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Here Comes the Hook, Hillary
BY LAWRENCE BOBO | TheRoot.com
What the senator from New York could learn from amateur night at the Apollo.

May 27, 2008--Politics should be more like an amateur show at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem. Sometimes you need the hook to get a bad act off the stage! The Hillary Clinton campaign for the Democratic presidential campaign has clearly reached that point.

A few years ago I attended a "Top Dog" show at the Apollo, which features contestants who have won rounds of competition on two previous occasions. The opening performance involved a dance troupe of African-American girls, ages 7 to 10 or thereabouts. They were very, very good and brought all the enthusiasm and discipline in the world to their performance. They were pitted against a 14-year-old young lady who sang her heart out with a mind-blowing rendition of an Anita Baker tune.

Like most in the audience I felt awkward about having to choose between these two acts. On the one hand, there was the unbridled energy, confidence, innocence and triumphant expectations of a group of very young girls, children really. On the other hand, you had a young lady who looked like a genuine star in the making. When the cheering was done and the MC reported the results, the young star had won. (And rightfully so, I say.)

But the youngest member of the dance troupe was stunned and almost stomped off the stage in disgust, anger and tears. Her fellow troupe members stopped her. The audience started to boo—mostly because we had to crush the hopes of some very talented kids in the zero-sum, forced-choice format of the Apollo talent show, not because of anything the dancers had done.

The MC immediately began castigating the audience. "Don't you dare! Don't you dare!" he shouted. "She has to learn, they have to learn, you don't always win. The show goes on and you remain professional. Don't disrespect them or this stage by booing in disappointment. They will have other days. This was not their day." Or, words to that effect—as I remember them now. He was right.

If only Hillary Clinton had been there that night. Perhaps she would understand that sometimes the others win, even if you are talented, even if you've fought well, and even if you've won some of the rounds. The decision can still go, clearly and decisively, to your opponent. And in those times, clinging to the stage when your show is over only increases the chances that you will look bad. Last week, in Brandon, South Dakota, Hillary Clinton reached that point.


When I saw the video clip of the interview and heard her say one disingenuous thing followed by a stunningly awful thing, I thought of that Top Dog night at the Apollo. I thought of that little girl who almost stomped off in tears but regained her composure. Senator Clinton claimed to be puzzled as to why people are encouraging her to stop running, claiming such demands are "historically unprecedented." Nonsense.

Any serious observer of American politics knows a long, contentious fight to the convention can hurt the eventual nominee. Gerald Ford's effort to secure election (rather than appointment) to the White House in 1976 was mortally wounded by the fierce challenge he faced from Ronald Reagan. A challenge that went all the way to the convention. Jimmy Carter was damaged by the fierce challenge from Ted Kennedy in 1980, which also went right down to the convention.

It is a cardinal fact of national politics today that, ideally, you want the nomination wrapped up before the convention, and that a party's chance of winning the fall election is greatly diminished by a nomination fight that goes all the way to the convention. So, yes, I found Clinton's comments completely, indeed howlingly, disingenuous.

But then she uttered the unspeakable and said, "We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California." I'm sorry. What did you just say? You need to stay in the race just in case someone gets "assassinated." Is that your point? When called on it, she apologized to the Kennedy family. But she also owes an apology to the Obama family, to the Democratic Party and to all Americans who live in a country where violence has too often taken great leaders from us.

Like so much from the Clintons nowadays, the apology rings false. This is just another in a growing string of events pointing to a thorough-going lack of personal integrity. The time for giving her the benefit of the doubt on these matters is long past. This time it felt to me as if her subconscious had let slip with what she is really thinking.

Enough already. If a 7-year-old girl at the Apollo Top Dog show can appreciate that sometimes you have to walk off the stage with pride though not necessarily a winner, then one can hope that the junior senator from New York won't force the hook to be brought out to remove her from the stage.

Lawrence Bobo is the W.E.B. Du Bois Professor of Sociology and of African and African-American studies at Harvard University.