“GAME OVER”

Out of the ashes of tough campaigning rises a Phoenix. Today that Phoenix will be Senator Barack Obama.

Today the long and grueling historic Democratic Presidential Primary comes to an end. This historic run has been battle testing for the last two candidates standing: Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Senator Barack Obama. Once upon a time we were in Iowa and today we are in Montana and South Dakota. While this primary has been good for Democracy, it has been brutal, divisive and sometimes just plain ugly. Yet, this is the nasty nature of politics. In the game of politics feelings are hurt, people distort the truth, outright lies are told and a bitter taste is left in the mouth of the loser. However, out of the ashes of tough campaigning rises a Phoenix. Today that Phoenix will be Senator Barack Obama. He now stands on the precipice of unimaginable possibilities and on the edge of elevation. In the battle for the Democratic nomination he has weathered the storms and withstood the charges.

Remember the Indiana and North Carolina Primaries last month when Senator Clinton labeled them as “game changers?’ Her battle cry was that those two states would change the game for her and she would overtake Barack Obama and go on to win the Democratic nomination. Well the game did not change for Hillary and today the game will come to an end. When I was growing up in rural Washington, Georgia, I can clearly recall when the owner of a mom and pop store in my neighborhood installed the first Pac-Man game. I gathered up every quarter from the allowance that I had earned from my grandmother to feed that fantastic game. Day after day I played Pac-Man. I noticed a common thread that ran through the game each time that I played. When I ran out of Pac-men, the screen read: “GAME OVER!” As good as that game was it came to an end. I did not want it to end. I wanted to keep playing but no matter how good I was, at the appropriate time the screen still read “GAME OVER!”

The Clinton campaign wants to keep on playing but this game is over! They want to keep spinning and shuffling but this game is over. They want to come up with more theories and themes but this game is over. The Clintons have not lost a race since 1980 and that is when Bill Clinton ran for Governor of Arkansas. Since that loss, they have won every game from the Governor’s mansion to the Presidency to the United States Senate. However, today they have run out of Pac-Men. Simply put: GAME OVER! What is over?

·         The Clinton sense of political entitlement to the Office of the Presidency

·         Repeated cries to change the rules to get the rules to rule for your campaign

·         Bill Clinton unplugged on his African-American base

·         Bill Clinton unplugged on reporters

·         Bill Clinton’s temper on display for the world to see

·         James Carville’s raging rants and name calling on live television

·         Lanny Davis’ perpetual denial of political reality

·         Harold Ickes’ torrid and tantalizing treatises

·         The Clinton campaign’s third down all out blitz on anyone who dares to oppose them

I know that the Clinton campaign wants to keep putting quarters in the machine and keep playing but this game is over. No one likes to lose on this level but you have to recognize when the game is over and stop putting quarters in the game. After I had spent my allowance on the new Pac-Man game, I ran home and begged my grandmother for more quarters to keep playing the game. She replied, “Kenny all you are doing is feeding that machine. You cannot win!” The Clintons cannot win. They need to accept that this game is over and refuse to feed the Republicans.

The time has come to unify our great party. America has spoken and she wants change. The politics of yesteryear is just that yesteryear. As my readers know, I started out as a Hillary Clinton supporter but after hearing Obama after his Iowa speech, I became an Obama convert. I saw a combination of President John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. speaking on that cold January night in Iowa. I said to my best friend “Mo” that there was something divine about Obama’s campaign and it would take the divine lining up of things to make him President. Hillary was running against a movement and not a candidate!

This game was really over that night in Iowa we just had to go through this necessary purging primary process which is healthy in any democracy. Now that the game is over we will see if the Clintons love America more than they love themselves. Tonight we will see if the Clintons love the Democratic Party more than they love themselves. We will see if Bill and Hillary will unite behind Democratic Presidential Nominee Barack Obama the Senator from the great state of Illinois and help him win the Presidency in November.

Bill and Hillary please do not put any more quarters in the machine because the game is over!