New Jersey's Hillary Complex
Half of New Jersey grows up in the shadow of New York, or, more accurately, in the shadow of New York City. The prestige of being close to Big Apple - of receiving its every spillover, both good and bad - is far greater than anything native to the Garden State. Without New York City, New Jersey is nothing but a kidney bean-shaped version of Indiana. Even our accents are bastardized from New York!
New Jerseyans don't pay taxes in New York City, have never stayed in the city overnight, and don't vote there, and yet we are tied to the Big Apple more closely than we are to our own homes. No one, after all, says that he is from New Jersey. Everyone is "from just outside of New York City," or if one is particularly unlucky, "from just outside of Philadelphia." Undoubtedly, as Philadelphia's decline continues, greater and greater swaths of New Jersey will come to be mental-suburbs of New York City. The commute may be two and a half hours, but in our pride it will be just a quick drive.
All this makes New Jerseyans particularly willing to stick our noses into New York's business. The whole country, of course, does so with us - New York is too loud and important for anyone to ignore - but New Jersey is special in its ability to claim both old-fashioned American values as well as intimate knowledge of the city.
And what is the day's favorite topic for us hicks who occupy these frontiers of civilization between Bergen and Cumberland Counties? Not our adopted son Bill Bradley, who went to Princeton and represented us in the Senate and who could become the most powerful man in the world, but Hillary Clinton, a New Yorker-to-be.
You see, Hillary Clinton is taking on Rudy Giuliani, and New Jerseyans like Giuliani. He's made it safe for us to spend a day in the city, which is good, because if you can't go to the city for a "culture fix" there is no reason to be suburban. For more than this practical concern, though, do we cleave to Giuliani. Giuliani has the authentic New York City feel that we so sorely feel lacking in ourselves - no matter how many "Big New Yorker" pizzas we order from Pizza Hut, we know inside that we are fakers. Giuliani reminds us of LaGuardia and the old neighborhood and lots of other things we've never actually known but which scream authenticity, even more than our t-shirts emblazoned with a "Brooklyn" logo.
Hillary Clinton? "She is a fake Yankees fan and a fake resident and a fake friend of Israel" we protest. Her campaign literature appeals to New Yorkers to help her fight for what "we believe in," but she is not one of us, we note. She just had the luck to find an open Senate seat in the media-center of the US and is using it for all it's worth. She's not a real New Yorker but she might win. She hasn't paid her dues and put in her time, but she might win.
New Jerseyans say that a real New Yorker should represent New York, but sometime we slip and say that one of "us" should represent New York, including ourselves in a greater conception of New Yorker. In our secret refuges, our malls and our quaint homes, the most honest of us will even admit to himself that what he really means is that a New Jerseyan, and not Hillary Clinton, should represent New York. Sure, Hillary Clinton has the clear-eyed view of an outsider just like we do, but we also understand the city. There's just no way she can understand the city like we do. We've been around it for longer. We've grown up with it.
Damn it, we found it first.