Why Senator Clinton Will Win in Pennsylvania

I've found this Clinton/Obama campaign to be tremendously fun as well as frustrating. The whole concept of a primary election really offers the great opportunity for a party to really define itself through dialogue, along with the temptation for two candidates to destroy each other and limp toward November.

In the race between Senator Clinton & Senator Obama, I like them both. Senator Obabma's campaing gives me HOPE (talk about drinking the kool-aid!). The hope it gives me is a presidency under which faith and activism can be rightly connected and celebrated. That hope is what will probably put my primary vote in Obama's column.

I like Senator Clinton because I am convinced that electing a woman to be president has far more potential to change the course of our nation (for the better).

Anyways...to get to the point. The reason why Senator Clinton will win Pennsylvania was something she said on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. She talked about how we have devalued and disrespected careers in skilled labor (such as mechanics, plumbers, etc.). She went on to discuss how "going green" will be dependent on skilled labor to install all this new technology.

I now live in the Philadelphia suburbs, where this issue may not have a defining impact on the primary. However, I spent the first thirty years of my life living and working ALL OVER Pennsylvania. I've become a full-on Philadelphia type (except that I still bleed black & gold), but it is very true that the rest of this fair commonwealth is a very different place. I spent Easter dinner in the coal region listening to a blue collar democrat share his views on the current state of our nation. Most everyone he knows sees this as a race between "a woman and a black guy" (neither label being a good one). I'm glad they're being forced to get over that. I think Senator Clinton will do much better than Senator Obama in getting through to them. As far as policy goes, she should also do better than Senator McCain's "some jobs are never coming back" routine. At that point, however, the stereotypes of gender (and race if Senator Obama is the candidate) will play a role in this election that doesn't surprise me, but doesn't sit well at all.

I should also mention that after I was truly excited by Senator Clinton's talk about skilled labor, she went on to shovel an immense pile of manure on the issue of superdelegates. She said that the superdelegates votes don't count any more than the regular delegates. I can agree with that...HOWEVER...there's that annoying detail that the regular delegates will come to the convention riding on the wave of primary voters like me and the guy I talked to on Easter. Thousands of us will cast our vote to get that delegate there, while the superdelegate will be granted the same vote by simply being who they are.

Clinton, Obama and Wright...OH MY!!

The Lutheran Zephyr posted about Clinton's Troubling Politics of Choosing Church:

"We have a choice when it comes to our pastors and the churches we attend."- Senator Hillary Clinton, in response to a reporter's question about Barack Obama, his church, and its fiery former pastor, The Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, Jr. (from AP article Clinton Would Have Left Obama's Pastor)

These words sent a chill down my spine.

"We have a choice when it comes to our pastors and the churches we attend."

It wasn't enough for Senator Clinton to critique Pastor Wright. It wasn't enough for Senator Clinton to critique Pastor Wright's role as an unpaid adviser to Senator Obama's presidential campaign. No. These words are much more than that. These words go to the core of religious and political identity, and suggest that religious identity should answer to political identity.

Take the time to read the entire post if you can, but here's where it ends:

"Yes, we have a choice whether to listen to preachers shout 'God damn America,' or who sing 'God bless America.' And Senator Clinton and I would make different choices, it seems to me. Give me the preacher who calls the nation on its sins any day over the preacher who confuses God and country. Give me the preacher who stands in the tradition of Old Testament prophets calling political leaders to task rather than the one who fails to be moved by the suffering this great nation often leaves in its wake. Give me the preacher who considers Religious Faith before National Patriotism, Creed before Pledge, God before Country."

These words from Senator Clinton have troubled me ever since I read them. They troubled me for the reasons that Chris (Lutheran Zephyr) mentions. On another level, beyond politics, it suggests that your participation in a church, or decision to "hightail it outta there" can be based on whatever fiat or preference you might have, even if it is rooted in self-absorption (i.e. "sin"). There is also the importance of the true community that a congregation is called to be. God's kingdom is built as we are in relationship with other people...real people...as they are. Even if they don't jive with what I want, what I think, what I expect. Bonhoeffer, in Life Together (pg. 27) puts it this way:

Just as surely as God desires to lead us to a knowledge of genuine Christian fellowship, so surely must we be overwhelmed by a great disillusionment with others, with Christians in general, and, if we are fortunate, with ourselves. ... Only that fellowship which faces such disillusionment, with all its unhappy and ugly aspects, begins to be what it should be in God's sight, begins to grasp in faith the promise that is given to it.

Bohoeffer's insight would suggest that Senator Obama has taken the more faithful approach by voicing his disagreement with his pastor while maintaining his embrace of that community, including the one with whom he differs. Senator Clinton's suggestion to find a different pastor and church misses the gift of what a congregation is: real people, sinners and saints each one of them, in relationship. That doesn't sound politically rewarding. It sounds messy, actually. But that's how God seems to want to build this kingdom "on earth as in heaven".

I've been contemplating this as I've been reading Death by Suburb: How to Keep the Suburbs from Killing Your Soul by David L. Goetz.