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Triangulating

Friday, 18th July 2008

A couple years ago Norman Mailer and I were talking about character and Democratic troubles with men. Exit polling shows more white men than women and minorities vote on character. "The one trouble with Clinton," Mailer said, "You could say there was not a single political idea he was willing to die for."

With all due respect to Politico's David Paul Kuhn (his book on white voters and the Democrats sounds extremely interesting) I'd say that Norman Mailer is just about the last person worth quoting on the relative merits of Bill Clinton or Barack Obama. While I'm a fan of "The Naked and the Dead" and "The Executioner's Song", the last time Mailer had anything of any great merit to say about politics was some time around 1968.

Besides - unless I'm completely misreading the piece - it seems odd to rubbish Clinton for (very sensibly) shifting with the winds, and then to rubbish Obama for not paying more attention to Bubba's electoral tactics.