Why She’s Still In It

I agree with Matt:

This business of Travis Childers winning an extremely Republican district on the heels of two other Democratic special election wins drives home how infuriating the idea of even having an extended "electability" argument about "who can win" is at this point. The reality is that given current conditions, either Clinton or Obama is very likely to win. That, I assume, is why Clinton is fighting so hard. There’s no need to join David Corn in reaching for esoteric explanations, she’s fighting hard for the prize of the nomination because it’s a very good prize to have.

Ahead Of His Time

David Frum pens a striking appreciation of William F Buckley Jr in Yale’s alumni magazine. Money quote:

With God and Man at Yale, William F. Buckley was audaciously claiming that a Catholic could speak to Yale with all the rights of an insider — rather than with the grateful deference appropriate to an outsider. In time, similar claims would be made by Jewish students, by African American students, by women, by gays, and by the children of the great post-1970 immigration from Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Many (not all) of their particular claims would have appalled the author of God and Man at Yale. And yet those claims were also anticipated and to some degree made possible by him. A strange outcome — but then again, maybe not so strange. At once reactionary and rebel, conservative and iconoclast, religiously orthodox but culturally heterodox, a man of the 1950s in his politics but a man of the 1960s in his literary sensibility, Buckley was a man of many dimensions.

Ending Race-Baiting

Publius succinctly describes what Obama could do to racial politics:

As of now, coded racism (from Nixon to Bush 41) has been a politically rational strategy at the presidential level. (Bush 43 has, to his credit, avoided it). The Willie Horton ad was disgraceful, but it was also successful. In the Darwinian world of politics, it was effective strategy.

An Obama victory would change this racial calculus completely. It would be a true watershed in that it would signal to future campaigns that a new national political majority has emerged that not only rejects race-baiting, but that (more crucially) doesn’€t depend upon the votes of those swayed by race-baiting.

For this reason, there’s more at stake in this election than the substantive reforms Obama (and Clinton) have discussed. The 2008 election also offers a chance to exorcise some of the demons of history. Call it identity politics if you will, but I think it would be enormously significant – and beneficial -€” for a nation of former slaveholders to elect its first black president. Would it make the past go away? Of course not. But it would represent both substantive and symbolic progress on addressing America’s original sin.

Quote For The Day III

"Poor, rural, working-class white folks in Appalachia didn’t vote for the rich urban former law professor senator from Chicago. They went for the rich urban former law professor senator born in Chicago instead. But since the vote went so overwhelmingly in one direction rather than the other, and rich urban former law professor senators with Chicago ties are otherwise largely interchangeable, there has to be another controlling factor here. I can’t think what it might be, though. Maybe it will come to me if I think about it," – John Scalzi. They were making a statement about feminism.

HIV Phobia Still On The Books

I’ve written an op-ed on the resilient Jesse Helms HIV immigration and visitor ban, still uniquely stigmatizing HIV in America’s legal system:

I am among the most privileged non-Americans with HIV. Others live in fear of being exposed; many have to hide their medications when entering the country for fear of being discovered by customs or immigration. Couples have been split up and torn apart. International conferences on HIV and AIDS have long avoided meeting in the United States because of the ban, which violates U.N. standards for member states.

This law has lasted so long because no domestic constituency lobbies for its repeal. Immigrants or visitors with HIV are often too afraid to speak up. The ban itself is also largely unenforceable — it’s impossible to take blood from all those coming to America, hold them until the results come through and then deport those who test positive. Enforcement occurs primarily when immigrants volunteer their HIV status — as I have — or apply for permanent residence. The result is not any actual prevention of HIV coming into the United States but discrimination against otherwise legal immigrants who are HIV-positive.

I’m hoping that repealing this 1980s hangover – currently included in the PEPFAR renewal – is now feasible. The bill simply takes the HIV visitor and tourist ban from legislation and places it, as with all other medical conditions, at the discretion of the secretary of Health and Human Services. It just makes HIV like any other disease – subject to rational scientific judgment, and not to the fears of two decades ago. Good Republicans – Gordon Smith and Richard Lugar – as well as Democrats – John Kerry mainly – are behind it. Alas, it now appears that this measure is in jeopardy on the Hill. One key senator is Tom Coburn, a doctor who must know that HIV does not deserve to be singled out for special discrimination in the law. If you’d like to contact his office to urge his support for removing the HIV ban, here’s the link. Please help.

Obviously, as I explain in the piece, this is personal to me. I’d like to have the ability to stay in America with my husband with security. Right now, it looks increasingly likely that I’ll have to relocate at some point to Europe. But I’m one of the most privileged. This is for others more helpless than I, and for everyone with HIV and their families struggling with the stigmas that still hinder effective action. We really can do better.