Commentary on politics, history, culture, and literature by two Dartmouth graduates and their buddies
WHO WE ARE
Chien Wen Kung graduated from Dartmouth College in 2004 and majored in History and English. He is currently a civil
servant in Singapore. Someday, he hopes to pursue a PhD in History.
John Stevenson graduated from Dartmouth College in 2005 with a BA in Government and War and Peace Studies. He is currently
a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago. He hopes to pursue a career in
teaching and research.
Kwame A. Holmes did not graduate from Dartmouth.
However, after graduating from Florida A+M University in 2003, he began a doctorate in history at the University of Illinois--Urbana Champaign.
Having moved to Chicago to write a dissertation on Black-Gay-Urban life in Washington D.C., he attached himself to the leg of John Stevenson and is thrilled to sporadically blog on the Dartmouth Observer.
Feel free to email him comments, criticisms, spelling/grammar suggestions.
Needless to say, I am tired of the main-stream media and blogosphere extraordinare competing to describe just how dead Clinton is. Team Clinton has rightly begun to explicitly state is newest argument: it's the map not the math. Whether in terms of counties won, or all of the votes cast for a candidate in this primary season, or the number of 'important'/'swing' states won, Sen. Clinton has exceeded expectations. While things would certainly be easier if she were ahead in other three metrics--pledged delegates, superdelegates, and states won--she does has a solid grip on three of the six measures.
Nevertheless, it is easy to get lost in all this math and these inane arguments about 'rules.' The Democratic Party has two questions it must resolve: (1) what is the party going to do about the certified elections that occurred in Michigan and Florida? (2) Given the closeness of this primary race--neither candidate has been able to deliver the knockout blow--which candidate, or combination of the candidates, is the most competitive in the 2008 November election?
This is a measurement that can only occur, as I have argued earlier, by each state's contribution to an Electoral College victory. Quite frankly, I am of the opinion that Sen. Clinton is the clear choice and here's why. Her electoral victory map represents a more sure shot of a Democratic presidency.
Polls consistently show Obama winning and Hillary losing in the following states:
Colorado Iowa
Polls show Hillary winning and Obama losing in the following states:
It's that simple. It's the difference between winning (Hillary) and losing (Obama).
Let me be clear: Obama can win; Clinton will win. The deep irony of the situation is that the Republicans nominated their only candidate who could win this year while the Democrats seem intent on nominating the only remaining candidate who could lose.
Clearly Sen. Obama has proven his worth as a candidate: his nomination to the vice presidency would make the Democratic ticket an unstoppable force for up to four presidential elections, and for many congressional elections as well.
I’m sorry Obama, but is it that you just can’t be bothered? What else can explain your M.I.A. status in West Virginia and Kentucky. Yes you needed to show a sign of strength. The rock star moment in the house was a nice touch, I think we can all appreciate the theater in that.And kudos on your excellent small crowd townhall on the economy, education and the war in Iraq in Beaverton Portland. You are introducing yourself to people and making use of local television, awesome.This is how you win in liberal Pac Northwest states where Independents are going to be most likely to switch to you.
But get your ass into West Virginia and Kentucky right the hell now! This is a huge blunder. There’s the potential that these white voters will not vote for you because you are black but make an effort for everyone.It’s not going to change their minds about you.It will change the minds of millions of Clinton supporters in other states who need reassurances that you care about them, and with a quickness.
Also there needs to be a serious Obama and the press situation where Obama publicly calls on his supporters to reach out to Clinton supporters in order to unite the party. You are going to run on changing politics, then this is an excellent opportunity to do that. You have a voter registration drive and energized volunteers. Operation Care for Hillary supporters will launch you among the women vote and get some sensitive husbands too. If you can get all the women in the country voteing for you then you have a major chance.Just as black women would’ve been more easily brought into the fold, the same is true for white women. Sisterhood moves both ways even if there are serious social gaps between them.Single moms alone could change this election.So Obama needs to think women, women, women. Appealing to women Clinton supporters, talking about issue women care about. You’re gonna get the liberal men and the black men and the white men under 33.Maybe you can’t get men back. But you can get women back. Make that a priority and you’ll solve this “irreparable damange.” Be impractical about gender and you could throw it away.
In recent weeks my own naiveté, hallmark of the Obama faithful, encouraged me to reject punditry and accept the notion that despite the contentious battle for the Democratic nomination, there was a good chance that Democrats would be united in their support for the eventual nominee come November. And for at least one side of the intra-party divide, that seems to be the case. The number of Obama supporters who will vote for Hillary Clinton has remained relatively stable over the last major contests with nearly 70% pledging their support for either candidate come fall. Indiana and North Carolina, however, reveal a troubling trend for the party that the media and blogosphere has increasingly seized upon since the PA primary.In both states, though more-so in North Carolina, a minority of Clinton supporters said they would vote for Obama in a November match up against John McCain. I find credence in the position that these polls represent little more than temporary hurt feelings (if Obama fans are naïve, Clinton fans need to work through their sense of entitlement).Unfortunately, I’m also persuaded by the notion that, white Democrats, once again, are demonstrating an unwillingness to embrace any presidential candidate who might appear to serve the interests of African Americans, no matter how effectively his/her policy prescriptions will address the issues most important to middle to low income white voters.We tend to describe this voting bloc as “Reagan Democrats” who, it can be argued, rejected Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale because of the Democratic Party’s implicit ties to Civil Rights liberalism and Reagan’s effective exploitation of white resentment of welfare policies and growing fears of black inner city criminality.This strategy merged with and was eventually overtaken by Gingrich’s Contract with America which emphasized religio-cultural issues once the Clinton Administration bowed to pressure and eliminated federal welfare.Now with Obama on the ballot and the Rev. Wright media circus labeling him, at last, indisputably black, the part of the Reagan Democrat coalition animated by now four decades of held over anti-black resentment has reasserted itself.
Annoyingly, ironically, but totally unsurprisingly, it is African American voters who the media has accused of dividing the party along racial lines. Fair enough African Americans are voting for Obama by over 90% and represent a huge chunk of his support in nearly every primary election he has won. Yet white commentators, barely constrained by the shackles of political correctness and the black intelligentsia, a class always eager to tell less than successful African Americans exactly what’s wrong with them, have begun to critic African American’s unanimous support for the first African American with a serious chance to win the presidency.Noted black political scientist, Michael Dawson, for example, recently likened African American excitement over Obama to a kind of mass psychosis. However, as we know from exit polls, it is also evident that African Americans have little problem voting for Hillary Clinton. This should surprise no one. During the Lewinsky scandal, African American voters closed ranks around the Clintons. When Monica and her blue dress appeared on CNN, African Americans activated a long standing historical tradition wherein the private sexual foibles of our loved ones (Uncle Adam and his “friend” Steve) or community leaders (insert philandering black pastor joke here) are merely integrated into our overall sense of their personhood (“he/she just like that”).Bill Clinton did more than pander to African Americans, he became, for many black voters, a presidential version of the one white kid you see hanging out in otherwise majority black social spaces (something much different than the suburban white kids who wear hoodies, purchase hip hop and are frightened to go to “that” side of town).When Hillary Clinton spoke of the vast right wing conspiracy she both joined an ongoing conversation within black barbershops about the ever present and shifting “man” determined to exclude African Americans from political power in the United States and positioned herself and her husband as victims of that “man”.African Americans, in response, circled the wagons and have remained loyal to Democrats regardless of race, except in 2004 when John Kerry managed to inspire no one.
White democrats over the last thirty five years however, have rarely exhibited similar political or social flexibility when it comes to race relations.When white Democrats in industrial towns were told they needed to release their stranglehold on racially segregated neighborhoods and open access to good paying jobs they responded by voting en masse for George Wallace in the 1972 Democratic Primary and defecting to Richard Nixon’s presidential bid in November. Over the last 12 years working class white voters have been the spoiled darlings of both political parties, and they seem to know it. So used to being pandered to from the Right and the Center Right, the notion that they will not be able to reverse the will of the African American, young and liberal wings of the party has caused an emotional maelstrom that can best be described as race-pouting.While African Americans turn out in record numbers to support southern Democrats in house elections, like Travis Childers (who distanced himself from Obama) fickle, barely loyal, working class white voters threaten with increasing urgency that they will vote for McCain over Obama come November.
There’s a chance my racially colored social lens has biased my interpretation of events, but when Obama and Hillary agree on 95% of policy, how can we explain these astonishing exit poll numbers?Let’s just take crossover Republicans out of the equation at this point. We can say that age and experience drives these voters towards John McCain, except that many of them voted for Bill Clinton in 1992 and Obama is running a new version of that campaign in 2008. I also think if polled, without Obama in the equation, many “experience” voters would choose less experienced candidates than Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfield for public office at overwhelming rates. We can’t say it’s “character” issues. Even in states where she emerges victorious, more voters find Barack Obama honest, more feel he shares their values and a majority claim that Rev. Wright doesn’t mean very much to them. As controls continue to eliminate other possibilities, racism gains a greater share of the explanatory force behind these exit poll numbers. A large percentage of white Democrats seem unwilling to imagine a black man in the white house.
Yet watch the media over the next few months. If Obama fails to win in November he will be blamed for not “reaching out” to white, “working” (read respectable) people.Already Clinton has linked her support among white voters with the support of the “hardworking Americans,” do non-white folks not have multiple jobs and work for non-living wages all of a sudden?The right belabors the impact of politically correct, multiculturalist rhetoric on their ability to “call it like it is” in relation to black America. Few, however, have recognized that the flip side of political correctness is our inability to call a spade a spade in the national media without upsetting the gentle sensibilities of white voters.
From the Politico on the coverage of Barack Obama:
My, oh my, but weren’t those fellows from ABC News rude to Barack Obama at this week’s presidential debate.
Nothing but petty, process-oriented questions, asked in a prosecutorial tone, about the Democratic front-runner’s personal associations and his electability. Where was the substance? Where was the balance?
Where indeed. Hillary Rodham Clinton and her aides have been complaining for months about imbalance in news coverage. For the most part, the reaction to her from the political-media commentariat has been: Stop whining.
That’s still a good response now that it is Obama partisans — some of whom are showing up in distressingly inappropriate places — who are doing the whining.
The shower of indignation on Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos over the last few days is the clearest evidence yet that the Clintonites are fundamentally correct in their complaint that she has been flying throughout this campaign into a headwind of media favoritism for Obama.
Last fall, when NBC’s Tim Russert hazed Clinton with a bunch of similar questions — a mix of fair and impertinent — he got lots of gripes from Clinton supporters.
But there was nothing like the piling on from journalists rushing to validate the Obama criticisms and denouncing ABC’s performance as journalistically unsound.
The response was itself a warning about a huge challenge for reporters in the 2008 cycle: preserving professional detachment in a race that will likely feature two nominees, Obama and John McCain, who so far have been beneficiaries of media cheerleading.
Wow, I just found these You Tube clips. I'm loving this priest who defends Rev. Wright and Rev. Farrakhan. He calls out the interviewer from Fox on his BS. My favorite line is about the black people in jail when white people are the majority of drug users.
Also great quote "Martin Luther, Jr. was not some sweet little black man with an olive branch."
This blog, and many of my compatriots in the blogging business, have commented on the messianic nature of the Obamania. This fascination with the politics of character(ization) has reached its pitch in the Democratic nomination precisely because of the allegedly small distance between the policies of Senators Clinton and Obama.
The real problem with this is not the cod-religious congratulation of being the chosen ones, but a quieter, more insidious message: that the campaign itself is the change he talks about.
In this way, the Obama campaign is styling itself as a sign of change, rather than an argument for it. As he said in South Carolina: "We are showing America what change looks like." In that linguistic and conceptual manoeuvre, the goal of accomplishing the specific changes Americans urgently need - in health care, the economy, education - is relegated to the background. You're not so hungry for reform when you've already feasted at the table of self-congratulation.
While the first celebrity song had the energising feel of a rallying cry, this second video features Hollywood types Jessica Biel and Ryan Philippe anointing themselves as "the ones", encouraging their fans to join them, to become part of the "movement", to "change the world"....
While Clinton's campaign sets out her credentials and her plans for what she describes as "the most difficult job in the world", Obama's is a campaign deliberately operating on a symbolic level. Clinton is asking Americans to hire her to do a job; Obama is asking them to believe in him.
Accordingly, they offer two different models for the Presidency: put it in terms of the much discussed "day one", the Obama model is about the inauguration speech, and Clinton's is focused on the moment she gets back from the Capitol, sits down at that desk, and starts work.
This second Will.I.Am video is a perfect example of what has swept Obama to this point, but also of what has been his undoing in Texas and Ohio this week and what will be difficult for him the races to come.
For what remains to be seen is whether the American people continue to enjoy watching a bunch of celebrities congratulating themselves on being "the ones."
How Far Ahead of Clinton is Obama? Reflections on the Delegate Math
Recently, Gov. Corzine of NJ caused a bit of a flap when he said that 'if Sen. Obama went to the convention ahead in the delegate count, the popular vote, and the states won, that I [Corzine] reserve the right to switch my vote from Clinton to Obama.'
In another future post, I will address the issue of states won and the popular vote. In this post, I want pass along some very sobering reflections about the delegate math.
Jay S. Jacobs, the Nassau County Democratic chairman, is a pedged delegate for Sen. Hillary Clinton.
April 4, 2008
Calls for Sen. Hillary Clinton to drop out of the race for the Democratic nomination for president are mostly based on the fact that Sen. Barack Obama is leading in the delegate count.
But Obama's estimated lead of 164 pledged delegates, when fairly analyzed, is not what it appears to be. Out of that margin, only 16 delegates were earned in primaries, while 148 delegates - fully 94 percent of his lead - were earned through caucuses.
That's an important distinction when you consider the disparity of voter representation between primary-elected and caucus-elected delegates.
First, the tallies: According to CNN, Obama has 1,413 pledged delegates and Clinton has 1,249. Breaking those numbers down, in the 28 primaries, Obama has accumulated 1,089 delegates to Clinton's 1,073. Through the 16 caucuses held to date, as well as the Texas caucus, Obama has garnered 324 delegates to Clinton's 176.
According to The New York Times, 25.3 million people have voted so far in the primaries, while only 1.1 million voters have participated in the various caucuses. Obama has captured 63 percent of caucus-goers, but only 51 percent of primary-voters. Clinton has won 36 percent of all caucus attendees and 49 percent of primary voters.
The disparity suggests that there is either something very seriously different about the voters in caucus states, or something very seriously wrong in the representation of voters' interests that comes out of the caucus process.
Caucuses, which are usually held in the evenings, are often complicated and require voters to be present for several hours, exclude many voters - like those who work at night or don't have child care options or are serving abroad in the military. What's more, caucus-goers are often required to make their choices known publicly, a practice that contradicts the American concept of the secret ballot.
And caucuses have an exaggerated impact on the delegate count. Each of the 2,162 delegates earned in the primaries to date represent an average of 11,702 voters. But in the caucuses, each of the 500 delegates represents just 2,200 voters. Each caucus vote is weighted more than 5 times what each primary vote is worth when it comes to allocating delegates.
There seems to be something very unfair about the caucus process. And, if there were any doubts about that, just look to the one state that chose delegates using both processes - on the same day: Texas.
I was an observer at one of the Texas caucuses, or "precinct conventions." While mine was relatively well-organized, many others were not. Reports of verbal and physical fights were rampant. Complaints of a lack of checks on participant qualifications were widespread. There's a reason why, a full month later, the final results have yet to be reported.
What happened in Texas is revealing. In the primary, more than 2.8 million people voted, giving Clinton 51 percent of the vote and 65 delegates. Obama received 47 percent of the vote and 61 delegates.
But the still inconclusive results from the caucuses - conducted on the very same date as the primary - yield a different result. CNN projects that Obama will earn 38 delegates from the precinct conventions, to Clinton's 29 - a margin of nine delegates from caucuses that saw a fraction of the participants in the primaries, where Clinton's margin was only four delegates. In effect, the winner of the popular vote may be the ultimate loser in Texas (sound familiar?).
But what about on Long Island? In Nassau County, 109,721 Democrats voted in the state's primary on Feb. 5. That equals 10 percent of the combined total of voters who participated in the 16 caucuses to date. Just from one county! If we add the 89,490 Democrats who voted in Suffolk, Long Island's vote was more than 18 percent of all the caucuses combined. But our 22 delegates are just 4 percent of the number of the total delegates - 500 - elected from those caucuses. Why don't Long Island's voters count as much as, say, Wyoming's?
Obama's current overall delegate lead is almost entirely based on the less-democratically run caucuses. For those that argue that superdelegates must follow "the will of the people," let's at least compare apples to apples. Give delegates chosen in caucuses the same per-vote weight as that earned by delegates in the primaries.
That democratic adjustment alone would reduce Obama's caucus delegate lead from 148 to 28, reducing his overall lead from 164 to just 44 - certainly within Clinton's reach in upcoming primaries, even without Florida and Michigan. When fairly viewed, the delegate race is far from over - and calls for Clinton to leave the race are clearly premature.
I think Jacobs is exactly correct in her reading of what the delegate lead signifies. It is a bare lead, and his supporters are trying to knuckle her out of the race.
What Clinton Supporters Need to Hear From Obama (Supporters) and the Media
1. Who is Barack Obama?
We heard the beginnings of this in his "historic" speech on race and in his musings that he is a blank space upon which people project. But we need to know about the man's character, his tactics, and his team.
2. What has he said?
What are the speeches that Barack Obama has given? How consistent (and "new politics") is his method? Sen. Obama likes to give non-straight answers.
3. What has he done?
We need to know more about Sen. Obama's record. This is distinct from his biography. We need to know what kind of political change, in his years in elected office, he can point to as a record of what he might do as president.
4. What does he plan to do?
Besides Iraq, and now the economy, I want to hear more ab0ut Obama's comprehensive vision.
There is a meme going around that a continued nomination process will further the divisions in the Democratic Party. As one Gallup Poll notes: if Hillary were the nominee, 19% of Obama supporters would vote for McCain; if Obama were the nominee, 28% of Hillary's supporters would vote for McCain.
Obama and Clinton can - by putting aside personal irritations, and to some extent personal aspirations, and agreeing to end the hostilities and form a ticket that offers both of them, a candidate for president and a candidate for vice president who is clearly good enough to serve as president, should the occasion arise. That candidate for vice president would also have a good chance of being elected president eight years from now because neither of the two would be too old in 2016. If they are not capable of doing that, the two could announce they will complete the primary schedule and convention with the winner becoming candidate for president and the other agreeing to be a candidate for vice president, thereby mollifying to some extent the constituency of the candidate who was not chosen as the nominee for president.
Think of it, over the next eight years we could elect both the first woman and the first African-American to become president. That's not a dream: It's a plausible, achievable, glorious possibility - if our two remaining candidates have the personal strength and wisdom to make it happen. The joint statement announcing their agreement would rock the nation and resound across the globe - sweeter than any political poetry; smarter and more meaningful than any tightly intelligent political prose.
What a lot of people are missing is that the continued attempts to nudge Clinton out (and "get on with the nomination") and Obama's blocking of a solution to the Michigan and Florida thing are what is polarizing the voter base.
Let me be clear: trying to end the nominating process prematurely, not Clinton's continued campaigning, is what is destroying the Democratic party. The Democrats win when they let the people vote, and let every vote count. It's a simple principle.
The resentment sprouted in January and has grown steadily. Weeks ago, super-blogger Taylor Marsh noticed it. In a recent message to Nancy Pelosi and Patrick Leahy (who want Obama nominated now), Marsh patiently re-stated her observations:
"If you continue to try to push Hillary Clinton out of the primary race before a clear winner emerges, you're going to accomplish one of two things....
1. Clinton supporters will harden further against voting for Obama if he becomes the nominee. (Hillary fans are already close to this, so don't push them any further, because you can't win in November without them, especially after Obama's Rev. Wright pastor disaster, which is already causing problems in the larger electorate.)....
Apparently, prominent Dems think they can knock Hillary out of the contest, and her supporters will gleefully rally round Obama.
That could happen -- if most Hillary supporters were ADD-afflicted adolescents who spend hours glued to the Cartoon network. Prominent Dems should ponder who Hillary's supporters really are...
In early February, Sen. Obama's wife told Good Morning America that she might not support Hillary if Hillary becomes the nominee. Translation: a Republican might be better.
A few weeks later, Obama supporters were outraged when Hillary acknowledged the obvious: that McCain has more experience than Obama. Most media forgot that Obama's closest surrogate had said something equally damning about Hillary.
The disparate reactions were evidence that different standards exist for Obama and Hillary.
Naturally, many Hillary supporters' resentment grew.
Next came the adolescent calls from Obama supporters (including media folks) for Hillary to drop out -- even before Ohio's primary. That started in February.
The day after Ohio's primary, Obama's campaign manager sent an email that strongly implied that Hillary should drop out.
Many Hillary-supporting Dems remember watching George Bush try to bully Al Gore into stopping the Florida recount.
Naturally, Hillary-supporting Dems had a visceral reaction to watching one of their own do that to Hillary during a close race.
Adding ipecac to the cake, Obama said a few days ago that he didn't mind if Hillary stays in the race. Why didn't he say that a month ago -- before the bullying cries reached a crescendo in the media?...
Not all marginalized Hillary supporters would vote for McCain, but many might stay home.
I just ran into the poignant post from Buck Naked Politics. I wanted to share some of it.
Do you wonder, as I do, how people got the idea that this relative newcomer to national politics has the credentials, experience, and other requisites for cleaning up after George W. Bush? Saying so is a sure recipe, as I've found, for getting called a fool, a moron, an idiot, amoral, brain-washed, a Hillary shill, a tool of the Clinton establishment, and a tool.
If I raise questions (because the questions are definitely are out there), I'm accused of 'stirring the mud' (as if you could stir mud if it the mud wasn't there in the first place) or of 'innuendo.' Obama supporters seem to think that it's unfair to bring up allegations that are out there if I can't personally prove they are true. Of course, my point isn't that they are true, but that they are out there. So far the media's given him the same sort of pass they used to give to George Bush. What happens when the honeymoon ends?
Meanwhile, not one supporter has risen to the challenge of telling me---if I'm stuck with Obama, I really need to know---what superior or equivalent credentials or experience they can cite to indicate that he is currently better qualified than Hillary to be the Chief Executive of the United States.
Most of them try to lecture me about Hillary---me!---arguing, with a sublime disregard for logic, common sense, or the facts, that her qualifications and experience aren't any greater than Obama's, or not enough greater to matter, in light of his 'charisma' and his (their faith in him ensures) pure, untarnished record.
Most say they don't care about credentials or think his credentials are sufficient. They like Obama; and that's all that matters. I like him too, or till recently I did, but they... they 'LIKE him like him', as the kids say. And if you say you don't, they're all up in your face, demanding that you step outside so they can administer a moral drubbing.
Moreover, they don't think his voting record in Illinois shows anything important about him, such as an alleged unwillingness to take a clear position on hard issues that might render him less, you know, 'electable.' (No, don't tell me your rationalizations again---I've heard them all, and remain skeptical.)
Yeah, Hillary's made mistakes. But that's because she's made hard choices.
I understand why Obama's supporters love Obama. It's the same reason Republicans used to love George W. Bush. He represents, or seems to represent, our image of what a perfect Democrat should be. They're sick of being on the defensive and of defending the Clintons. Why not vote for the candidate they really like?
Meanwhile, those of us who have supported Hillary have done so for exactly the reasons that Obama's fan base derides her. She is tough, a bit battered by hard experience, hardened to being disliked, a little soiled by her mistakes, persistent, politically astute, intellectually flexible, wary, wiley, and all the things that her critics take for insults but which are really the constituents of the ability to make realistic judgments and politic (as opposed to popular) decisions. As Obama himself put it, she's 'likable enough,' but the charm that we hear about isn't generally on display when she's campaigning, partly---of course---because any sign of her femininity draws her a whole different set of rebukes 'n ridicule.
I believe she'd make the tough calls that these dangerous times require and that she'll already recognize the 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' component of 44's job. It's going to be a long, hard slog picking up after Bush. Not much glamour or glory in it and therefore, not a job for a glamorous and glorious candidate, I'd argue. Our next candidate needs to be a determined, stoical, and experienced one who is inured to being blamed. In any case, the US presidency isn't the election for president of the senior class. It shouldn't be merely a popularity contest. Is Obama up to the job? Yes, his supporters say. They 'know' this because he has inspired them to believe it. Maybe they're right. But I remain skeptical. Of course, there is a bright side: his ascendancy is apparently pleasing to the Hillary-fearing right-wing pundits. (Obviously, it's because they too are under Obama's spell and want him to be president, am I right?) It's nice, I guess, that he has the ability to make even the right wing do the right-wing happy dance. And he made a thrill run up Chris Matthews leg (good for Tweety; I'm so pleased he's found another politiican to love). So anyway: Obama. Is he as wonderful as he seems? Perhaps. Forgive me if I don't take it on faith. For one thing, I am entirely offended that he has sat by while his campaign and his supporters use every tried and true right-wing tactic to undermine and deride Hillary----and, by extension, her supporters.
So now what, my fellow Dems? What are you going to do now? Because it's not just me. Hillary supporters across the country are beginning to express their outrage at the way that Hillary's been treated---not just in the media (we've come to expect this) but by other Democrats.
But then the fence on which we fence-sitters were still sitting---"after all, we've got two great candidates," we said to ourselves--- got blasted out from under us by the shocking tone of the attacks on Hillary and on those of us who supported her by the anti-Hillary contingent of our very own party.
Many Democrats will be waiting to see how the Obama camp goes about mending their fences, assuming the fences can be mended. "McCain isn't that bad, except for the war thing," mused one of my friends---previously very well-disposed toward Obama, as I and my co-bloggers used to be. "Maybe it would be better to let the Republicans clean up Bush's mess."
I realize that the 'conventional wisdom' is that we'll turn out to vote for Obama anyway. He and his campaign advisors certainly seem to assume that they'll have the support of the whole party no matter what they or their 'surrogates' do or say.
Oh, really? Here's what Ms. Obama said when she was asked on Good Morning America if she'd vote for Hillary if Hillary got the nomination.
ROBERTS: So what if Senator Clinton defeats [Obama], becoming the first woman nominee. Could you see yourself working to support the first woman nomination?
OBAMA: I'd have to think about that. I'd have to think about that, her policies, her approach, her tone. (The Huffington Post)
Good idea. I'll have to think equally hard if Obama gets the nomination. Shall I vote for McCain? Nah. But I can stay home. Or I can write in 'Hillary Clinton' or 'John Edwards.' After all, I've been pretty turned off by the 'tone' and 'approach' of the Obama campaign.
"Clinton was the only top-tier candidate to refuse the ultimate Iowa and New Hampshire pander by removing her name from the Michigan ballot. That makes her essentially the de facto winner since Edwards and Obama, caving to the cry babies in Iowa and New Hampshire, took their name off Michigan's ballot. Sure, the DNC has stripped Michigan of its delegates, but that won't last through the convention. The last thing Democrats can afford is to alienate swing states like Michigan and Florida by refusing to seat their delegates. So while Obama and Edwards kneecap their chances of winning, Clinton is single-mindedly focused on the goal."
Given that reality, the question the superdelegates need to ask themselves is, Who can win the general election? I'll make this as simple as possible: Obama cannot win.
Regardless of how well Obama did in some deep-red state Democratic caucuses, the truth is that the Wright fiasco, McCain's appeal to independents and Hispanics, the fact that nearly 1 in 3 Hillary voters may defect to McCain, and the well-oiled Republican attack machine will leave Obama, at best, where John Kerry was in August 2004, that is fighting desperately to reach 270.
Here's the best case scenario for Obama: He wins all the states John Kerry won except New Hampshire. It's McCain 290, Obama 248. [Add Michigan and New Hampshire, it's McCain 320, Obama 218.]
Here's a list of states Hillary would likely win: Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, and Pennsylvania. It's Hillary 315, McCain 223. With Obama on the ticket, McCain is likely to carry most of these states. Kerry won Pennsylvania by less than 2% in 2004 and only 12 out of 67 counties. Giving Obama Iowa, it's McCain 300, Obama 238.
My hunch is that the Democratic leaders like Pelosi, Dean, and others are aware of this reality. That's why they want to shut the process down now and begin the formidable task of taking on McCain sooner rather than later. Their first task, of course, is to consolidate the base; no easy job considering many Hillary supporters think an Obama nomination illegitimate by denying her Michigan and Florida. It's also why DNC Chairman Howard Dean is saying that the most democratic process is hurting Democratic chances in the Fall.
I say on with this primary. If Obama manages to become the nominee but still wins only one or two of the remaining states, then it's going to be a problem for him. He needs to effectively woo some of the Clinton coalition to be a viable candidate, in the same way that she must woo his.
Big Tent Democrat asks a question I've been thinking lately myself: Why are the Clinton-haters intent on destroying the Democratic Party?
let's assume the worst of Clinton and ignore the damage people like Josh Marshall have done and continue to do. Why don't we play that game with Clinton haters like Marshall? Do they hate Clinton so much that they will destroy the Democratic Party to make sure Clinton has no chance to win the nomination? Would they rather insure Dems lose Florida and Michigan in November instead of honoring the will of the voters in Florida and Michigan in a revote? Do they hate Clinton more than they care about the Democratic Party?
It's good that Sen. Clinton is a tough woman; few politicians have to experience this vile behavior from their so called allies. Luckily, the Obama campaign has seemed to change tracks and have laid off the calls for Sen. Clinton to withdraw.
A lot of people suggest that continue competition gives John McSame a free pass. They are wrong. As the folks over at Direct Democracy observe, if both Democrats commit to the issues, and if the Obama campaign would honor the primary results of Florida and Michigan, or schedule a revote, then it is all for the good.
As we saw yesterday with the candidates' respective speeches on the economy, this primary race does not preclude running against McCain and as we also saw yesterday, if Clinton does choose to try to win by tearing Barack Obama down instead of making her own case to voters in a constructive way, the superdelegates, which hold the key to both candidates' paths to the nomination, will turn on her. But ultimately if Democrats who are concerned that Clinton will take this all the way to the convention really want to make sure this ends before July 1, as Howard Dean has now called for, they'll urge Barack Obama to back remedies for Michigan and Florida. The idea that Barack Obama can claim a clear win without two states that early in the process would have gone handily to Senator Clinton is absurd. This IS her rationale for taking this to the convention, so anyone who would like to avoid that eventuality should get behind an alternative for those states. Gov. Richardson? Sen. Dodd? Sen. Leahy? Sen. Obama?
Why are so many people who support Obama insistent on mocking the votes of women, the white working class, and Hispanics? As Anglachel observes, Sen. Clinton has assembled one of the most diverse coalitions in Democratic history and yet is accused of racism:
[T]he current campaign reminds me of 1968 all over again, except that the targets of the high-minded ire are so unlike the caricatures being painted that I’m left going “WTF?” From Hillary herself as some kind of crypto-racist to Hispanic women Ohioans being compared to a 70’s era ethnic white male bigot, it just boggles the mind. The Stevenson contingent has no narrative, no political frame adequate to address the coalition that has formed around Hillary. They are left grasping at what this person represents to people who do not fall into the educated (male) wine-track or the uneducated (male) beer-track. On the other hand, I’m not sure anyone else has a clear concept of this new constituency either. What does it mean that an upper Midwest born, New England educated white woman who lived for several decades in Arkansas and now calls New York home is sweeping border state primaries and also cleaning up in Florida, California and Massachusetts? What part of the Democratic imagination is she setting on fire?
She is creating a new coalition of voters, more diverse than the pundits are really aware of. It is different than the powerfully Southern draw that Bill had, but, given her strength in Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, southern Ohio, roughly the Appalachian areas plus Oklahoma and Texas, there is definitely a Southern component. It is too easy to write it off as race due to the tremendous appeal that Obama has for AA voters, because it assumes only “Bunker” and “Bubba” stereotypical motivations (race hatred) for her supporters, and not that a large portion of people who would otherwise gladly be counted on her side are motivated by salutary racial pride to support another. Racism and ethnic prejudice exist in this country, but I refuse to reduce the political decisions of the majority of my fellow Democrats to destructive racist motives, whether in Hillary’s favor or in Obama’s.
I think political analyst Chuck Todd hit the right note when he wrote:
I would argue the Wright story turned off enough older white voters so that Obama can no longer argue that when compared with Clinton he will expand the electoral map in a general election with McCain.
Now he can simply say he will use a different map; a map that ultimately might expand for the party as a whole, even if his path to 270 is no less narrow a victory than Clinton's. It is just different....
Clinton should feel no hurry to get out. In fact, she is also making Obama a better candidate by forcing him to up his rhetoric on the economy and start working harder to woo these working class, white voters who appear to be eluding him in the Rust Belt states.
It's ironic that Sen. Obama is hailed as the choice of the people. While I admit that he has generated significant pop appeal, it is undeniable that almost all of his delegate lead has come from low-vote scenarios and suppression of the vote.
As three poignant examples:
(a) Sen. Obama won both the Washington caucus and the Washington primary. The cacaus he won by 20 points, but the primary, only five points, with many regions of the state going pro-Clinton. His delegate advantage here is over-pronounced.
(b) Sen. Clinton won the Texas primary vote, and Sen. Obama won the Texas caucus vote. Her margin of victory, about a 100, 000 or so in the primary, netted her fewer delegates than his margin of victory, 20, 000 or so. To further inflame matters, the Wyoming caucus gave Obama a 2,066-vote margin, but a big enough delegate boost to virtually cancel out Hillary Clinton's 329,000-vote margin in the five March races.
(c) Sen. Obama has been opposed to any solution that allows the populations of Florida and Michigan to allocate their delegates. His campaign has stuck to an even split of all the delegates as the only solution it will accept. But why not allow a popular vote, which could, in fact, go either way, determine the distribution of delegates?
Michigan and Florida, of course, are sore spots in relations between Obama and Clinton supporters. Obamanians see Clinton as an opportunist and a cheater, breaking the rules to win. I am continually puzzled by this rationale as neither candidate was to blame for the change in primary date, and, faithful to the pledge, neither candidate actively campaigned there. (Sen. Obama did run TV ads for about a week in the state of Florida, and actively used his surrogates to get people to vote uncommitted in Michigan.)
More importantly, I am shocked the DNC punished Florida and Michigan for something the party Republicans did to the state Democrats. (These Republican attempts to rig the Democratic primary contests should not be surprising given that we know (a) Rove and his friends have been interfering to bury Clinton in the primary to face a weaker opponent, (b) the RNC developed 'Republicans for Obama' outlets to push him over the top in a number of open primaries, and (c) if the Republicans could exploit Democratic anger in two key swing states (particularly ones that were to favor Clinton) they could accomplish (a) and (b).
If I am correct, my argument raised a number of key implication. (1) Why should Sen. Clinton be punished for a successful Republican stratagem? (2) Why is Obama using low turnout victories to overcome Clinton's popular vote advantage and to deny Clinton the delegates? (3) Why aren't more people pushing for a solution to Michigan and Florida?
Wayne Barrett of the HuffPo elaborates on the Republican maneuvers in Michigan and Florida:
The body count that the mainstream media has regurgitated out of Florida and Michigan is that 2.3 million Democrats voted in primaries that broke the rules, leaving the DNC with no choice but to level both villages, even if the collateral damage might include the party's prospects of carrying those disenfranchised states in November. The DNC and the MSM appear to have simultaneously concluded that even Clinton's 300,000-vote win in Florida, where both candidates competed on a level playing field, shouldn't be counted in the popular vote tally, a calculation that appears nowhere in DNC rules and turns 1.7 million Democratic voters into ghosts.
The irony is that the drumbeat for Clinton's withdrawal -- coming on the heels of her recent wins and right before what may be her biggest in Pennsylvania -- is rooted in the collapse of the effort to redo Michigan and Florida. The theory is that she should quit because there is no way she can win, and that there is no way she can win because two states she could win, at least one of which she actually did win, will not be counted until she gets out. Barack Obama would thus become the nominee -- not because of an honestly earned if precariously narrow lead in the final national vote, but because of two elections he would not let happen....
The Republican role is not some irrelevant anecdote. The DNC is charged, under its rules, to determine whether the Democrats in a noncompliant state made a "good faith" effort to abide by the party's electoral calendar, and to impose the full weight of its available penalties, namely a 100 percent takedown of a state's delegation, only if Democratic leaders in that state misbehaved. So the fact that it was Republicans who fomented the move-up of primaries in both these states to dates out-of-line with the DNC calendar is at the heart of the matter.
The rules also demand that the DNC's 30-member Rules and Bylaws Committee conduct "an investigation, including hearings if necessary" into these matters. The purpose of such a probe is to figure out if Democratic leaders in a state that did move up "took all provable, positive steps and acted in good faith" to either "achieve legislative changes" to bring a state into compliance or to "prevent legislative changes" that took a state out of compliance. A DNC spokesman could not point to any real "investigation" the party conducted of the actions of "relevant Democratic party leaders or elected officials," as the rules put it. All that happened with Florida, for example, was that two representatives of the state party made a pitch for leniency immediately before the Rules Committee voted for sanctions....
If that sounds like a curious way to end a nominating contest that 30 million to 33 million voters will participate in before it's done, even stranger is that the DNC is following only some of its rules -- and that the real culprits who caused this debacle are Republicans, who are now relishing the catfight they provoked.
What [an investigatory] probe might have discovered was a [Republican] rationale for doing, at worst, what the RNC did to its own overeager primary schedulers in the same two states -- cutting the delegations by half. That's precisely the penalty specified in DNC rules, but the committee, exercising powers it certainly had the legal discretion to exercise, upped the ante as far as it could. In a bizarre reversal of public policy, the RNC, surely aware that the principal miscreants in both states were Republicans, applied a sane yet severe sanction. The Democrats opted for decapitation.
The presumption of much of the national coverage about Michigan, to start with, has been that the Dems did this one to themselves -- a presumption based, in large part, on Democratic governor Jennifer Granholm's endorsement of a January 15 vote, a date far ahead of the anticipated February 9 primary. All Clinton-backer Granholm did, however, was a sign a bill. The bill originated in a Republican-controlled Senate and passed by a 21-to-17 straight party-line vote -- with every Democrat casting a no vote.
Florida's Republican governor, Charlie Crist, is, like Granholm, seen as a prime player behind the state's acceleration of the primary calendar. But Crist isn't half the Florida story; Marco Rubio, a Jeb Bush protégé who runs the nearly 2-to-1 Republican Florida House, drove that bill through the legislature like it was a tax cut limited by law to top GOP donors.
Indeed, the tracks under this train wreck trace back, in each case, to Republican maneuvers in state legislatures, political no- man's-lands for all who've blithely dismissed the disenfranchisement of the millions of registered Florida and Michigan Democrats.
Barrett then goes on the specifics of each case.
For Michigan, he writes:
Let's start with Michigan, whose Democratic chair Mark Brewer is a member of the Rules and Bylaws Committee of the national party and in that capacity voted to sanction Florida -- a pretty good indication that he wasn't a great champion of challenging the DNC calendar in his own state. Brewer in fact declared the Republican-sponsored move-up bill unacceptable from the start.
When it weaved its way through the divided Michigan legislature last August, only 29 of the state's 75 Democratic legislators (in the House and Senate) supported it. A week after the bill cleared the Senate over unified Democratic objections, these 29 Democrats in the House voted for it, precisely the same number that voted against it or abstained (22 and seven). It was 38 Republican yes votes in the House that made it law. While Democrats like the governor, U.S. Senator Carl Levin, and DNC committeewoman Debbie Dingell favored moving the primary date up, it was a Republican state senator, Cameron Brown, who proposed the January 15 date. Levin and Dingell only supported that date when they concluded that the DNC was allowing other states, like New Hampshire, to defy the party's prescribed schedule while threatening Michigan with sanctions if it shifted its date.
And Levin and Dingell certainly weren't calling the shots for the Democrats in the legislature. Andy Dillon, the Democratic House speaker who'd voted for the move-up initially, walked away from the early primary in November, almost a month before the DNC voted to strip the state of its delegation. When two court rulings found the move-up bill unconstitutional for technical reasons, giving Democratic state legislators who initially voted for it a chance to reconsider, they took it. Dillon and his House Democrats refused to support a bill that would've protected the January 15 date from threatened judicial cancellation by correcting the technical deficiency. The Senate, again voting along party lines, quickly adjusted the bill to the court decisions, but Dillon refused to allow a vote in the House. All of this suggests a "good faith" effort to block an early primary -- as required by DNC rules.
Had not the state's highest court overturned the earlier decisions by a 4-to-3 vote just days before absentee ballots had to be mailed out, the early primary would not have been held. Significantly, all four of the judges who voted to allow the election were Republicans, and two of the judges who voted against it were Democrats.
In fact, it was a Democratic political consultant who brought the lawsuit that almost killed the primary. While the Republican state party filed an amicus brief in support of the bill, the Democrats took a barrage of editorial potshots in the Detroit Free Press, the Detroit News, the Flint Journal, and other papers for refusing to stand up for the state's interest. Salivating over all the attention and revenue that would come with an early primary, the papers accused Democrats of "withering," "carrying water for presidential candidates," and "blocking a bill to rescue the election." State GOP chair Saul Anuzis declared: "The Michigan Democrats and the House Democrats in particular appear willing to blow up the primary for petty, political, selfish, self-preservationist motives, to protect their hides."
Even before the court rulings, 19 Democrats in the House co-sponsored an October bill to repeal the one that authorized the election, including eight members who'd initially voted for the January 15 date. That bill was doomed from the outset since the Senate would never agree, but it was a measure of how fiercely Democrats had come to oppose the early primary. The ultimate result in Michigan, with a triumphant Clinton the only major candidate on the ballot, is, without a doubt, a Republican result.
Florida's story is more tragic.
The Republicans don't just control both houses of the Florida legislature. Their combined 103-to-57 majority allowed them to dictate the terms of the bill that moved the primary to January 29. It is true that all but one of the state's Democratic legislators supported the bill. But a closer look reveals that vote to be more an indication of a realistic and productive compromise with the ruling Republicans than any intent to breach Democratic rules.
Florida's leading news outlets, just like Michigan's, converted an early primary into a matter of state patriotism, and that point of view, coupled with the mathematical inability to even slow the Republican push, forced Democrats to roll over.
Another factor attracting Democratic votes in the legislature for the bill was one the DNC should certainly appreciate. Governor Crist threw a reform long sought by Florida Democrats into the bill: a mandatory paper trail for all votes cast in future elections. "The Democrats have been fighting for a paper trail bill since 2000," said State Senator Nan Rich, "and Governor Bush never would support it. So finally we got a governor who was willing to support it and it ended up connected to the early primary bill. That was unfortunate. If the paper trail hadn't been there, I believe we Democrats would've all voted no. Still, if all the Republicans had voted one way and all the Democrats had voted another way, the bill would've passed." (This Christmas tree bill -- whose title alone was 154 lines long -- had something special for everyone. It would even enable Crist to run as John McCain's vice presidential candidate, revoking a ban against state officials running for federal office.)
But "the driving force behind the move," as the Tampa Tribune put it, was 36-year-old House speaker Marco Rubio, who announced that pushing the primary up was a top goal before he took over the House at the start of 2006. Branded a "Jeb acolyte" by the Florida press, Rubio, a Cuban from West Miami married to a former Miami Dolphins cheerleader, was given a gold samurai sword by Bush in a passing-of-the-conservative-mantle gesture in 2005. Rubio is a member of a wired Florida law firm whose chairman is so close to Bush that he rushed down to the county jail when the governor's daughter Noelle was arrested on a drug-related charge. When Rubio's term as speaker ends later this year, he is slated to go to work for a think tank headed by a Jeb Bush business associate. The primary bill originated with Rubio and ultimately passed the House unanimously -- but only after Democrats made what they knew would be a losing effort to alter it.
Martin Kiar and Mary Brandenburg, House Democrats who were cosponsors of the bill, tried to amend it. "We offered an amendment on the floor shifting the date to one within the Democratic party rules," said Brandenburg. "The Democrats all voted for it, and Republicans all voted against it." Actually, the Kiar/Brandenburg proposal did not completely comply with DNC directives, but it was a signal of the concerns Florida Dems had about the move-up legislation. Said Kiar: "No matter what, whether we supported it or cosponsored it, the Republican majority was going to push it through."
When the DNC sanctioned Florida, it critiqued the efforts of the Democratic leaders in both houses, suggesting that they'd merely gone through the motions of feigned opposition. But the House cosponsor of the bill, David Rivera, literally laughed on the floor at the Democratic amendment, according to the House Democrats. Going through the motions was all the outgunned Democrats could do. A DNC critic of Florida Democrats was reduced in a recent New York Times op-ed to citing remarks supporting the early primary made by state leaders after it was a fait accompli, likely because she couldn't make a case about their conduct before the Republican legislature set the date.
If you think that this whole DNC process has been unfair, sign the petition.
A few weeks back, due to the increasingly partisan and demeaning nature of the net roots conversation, a group of pro-Clinton or even-handed bloggers staged a writer's strike/boycott.
I wanted to recognize these differing viewpoints on my blog, for regular visitors who are looking for other sources of news. These blogs have been my solace as MSNBC goes off the deep end in its reiteration of the pro-Obama talking points. Often, I would even know that Clinton was doing anything positive until I read it on the Internet. If I had only listened to the news television, I would be under the impression that the only thing the Clinton campaign had done since Texas, Ohio, and Rhode Island was (a) lose Mississippi and Wyoming, (b) smear Obama as a Muslim, (c) lie about her Bosnia experience, (d) get condemned for breaking apart the party by Gov. Richardson, and (e) fan flames of race-hatred on the Wright-controversy and former Vice Presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro.
[In fact, Sen. Clinton has been (a) campaigning in Indiana, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina, (b) giving major speeches on the economy and the Iraq war during the whole Wright episode, (c) releasing key documents from her White House years, (d) giving a lot of press interviews to local and national presses, (e) being endorsed by elected, formerly elected, and party Democrats in West Virginia, California, Pensyvlania as well as by the Liberty City Democrats (a GLTBQ organization in PA), Rep. Murtha, and Sen. Evan Bayh (he was an early supporter), (f) defending Florida and Michigan, (h) superior foreign policy credentials defended by Ambassador Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame, and (i) attending crucial and under appreciated women's events.]
This unbalanced coverage of Sen. Clinton must come to end, and Democrats have to save the Democratic Party from the DNC. Please sign this petition to seat Michigan and Florida's delegates (remember we need to run a 50-state strategy against Sen. John McSame) and please donate 10.44 to the Clinton campaign to get her message out there about the positive benefits of the Democratic Party's platform for American voters in the fall.
Here are my esteemed list of the bloggers holding down the fort of fair or Pro-Clinton news coverage.
Taylor Marsh, a journalist and insightful American politics watcher from Missouri, a bellweather state. She re-informed me with her sometimes unconventional, but never uninformed writings. More importantly, she's often ahead of the curve. Tom Watson, who, in his own words, offers " an iconoclastic view, my own perception of reality. No one pays me to write it, and all editorial judgments are mine. You don't have to agree; indeed, agreement here is kind of rare. But let's try to argue about it with civility."
Sugar-N-Spice, one of my favorite bloggers, is a black female supporter of Sen. Clinton, who wondered why so many people drank the kool aid of Sen. Obama. Her background gives her license to say a lot of things that other people can't say, but are thinking, about the Obama candidacy. The River Daughters are truly inspiration people who intertwine their analysis and insights with personal anecdotes from their lives. I started volunteering my time because of them. They call people out and I love them for it.
Another very informative blog, No Quarter, tries to ferret out false-hoods and replace lies with truth. Live on, Larry Johnson, live on.
Talk Left, one of the few blogs to call out the United States as the prison society that it is, is also broadly sympathetic to, but critical of, Sen. Clinton. True leftists who rigourously theorize the present for the purposes of furthering a progressive agenda. (I wonder if they ever supporter Edwards?) Always, always informative offering detailed arguments and empirical proof.
Tennessee Guerrilla Women offer an awesome blog that deprograms rightist ideologies. They have taken Sen. Obama to task for his mad and unethical pursuit of the Democratic nomination.
MyDD, another progressive community, is also unabashedly leftist. They too wonder often why the mainstream media is so easily bamboozled by young charismatic men.
Jon Swift is a conservative who calls 'em like he see 'em. That's not always in Sen. Clinton's favor, but unlike most news sources, he hasn't gone out of his way to bash her either.
The Left Coaster is a decidedly anti-elitist blogging community that prides itself on thumbing its nose as the mainstream and Beltway political communities. Buck Naked Politics lives up to its name of strips off the gloss of spin on the news provided a deeply convinced leftist view of the world.
Anglachel I justed started reading. It's very fascinating.
And, Salon, as a replacement for Slate. Slate, who, since Iowa, have all but crowned Barack Obama, should also be boycotted. (Especially those earnest bloggers on XX Factor.)
The Democratic Primary, a Clinton Nomination, and A Growing Rift in the Party I should have known in 2007 when Sen. Obama (ironically) uttered: "I'm confident that I can get Sen. Clinton's votes if I win the nomination, but I'm not confident that she can get mine" would be prophetic about the way he would run his campaign. Trying to discredit Clinton at every turn--even going so far as a week before the Texas-Ohio-Rhode Island-Vermont vote to look petulantly at a new camera and say when she loses either Texas or Ohio, we should really consider moving forward with this nomination, Sen. Obama's campaign has degenerated for character attacks to character assassination.
I've really become weary of Sen. Obama's presumptiveness, and his continued "clarifications" of his statements. The Obama candidacy is based on two main arguments (1) a new brand of politics, and (2) opposition to both the Iraq war and the thinking that got us into the war.
Since Super Tuesday I, it has become exceedingly clear that neither are true. Obama is not practicing new politics-- in fact, his campaign has been running an aggressively negative campaign against Sen. Clinton and former President Bill Clinton, stooping so low as to attack her even his campaign emails--and is mired in his continued misstatements on core Democratic issues like universal health care, withdrawing from the Iraq war, or rethinking NAFTA while maintain free trade. As more time has passed, the media has slowly reported that Obama has been a poor national and state senator--often skipping key meetings, votes, and not exercising his basic legislative duties. More importantly, many of his key ideas were lifted from other politicians, reducing "change you can believe in" to "change we can xerox" and "change we can talk about."
Second, if Sen. Obama is the anti-war candidate, why have key members of the Out-of-Iraq caucus--that is, those members of the House of Representatives who have opposed this war consistently with their votes and voices since they were elected--endorsed and defended Sen. Clinton? They are joined by five former general and flag officers at the rank of four stars, including two former chairmen and one vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Apparently, these people are not getting the message that the race is over and the only Obama can truly bring peace.
I want to quote some of Rep. Murtha's endorsement because many are refusing to see this: "Senator Clinton is the candidate that will forge a consensus on health care, education, the economy, and the war in Iraq...Her experience and careful consideration of these issues convinced me that she is best qualified to lead our nation and to bring credibility back to the White House." I want to note that Sen. Murtha, who announced just days for Gov. Richardson, had weeks early pledged to remain neutral.
I mention all this because it has become that Sen. Clinton should be pushed aside. Characterizing her as a Tanya Harding, Americans are subjected to endless declarations about "the math" as the media continues to stump for Obama. As a black (male) independent who supports Clinton, and as a voter who doesn't want another Republican administration, I wanted to echo some thoughts of the others out there who are getting it right.
My post yesterday called out the degree of violence, particularly misogynistic violence, present in the current Democratic contest. However, the characterization of Democrats who would not support the Democratic nominee in the general as "infantile" has stuck with me. I'm dropping the snark for a post and really looking at what blind spots are demonstrated through this stance. My point is not to criticize a particular blogger (richly though he may deserve it), but to get into the center of some profound self-deceptions going on with people all over the Left over the nature of political legitimacy.
Declaring people unwilling to support the nominee "infantile" is a very poor way of looking at the emerging dynamic of the race, though it would have been an appropriate chastisement prior to any of the caucuses or primaries. At that time, both Edwards and Obama publically refused to commit to supporting Hillary (which equates to telling their supporters not to vote for her) should she be the nominee. That was the point at which a slap should have been administered and not to HRC. I do not remember the Blogger Boyz complaining about this language when it was assumed the person being penalized by such threats was Hillary.
The fundamental problem with categorically labeling Hillary voters as infantile is that it takes as true the elite pundit meme that she and her supporters are illegitimate participants in the process, the equivalent of Ralph Nader and his adherents. This initial error is further compounded by assuming that those who will refuse to vote for Obama are simply a small group of delusional HRC supporters, though the vehemence with which the prospect of voter defections is being met belies that public stance. There are two increasingly overlapping groups of voters who are likely to defect from the Democratic column in November, and they illustrate two ways in which Obama has lost political legitimacy.
Taking up the first issue, the presumption of the punditocracy that we all know that a Hillary victory cannot be for real, has ironically enough become the foundation of Obama’s lack of legitimacy, but has expanded to include the Democratic Party itself. This crisis brewed for some time, but took form when HRC was not permitted a level playing field in the campaign. The refusal to grant her equal footing may have begun with the MSM, which has always hated her, but they were soon joined by progressive blogs and the other campaigns, producing a phalanx of elite opinion trying to delegitimize her at every step. The signature moment was the Drexel debate where Obama and Edwards took up Russert’s invitation to batter her in front of the cameras and then played the victims afterwards by claiming that Hillary was playing a “gender card”.
To those several million people who support Hillary or who at least regarded her favorably, this pointed attack upon her as a person as well as a candidate, coupled with the relatively gentle treatment granted the other candidates, had the effect of solidifying a great deal of our support. To declare her unworthy of participating, a monster who would “do anything to win,” was seen for what it was, straightforward demonization of a perfectly acceptable candidate, one with a deep well of support and an enviable record of public service. We simply don’t accept the elite framing of our candidate.
When A-list bloggers begin to lecture HRC supporters about having to grow up and not be infantile, they just dig themselves into a deeper hole, because they trivialize and mock our considered support for her. The arguments they offer up about her – duplicitous, hateful, cold, power-mad, disliked, criminal – are straight out of the Rightwing sewer, do little save undermine the validity of their own stances.
Then, there was the comment from Obama that he knew all the Hillary supporters would vote for him, but he didn’t think she could get his. What incredible offensiveness, to claim that he could take my vote for granted. It dismissed the fact that, were he to become the nominee, he would then have to ask for the support of those who had not selected him the first time around, and thus put in a position of providing reasons to vote for him to the people he casually dismissed.
Thus, among HRC supporters, the effect of this particular campaign has been to erode the legitimacy not of our candidate but of Obama. As polling shows, his presumption that he automatically inherited her supporters has been proved untrue, in great part because he assumed that no one could really support that “monster”.
The second issue, which is interwoven with the first and is, in my opinion, a far greater problem for the party as such, has to do with the treatment of rank and file Democrats who vote for Hillary. As shown in exit polls, these voters are the bulk of the Democrats who voted (as opposed to all who participate), people for whom being a Democrat is a part of their personal as well as political identity. Falling support for Obama among this group is a more recent phenomenon, one that he might have been reversing in mid-February but which is trending down with every poll. There is some anger here over the treatment of Hillary, but even more it is rejection of Obama himself as a candidate due to his own actions and statements. At a slightly deeper level, it is an upsurge of the latent resentment and distrust between the so-called “tracks” in the party – beer and wine – the shorthand way of identifying the significant social and economic and increasingly gender stratification of the Democratic Party.
As I’ve mentioned in an earlier post (can’t remember which one), the sour note that Obama has struck with this constituency is the sore spot of anti-Americanism, the constant attack point of Republicans on the Democrats, and the way in which Obama simply is not able to credibly counter that threat. It is also the case after the Wright disaster that these Democrats don’t believe that Obama is patriotic enough. It wasn’t Wright’s racism but his cursing of the nation that has gone down sideways. On top of this is the perception that he does not care much for “the little guy” (the NAFTA waffling, the lack of serious legislative achievements), and the foundation for his own legitimacy becomes narrow and unstable.
There is a deep irony here. In Obama’s set piece speeches he excels at tapping into the leftwing version of the patriotic narrative, about equality, justice and opportunity. This was the power of his keynote speech in 2004. But the promise of that speech has not been present in the candidate. The spousal unit sums it up in a single sentence – he ran too soon. He did not give himself the time to distance himself from the Chicago mess (political, financial, religious) and put some substantive national level public service under his belt. In some ways, the Chicago power base has insulated Obama from the conundrums of running a Democratic campaign in a centrist nation.
This is a lesson both Bill and Hillary Clinton have learned. Big Dog got his ass handed to him his first reelection bid in Arkansas because he came across as too elite and alien to the population, too eager to push his agenda and not inclined to listen to what people told him. In a word, arrogance. You don’t run as a member of the liberal elite in middle America. You cannot be perceived as having contempt for the people whose votes you need. Hillary faced this in upstate New York, plus even more baggage – carpetbagger, outsider, Billary monster, favorite punching bag of the right – and some real Republican opponents. She did it the hard way, by demonstrating her work for the voters of the state, won the first election, then busted her chops for her constituents, and had a blow-out reelection. She certainly has legitimacy in New York.
Back to the race. The rank and file Democrats who have favorable attitudes towards the Clintons and also for McCain look at Obama and see someone running a negative campaign and who appears to disdain the nation. The mix of pocketbook issues with a straightforward and direct love of country is not favoring him with these voters. The more they hear, the less they are inclined to support.
Then we get into the recent events of the campaign. Florida and Michigan are the contests where actual legitimacy for the candidates and thus the eventual nominee will be founded. A 48 state strategy is not viable if those two are not part of the 48. In these places, Hillary voters are being written off, dismissed as illegitimate voices in the process. The insistence on only one aspect of the rules, the penalty, while ignoring the full set of rules that could be used to manage the situation is eroding Obama’s claims to legitimacy because people don’t care about arcane party rules. They want their votes to count. The acts by Obama to prevent a revote have done nothing to increase his standing with ordinary voters, let alone strong Clinton partisans. This does not make him attractive to people who will have to switch their allegiance should Hillary not be the nominee. Conversely, her insistence on having votes counted will earn her greater legitimacy as well as benefit her with extra delegates.
In Ohio and Texas, the lack of respect for the opposition combined with a lack of legislative track record has cost Obama the victories he needed to shore up his legitimacy as a credible general election candidate and to counterbalance the problems raised by not counting Florida and Michigan. The sneer about Ohio voters who failed to vote for him as “Archie Bunkers” was a slur that every solid Democrat understands. He was calling those voters stupid racist bigots. Then we got the Wright controversy, which has simply
