"Mrs. Clinton, of New York"

The august New York Times, keeping to its long tradition of referring to news subjects by the titles "Mr." and "Mrs.," refers to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as "Mrs. Clinton, of New York." As I was reading this morning's NYT front page account of Senator Barack Obama's impressive margin of victory over Senator Clinton in yesterday's Wisconsin primary and Hawaii caucuses, I thought, "Wow. "Mrs. Clinton, of New York. - That's her problem right there."

The Times keeps the style of Mrs. consistent, as far as I know, throughout the paper. Scanning other political stories of the day, I can read, for example, the account of Mrs. McCain's smackdown of Mrs. Obama. I'm still a little shocked, however, when I read the title Mrs., especially before the name of a woman who, though married, exercises a fair measure of independent political power.

When I was an aspiring ambitious youngin' in the great state of Texas, older uncle types would ask me about my college plans. "Are you planning on getting a MRS degree?," they'd ask, chuckling, referring of course to the useless academic time girls spend as co-eds. "Naw, man, I can't wait until I'm Governor of Texas, and you're in jail," I would think to myself, and then I'd go home to read MS. magazine.

"Mrs. Clinton" - now, that's the woman I think who stays home and bakes cookies. Adding "of New York" adds a double whammy. In the first place, in this election season you can see how well New York resonates with national voters. New York is still that suspicious foreign big crowded cold place where people get knifed in the face for no reason. For even me, "Mrs. Clinton, of New York" reads Upper East Side, a Botox-injected socialite who wouldn't in fact bake cookies but have her assistant go buy them over on Madison. It's a wonder Mrs. Clinton, of New York gets any votes outside of 10021 and 10022. On the other hand, "Mr. Obama, of Illinois" - now that's Lincoln-esque!

The New York Post doesn't use titles, so the candidates are simply Clinton and Obama, for example. Ditto for The New York Post. Other newspapers begin their reports referring to "Senator Hillary Clinton" and "Senator Barack Obama" but then drop the Senator title and the first names after these identifications. I prefer that style over the Mr. and Mrs. traditions of The New York Times. When I'm reading the Times I feel like I'm at a formal tea party. In 1954.

The way things are going, though, the title, "Mrs Clinton, of New York," sounds like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

FOCUS on POTUS: The Two Washingtons of the Washington Square Arch

Officially, it's still called Washington's Birthday, though President's Day has become the accepted name, mostly as a way to include President Lincoln.

The day's meaning usually signifies a break from work or school or the arrival of a sale. In the United States Senate, however, there's at least one formality. One senator is selected to read Washington's Farewell Address. The practice began in 1862 as a way to cope with the dark days of the Civil War.

This morning I visited the statues of the two Washingtons - the military George and the civilian man of peace that grace the north side of the Washington Square Arch in Washington Square Park. Sadly, in the ever increasing disruption caused by the renovation of the park, the arch itself is now inaccessible behind a metal fence.

The arch served to commemorate the Centennial of Washington's Inauguration, an event that took place downtown. The pier statues were added later -"Washington at War" on the left of the arch by Herman MacNeil in 1916 and "Washington at Peace" on the right by Alexander Stirling Calder in 1918. Yes, Calder was the father of the famous mobile artist, Alexander Calder.

While it's not surprising that two different sculptors should interpret Washington differently, especially given the separate tasks, I'm struck how the civilian Washington, the one by Calder, presents the tougher image. While MacNeil's warrior George seems to retreat behind all those formal clothes and hat, Calder's peacetime George is bold and struttin' his stuff. Casually resting his left hand on the pedestal, his massive strong right hand shows off serious knuckles. This POTUS has got some legs, and I'd be afraid of that extra muscle he's got behind him.

Images of "Washington at War" by Herman MacNeil (1916) and "Washington at Peace" by Alexander Stirling Calder (1918) by Walking Off the Big Apple, February 18, 2008, Washington's Birthday.

Election Day

After watching endless hours of CNN and MSNBC (I'm partial to the latter) over the past month and being one of the many enthusiastic followers of the political horse race that began in Iowa, it felt almost surreal to finally cast my own ballot today.

I went to the polls in the late morning, before any rush, and I found the line short and the temperaments of the poll workers cheerful. The subdued atmosphere of voting struck me as a complete contrast to the fevered high-energy commentary of the televised political coverage. The business of news coverage demands cranking up the volume and pumping up the drama to drive ratings, but the business at the polls is necessarily the boring attention to order, procedure, and checking off names.

The pace of the process, in its slow way, helped me with the peculiarities of the New York party primary ballot - the list of named delegates supporting the candidates, people I'm supposed to vote for but do not know. I have been familiar with this New York process for a long time, but still it's odd. I heard a guy in line whispering the mystery of the delegates to another voter, but she didn't get it either.

Given the hoopla of media coverage about Super Tuesday, I wasn't too surprised to read that today in Bexar County, Texas - that would be San Antonio and pronounced like "Bear," over a thousand voters called the election commission to ask where to vote. Primary day in Texas is March 4, not today. Reading this news of the Bexar County confusion, I recalled my long-ago awakening as a young idealistic activist. During my college years my activism took me to San Antonio to participate in the state-wide convention, and I remember thinking that politics was the greatest, most glamorous, and most important aspect of my life.

That sense of myself as the young person who would change the world belongs to a different era. In the intervening years, political professionals took over the grass roots politics I loved, and I feel guilty that I let them. But this morning, in the gray light of an overcast day, a small distant voice came back to me and wanted to re-engage with the world. It made me happy.

I don't think I need to tell you who I voted for.

Edwards Out, Giuliani Out, and The Presidential Race Moves On

One benefit of being under the weather these days is the excuse to stay home and follow politics. I can curl up on the couch with a box of tissues and watch the surprising twists and turns of this remarkable elections season. I am almost positive that the reason my sinuses flared up was because I became all bleary-eyed watching the Kennedy family endorsement of Barack Obama on Monday. I am a wuss about the rhetoric of hope.

I just learned John Edwards plans to drop out of the Democratic Party race today and will make an announcement at 1 p.m. in New Orleans. I liked having Edwards in there, because he made an excellent case for working people in the debates. I wonder, though, if his thick southern accent hurt him. As someone who pronounces the words "fire truck" as "far truck," I worry about this more than most people.

As a Democrat, I am more fascinated than usual with the Republican contenders. I love listening to Mike Huckabee's smooth and folksy talk, though I don't agree with most of the substance. But that Mitt Romney! Is there a more fascinating "retro personality", as Frank Rich of the NYT so aptly puts it, in all of the political kingdom? He is so "Gee whiz, wow, golly gosh!" I want him to be WOTBA's very own TV daddy.

Alas, poor Rudy. So much for New Yorkers knowing everything.

That's it - Live blogging the news from somewhere on a couch in Greenwich Village...I'm Walking Off the Big Apple, under the weather, New York, New York...over to you, Chris and Keith.

Weekend Frivolities: Cupcakes, Buildings, Obama, Comments Now Open

• After finishing that last self-guided walk, Fifth Avenue and The High Road to Taos, I felt like I had walked from Fifth Avenue to Santa Fe and back. That was a big walk! I'm still putting together the interactive map of Fifth Avenue, but the rest of the walk is now fully assembled on new blue and beige pages HERE. From analyzing the site feed, I see that a lot of people liked that walk.
• For blogger-types who like to write long posts like myself, I highly recommend using Google Pages, a feature still in the Google Labs. That's how I'm putting together the complete versions of the walks.
• The cold weather makes me hungry, so yesterday I decided to visit Sugar Sweet Sunshine on Rivington and drink some coffee and eat a red velvet cupcake (or rvc, as I like to call them). They have two kinds, one with white icing and another with chocolate icing. I don't advocate walking to a bakery as a destination if weight loss is a goal, but I decided that if you walk far enough, you can walk it off and it's OK.
• I like the building on Avenue A with the BURGER KLEIN and Gracefully signs, so I took a picture of it. The other picture here is of the RV cupcakes.
• I have a hard time remembering the name of the place I got the cupcakes, and I think they should change their name to Rivington Bakery. Another place I like is Connecticut Muffin on Prince Street near the New Museum, but last time I was there they had taken the sign down. With the New Museum, the name didn't sound cool enough and so they plan on just going by 10 Prince Street. I have to agree that Connecticut Muffin sounds too uncool.
• When I was walking back home along E. 4th Street, I saw the color red everywhere, and I plan to go back to take photographs of all the red things.
• I lost a lot of pretend money in CNN's Political Market last night. It's a site for trading shares in a prediction market about the presidential campaign. I thought Obama was going to beat Clinton in the South Carolina Democratic Party primary by around 10 points, but he won by a much much wider margin with 55% to her 27%.
• I've been writing Walking Off the Big Apple for over six months now, and it's time I turned on the Comments section. Everyone's welcome to play.

"Walks Singing": The Selma to Montgomery March, March 21-25, 1965

The distance from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery, the state capital, is about 54 miles. When marchers assembled for the third attempt to make the walk in support of voting rights with the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. in March of 1965 - the first had met with state-supported violence at the Pettus Bridge and the second stopped by court order, several participants were not fully prepared for four days of walking 12 miles per day and sleeping in tents on the roadside at night. But conviction will overcome these kind of obstacles.

Thousands of people flew into Selma and Montgomery to assist with the march and to give whatever aid they could. The march itself had been limited to three hundred participants at any time. Among the entertainers who attended a rally on the fourth night of the march were Shelley Winters, Tony Perkins, Tony Bennett, Nina Simone, Dick Gregory, Sammy Davis, Jr., Mike Nichols and Elaine May. On this last full night of the march, the last before the final miles into Montgomery the following day, many of the marchers started falling ill from exhaustion.

Journalist Renata Adler, in her enthralling account of the march, "Letter From Selma," for April 10, 1965 issue of The New Yorker, described the scene:

On its fourth night, the march began to look first like a football rally, then like a carnival and a hootenanny, and finally like something dangerously close to a hysterical mob...Word got out that the doctors on the march had treated several cases of strep throat, two of pneumonia, one of advanced pulmonary tuberculosis, and one of epilepsy, and because of the number and variety of sick and handicapped who had made the march a macabre new joke began to go the rounds: "What has five hundred and ninety-nine legs, five hundred and ninety-eight eyes, an indeterminate number of germs, and walks singing? The march from Selma."

According to Adler, at the staged camp entertainment on Wednesday night, "A number of girls in the crowd collapsed and, because there was no other lighted space, had to be carried onstage, where Miss Winters did her best to minister them."

The march from Selma to Montgomery in support of voting rights laid the foundation for the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In the current presidential debate on this issue, I believe that credit for advancing this particular piece of legislation needs to shared with hundreds of exhausted walkers, the thousands that traveled to Alabama to lend their support and a handful of gutsy entertainers.

Image: Photograph by Peter Pettus. Modern gelatin silver reprint from 1965 negative. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (30)

See the website for the Selma to Montgomery Voting Rights Trail in Alabama.

For Martin Luther King, Jr. Day: The April 15, 1967 Antiwar March from Central Park to the United Nations

Organized by the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, the antiwar march from Central Park to the United Nations on April 15, 1967 was among the largest antiwar marches in New York history. Though estimates widely vary from 100,000 to 400,000 in attendance that day, participants included a broad coalition of civil rights activists, among them Martin Luther King, Jr., and an ideological spectrum of antiwar activists.

After assembling in Central Park for a peace fair, speeches and performances, the marchers walked down Fifth Avenue and then made their way east to Dag Hammarskjold Plaza at the UN. Though city officials worried about violence and mayhem, the march was peaceful, and the five people arrested belonged to the group of protesters who were opposed to the march.

The following newsreel account reveals the usual establishment sarcasm that's directed toward the protesters. In my opinion, marching with others for a just cause is a fine way to walk off the Big Apple.



See related post, and the Selma to Montgomery Voting Rights Trail in Alabama.

The New Man From Hope: The New York Times Hearts Huckabee

On the day of the Iowa caucus, it should be apparent to everyone now that Mike Huckabee has bewitched the political reporters of The New York Times. Never mind that the former Arkansas governor confuses the geography of Pakistan or the correct late-night picket line or that he's unclear in general about foreign policy. He's nowhere near the intellect of Bill Clinton, the other former Arkansas governor from Hope, Arkansas who has weight problems and plays musical instruments on late-night talk shows. Huckabee is charming. He makes the reporters laugh. He's so funny that the Times runs a video of the funny things he says on its website. (See the Times topic page on Mike Huckabee here.)

I first noticed the paper's infatuation with Huckabee around the time he emerged as a serious contender in mid-December, a time that coincided with the paper's magazine feature titled "The Huckabee Factor." I remarked on the myth-making photographs that accompanied the article, and I am not surprised that the image overtook the words.

The visual cuteness continued with images of Huckabee out on a hunting expedition and more recently, of him getting a shave. The overhead view of the governor relaxing in the barber's chair and with foam on his face was so precious that Mitt Romney might well learn a few words from Sweeney Todd.

In today's NYT, the story "A Laugh About the Lord" not only reinforces the candidate's folksy Jesus-loving humor but also sets up Huckabee's anti-East Coast populism against Romney's privileged background. The message is echoed in the lead story about the final day of campaigning, and the tone of these pieces casts Huckabee as the likable, even lovable, protagonist.

The other contenders in Iowa may be shielded too close by their handlers, or they really are boring and humorless as rocks, but they better watch out for Mike Huckabee. He's not from Harvard, but he's pickin' and grinnin' with the boys on the bus.

Capturing the Big Mo: Michele Asselin's Photographs of Mike Huckabee

The Huckabee Factor by Zev Chafets, the cover story of the upcoming issue of the New York Times Sunday Magazine and now available online, is accompanied by several images, including a couple of stunning photographs by Michele Asselin. Artful, composed, and aware, these are myth-making images. The former Arkansas governor's political star has risen sharply in recent days, a newsworthy fact that perhaps figured into the NYT's early release of the Huckabee feature story. These images could contribute even more to his Big Mo, but only if he doesn't get into too much trouble with some of his answers to Chafet's questions.

Asselin, a portrait photographer, has captured other celebs and politicians in the past, Hillary among them, but her black and white photographs of Huckabee for the Times, in their sophisticated way, may help translate the candidate (and what a cute name he has) for a big city audience. In one image, Huckabee is wearing a serious dark suit, seated alone in a typical reception space that takes up most of the frame, feet crossed out in front of him and with his hands touching, as if he's biding time for the shoot to be quickly over. He stares at the camera, maybe even glares. Asselin has composed the picture so that his shadow cast on the back wall takes on prescient meaning. It's all so noir.

The other image shows an informal smiling Huckabee, a bit awshucks, but handsome like a movie star, dominating the frame. Composed on a diagonal, Huckabee, now more casual wearing a clean white shirt, leans forward and glances shyly downward, almost giddy. He looks like he's so tickled that he'll fall down. Where the first image of Huckabee seems a little Elliot Ness, this portrait illustrates the buoyancy and affability that Chafets describes in the article.

I never thought of Mike Huckabee as glam, but I do now. I don't plan to vote for him, but he looks really good after losing so much weight.

Website for Michele Asselin, photographer here.

Barack Obama Advisory for Thursday, September 27

Walking Off the Big Apple was walking her dogs as usual this morning when she came across pedestrian barriers at Washington Square Park indicating the presence of an imminent major event. As regulars we all ignore these barricades and walk around them. It turns out that Barack Obama will be speaking in the park late this afternoon.

WOTBA originally thought the preparations were for filming on location. She is so grateful to have found On Location Vacations, a website for aficionados of watching a movie as it is being made. WOTBA finds that the site provides an invaluable public service. I can now be forewarned of the frequent invasions, so I can make plans to walk in a different direction. Also, when I come across SWAT teams and FBI agents swarming a park or a street, only to find out later that it was just a movie, I'll be more informed.

Maybe Sex and The City could film at the park while the presidential candidate is speaking. According to the alerts posted in Washington Square Park, the fountain area will be closed from 12 noon until 4 p.m. Gates open to hear Barack Obama at 5 p.m. I have my ticket!