Mailer
A young delegate from New York tells the writer, “Politics is property.” And this becomes Mailer’s mantra. In those three words resides the magic that will release the secret of the convention. Those words confirm a system of exchange governed by property holders. Mailer writes, “A delegate’s vote is his holding — he will give it up without return no more than a man will sign over his house entire to a worthy cause.”
When I read those words in Denver, I tried to use them to understand what was happening around me. It occurred to me that Mailer had understood what had been ignored by the pundits on CNN. Like the inhabitants of the great city of Chicago, he hadn’t turned away from the unpleasantness of power and money. And it appeared to me that if he were alive today and reporting from Denver, he would have relished the chance to report on the calculations and compromises that have thrown up Barack Obama as the Democratic nominee. Instead of seeing only a shining symbol of racial achievement, Mailer would not flinch from looking at Obama also as a pure political animal.
My report from Denver with Norman Mailer’s classic reportage as my travel guide. In today’s Hindu.
Also recommended, this review of Mailer by Thomas Frank, that pits the writer against the modern-day pollsters.
