Dear Hillary and Barack:
I think the two of you need to take a week off. Use the next week or two to settle the Florida and Michigan issue, take a few days after that to unleash your respective media spin teams and then shut down your campaigns for a week. I'm sitting here looking at my calendar, and I notice that there is no primary or caucus scheduled between last Tuesday's Mississippi primary and the Pennsylvania primary on April 22. That's five weeks with no electoral contest. This is a unique opportunity for the two of you. Barack, I agree that the "urgency of now" is pretty "fierce," but I think you can spare a meager seven days. And I understand, Hillary, that you're looking hard for your vice president. But I think you can afford to suspend the search for at least a week. It might even give some of your vice presidential prospects time to figure out how to cross that "commander-in-chief threshold" that you recently mentioned.
In all seriousness, I think a few good things would come from a one-week campaign moratorium for the Democrats. First and foremost, let John McCain have the media spotlight to himself for a little bit. The guy offers no real change in policies from a president with a 30- percent approval rating in February. The day President Bush endorsed McCain, I expected the next morning's New York Times to put a big, juicy picture of a Bush-McCain embrace front and center. Alas, that picture didn't even make the front page (it was bumped in favor of a photo of Obama brooding over his losses in Texas and Ohio). Furthermore, a major portion of the Republican base already despises McCain. Let's give the base an unmediated dose of the immigrant-loving, torture-condemning maverick who toyed with the idea of switching parties in 2001. McCain has also said that he "still need(s) to be educated" about economics. It should be interesting to see how this goes over with the electorate, considering that the economy has repeatedly ranked among the most important issues for voters. Give McCain the media spotlight for a week, and let him go to work on alienating 45 to 55 percent of the country.
When the two of you come back after a week off, your presence will be refreshing. Undecided voters will embrace both of you after a week straight of "straight talk." A week off would also give committed Democrats a little perspective. Right now, your hardcore supporters are really digging their heels in. Increasingly, I hear Obama supporters threaten to stay home if Clinton is the nominee. As monstrous (shout out to Samantha Power) as I think Hillary and her advisers have been over the past few weeks, I will vote for her in the general election if I have to. Justice John Paul Stevens is 87. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 75. Justices Thomas, Alito and Roberts aren't even 65. Catch my drift? Oh, and by the way, George W. Bush has been President for the last eight years. Hardcore Clinton and Obama supporters need some time to come to their senses, and to realize that even their second choice candidate is - in the grand scheme of things - a very good option. A short break in the campaign would give everyone time to cool off a little bit and remind Democrats about how much is at stake in this election.
What do you have to lose? You'll save some money, and you'll save some energy. You won't have to spend a week worrying that one of your surrogates will say something utterly bizarre and offensive (shout out to Geraldine Ferraro). And you won't have to worry about whether your subsequent disavowal of your surrogate's statement was sufficiently unequivocal. After all these rejections, denunciations, repudiations and condemnations, how about a little recuperation for the two of you?
Best of all, taking a week off would really stick it to the cable news networks. If the two of you actually took a week, went back to being regular senators, gave your campaign staffs a week off, made no speeches and issued no campaign-related statements, what on earth would the "best political team on television" have to talk about (besides, of course, John McCain)? Obama and Clinton are the Denzel Washington and Meryl Streep in the drama that is this election. McCain is like the combination of Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau in the movie "Grumpy Old Men." The news networks just want to create drama, but you can't get much drama if your biggest stars are taking some time off.
There will be people - a "chorus of cynics" - who will tell you that taking a week off is a bad idea. They'll say that the people of Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Indiana need you to campaign hard in their states, and that undecided voters still need to be reached. But even if you take a break during the first week in April, you'll still have two full weeks and two more debates before the Pennsylvania primary. So I'm holding out hope that you two will heed my advice. And as one of you is fond of saying, "In the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope." So I conclude by offering you four simple words: Yes, we can rest!
Matt Aks '11, Hillary and Barack are going to Cancun for Spring Break
