OVERKILL
25 May 2008 12:11 am by Taylor Marsh
BY TAYLOR MARSH
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| Huffington Post Front Page |
Sense the glee. It reveals the desperation.
This is it.
Now she’s done it!
This may be our last chance!
Let’s take her down. Now.
What this obvious over-reaction to Hillary’s RFK statement, for which she immediately
apologized, has revealed is politically unseemly. It also shows how desperate
the Obama camp is to stop Hillary’s nomination hopes, given the onslaught
of polls showing Hillary Clinton beats John McCain in November, while the “presumptive
nominee” cannot. The fact is, the coalition Obama and his supporters are
touting for November doesn’t measure up, unless of course you’re willing to
install the hail Mary option for the general election, which is exactly what
an Obama nomination will require.
… .. Having attempted, with the aid of a complicit news media, to brand
Hillary Clinton as a racist — by flinging charges that, as the historian
Michael Lind has shown, belong “in
black helicopter/grassy knoll territory,” Obama’s supporters now
fiercely claim that Clinton’s white working class following is also essentially
racist. Favoring the buzzword language of the academic left, tinged by persistent,
discredited New Left and black nationalist theories about working-class “white
skin privilege,” a vote against Obama has become, according to his fervent
followers, “a vote for whiteness.”Talk about transformative post-racial politics.
In fact, all of the evidence demonstrates that white racism has not been
a principal or even secondary motivation in any of this year’s Democratic
primaries. Every poll shows that economics, health care, and national security
are the leading issues for white working class voters – and for Latino working
class voters as well. These constituencies have cast positive ballots for
Hillary Clinton not because she is white, but because they regard her as better
on these issues. Obama’s campaign and its passionate supporters refuse to
acknowledge that these voters consider him weaker — and that Clinton’s positions,
different from his, as well as her experience actually attract support. Instead
they impute racism to working class Democrats who, the polls also show, happen
to be liberal on every leading issue. The effort to taint anyone who does
not support Obama as motivated by racism has now become a major factor in
alienating core Democrats from Obama’s campaign. Out with the Democratic Party
of Jefferson, Jackson, F.D.R., Truman, Kennedy and Johnson, and in with the
bright, shiny party of Obama – or what the formally “undeclared”
Donna Brazile, a member of the Democratic National Committee and of the party’s
rules committee, has hailed as a “new Democratic coalition” swelled
by affluent white leftists and liberals, college students, and African-Americans.
…… .. In every presidential election they have won, the Democrats have solidified
their historic link to white workers, not dismissed them. Obama and the champions
of a new party coalition appear to think that everything has suddenly changed,
simply because of the force of their own desires. In any event, Obama had
shown no ability thus far to attract the one constituency that has always
spelled the difference between victory and defeat for the Democratic Party.
The party must now decide whether to go along with Obama and renounce its
own heritage — and tempt the political fates.
For Obama supporters, Hillary’s RFK statement was seen as a real chance to
finally at long last after not being able to beat her in popular vote or
clinch the nomination outright “defeat the bitch,” to use John
McCain fan terminology.
But their hyperbolic venting immediately reached desperation territory
upon sensing the moment. From Keith He Is No Edward R. Murrow Olbermann
to the Obama blogs and the professional Hillary haters, the candidate’s supporters
revealed their craven fetish to forward the worst of all possible motives out of Hillary’s comment. It didn’t matter that she immediately apologized.
Not even that was enough. It was their chance to equate Obama’s reputation scuttling
moment, when he talked about people being “bitter” and “clinging”
to religion and their guns, with Hillary’s verbal gaffe. The Brokered One was now absolved. This was their chance
to inoculate the latest elitist candidate to be sponsored by the clueless wing
of the Democratic Party.
Never mind the RFK kerfuffle won’t lose a single general election vote, while Obama’s “bitter,” “clinging” elitism already moved Appalachia.
The Obama wing of the Let’s Lose Another Election section of the Democratic
Party simply couldn’t wait to blast Clinton’s comment across the web, complete with funereal implications. But in
their frenzied commitment against all things Clinton they simply let slip they’re freaked that Hillary might pull this off. With all the polling showing an
Obama general election nomination would be trouble for the Democrats, with even
Republicans sensing his core weaknesses, the Obama wing simply has to pillory
Hillary hard enough to make her a political untouchable. Enter Jonathan Alter
and other blow hard cable babblers who are pontificating that now Obama is relieved
of any responsibility to honor Clinton’s massive coalition of voters, or consider
her as vice president, even though Obama, who is ahead in delegates, doesn’t
have the nomination yet and will likely lose the popular vote.
Overkill, meet backlash.
Because all these feckless wonders are doing is further hardening Hillary supporters against any desire to support Obama if he actually does become the nominee. John McCain couldn’t have asked for a bigger gift. Because note to the Obama team: You can’t win without us.
However, long after the RFK kerfuffle has subsided Obama’s poll numbers against
John McCain will still be less impressive than Hillary Clinton’s numbers. Superdelegates
are going to have to deal with that now or end up being responsible for making
the general election battle much more difficult than it needs to be, with the
other reality obviously being picking the weaker candidate to go up against
John McCain in the fall.
Special nod to our good friends over at NoQuarter.
