It's Over(ish)

We told you so.

by Brian Howard

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Published: Jun 4, 2008

On Tuesday night, Barack Obama, the guy this newspaper implored you to vote for in the Democratic primary back on April 22, crossed the delegate threshold necessary to secure the Democratic nomination.

Obama and Hillary Clinton gave speeches assuring us that the primary season is over — and it is, technically. In Minnesota, Obama gave his speech before a wall of older white women and men. He claimed his mantle and lauded Clinton. In New York, she, before a contingent of African-Americans and young whites, congratulated Obama, without ever identifying specifically what she was congratulating him for. Say what you want; they're still campaigning against each other. Clinton's speech, billed earlier in the day as a concession speech, turned out to be exactly not a concession speech. Her vow to make "no decisions tonight" felt loaded.

Whether she concedes in the next 48 hours — and maybe by now, she has — should we really expect her to? Should we demand that someone who edged as close as she has to the nomination, who is, let's be honest, one scandal-driven sea change among superdelegates away from the nomination herself, throw in the towel and wait, like a wallflower at a dance, to be chosen for vice president? That's exactly the sort of obligatory second-fiddleism that many of Clinton's supporters rail so hard against.

Best-case scenario: Clinton leverages her enormous voting bloc in exchange for whatever position she and Obama can agree on — further monopolizing valuable media time for the Democratic party, as it tramples over a dangerous/pathetic McCain candidacy.

Worst-case: She goes all Joe Lieberman and sets out on her own, opening the door in a way McCain probably can't himself.

Either way, I don't think this is going away just yet.

Conventioneering

Speaking of which, we've got guests in town, and we've been losing our minds over it the last few months. City Paper is hosting the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies annual convention this week.

On its face, the AAN convention is a place for peeps from alt-weeklies around the country to hobnob, network and go to sessions on how to do their jobs better. I'm told that in actuality people come to it to get faced. Either way, we're honored to have been trusted to make that happen.

It's been a ton of work for our staff and a legion of volunteers. Which is why we're glad to have a couple extra pairs of hands on deck this week. I'm beyond pleased to announce the arrival of staff writer Isaiah Thompson and editorial assistant Molly Eichel.

Thompson, a Chicago native who graduated from University of Wisconsin-Madison (then rode his bicycle alone across the country "sleeping in people's backyards") comes to us fresh off a stint at Miami New Times.

"Philly strikes me as a city that cares about itself and takes pride in being what it is. says," says Thompson of his new home. "Philadelphians like to talk about Philadelphia. They argue about it, fight over it, take grievous offense at how wrong somebody else, like me, has got it. I like that."

Thompson comes here after winning a string of awards for a story he did on an encampment of homeless sex offenders. (He's up for an AAN award, too, as are our Doron Taussig, Michael T. Regan and Reseca Glasser.)

Eichel's a former superstar CP intern, who was "born in Philly, moved to Lower Merion," she says. "Kobe Bryant used to park his Land Rover on my street. That was sweet."

She just finished at NYU and has interned for Time Out New York and Salon.

Eichel says she's always been drawn to media but didn't realize until college she could pursue it as a profession. "Although it probably should be noted that I started working on the school paper because, in classic Molly Eichel fashion, I thought the people running it were stupid."

Noted. Welcome aboard.

(bhoward@citypaper.net)

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