It is time to say farewell to a glorious campaign that stretched the limits of political correctness, nepotism and stopped just a few thousand votes from obliterating one kind of glass ceiling. We will miss you, Billary Clinton; you made the last 16 months a blast. In memory of this overwhelmingly entertaining (and underwhelming-ly planned) campaign, I've compiled a top-eleven list. It's actually a hodgepodge of different events, concepts, moments and observations that made 24-hour cable news more entertaining than any network drama or sitcom for the last year and a half. And it's a top eleven list because I just like to be difficult. Let's start from the beginning.
1. Hillary's adorably horrible Southern/country accent.
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For someone who spent so much time in Arkansas, you would have thought she could have had time to work on her cuntry draaawl or suthan friiied accent. Especially considering her penchant for appealing to the hard workin' folks of the Heartland. At first, I must admit, I thought it was comically annoying, but now I think it's kind of cute. From her "Negro spiritual" accent at churches in Birmingham, to her country bumpkin speech from the bed of a truck in Indiana a few weeks ago, she showed that of all the things you learn at Wellesley, common folk dialect is not one of them. Which leads us to the next point.
2. Hillary, spokesperson for hard-working white people.
During this campaign, we have learned about the rough and tumble life and times of Mrs. Rodham Clinton. Her meager slave-wage salaries as a top-flight Yale-educated lawyer were not nearly enough to support her husband and only child. She has been forced to live in public housing for 20 of the last 30 years, either in the paltry Governor's Mansion of Arkansas or the meager dwelling of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. She fed her family from the squirrels she was able to shoot on the National Mall using the rifle skills grandpa taught her on the wild frontier of Western Pennsylvania. She was so poor that she never could afford coffee or gasoline and therefore has never learned how to pour either of them. Joe Lunchpail has definitely found a Crown Royal sipping, Budweiser guzzling, kindred spirit.
3. Kill Bill: Vol. III
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The year 2007 saw the return of America's favorite philandering politician since the Kennedys. The man that every Republican wants to castrate and every Democrat wants to consummate with. Man, we missed the comfy accent, the wagging finger, the disarming smile. It did make me nostalgic for the '90s, when you couldn't tell the difference between Meet the Press andThe Maury Show. A moment of silence for what could have been…. Speaking of Bill…
4. You do know he's black, right?
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Did you really think that the man who publicly debated the meaning of the word "is" couldn't find a way to throw racial kidney shots at the man hoping to become the country's second black president? Of all the recent politicians who won South Carolina primaries and then failed to win the party nomination, (John Edwards, for example), Jesse Jackson, for some reason, had the most in common with Barack Obama. I was waiting for Barack to be accused of having 400-yard tee shots like Tiger Woods, speaking as well as Colin Powell and womanizing like Flava Flav. But don't worry; Hillary is pretty sure he's not a Muslim…is he?
5. It's MLK day? Well, we're black too!
Could you imagine what would've happened if Hillary had met McCain in the general election? The way she swung back and forth between being tougher and blacker than Nelson Mandela, then being more congenial and whiter than Vanna White, and the way McCain turned from Martin Luther nailing a copy of the 95 Theses on the church door, to just another convert drinking the Kool-Aid, the general election would have seen a level of pandering that would have made the handlers of Mei Xiang, Tian Tian and Tai Shan green with envy. (Get it? Pandering? Snort, chuckle, gaffaw!)
6. Hillary Clinton, the hermaphrodite
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From appealing to our longing for estrogen in our political process with the listening tour to having testicular fortitude, Hillary has forced Hollywood's hand to the point where only Hillary Swank can play her in the epic biography they will make of her life 25 years from now. Not to mention the fact that this tough gal, who will obliterate Iran, acted in her own version of the blockbusterCrying Game when being the tough girl wasn't enough in Iowa.
7. Poker Face
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I'm not a Texas hold'em player, but after seeing Hillary's tax return and her inability to hide the "I know this is bull @#*^" look when she spouts out media talking points about her opponents, I'd love to play her one on one. Did she really think Obama was going to bring back Reaganism? Did she really think that Barack viewed hard-working white people as gun-toting religious nuts? Please search YouTube so you can see the look in her eyes as she talked about this subject with a look my toddlers have when they've knocked over a glass of milk.
8. From 1+1 to advanced quantum physics, the ever-changing electoral math.
ROBYN BECK / AFP/Getty Images
You can take a look at my SAT math scores or my checkbook ledger from last year to realize that I am only adequate in math, but the Hillary campaign changed the x's and y's so much that I think I'm going to stick with my times tables up to 10 from now on. From now on the election equation is calculated by:
big states — small states X Democratic stronghold states — 2/3 of fly-over states — pi of caucus states x 250% of rust belt primary states — states with up to 40% of the Negro population + number of superdelegates who owe you political favors + Puerto Rico and Guam.
By this calculation, Hillary won in a landslide back on Jan. 3, 2008.
9. Those who fail to plan…
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We all know the boss' son. The one who has a mid-level management job off the break, and therefore comes in late to every staff meeting, spends the first two hours of every day playing paper football, is best friends with all the staff, gives away merchandise to clients who he thinks are cool and starts working on the quarterly report at 9 p.m. on Sunday when it's due at 9 a.m. Monday morning, all because Daddy's going to leave the company to him regardless. (See George W.) I must say I am surprised that such an accomplished woman as Hillary pulled the same lackluster performance at the interview, before she even got the job. She campaigned as if she thought Super Tuesday was just the name of a jam-packed night of comedy on ABC, and not the Super Bowl of politics that highly-trained candidates spend their whole lives prepping for.
10. Pillow Talk President
JOYCE NALTCHAYAN / AFP/Getty Images
Is it too early to point out that Hillary Rodham Clinton, in her own right, is an accomplished scholar, lawyer, businesswoman and politician, a beacon for the cause of feminism and a trailblazer to be remembered forever, but only legitimate as a presidential candidate by her marriage to a president? Her resume was no more impressive than 99 other hard-working elite politicians she shares the left side of the nation's capital with. I tried not to be insulted by her insinuations that her expertise was garnered from the conversations at night with her husband, even though she could never just say it outright. Her marriage to Bill ended up being an anchor and not a sail during her voyage to the presidency. The election boiled down to the high school student body election skills of likeability and public speaking, in which she was trounced convincingly.
*BONUS HILL-ISM*
11. Rodham: First Blood
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It's been beaten to death, but I can't leave this one alone. We will forever remember that fateful night when Hillary's Navy Seal unit repelled into action from an Apache helicopter at 2 a.m. with only a bowie knife and Louis Vuitton combat boots to single-handedly take down Cobra and Destro in the mountains of Kosovo. I don't think there's much more I can say other than give that woman a Purple Heart.
So long, Billary. We will miss you!
Bomani Armah is a self-identified "poet with a hip-hop style."