Yes it's politically incorrect but race matters
The Democrats must admit it: Obama would lose to McCain
Anatole Kaletsky
The London Times
April 24, 2008
American Presidential elections have been compared with reality TV series or game shows, in which a gaggle of jumped-up nonentities aspiring to be celebrities are ritually humiliated in public and offered entertaining opportunities to self-destruct, until only one survivor remains. But this time round, a much more elevated analogy is sadly apposite.
Whose fault is that? How do you as a party lose the 2004 election? Talk about a handicapped gimme....It's like playing golf against Tiger Woods except before the game your friends have slipped him a roofie, broke both of his hands and replaced his clubs with a limp ramen noodle. I think the 2004 victory by Pres. Bush is less a commentary on the American people and more on the utter unqualifications of the Democratic candidates.
The 2008 US election has all the makings of a Greek tragedy, in which noble heroes and heroines are forced to follow a course to catastrophe, divinely preordained as punishment for sins and blunders committed by their forefathers in the dim and distant past. In acting out their ineluctable doom, the eloquent protagonists do not just destroy themselves but also their cities, their nations and even their entire civilisations.
Oh boy....someone loved the lit classes in college... I think there were more adjectives in this sentence then anything else.
If this description sounds too grandiose, consider yesterday's results from the Pennsylvania primary. The outcome seemed to be precisely calibrated by the gods to maximise the agony of the Democrats. It gave Hillary Clinton just the support she needed to stay firmly in contention, but not quite enough to turn the tide in her favour.
By grandiose, do you mean uppity? And please... is the outcome a Greek tragedy or just the result of having 2 equally ambitious and minimally if at all qualified candidates (for their own reasons) squaring off for their own success? If they truly believed that a Dem should run the country for the sake of the country and/or the party, why did someone not just drop out and ask for VP? this democratic primary season is an early Christmas present for the GOP, and I very purposefully say Christmas present and not "holiday present".
Worse still, this result underlined the fear that senior Democrats have long been aware of, but have never dared to express in public: America may not yet be ready to elect a black President. Worst of all, it has created conditions for the possible election victory of a militarily belligerent and economically unqualified Republican candidate who supports many of President Bush's worst policies. Given the Bush Administration's domestic and foreign failures, the disasters in Iraq and Afghanistan and, most recently, the slump in the economy, the possibility of a Republican victory in November would seem to overturn every principle of proper democracy - and also the hope of America and its system of government being rehabilitated in the eyes of the world after the Bush years. The fact that Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton are both such impressive candidates, intelligent, sincere, articulate and in command of the issues, while John McCain does not qualify on any of these criteria only makes matters worse.
1. Could it be not that America is not ready, and more that a 1st term Senator with the same foreign policy experience as my 12 year old cousin, the attitude toward genocide of Pol Pot, and the health care plan of Elmo from Sesame Street is not a qualified candidate? 2. By militarily belligerent does he mean not a giant vi-jay-jay (not sure if Websense will have issue with the actual word) ? I can think of nobody better than McCain that is running with a true sense of the cost of war... 3. Why is it that Dems always seem to have the attitude that the president rules like a king, with no advisors, counsel, and completely and solely based on themselves? I mean not everyone can invent the internet and save the planet with the ingenious plan of starving third world countries with rising food prices so they can't cause pollution for the rest of us? Still, I wonder...HOW DO YOU WIN AN ACADEMY AWARD AND THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE WITH THE SAME 2 HOURS OF WORK??? Wouldn't the "achievement in film" and "peace prize" inherently describe 2 probably very different areas of accomplishment?? 4. Disasters and failures? Don't even need to go there, somebody just smack him and take away his sippy cup. He needs to go home and learn to walk and talk at the same time without sounding like a preschooler. 5. I can find no possible explanation how either Obama or Clinton are sincere or in command of the issues. I tap out, if this is the way the country truly believes, I wonder if Thomson has any offices in Australia...
That Mrs Clinton will now carry on with her campaign is not just probable but essential. For the voting in Pennsylvania confirms that she has a much better chance than Mr Obama of winning the White House for the Democrats. According to the Associated Press exit polls published yesterday, 16 per cent of white Democratic voters considered race an important factor in the Presidential election and 43 per cent of these said they would either vote Republican or not vote at all, if Mr Obama were the Democratic nominee.
To me race is a non-issue as is gender. I don't know any other Republicans to whom race is a issue more than qualifications, experience, and future strategies. It seems to me, that it's always the ones who whine about race and equality (mind you, not legitimately complain, but whine) are the ones for whom it is a an electability issue which can change their vote.
Given that Mrs Clinton's clear victory over Mr Obama in Pennsylvania followed similar results in other "must-win" states with large working-class constituencies, such as Ohio, Florida, New Jersey, Michigan and even New York and California, the conclusion would be fairly obvious, were it not for the political correctness that makes it almost impossible for American politicians or commentators to express such a view: Mr Obama may by unable to carry large industrial states with socially conservative white working-class populations simply because of his race. This is especially true now that the televised rantings of Rev Jeremiah Wright and Mr Obama's own gaffe about the "bitter" white working-class culture of "guns and God", have reminded Americans that race is not just a matter of skin colour. Rev Wright embarrassingly revealed in his "God damn America" and "Chickens come home to roost" sermons that his African-American vision of America is be profoundly at odds with the white majority view.
Does Michigan and Florida really count as clear victories for Clinton? I mean beating nothing is a win....I suppose. I do note that Rev Wright is brought up as a sign a political mis-speak, not as a potential issue when looking at a presidential candidates advisers and personal counsel.
The latest polls in the two most important swing states show Mr McCain easily beating Mr Obama in both Florida and Ohio, while Mrs Clinton comfortably beats the Republican in Ohio and is neck and neck in Florida.
Mr Obama has, of course, apologised for his condescension towards working-class church-goers and hunters - probably the most important group of floating voters in the electorally critical mid-Western states. He has tried even harder to dissociate himself from Rev Wright's anti-American tirades, which really have to be seen (on YouTube) to be believed. And Mr Obama's supporters have chastised Mrs Clinton for turning to "negative campaigning" and "scorched-earth" strategies in her desperation to stay in contention.
Note: Dear Hillary. Please continue the scorched earth strategies. It is delicious, it's like gold when it touches your lips. Thank you, Eric.
The trouble is that Mr Obama's efforts to suppress the race issue are doomed to failure. For the influence of Rev Wright on him is a matter of public record. Indeed, the phrase "Audacity of Hope", which is the title of Mr Obama's political autobiography as well as his presidential leitmotif, is attributed in that book to a sermon by "my pastor, Rev Jeremiah Wright". The Republican political machine, which demonstrated its mastery of the arts of character assassination in the two Bush presidential contests, will have no compunction in exploiting the Wright relationship and portraying Mr Obama as an anti-American in the general election, even if the Clinton campaign and the media observe a self-denying ordinance on the race and patriotism issues, as they broadly have so far.
Demonstrated art of character assassination? Then what the Dems do, character apocalypse? I have seen no one more completely and totally attack the personal character of people than Democrats. Is it character assassination to bring attention toward Wright for everything he has said? Or is it a legitimate look at a candidates personal friend and spiritual adviser?
The certainty of a no-holds-barred attacks by the Republicans brings us to the potentially most tragic aspect of this election. If ever there was an election the Democrats ought to win this is the one. Yet on the basis of the primary results so far, they are all too likely to lose it. Mr Obama may be marginally ahead of Mrs Clinton in the popular vote but the Democrats seem to have forgotten that all the votes cast so far have been by their own supporters. In the general election their candidate will have to win over Republicans and right-leaning floating voters. Most of the evidence so far suggests that the Repulicans will find it much easier to frighten voters about the prospect of a President Obama than a President Clinton.
If there was ever an election that the Democrats should win it was 2004. But let's not dwell on the utter and complete failure of the DNC, which should be expected considering their core is MoveOn, Code Pink, and all of the leftover eco-nazi, communist, hippies who had nothing to do when all of their ideologies failed on their respective merits or lack thereof.
Professional Democratic politicians now have the casting vote in their party's nomination and could yet force the two candidates into a "dream ticket" led by Mrs Clinton with Mr Obama as Vice President which would sweep all before it and would probably make Mr Obama unbeatable as a presidential candidate in 2012 or 2016. Yet the Democratic superdelegates who could now secure years of hegemony for their party seem to consider it "unfair" to use their professional judgment to overturn the "democratic" verdict of primary voters.
By professional democratic politicians do they mean "Oh crap the voters have too much power so let's change the rules so the candidates can buy our nominations"? Is the article really advocating the buying of votes of to secure "hegemony"? The one fair thing the superdelegates could do is vote the way of the party....isn't that what primaries are for? And if you had a dream ticket, so to speak, is anyone else picturing a west side story style showdown between Obama and Clinton in the oval office?
The Republicans will have no such compunctions about the fairness of launching personal attacks against a potentially vulnerable Democratic candidate. In this respect this Presidential contest may again manifest the tragedy of left-wing politics through the ages. Parties which care more about fairness than about power, end up achieving neither.
Are they vulnerable candidates or are they candidates which have a lot of quality weaknesses? Is it a personal attack to complain that McCain is too old? Because I've already seen that. Is it a personal attack to say he is unqualified because he isn't an economist? If that's the case, then Hillary and Barack have absolutely no business being president because of their foreign policy which consists of making up stories worthy of an episode of 24 dodging snipers in a helicopter and playing tag with a bunch of yellow children in grade school. The tragedy of left-wing politics is that they are the only ones that don't see the weaknesses transparent in their party, and then they wonder what went wrong. Tanya, what was that definition of insanity again? And since when have the Dems ever cared more about fairness than about power? The Clintons....really?
END RANT....McCain 2008, Rice 2012, Petreaus 2016
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