The Senator of La Mancha
While race is never far from the American mind, it has found itself at the forefront in this election. The Rev. Wright stuff brought it even more to the surface, which led Obama to give this seminal speech on race in Philadelphia. He managed to spell out exactly what most Americans feel about race in this country: people are often confused, occasionally hopefully, rarely angry and generally tired of being oversensitive about race. It was a brilliant speech every American can pull something from and history will look back on it as a watershed speech and as a key moment in the history of race relations in America. Race has been mentioned since then, but not with the same power as it was on that day. Obama said some badly worded comments about small town America. And specifically, people there "cling"ing to guns and religion in times of strife. Obama took a lot of hits for not connecting with traditionally rural voters on the eve of the Pennsylvania primary. But now, after getting trounced in the North Carolina primary and barely winning the Indiana primary, Hillary has now said some unfortunate comments of her own. In her effort to stay in the race, she has tried to proclaim herself the stronger candidate (as politicians always do), but has now said she's the only one who draws serious support from "hard-working Americans, white Americans", a group she claims that Obama is losing. She also commented "how whites in both states [Indiana and Pennsylvania] who had not completed college were supporting me." You know, talking about coalition building.
So, these comments are rapidly making the rounds of the blogosphere (a term, I personally detest since there is not thing circular or heavenly about most blogs.) and the legitimate news sources out there. Hillary is taking a little heat for her comments, in full, about "I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on. . .[an AP story] that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me. . .There's a pattern emerging here," she said. Note, this AP story is not linked to in the USAToday article, nor is one remotely close to what she's talking available in the past seven days. Just this story about how he's picking up superdelegates. No stories suggesting he has no real support among white voters. Actually, Indiana exit polls show he received more of the white vote than he had in Pennsylvania. While, yes, it's not the greatest support, it is rising as he makes good for the dumb comment he made. And, Hillary, again tries to play herself off as whatever she needs to be to win.
Doing anything needed to win is a part of politics. Politics is more than just a contact sport, it's a collision sport. We expect politicians who want to win to put in their all. The problem is, Hillary often goes beyond that to change all she is to win, or at least be willing to say anything. For example, look at these videos. No favorite is specified as she even says she would have to alternate sides if a Cubs/Yankees World Series were to happen. Whereas Obama declared his favorite baseball team on the Senate floor. Hillary was born in Chicago, like Obama. Educated in Ivy League universities, like Obama. Unlike Obama, she later became First Lady of Arkansas, so she picked up a Southern drawl. When she wanted to be in the Senate, she found the seat open she'd most likely win, moved to Westchester County New York (like Fairfax County in VA, it is a supremely wealthy suburban county of a large city) and became a Yankees fan. All through this campaign, she played herself as a native/favored daughter of where she was. When PA got close, she all of sudden remembered she had a grandfather in Scranton. When she was campaigning in the South before Super Tuesday, the drawl she had lost came back stronger than ever. Bill's southern accent got stronger too when in the South. But now, she's running out of states to play up to, so she played up to an entire race.
And what a job she has done. Hard working Americans. White Americans. While some have said this is not particularly a race issue, but when putting those phrases together in the way she did, leads one to believe it's all from the same adjectival phrase. That is, non-white Americans are non-hard working. Her claim was Obama has no real support from hardworking white Americans. Since I am white, and I support Obama, I guess I don't work very hard. Of course, by hardworking, she was trying to say Union/blue collar households. Well, he did just get another union endorsement, oh, and three more superdelegates. Including one who is black and formerly supported Clinton, and two more white people. So, her assessment is way off just on the facts, and in the connotation, just good old fashioned racebaiting. Bill Clinton had already burned a lot of the bridges he built with black community with comments about South Carolina obviously going for Obama since Jesse Jackson won there 20 years ago. Hillary tried to play herself off a working gal but having a beer and a shot with workers. Of course, she screwed that up by ordering a Crown Royal, when a real working man would get the much less expensive Jack Daniels or Jameson's. She hasn't touched a beer since the Pennsylvania primary, nor has her accent returned to the Southern drawl she affected. Now, with West Virginia and Kentucky on the horizon, odds are on her getting another accent change again.
Again, she's out of options for how to specifically slice and dice various portions of the electorate into bite size chunks she can swallow. So, she has to play on the biggest group in America, Caucasians. As a white man, I got the distinct impression she was trying to split black and white and attempt to say working class whites are the base of the Democratic party. Now, before this, most Democratic strategists would have said the base of the party is a broad coalition, not one race over another. They would pander to every minority and white people all that same time. And, it worked a lot of the time. Republicans played against this and often claimed they would treat everyone equally without pandering, and there were the wars. Now, every candidate has started picking apart parts of America and building as small a coalition as possible and give them the store, rather than try to give a little to everybody. She played that playbook as long as she could and it didn't work for her enough. She did allright, but she didn't do well enough to win. Against another candidate who wasn't good at inspiring the otherwise disenfranchised or don't give a shit to vote, she would have won hands down. Against Edwards, Ricahrdson or just about anyone else, her divide and conquer strategy would have worked. But, now, she's still trying to win even though she has no mathematical chance to catch Obama and staying in just to fight. Not even tilting at windmills, since the windmills were actually there.
Problem is, divide and conquer fails against unite and win.
So it is written, do I see it.
So, these comments are rapidly making the rounds of the blogosphere (a term, I personally detest since there is not thing circular or heavenly about most blogs.) and the legitimate news sources out there. Hillary is taking a little heat for her comments, in full, about "I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on. . .[an AP story] that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me. . .There's a pattern emerging here," she said. Note, this AP story is not linked to in the USAToday article, nor is one remotely close to what she's talking available in the past seven days. Just this story about how he's picking up superdelegates. No stories suggesting he has no real support among white voters. Actually, Indiana exit polls show he received more of the white vote than he had in Pennsylvania. While, yes, it's not the greatest support, it is rising as he makes good for the dumb comment he made. And, Hillary, again tries to play herself off as whatever she needs to be to win.
Doing anything needed to win is a part of politics. Politics is more than just a contact sport, it's a collision sport. We expect politicians who want to win to put in their all. The problem is, Hillary often goes beyond that to change all she is to win, or at least be willing to say anything. For example, look at these videos. No favorite is specified as she even says she would have to alternate sides if a Cubs/Yankees World Series were to happen. Whereas Obama declared his favorite baseball team on the Senate floor. Hillary was born in Chicago, like Obama. Educated in Ivy League universities, like Obama. Unlike Obama, she later became First Lady of Arkansas, so she picked up a Southern drawl. When she wanted to be in the Senate, she found the seat open she'd most likely win, moved to Westchester County New York (like Fairfax County in VA, it is a supremely wealthy suburban county of a large city) and became a Yankees fan. All through this campaign, she played herself as a native/favored daughter of where she was. When PA got close, she all of sudden remembered she had a grandfather in Scranton. When she was campaigning in the South before Super Tuesday, the drawl she had lost came back stronger than ever. Bill's southern accent got stronger too when in the South. But now, she's running out of states to play up to, so she played up to an entire race.
And what a job she has done. Hard working Americans. White Americans. While some have said this is not particularly a race issue, but when putting those phrases together in the way she did, leads one to believe it's all from the same adjectival phrase. That is, non-white Americans are non-hard working. Her claim was Obama has no real support from hardworking white Americans. Since I am white, and I support Obama, I guess I don't work very hard. Of course, by hardworking, she was trying to say Union/blue collar households. Well, he did just get another union endorsement, oh, and three more superdelegates. Including one who is black and formerly supported Clinton, and two more white people. So, her assessment is way off just on the facts, and in the connotation, just good old fashioned racebaiting. Bill Clinton had already burned a lot of the bridges he built with black community with comments about South Carolina obviously going for Obama since Jesse Jackson won there 20 years ago. Hillary tried to play herself off a working gal but having a beer and a shot with workers. Of course, she screwed that up by ordering a Crown Royal, when a real working man would get the much less expensive Jack Daniels or Jameson's. She hasn't touched a beer since the Pennsylvania primary, nor has her accent returned to the Southern drawl she affected. Now, with West Virginia and Kentucky on the horizon, odds are on her getting another accent change again.
Again, she's out of options for how to specifically slice and dice various portions of the electorate into bite size chunks she can swallow. So, she has to play on the biggest group in America, Caucasians. As a white man, I got the distinct impression she was trying to split black and white and attempt to say working class whites are the base of the Democratic party. Now, before this, most Democratic strategists would have said the base of the party is a broad coalition, not one race over another. They would pander to every minority and white people all that same time. And, it worked a lot of the time. Republicans played against this and often claimed they would treat everyone equally without pandering, and there were the wars. Now, every candidate has started picking apart parts of America and building as small a coalition as possible and give them the store, rather than try to give a little to everybody. She played that playbook as long as she could and it didn't work for her enough. She did allright, but she didn't do well enough to win. Against another candidate who wasn't good at inspiring the otherwise disenfranchised or don't give a shit to vote, she would have won hands down. Against Edwards, Ricahrdson or just about anyone else, her divide and conquer strategy would have worked. But, now, she's still trying to win even though she has no mathematical chance to catch Obama and staying in just to fight. Not even tilting at windmills, since the windmills were actually there.
Problem is, divide and conquer fails against unite and win.
So it is written, do I see it.