A movie released in 2007, a remake of the classic 3:10 to Yuma, provided not only a superb, tense and well-acted contemporary western but a look at the human psyche. A humble, hobbled and poor rancher (played by Christian Bale of The Dark Knight fame) accepts a wealthy contract to deliver an infamous, deadly and crafty criminal boss (the always clutch Russell Crowe) to a train station, where the railroad will take Crowe to prison. The plot develops in a way that puts Bale and Crowe’s characters in a symbiotic relationship despite being natural born enemies. Bale needs Crowe to stay alive despite attacks by vengeful family members of Crowe’s victims and a vicious Apache trap because Bale needs the money to get out of debt; plus, his son looks upon him with contempt for what the son perceives as weakness. And Crowe needs Bale’s protection to stay alive if he has any hopes of rescue by his gang. Bale has the weapons to hold off murderous attackers. They need each other.
3:10 to Yuma mirrors what we’re seeing this week in Denver with the Clinton and Obama camps. They need each other. They may not like each other, but there’s a healthy respect, and both see a symbiotic relationship despite any lingering tension from the lengthy, terse and sometimes bloody spring primary. Like two veteran gunslingers once standing against one another, now Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton meet in a capitol of the west, Denver, and their fate’s are forever entwined.
For Obama to become the next president, he needs those Clinton supporters who remain unconvinced, even spiteful, about the young lawyer turned politician from Illinois (or is it Kansas? Hawaii? Harvard? All of them?). The latest NBC-Wall Street Journal poll showed 50 percent of Clinton supporters from the spring won’t vote for him, an void that’s acting like a gravity storm dragging away his aspirations for the White House because overall his race against Republican John McCain is a dead heat. So he needs Hillary and Bill Clinton to deliver rousing speeches this week, pumping up Obama’s credentials and platform as the right fit for the presidency, to work diligently in front of the camera and behind the scenes to coalesce support around her rival. In the absence of such efforts, Obama’s chances against McCain become slimmer.
But Hillary’s fate may depend on Obama’s more than his is tied to hers. If she fails to do whatever it takes to help Obama win the White House and Obama loses, the Democrats will remain bitter and divided four years later when it’s believed Hillary would try to unseat the sitting Republican president. If she wants her legacy to remain lofty, she has to work hard for Obama; otherwise a stain of pettiness, self-centeredness and spitefulness will soil it. And if Hillary wants to see her dreams of government-sanctioned health care insurance made available to everyone, a program that will drive down the cost of insurance for everyone, she needs a Democratic president starting in 2009; McCain is adamantly opposed to a federal health insurance system.
If Hillary wants the White House four years from now, and that’s not out of the question, then Hillary needs to work as hard as she can to get Obama elected and see him lose to McCain. She would have the unenviable and difficult task of unseating an incumbent, but if Obama loses this November, Hillary will immediately be the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination.
What’s clear is Obama and Clinton have to make sacrifices to see each other’s aspirations come to a fruitful conclusion, difficult decisions but the kind we expect presidents to make. We’ll know a lot about both candidates and the kind of presidents they will (or could) be by the end of this week.
