Profile of an Obamamama

Statistic of the day:
Number of terrrorist attacks worldwide:
2001: 1,732
2005: 4,995
2006: 6,659
--Rand Corp. and the Oklahoma City National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism

In connection with the last two posts, I want to pass along this column by the San Diego Union-Tribune’s Logan Jenkins:

Marriage to an obsessive Obamamama poses a number of challenges to a journalist who aspires to objectivity as if it were a state of grace. Here are just a few of the domestic discords my wife's partisanship presents:

Public signs of affection – For as long as I've practiced this often maligned profession, I've never once applied a political (or any other) bumper sticker on a family car. I'd rather plunge a wooden stake into my breast than plant a stake sign in my front yard. (Not really, but it sure sounds noble.)

A month before Super Tuesday, my wife announced that she was not only decorating her rear bumper with a Barack Obama sticker, she was also placing a big Obama sign in a side window.

“But what if I have to drive your car?” I asked.

“You can take down the sign if you want,” she said. “But don't mess with the sticker.”

Polar mood swings –We survived menopause without too much sweat (at least in the daytime). Raised a child, too. But nothing in our 30-plus years of marriage prepared us for the emotional roller coaster of the past year, culminating in the screaming Matterhorns of the past couple of months.

After the Iowa primary, she was swooning with bliss as Obama gave his victory speech; after New Hampshire, she was in the depths of despond as the jubilant Comeback Kid crowed to supporters.

South Carolina restored her faith in Obama's transcendence while confirming her contempt for trash-talkin' Bill Clinton, the hectoring presence that, in her biased view, rules out Hillary as an admirable feminist role model for young girls.

Then came Super Tuesday, when California surely would deal the knockout blow to the Clintons, whom she has sort of disliked from, well, Day One. Though the results of the national primary were mixed, she was devastated by the Golden State's betrayal, only to be resurrected by the 11-state winning streak, only to be decked again by Ohio and Texas.

Crossed signals: A couple of weeks before the California primary, she drove with a similarly smitten friend to Obama headquarters in downtown San Diego, joining a team of idealistic youngsters in their 20s. She has never even come close to volunteering in any political campaign before. She made hundreds of phone calls to former Edwards supporters. She knocked on doors in sketchy neighborhoods. One night, she had to take an hour off and was looking for a replacement.

“You keep calling the names on the computer screen,” she told me.

I told her no.

“You don't have to give your name,” she said.

That's not the point, I said. I don't work for campaigns.

“Oh, get over it,” she said. “You're working for me.”

Junk TV day and night: Time was, we watched the tube judiciously. But ever since Iowa, it's nonstop CNN, MSNBC or, in a dry spell, C-SPAN. On Sundays, we tape five or six political talk shows, skipping over everything but presidential primary news and commentary. All the pundits – many of whom appear to be too young to even remember the Clinton administration – have become her best friends or her arch enemies.

A couple of restless days before the Texas primary, I woke up about 3 a.m. The TV was on.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“There may be new polling,” she said.

Unbalanced debate: In truth, there is no debate. If I say something positive about the Clintons, she'll bring up the lying and parsing over Monica Lewinsky and remind me that I had my (nuanced) doubts that the sordid affair was an impeachable offense.

As for Obama, his stumbles don't matter because he has the right face, the right body, the right voice, the right experience, the right intellect, the right wife, the cool style. My wife grew up in Montreal and hasn't loved any politician since Pierre Trudeau. Debate over.

Oh, the horror: Just below a family health problem – thank God we have insurance – her biggest night terror is that the Clinton machine, short on delegates, will hijack the nomination out of sheer will. It's a fatalism all Obamamamas share, I suspect, now more than ever. Another panic point is that Obama will settle for vice president.

“Go negative on her!” my wife counsels via the TV screen.

He can't really do that, I tell her. His princely image will be shattered. She'll play the damsel in distress.

“She'll play that card no matter what he does,” she laments.

After the primaries in Ohio and Texas, I tried to explain that Obama is still very likely to win the delegate race. Still, she was inconsolable.

She had been praying for a final exorcism expelling the Clintonian demons once and for all from the possessed body politic. At last, the spinning heads and projectile talking points would stop.

“I'm just getting warmed up,” Hillary Clinton told her ecstatic followers.

My dejected wife, huddled in a dark blanket, looked like death warmed over.

The bottom line: The next day, she drove to sunny Mexico for a brief respite from the campaign. That night, she telephoned to declare, “I'm going to send money to Obama.”

Oh, God. The last fire wall has been breached. For almost 30 years, I have not contributed a penny to a politician or a political cause. My journalistic ethics and natural parsimony have been in balance. But no more.

Though it's a sensitive subject, I've asked what she'll do if Hillary wins the nomination. That's easy, she said. She'll vote for McCain and, if the Clintons end up driving their U-Haul to the White House, she'll never watch the news again. Either that or move to Italy.

After what we've been through already – and what we stand to endure as this infernal primary plays out – I could live with either of those results.