, he’s not John McCain.

  • And honestly, the real Mary has seriously dialed back the trollishness in the last couple weeks. I recall seeing several perfectly fine comments, including some that offered both compliments and entirely thoughtful criticisms of Obama.

    Perhaps “Mary Mother of Odd” should go off to a gentle retirement along with “Insane Fake Professor.” The nomination contest is over, I’d like to move on…

  • It is on the 2nd New Hampshire Turnpike about half way between Lempster and Pukershire (Claremount)! Not trying to be funny that is just where it is!

  • But this is becoming so frequent a misunderstanding that maybe the spoof one should find another nick.

    Really, the almost compulsive need to correct people is funnier than the original misunderstandings. Just let it hap’n, cap’n, and don’t worry so much about what others think, please.

    And honestly, the real Mary has seriously dialed back the trollishness in the last couple weeks

    She has, hasn’t she? Or at least we can say, more accurately, that she flip-flops back and forth.

    If I were a suspicious person, I’d draw some obvious conclusions from a psychology professor acting like a complete raving lunatic for three or four months, then abruptly showing an ability to have a rational and lucid moment after the nomination is complete. None of those conclusions would have anything to do with her calming down, behaving thoughtfully, examining her choices and changing her behavior accordingly.

    Anyway, my post above was too obvious to pass up, so I went with it despite sharing your feeling that the time’s mostly past for this stuff.

  • Don’t worry — women are used to men presenting our work as their own and watching other men gush over their brilliance.

    Do your eyes roll independently while lightning crackles around your fingertips when you write or say these things? It sure seems like it.

    Since electing Democrats is posionous to you, tell me about your candidate McCain – where is he campaigning these days? Texas, Indiana perhaps?

  • Personally, I think the Unity, NH thing is really corny. Those two could fill up Madison Square Garden with a couple of text messages an hour before taking the stage.

  • Mary MOO, let me just weigh in against the nay-sayers; I thought your post at #9 was spot on, chuckle-inducing (as always), and I would have been disappointed had you not pointed out the assumption being made.

    Particularly on a day to honor Carlin, there is always a place for good satire.

  • Greg Sargent, as usual, fails to grasp the obvious. What was the likelihood of finding a place called ‘Unity’ for a unity event — let alone one where both candidates pulled exactly the same support?” Uh, one?

  • some obvious conclusions from a psychology professor

    Psychology? Really. That I must have missed, and would certainly never have guessed.

  • Corny but cute and sure to captivate the Corporate Media.

    Mary – I think you’d better get your facts straight. Obama actually won more delegates in TX by winning the caucus, and Sen. Clinton barely eked out her win in Indiana. — Desert Mouse, @15

    Which – even apart from the “handle” — should have clued you in to the fact that MMOO is a satire. Any honest-to-goodness Clintonista can recite, in her sleep, the states (like West Virginia) where Clinton had really “creamed” Obama. Mary using a “win by an eyelash” Indiana and “it wasn’t over when Mark Penn thought it was” Texas is an obvious joke, because it’s so easily disproved.

  • It just deifies all commons sense that a supremely qualified, greatly erxperienced
    person with many credientials and achievements in public service would have to
    defer to someone who has not even a fraction of that. Even though the nomination
    is over, I cannot change my mind, let alone my “heart” to support the current
    presidential niminee whom I do not believe in. Just as it is impossible for those
    Clinton-hating Obama supporters to change their attitudes about her, what makes
    them think that us 18 million Hillary Clinton supporters can change ours about
    Barack Obama? Barack Obama does not get my vote in November by default.
    Now that it is just he and McCain, I rate McCain above him. A good orator with
    no acheivements to back them, is just another big talker, blowing smoke. I
    will vote McCain in November for sure. In the time that passes until then, I am
    sure I will hear plenty of Clinton hating comments to remind me to cast that
    Republican vote.

  • what makes them think that us 18 million Hillary Clinton supporters can change ours about Barack Obama?

    Um, the fact that polls show that the overwhelmingly majority of Clinton suppoters plan vote for Obama in November?

    But we understand that a very few won’t. Some of you, for example, quite obviously were going to vote for McCain all along. So it goes.

    And I’m all for “deifying” common sense, BTW. I think everyone should be.

  • And I’m all for “deifying” common sense, BTW. I think everyone should be. — Maria, @29

    I wouldn’t go that far. Common sense ought to be greatly respected, but I’d reserve deification only for uncommonly superiour sense. Just my opinion of course, in no way binding on anyone else.

  • Gle and others who have made similar arguments:

    I would very much enjoy arguing all of your points, but for the sake of the point that I wish to make, I’ll accept them.
    Okay, let’s say, arguendo, that Hillary is vastly superior in experience and capacity. Let’s say he really did “insult” Hillary, that he did act sexist, etc. Let’s even assume that he so far is “A good orator with no acheivements to back them, just another big talker, blowing smoke.” (None of this, I would argue in another context, is true, and I’d give you evidence that it is not.) Let’s say that every single day you hear Clinton-hating comments.

    You are casting a vote for President of the United States. You are picking someone who, to a great extent will shape the way America acts over the next four years. You are choosing policies that will affect all of us. You are choosing someone who will nominate judges who will be important in every aspect of American life — at a time of a deeply divided court. You are picking someone who will be the ‘face of America’ to the world, and whose actions will greatly determine, in many cases, whether people will live or die. You are choosing who will greatly shape the economy, who will be faced with the problem of turning around an economy that is stuttering and sliding.

    How do any of the points you made matter in this specific decision? (And let me say here, perfectly sincerely, that how John McCain treated his first, or his second, wife has equally as little to do with the questions I list.) We are not asking you to vote who you like better, we are asking you whose leadership, whose announced policies — which neither will be fully able to implement, of course, because no President ever has — is better in the specific position.

    You claim to be a supporter of Hillary. I presume you supported her, first of all, because of her position. Because with all her experience and qualifications, there are others who surpass her on all of them — and some of them are, in fact, Republicans. Some are even Republican women. But you would, I assume, reject them because their experience and qualifications would be put at the service of policies that — as a Hillary supporter, you would reject.

    You have, in reality, three choices, to stay home — or write in Hillary, in effect the same — or to vote for Barack Obama or John McCain. With whatever doubts you have about Obama, can you seriously make the case that his Presidency would be less likely to advance those positions, and that John McCain’s Presidency would be more likely to?

    These are seriously meant questions, and I would be very interested in hearing your response, yours and others who continue to object to Obama because of what they see as his actions towards Hillary, or because they see him as less qualified than she was.

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