Meeting Hillary Clinton at the Laundromat

Meeting Hillary Clinton at the Laundromat

Ok. Not really. It's a metaphorical thing.

You see I voted for Hillary in the recent New York State primary, and I have to admit, I was torn. It was truly a last minute decision, with my politically astute fourteen-year-old son pushing for Obama from behind, and my allegiances truly swaying as they have not for many a political season. And it was hard for me, even to this very day, to articulate what it is that made me move that one little voting lever in that little closet called the voting booth (which, if you think about it, is probably the single greatest and holiest and most inviolate of democratic sanctuaries, despite the level of cynicism to which we have all been raised). It was hard to find the words.

Until I went to the Laundromat.

You see, to me, these are Hillary people. Maybe not her fans, maybe not her supporters,

maybe not. But to me these are the people she can reach, the people she may have reached, the people she may need to reach. People getting business done. And maybe that is the core of it. People getting business done. That is what Senator Clinton feels like to me.

I have no doubt in my mind that Barack Obama is an amazing young man, an articulate, intelligent, committed individual. Otherwise, why waver? He was touted in 2004 as the future of the party, and so he remains. Not that Senator Clinton is the past. She is today. And no matter how this plays out in the end, I will feel that she was the right woman at the right time.

Look around you. People are getting things done. When you stand at the Laundromat for hours cycling a family's laundry, you might gripe, and you might get feisty, and you might sigh a lot, but you put your quarters in and keep going. No one wants a speech when you get home. They just want dinner. It is not essential to be appreciated at this point. See, Barack feels more like the understanding and upright Dad who comes home alaLeave It to Beaver, to the muted applause of domestic appreciation. Hillary comes off as a bit more like Hazel.