After watching what has happened in Iowa and especially here in New Hampshire, the metaphor for the Clinton campaign that repeatedly floods to mind is that of the cyborg After watching what has happened in Iowa and especially here in New Hampshire, the metaphor for the Clinton campaign that repeatedly floods to mind is that of the cyborg ED-209 at the end of the movie Robocop. For the uninitiated , Cyborg ED-209 is an indestructible machine: it has all the weapons, all the defenses; it is strong and fearless, automated and merciless. Yet, near the end of the movie, as it is pursuing Robocop, the protagonist, the cyborg reaches a staircase and, because of its large feet and awkward posture, simply cannot navigate the stairs. Unsure how to proceed, it tries to walk down anyway, only to crash and become incapacitated. ED209 was just one in a long line of literary metaphors about people can do things machines, no matter how well programmed, simply cannot. (Weird, but put another zero in there and 209 becomes 2009, the year the 44th president is inaugurated.) What we have seen in the past eight days--and I truly do not intend to dehumanize Hillary here, though there is an unavoidable element of that--was the cyborg candidacy at the stairwell. She has all the resources and weapons. She was supposed to dismantle everything in her path. But, instead, she crashed for failing to show the most basic dexterity, the ability to navigate a terrain programmers somehow either forgot to or could not program into its algorithms and her circuitry. Part of her problems were not of her own making, for the obstacles she faced included the long reach of her husband’s legacy, the uneasiness some people sadly experience toward women candidates, and the problem of familial legacies. And when we look back, we will realize that it wasn’t just a failure of message or the challenges of a "change" election for which she was not ideally suited. But it will also be a tale about her inability to turn her greatest asset, which was the same as Barack Obama's--namely the birthright gift of a minority's sociological characteristic (hers, gender; his, race)--and use that identity as both a synecdoche and warrant for change. Instead, she tumbled down the stairs. --Tom Schaller
