Ambivalent

(I just realized: that word must come from ambi, meaning (what - equal?), and valent, as in the valence of electrons. Huh. Neat.)

I'm ambi about Hillary. I was for her before I was against her; the thing, insofar as there was a single thing, that turned me against her was her vote on a specific Senate measure. Generally, it was my feeling that she was part of the old-style of doing politics. I didn't think this when I was for her; it was listening to Barack Obama talk that made me realize that I didn't like when politicians spent a great deal of their time trashing each other -- and even less when they either made up lies out of whole cloth (hellooo, Swift Boat) or jumped on what were minor transgressions (I mean, really minor, not just 'minor to his supporters, major to anyone else'). I had gotten used to the idea that this was just the way the big boys played, and indeed, Clintons (both of them) comments to the effect that if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen, made reluctant sense to me. But the more I'd listen to Obama, the more I'd ask why it had to be that way. If your opponent is a trained martial artist, and is therefore good at it, must you agree to a cage fight with him? Why must the people who will run the government go through the mud bath?

And so I switched to Obama. The observations about his personal style appealed to me. That he was not as experienced as Clinton, I didn't like; that he wasn't an attack dog, I liked very much. And I still do. But as she is now acting as her own attack dog -- apparently, she's finding that its more effective for her to do it herself than to leave it to others, her husband or anyone else -- I wonder about it. Because what she's doing, the things that she's saying, I think are dumb, in some cases (the gas tax) and pandering in others (saying that she refuses to do something simply because prominent economists say its a good idea). I know that she's a smart person; I know that she's a wily politician. That a smart, wily politician thinks its beneficial to act in this way, to say these things -- well, I hate to say this, but it makes me wonder if she's right. It makes me wonder if Obama's really got the guts and nerve to do the job.

Not that I expect him to be in a cage fight with Vladimir Putin. But if he gets the job, how will he act when he's dealing with an unprincipled opponent? How will he act with Republicans? In a way, its like a star trek novel I read once (Doctor's Orders) where a character observes that Klingons aren't unprincipled; they're simply wildly opportunistic. They'll make a deal, and keep it -- until the situation changes in their favor, at which point all bets are off. What would Obama do in that case? But we had a deal! Clinton, at least, you know she wasn't planning to keep the deal. I find that style more than a little reprehensible. And yet, in a weird way, just a little, I admire it. Makes me think 'tough', which is exactly what they want.

I don't really think it's tough. I think it's stupid. But I also think: it's effective. So which do I want: effective? or elegant?