NEW YORK - It was Club Clinton on the corner of 42nd and Park Ave. last night, but everyone there knew they were just pre-partying before the main event. Although the celebration was reminiscent of a Jay-Z rap video, with revelers throwing down booze like it was water throughout the dimmed Hyatt Hotel, the guests at First Lady Hillary Clinton's celebration were just quenching their thirst as they waited for the bigger meal.
Alternating between cheers and moans as state returns came in, Clinton loyalists spent Election Night excitedly analyzing Clinton's Senate win and offering opinions about why Clinton cinched the 62 counties. The problem was though that each opinion was so different. "I think it was because she got the mommy vote," said Bitty Martin, a nurse from Arkansas, as she sat wide-eyed in the VIP lounge. Martin volunteered for Hillary this fall and also campaigned for Mr. Clinton during his 1992 presidential bid. "She got through to women, and that Democratic spirit superceded any staunch New York sentiment." This tendency to attach a personal agenda to Clinton's win defined many of the uber-friendly enthusiasts seated in the lobby bar.
Although the Democratic Party speaks about uniting diverse interests, the numerous groups that chose to ally with the party also pose a problem because they tend to put their own issues first. "I love the Hillary!" said Golam Mallick, a reporter for The Weekly Bengali newspaper. "I also love the Gore, because they both love the Bengal and the India and the Pakistan."
This confidence was not echoed by all the foreigners present in the hotel that night though, who watched the proceedings with the mixture of horror and amusement that might describe a hockey game. "It's amazing, this country," said Rup Stanley, a visitor from England who was looking dazedly around the hotel. "My wife and I just don't understand America. Why all the hubbub? Why so much attention for a woman who can't control her husband?"
Mexican businessman Sergio Garcia, however, warmly offered an opposing point of view. "We love Hillary in Mexico," said Garcia, "and we want Democrats to succeed in this country because they help us so much."
As Garcia offered international approval in the lobby, 30 floors above him strife continued subtly in an internal form as individual senators, congressman and state assembly members had booked suites like it was prom night. When I snuck into these rooms, although I could not talk to people because I was politely but firmly ushered out each time, I did notice that there was obvious homogeneity in each suite.
There were predominantly black guests in African-American Congressman Gregrory Meeks' room. There were only women in state assemblywoman Lindsay Nash's room. And while the only glimpse I got of Sen. Charles Shumer's (D-N.Y.) room was a young man seated on the floor chugging beer while onlookers cheered like they were at a fraternity hazing, it was disconcerting to stumble into this twilight zone and discover that the Democrats' united public face is actually very self-segregated behind closed doors. This observed disunity that we equate with our own University was strangely prevalent at the Clinton party.
Yet it's unfair to dismiss Democrats as cliquish because there is still a firm sense of camaraderie that trickles down into the party. From the groupies who contentedly watched Hillary's speech from an "overflow room" to the Hyatt employees who oversaw the event ("I've never seen so much hugging in my life," said employee Rebecca Wilson), Democrats understood that there was an overarching party unity that must join their beliefs.
This party strength evidently did not lend itself to Rick Lazio, the candidate who entered the race one year after Hillary did and only because he was Mayor Rudy Guiliani's GOP default. While the Lazio "Victory Party" cried in each other's GOP arms at the ritzy Roosevelt Hotel, Ms. Clinton's crowd happily drank and schmoozed the night away. It was a Democratic free-for-all as the public tried to elbow their way into the main ballroom to hear "Senator Clinton" speak with her husband "Bill" firmly in tow.
As for Lazio, perhaps the election can be summed up in the words of the late, great Tupac Shakur, "Don't hate the player, hate the game."
(Diya Gullapalli is a Cavalier Daily associate editor.)
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