May 7, 2007: Hillary and the Celebri-spiraling Age of Denial

Like everyone else I know, I've been pondering the 2008 Presidential race as it were to be held tomorrow.

No, in fact, it will not be held for a year and a half. But that hasn't stopped us from making bets on front runners. That's what I did with Crannie this weekend, ironically the same weekend that horse racing kicked off its season with The Kentucky Derby.

I called that race (Street Sense!), and wonder if I'll have the same luck with the future leader of the free world.

It's hard to know where any of them stand, since the only true issue on the table seems to be the Iraq war. This despite the fact that our domestic policies are in crisis, as we ignore topics ranging from national education standards to the U.S. lack of self-reliance on finances, oil and..well, just about everything.

Today I quit talking and jumped into the 2008 Presidential race with both feet and wallet, measured by my first donation to Hillary. Also on this day, Graydon Carter, editor of Vanity Fair, got press for his latest Editor's Letter.

This preview comes from Liz Smith in today's New York Post:

Depressing but enlightening: Graydon Carter in Vanity Fair for June, citing how we have entered the Age of Denial. His most interesting example is high gossip! - "Democratic steamroller Hillary Clinton is in denial over the rumored, er, friskiness of her husband, Bill. If journalists are aware of this apparent friskiness, you can be damned sure Karl Rove and the Republican intelligence machine knows about it, too . . . (Should Clinton get the nomination) . . . they can grind her campaign into the gutter with all the lurid specifics."

Lurid specifics, indeed. Everyone I know is judging the candidates on the specifics of their personal lives, and the assumed strength or weakness quotients of those near and dear:

• Hillary has Bill as an unprecedented pro, as well as a possible con if eagled-eyed political operatives and tabloid spies, both trained in the School of Dirt, discover indiscretions.
• John Edwards has Elizabeth and her health issues.
• Barack Obama has the floating balloon of untested goodwill, based on a limited track record, that could burst into the Hindenburg with the first misstep.
• Rudy Guiliani has third wife Judi Nathan, kids who speak out publicly against him, and the ghost of Donna Hanover.
• Mitt Romney has a chronically ill wife.
• John McCain has unsteady health and a second wife who seems reticent about the spotlight.

We may very well be in what Graydon refers to as the "age of denial."

But what we're really denying is not the candidates' perceived ability to see themselves through the brutally laid-bare media window through which others view them.

The true denial is that we're content political celebri-spiralers. When will the focus switch to issues, and new ones at that?