There is a widespread belief  among Hillary followers that Hillary’s imminent loss of the nomination is  an expression of anti-feminism somewhere ,  anti-womanism, anti-‘our girl’ism,  misogyny, sexist thinking  (or sexism somehow). This is view is, I am sorry to say a signature of  this particular group.  If Hillary were struck by lightning the same people would be out with the same message. Obamaism’s sexism was the cause, direct or indirect, overt or subtle. Aided, of course, by the media’s sexism. And, of course, the weather  bureau’s well known arrant sexism.  (Remember when hurricanes were only called after women?)  The big bad bogeyman (there I’ve done it myself) somehow would be, have something to do with,  sexism.  And anyone who casts doubt on that is, by that very act, a confirmed sexist. Anyone who, as in John Jay’s treaty, doesn’t put a candle in his or her window and sit up all night calling out the window that it is sexist, is a sexist.

Getting to call things sexist is that movement’s equivalent of the rapture. Geraldine Ferraro, one of their inspirational thinkers, having failed to offer any credible rationales  for why Obama wouldn’t be where he was were he not black, fell back on the old standby that has never failed yet and where she knew she would get support,  Obama would never be where he was is he weren’t such a sexist. It broke her heart to see such sexism. It was an outrage that would reverberate  round the earth, the extent of the  sexism shown in this campaign by Obama, those who support Obama, those who sometimes say his name  on the media, those who bring sandwiches to the hotel room, those who get drunk and passing  nearby in  convertibles, those who sit on the nearby beach and swat at flies. When asked to identify some concrete example of sexism, Geraldine, who had had time to be tutored and so say something coherent, referred to an episode (the episode)  in  New England (Boston) where someone held a sign that said Wash My Shirt . (Or was it that they called it out?)  And the media, did, did not, focus proper attention/in attention on this.  Proof of a vast sexist conspiracy if I ever heard it. I have heard anti sexist point to the media’s very focus on this episode as sexist, and to the media’s very lack of focus on this episode as sexist. Pressed further Geraldine cited the time, after the Philadelphia debate, Obama brushed lint off his shoulder and got a huge roar from his young crowd.  The oracular Geraldine who was not evidently into rap music and one of the three people in hearing who never heard of the Jaz-Z (?)  considered this  a definite example of sexism. Obama, you see, must have been referring to Hillary as lint, and brushing lint was, you see,  trivializing Hillary, you see, who is not easy to trivialize, and trivializing a female for any reason is  sexist.

What did not occur to Geraldine then, and very probably has not occurred to her since, is that there was something going on here she might not be getting. That  has not occurred to any of her  fellow deplorers.   I have read maybe half a dozen articles, leaders by women a lot more articulate than Geraldine, all scandalized at  the shocking, dismaying, disappointing, overt, sly, bald-faced, deeply inbred...what other reason could there possibly be for  Hillary to come up short... she said so herself...misogyny displayed by Obama, by Obama’s campaign, by Obamna’s supporters, by totally anonymous onlookers,  by anyone who in any way opposed Hillary, or by those who even reported on Hillary. But none of authors  I read yet ever pointed to a single specific instance other than the Geraldine pair.  I suppose asking people even to cite instances of sexism is itself sexist because that suggests that you do not take some at their word which means to have a trivializing attitude.

And what they miss could hardly be more obvious or writ in letters more large.  The outcome of this campaign has nothing whatever to do with sexism.  And if you don’t see that,  of you can’t see that right out,  then you need a political seeing eye-dog.  You will not get larger letters in a lifetime. There is only one item. Not two or three items to confuse those  unprepared to read complex signs. One 1 one 1.

Hillary was leading everybody by some 20 points. (I, of course, am not tricked into thinking sexism was not at work because, were if not for below the surface sexism, the margin might have been 30 points.) Anyway there was Hillary 20 points ahead of Obama. Where she had been for donkey’s years. It looked like it would gone on forever. She and I (sexist that I am) thought she was the inevitable nominee.  (I am a 4 time Clinton voter so did not see that as catastrophic.)  Then, in the course of one dramatic month, without anyone changing sex, or awareness of sex,  she went from 20 points ahead, to some number behind. Swings do not get  much more dramatic. December 2007.  Look it up. The record is all over the Internet. You would think analyst would at least try and explain this effect.

What happened in that extraordinary month? What could it be that the Geraldines are totally incapable of grasping?  It could be summarized many ways. I summarize is as “the coming of the kids.”  A whole new generation hopped over the wall.  The interactive generation  you might call it, who had not been raised to sit in rooms and watch electronic images. They had been raised to interact with electronic images. Interact. Interact. It formalte new nerve patterns and new responses.   This was the UTube, MySpace, PageBook generation.  This started to happen in the last election with John Dean and Kerry but it petered out. Maybe they did nol know how to ride the tiger. Maybe it was not mature enough.

Now in this group, all those demographic categorizations so vital to the elders, whether some one is male or female, white or black, are simply, amazingly, extraordinarily...try and prepare yourself for this...unimportant.  That was the extraordinary message. There were enough people in this group, maybe to make a country. OUR country. NOT sexist. NOT racist.  And the fact that this group started to form for Dean 4 years ago, who was not black, and did not have  a female opponent indicates it is something not inherent in Obama;s blackness or masculinity. Could there be something deeper here  than sexism and racism?

The Iowa caucus, for me, was truly one of the extraordinary events of a lifetime. It meant blacks and women had become citizens, or were about to become citizens,  in the full sense perhaps for the first time.  Here was a group in which attitudes do not follow  demographic category with the certainty they do in older groups.  Someone or something has taught these young people  differently. Obama, who as considered by many onlookers as ‘not black enough’,  became a true representative of the black community virtually overnight.   Notice, by the way, your sexist theorizers, this include black women as well.

Maybe what the Geraldine Ferraros ought to be complaining about is that the poor sisters of this new group I am calling youth  have been duped into thinking about other things than the old tired labels. Heavens. How disgraceful. And what Obama is, what Dean started to be, is first and foremost a tiger rider extraordinaire. He understood it very  early on.  (I did not grasp it until Iowa.)  He designed a masterful campaign to capitalize on it.  He has brought off, in addition  to seeing the world as it is, and not was, has managed a true long-shot with extraordinary skill.

How can anyone look back and not be amazed?

In the many Hillary moments that got such broad media coverage (I can think of no comparable Obama moments that got the same media play) Hillary is shown mocking  her opponent,  raising her hands and talking about the heavens will be parting for the forces that will come down to solve the problems, she, the problem solver,  not the talker, knew how to solve.  And I thought watching it, darn if she hasn’t  missed the whole thing, as have all the “sexism” deplorers.  The help Obama was summoning was not going to come from clouds  but from the audience.

In short, in the purest and starkest terms, what we are seeing is a passing of the torch to a group who  simply does not think like Geraldine Ferraro. At its heart is not sexism but the pure heady antithesis of sexism.  And of course, as one would expect, the  elders see this as  sexism “of the worst kind.”