Seems like a couple of weeks ago, Obama was a Moslem. Now, he’s the wrong kind of Christian. When Eliot Spitzer from New York turns out to be a ho-hopper, Hillary Clinton [also representing New York] is "hurt" because of Bill’s affair with Monica 8 or 9 years ago [and she and Spitzer’s shared "New York-ness"]. In Sir James Frazer’s 1900 classic, The Golden Bough, he discusses recurrent themes in religion and magic. One of his enduring concepts is Sympathetic Magic, a universal way of thinking in Primitive Societies, in Religious Myths/Teachings, and in human unconscious mental life.
Sympathetic magic is a specific magical paranormal belief that similar objects affect each other. (This concept is often phrased as "like affects like," as in homeopathy.) Anthropologically speaking, this is apparently one of the most common and most primitive forms of magical belief, found in communities and cultures all over the world.
Ergo, Pastor Wright of Obama’s church is something of a black racist, accusing all white people of systematic racism. Blaming America for 911 [there’s some merit in that claim]. Eliot Spitzer is a New Yorker, as is Hillary Clinton. Eliot Spitzer is a philanderer, as is/was Bill Clinton. It’s almost a double dose of Sympathetic Magic. 
In the second example [Clinton], the fact that Hillary was the victim doesn’t matter. In the logic of unconscious mental life, opposites are the same thing – Victim/Perpetrator, Philanderer/Crusader, Black/White, God/Satan. A category is defining, independent of which side you play on.Notice that the focus here is to discredit the integrity of the Democrats. The attack being leveled at the candidates’ category – black, female. I suppose they are holding their own, better than Kerry did. What’s not so hot is that they are participating in the melee, at least Hillary is with the subtle racial comments of her staff which she belatedly denies. We’re all worried that they will destroy each other, while McCain will stay in the background much as George W. Bush did in 2000. Bush dealt with his war record by saying nothing. McCain is dealing with his own philandering and erratic voting in the same way.
In my mind, the fate of the country now rests on the ability of the Democratic Candidates to withstand and neutralize the power of Sympathetic Magic.
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