SECONDARY CONCERNS

Golf is a complicated game with complicated rules. For a new golfer like me, the joy of the game is being outside, walking around with friends, laughing, hitting one great shot in an entire round. Certain of those friends, however, have somewhat higher standards. Seasoned golfers, far more accomplished than I, they find equal joy in playing the game strictly by the rules. If you’re gonna cheat, they say, even a little, you might as well not play.

The electoral process is also complicated and has many rules. One of the rules is that the Democratic National Committee has the authority to determine, among other things, when each state may hold its primary election. Certain states, those with primaries scheduled for late in the process, felt they were being shorted, as the candidate may well have been chose before their primaries were even held. So they decided to break the rules by moving their primaries forward a couple of months. They were warned that if they did so, their delegates would not be counted in the final vote. They gave the DNC the finger and went ahead with their early primaries anyway.

Suddenly, Hillary Clinton finds herself standing at the 200 yard marker with her electoral golf ball sitting behind a tree. She’d like to improve her lie a little, nudge that ball out onto the fairway to give herself a better shot at the 18th greet. Mind you, she isn’t doing this in secret. She isn’t looking one way and kicking the ball the other, hoping no one will notice. No – in the highest tradition of low-life politics, Mrs. Clinton doesn’t want to break the rules, she wants to change them. To do that, she simply redefines the argument.

It would be a crime, says the Clinton camp, to disenfranchise Florida and Michigan just because of some “arbitrary” rule; especially Florida, after the 2000 election. Those voters have a right to be heard. Democracy isn’t democracy if everyone isn’t heard from. Hey, what’s the stupid tree doing on the golf course anyway? If the point of the game is to hit the ball onto the green, who needs trees? Move the goddamn tree!

One has to wonder whether Sen. Clinton would make the same argument if she were standing instead, as she fully expected to be, at the edge of the green, with a perfect lie and a clear shot. Hey, if you’re gonna cheat, even a little, you might as well not play.

a foot on either side