One of my favorite quotes from anyone, anywhere and anytime is something from Ring Lardner Jr., who said:

“The race is not always to the swift nor the fight to the strong, but that’s the way the smart money bets.”

One of the things that has gone on in the presidential primary race is a lot of discussion about who can win in November, of course, as well as who will win in this or that primary or caucus. I’ve done some poll-based horserace posts as you all know.

However, along with that, in the blogosphere as a whole there’s a good bit of discussion about racism and sexism and how those cancers on our society have affected coverage of the races as well as voting. If you want to read extended discussions about the role of race in voting, try doing a Google search of “Bradley Effect”.

Sen. Clinton’s supporters see sexism everywhere, if I read their comments correctly on the places I read on the internet (Daily Kos, Andrew Sullivan, Talking Points Memo, Firedoglake, RedState, etc.). They have some good evidence on their side, there’s no doubt, and the rantings of Chris Matthews are repulsive but mild compared to stuff I see elsewhere. It ain’t easy being a woman. Hillary’s supporters, especially her older, white female vote demographic, get riled up regularly and I don’t blame them. They’ve seen the subtle slights and the not so subtle pushbacks in their offices and workplaces and it isn’t right and it isn’t fair. They are protective of their standard bearer.

On the other hand, sometimes you just lose. Tiger Woods is the best golfer in the world, but sometimes he just loses and it’s not about race. Michael Jordan was the best basketball player of all times, but he took some hits and some losses and it was not about race. Muhammed Ali didn’t retire undefeated even though he was “the greatest of all time,” as he famously declared. Sometimes, ladies, she is just going to lose and that’s what competition is all about and it has nothing to do with her gender.

I mentioned Chris Matthews in particular because a lot of the sexism seen by Sen. Clinton’s supporters is seen in the media’s coverage of the elections. It seems to them that Hillary is held to a different standard than either McCain or Obama. They are right. However, I don’t think that “double standard” that actually exists can rightfully be placed merely at the feet of sexism. When you want to talk about Rezko but not John Hsu, when you want to talk about Exelon and not about Wal Mart, when you want to talk about personal finances and he releases his tax returns and you don’t … well, that’s going to draw some unfavorable press regardless of your gender.

In addition, Sen. Clinton has a history with the media and not all of that history is so happy from the point of view of the press. Over the course of many years, Sen. Clinton’s history includes a lot of “spin” and a few instances (“Hillarycare” in 1993 comes to mind) of highhanded dismissal and a couple three just outright lies. Obama does not carry that baggage. He hasn’t been chummy with the press by any means, but he also hasn’t outright lied and misled them. About Rezko, he’s admitted that letting the sleazeball builder buy part of his family home’s yard was “boneheaded” on his part. Imagine that! An admission that he was wrong. You won’t hear such things from the new Clinton fast-response “War Room”.

I also think I personally would be more likely to listen to the claims of sexism in the press and electorate if, as I previously wrote, Hillary was running her campaign as a woman instead of on her co-equal with any man policy and issue experience and … whatever the hell it is she’s running on now.

Has there been racism? We need look no further than Pennsylvania Gov. Rendell’s pronouncement about his race with Lynn Swann in which he says that some whites in his state just can’t bring themselves to vote for a black and he figures it made about a 3% difference in his race. Say what you will, but the former President’s comparison of Sen. Obama’s primary win in South Carolina with those of Jesse Jackson in ’84 and ’88 were pretty raw efforts to portray Obama as a black niche candidate with no real chance. One of the reasons us Obamaniacs got so twisted up about that is because the Illinois senator has been very very very careful not to run in that niche, in fact, to become “post-racial”. Since it came on the heels of true racial animus in a very conservative southern state, a place where racism is a very observable phenomena, it made things worse. On top of that, we’d already had Clinton supporters forward emails about Obama supposedly being a muslim, “shuck and jive” in New York, “Hussein”, so what else do you need to know?, and all that, it seemed like not just one slip of the tongue, but a pattern that had to be acknowledged at the top. Whether Bob Kerry or BET’s Johnson, campaign gaffes about race in Hillary’s campaign SEEM to be a still unacknowledged bit of racism from a quarter where it’s least appreciated, a stab in the back from a trusted friend, the Clintons.

As you also know, I think there are some very good reasons why Hillary has lost more states than she’s won and none of those wins can be easily ascribed to sexism while they can all be put down to something easily understood and quantified: Obama outworked and outspent Mrs. Clinton a bunch of places she thought she could carry with nothing more than her superior name recognition. Sometimes, Hillary, you just lose.

Now, it seems that Sen. Clinton is playing a sort of double reverse race card. She portrays Latinos as a monolithic group that dislikes, fears and won’t vote for a black. I’m not sure who should be more insulted, but I know I am. The very fact that she’s using this demographic as a racial identity wedge in a DEMOCRATIC PARTY primary is offensive to me, even though it’s what I’d expect from a Bush (and maybe McCain). I would dislike this ploy regardless of the gender or race of the candidate. I don’t oppose you because you’re a woman, I oppose you because I don’t like the way you campaign, Sen. Clinton.

All that being said, I’ve written that I wish Sen. Clinton had run as the transformative candidate she might be and now it’s time for me to give some advice to Obama. It’s just about too late for him to do this in Ohio and Texas (and R.I. and Vermont, also on March 4), but he could certainly do this for PA and NC. He should speak to gender. Address it in a straightforward way. I believe he should say that nurses and teachers aren’t paid enough for what they give to our society for no other reason than those jobs are traditionally held by women. I believe he should say that day care providers are the hidden underpinning of our society and economy and require and deserve to be regulated and subsidized so that women can go to work without going crazy with worry about their children and the cost of just getting a job taking up such a large part of the gain of the income from the job. Single mothers with school age children are almost as numerous as married couples with children, but they don’t get the tax breaks and our tax system would be better if this were addressed in real dollars for single mothers. When politicians talk about the loss of jobs overseas, we think of men in hard hats but that isn’t the reality. A great many of those jobs were held by women in the garment industry, for example, and a good place to make that observation would be in North Carolina where 1000s of those jobs evaporated over the past 25 years. The women who support Hillary have a point and it’s a good one: women bear the brunt of high heating home costs, of subprime mortgages, of high gasoline prices, of low service industry wages and the list goes on. I believe that Obama should say that the problem that women have with government is not that their co-workers call them a “bitch”, it’s that the economic deck is stacked against them. We can’t stop guys from ranking on gals, but we can eliminate the structural economic hurdles they face. If Hilllary won’t run as a transformative candidate for women, then the transformative candidate can extend his transformation over both genders.

But, what do I know?

Back to the horserace: Obama up in Wisconsin and Hawaii. Hillary wins Ohio but only gets a draw in Texas, especially when the delegates are counted, and Obama is made to look better by wins in Vermont and R.I. Pennsylvania will be a fight, but Obama wins on the back of better organization. North Carolina goes big for Obama and the race is over except for a few “deadenders” and the “automatic” superdelegates slide to Obama. Courtesy delegations of “uncommited” delegates will be seated from Michigan and Florida under the supervision of Dean, Edwards and Gore as “party elders”.

The general election against McCain will be superclose and is too far in the future for me to foresee anything else about it.

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P.S. My daughter in Tucson has pneumonia and I am right on the verge of just taking off to go see her even though I know I’ll just be one more thing to worry about. So, if I disappear, that’s where I’ve gone.

P.P.S. A bunch of documents, clothing and other stuff belonging to/related to JFK, Oswald and Ruby has been found in a Dallas safe according to Reuters. Get out your tin foils, the conspiracy theories will now begin to spin again. The CIA in Havana with a mafia hitman. Or, maybe Colonel Mustard in the library with a noose. Just a minute, I’ll decide.

Meanwhile, a U.K. paper reports that it takes the average bloke three years before he’ll propose and another couple after that before the actual, no kidding “I do”. I’m wondering if there is someone I met in 2005 who needs a proposin’?

Finally, this video for no reason except I’m feeling mischievious and rambunctious: