Fault Line
May 7th, 2008 at 10:48 am by Susie
Riverdaughter with her thoughts on yesterday’s results:
I think what we’re seeing here is a real racial divide. It was engineered, deliberately, by Obama’s campaign in order to separate African Americans from the Clintons. It has worked spectacularly well. Obama consistently wins urban and southern AA voters, by lopsided margins. It didn’t have to be this way. There was no reason for the African-American community to spurn Clinton. But in this America, in 2008, color is everything. It seems like the civil rights movement of the 60’s was just a dream. As long as you are the right color, you’re golden. Color masks a multitude of deficiencies- experience, knowledge base, earned coalitions, even interest. Obama has not reached out to the working class, to women, to the elderly, the loyal base of the Democratic party. But he has managed to exacerbate the fault line in the party when it comes to race. There’s no doubt about that now.
Winning NC does not make me like him more nor do I have an elevated desire to vote for him. Let me dispel the notion that he and his supporters have about me voting for him in the fall: unless Florida and Michigan are seated and have an impact on the nomination, I will not consider the nomination legitimate. That doesn’t mean I’ll vote for John McCain. It just means that I don’t know what I’ll do when I stand in front of that button. And don’t hang this on Hillary. If it comes to that, I’m sure she would do her best to GOTV. It has nothing to do with her. It has to do with how deeply offended I am by how Obama has split my party on racial lines and pitted race against their regular party members, as if there was a real split there to begin with. As if I were the enemy. He has pitted Dem against Dem. I am insulted that Howard Dean and Donna Brazile have put their thumbs on the scales for Obama instead of encouraging him to agree to revotes in FL and MI. The thought of voting for him under these circumstances fills me with revulsion. And there’s no amount of cheerleading that Hillary can do to make me change my mind. It’s not her. It’s him.
I know an awful lot of people who feel this way. I feel this way myself (about Axlerod pursuing a strategy of racial division, not everything else she says), although I’ll still vote for whoever wins the nomination. But will I give money? Will I fundraise for Obama? Will I volunteer? Nope.
I’ve been marginalized, and so I’ll stay right out here on the margins, watching the circus.
Lambert noted something this morning he remembers from an economics game: That people presented with an unfair choice will simply stop playing the game, even when it is to their clear economic advantage to keep playing.
way too soon to definitively say anything except that Obama will get my vote in November because all the time I’ve lived in Arizona, I’ve never voted for McCain and I’m certainly not going to start voting for him now.
That said, I still think Obama gets creamed in November.
Lastly, I suppose that Obama had every right to campaign however he wanted including splitting the party but he gets to reap what he has sown and at the moment (and of course subject to change), it appears that there are a LOT of people who feel similarly to RiverDaughter. The notion that the disaffected won’t be needed in November as expressed by morons like Axelrod and Brazile will be evident on the day after the elections and this country will be more torn than ever.
I’ll repeat the comment I made over at Shakesville:
I’ve decided it’s my turn to hold the Supreme Court hostage. If anyone wants my swing-state vote in Nov, if they care about the Supreme Court, they better damn well start pandering to my universal-no-exceptions-health-care issue. I hold them personally responsible for the next Supreme Court nominees if they fail to do that.
First, I’m from WI & I voted for Edwards. Now, think about it - apparently the only woman you believe can be nominated for President in your lifetimes is losing & it’s Sen. Obama’s fault? I agree with you, it is his fault because he has run a better campaign. Your candidate apparently believed she would walk away from Super Tuesday with the wreath & the cup, but that dastardly Sen. Obama denied her that inevitability. Of course, Bill Clinton had nothing to do with bringing negative race issues into the campaign? Of course, Sen. Clinton’s mocking of Sen. Obama had nothing to do with bringing race in the campaign? Of course, McAuliffe’s mocking of anyone with a degree in economics had nothing to do with it? Of course, Sen. Clinton’s adopting of the gas tax holiday illusion while reporting earnings of $109,000,000 for 7+ years had nothing to do with it? I’m sorry your candidate has not won the nomination, I’m sure that makes you sad & apparently mad, but, take it from a geezer, you don’t need to waste your vote & potentially allow 4 more years of a Bu$hCo regime. In 8 years Sen. Clinton will still be younger than McLiar & there is always Chelsea, waiting in wings.
The only advantage I see with Obama is he’s less likely to be batshit crazy and nuke someone. I don’t trust him on his Supreme Court and other picks - this is the guy who thought Roberts was swell until an aide pointed out that voting for him could hurt him politically. More troubling was his comment that if he were president he wouldn’t want his candidates rejected on ideology. It borders on Bush’s “I’m president and I’ll do what I want” attitude.
Add to that his alleged support for GLBT issues being undercut by his homophobic statements and actions. Add to that his obvious disrespect for women. Add in his bad healthcare policy, his inadequate alternate energy proposals, his liberatarian economic advisors, and his general “God, aren’t I wonderful” campaign attitude, and I can’t see why I should vote for him any more than I would McCain.
wow. that is some serious sickness…aura of inevitability, DLC, MSM, gobs of $, all the Bill-lovers, the Bush fatigue…everything was lined up for hrc. But a better candidate came along, better message, better organization, better voice for youth and indies to reach for…and in the end…you blame it on the black people…unbelievable really. I thought the civil rights maturation got us across the divide of blaming race for anything. But not for everyone, I guess.
I still think the supposed sins of each candidate have been blown entirely out of proportion. It’s like reading deconstructionist literary analysis: what did somebody “really” mean? what was their (hidden, subconscious) intent. A lot of Obama supporters are just as disgusted with Clinton as that Clinton supporter was with Obama, and out of what were, in the end, trivialities. It’s long past time we got some perspective. The reality is that people of good will can disagree, and not become enemies or monsters or whatever. We all need to just chill out. Obama did not create this divide as a matter of policy any more than Clinton did. It emerged, and now we have to heal it. All of us.
By the way, I don’t blame African-Americans from taking the opportunity to try to get one of their own in office for the first time any more than I blame women for trying to do the same for Clinton. Breaking precedents is important, and entirely understandable. You have to break precedents so that you don’t HAVE to vote along identity lines any more. Does that make sense?
i think it’s interesting that clinton supporters are convinced that obama ran a racial divisive campaign and “divided the party” while obama supporters are equally convinced that clinton ran a racial divisive campaign and “divided the party.”
so when i try to view it from the outside everyone’s discussion looks really foolish to me. i don’t think either side has really “been marginalized”, the obama campaign would have welcomed your support if you wanted to give it just as the clinton campaign would have welcomed the support of black voters if they were willing to support her. personally, i think what’s really going on is the normal human tendency to demonize the other side. obama’s been pretty unfairly trashed here, just as clinton is elsewhere (and also here in the comments sometimes).
the bottom line is that they’re just not all that different policy-wise. while their governing styles and emphasis might be different, in terms of content they’re very very close. clinton has a better health plan, and obama has a better foreign policy. the rest just strikes me as the internalization of the spin of a contentious campaign.
This sounds like sour grapes to me. Your candidate doesn’t win so you pick up your marbles and go home, retire to a corner, suck your thumb, and have your own personal pity party. I was initially for Edwards and now support Obama, but if Hillary had clawed her way to the top of the heap, I would certainly have voted for her. For me the bottom line is avoiding another Republican, McCain specifically, in the whitehouse, and I think it would be wise to get a grip and look at the obvious downside to each of our lives should he manage to get elected.
Frankly, I think this argument of blame is pathetic. Who’s to blame? WE’RE ALL TO BLAME. It’s clear, this country has a long way to go on race issues and gender issues, this contest has shown the divisions. Nobody dares touch the faith issue, yet Catholics tend to go for one candidate and there’s plenty of published opposition against a Muslim candidate EVEN THOUGH THERE ISN’T ONE IN THIS RACE. More divisions. Age divisions. Education divisions. Divisions divisions divisions.
So let’s face it. There are plenty of divisions out there, and blaming the candidates for those divisions is ridiculous. It’s us, and the sooner we realize that as long as we blame others for the divisions, the longer we put off the work of fixing the problems that come from it.
What whippingpost said. With riverdaughter’s, strether’s, and your obvious hatred of an historic nominee it’s probably better you guys stay on the margins. All around.
Ha, two thoughts in one sentence with no connection. Let me try that again:
It’s us, and as long as we blame others for the divisions, the longer we put off the work of fixing the problems that come from it.
I can’t stop laughing at the hand-wringing here.
For once I can’t fault wendy whiner. The GOP must be in stitches from laughing.
Damn.
“There was no reason for the African American community to spurn Clinton”? Fascinating. here are some reminders:
gerladine Ferraro’s comments about Obama.
Or Bill’s FAIRY TALE remarks.
Or Clinton’s “I would have left that church” remarks, especially when a certain Jeremiah Wright had in fact counseled the clintons during the lewinsky scandal.
There’s a lot more where that came from. Never mind the irony of a white woman telling black people “There was no reason for the African-American community to spurn Clinton.” Like whippingpost said at 6, isn’t that a bit condescending and elitist?
i think this is a case of sour grapes more than anything else.
oh gee, now whose being elitist?
I mean really, how dare those black people!
Maybe if HRC had only done a better black preacher impersonation “lawdy eye ain’t no ways tirrred!” you would have got the outcome you wanted?
Pathetic.
I almost responded to this post trying to reason with the argument, but I think we all know that’s a fools errand. At this point we Obama backers should just be gracious and give the Clinton supporters some space. They need to come to grips with the reality of the race themselves, and getting into arguments over “who meant what when” only pushes them further into their mental bunkers.
So I’m just going to take a few weeks off, and if Democrats are still saying that they won’t vote for Obama over McCain in the fall by then, I’ll start arguing and calling people names.
In the meantime, go ahead and get it all out of your system.
That is really fucking ugly logic from Riverdaugter and I’m really depressed and pissed off to see that kind of thing promoted here.
No reason to spurn the Clintons?
Start with NAFTA and GATT - the two trade agreements that
Hill & Bill claimed as the highlights of the first Clinton Presidency.
Then take a look at what demographic suffered the most when
jobs got outsourced to foreign countries. If that doesn’t jog your
grey cells then try to remember the great success the Clintons
had when they tried to reform our healthcare system. Since they
couldn’t get it done last time, why would ANYONE think they
are capable NOW? Face the facts. The Clintons - Been There,
Done That, Don’t want to go Back.
Glad to know you’d give the thumbs-up to mocking what others take seriously. What additional rights do we have to lose, before you stop laughing?
Which acts of torture, disaster, violation stop from you from your mad whirl? Because the next president will have the power to stop these abuses, or tacitly accept them. You should be roommates with Lynndie England; she probably needs help with the rent.
Clinton’s “I would have left that church” remarks
By that logic Oprah is also racist.
Wow. How dare that Obama guy show up to an election with his brown skin, injecting race into his every movement?
Whether its sour grapes (or projection?), I agree with Chris. That is one viciously ugly post from riverdaughter. Something I’d expect from freeperand, not a ‘progressive’ site.
But the movement is dead. Obama had to kill it, before ending his campaign.
If the movement were alive, then its strongest proponents — Jackson Sr., Lewis, Young — would be respected as the men who witnessed MLK’s rise and assassination, and their opinions would be sought out in the Obama vetting process.
Guess who’s been silent, or paid off? When Jackson gave up on the Rainbow Coalition, he probably knew the best he could get would be something nice for his son, so I don’t blame him much. The other leaders have been marginalized, with the conspiratorial support of the AA leadership in this country. Ask Tavis Smiley what it means to rock the boat about Obama. We couldn’t hear his answer; he no longer has a radio show. His own audience shouted him down until he was fired.
I won’t say this is due to the AA community being ignored for two generations; sops and sinecures, mayoralities and congressional seats, have been won and traded, as if to the next person in line. (my local representative’s seat, held by a AA woman, was upset by the election of a white woman who was active with business and culture, and actually said more than the expected community boilerplate. She’s done well for the community, black and white, since.) Sometimes this ‘line of succession’ is good; tell me whether on the balance that Giuliani’s tenure as mayor was better than Dinkins’, and I’ll tell you that anyone’s mayoral stint gets better when federal funds for more police get awarded. Oh, yeah, who did that? Bill Clinton…. which is why all sorts of people in hard-hit communities liked him in the first place.
Obama wants to trade on the line of succession meme, but do absolutely nothing beforehand to show his commitment to lower class community issues. And his AA constituency is letting him get away with it until his oath of office when it will be too late for anyone not holding massive lobbyist cash to change his goddamn mind about anything. If we don’t test him now, when? When does he have to give a damn?
At least with HRC, I know we’ll have to fight for everything we want, but the politics she has learned indicates that she can be responsive to the people. Laugh at me if you want, but I’ll only have contempt for those people who think this is a new civil rights movement in force, because a man of foreign African heritage uses the trappings of the civil rights movement to get what he and his handlers want.
And note how we no longer say “black people”; “AA” is so more reductive, manageable, with no “people” inside.
Obama wants to trade on the line of succession meme, but do absolutely nothing beforehand to show his commitment to lower class community issues
the guy worked as a community activist and civil rights attorney in the south side of chicago. do you know what the southside communities are like? obama has a clearer record of working directly with poor people than clinton does. the problem is when we talk about “lower class” or “working class” in this country, we almost always mean “white lower class/working class”. black urban poor people are viewed as a separate problem entirely. which is the only way that people can get away with claiming that obama has never done anything for poor or working class people.
The Democratic nomination was not the birthright of Sen. Clinton. It belongs to whoever earns it. How has Obama run a racist campaign? Christ, I’m embarrassed to be part of the so-called left at this point. Yeah, the black guy with a terrorist sounding name who attended a madrassa and is a Muslim mole except when he’s attending that crazy Christian church headed by that scary black preacher, he had it easy and faced no unfair attacks. Right.
He “separate[ed] African Americans from the Clintons.” Think about that statement for a minute. Let’s start with the assumption that Clinton somehow deserved the AA vote before the first ballot was punched. No, sorry, no one gets it by default. You go on the campaign trail, make your case, and if people agree with you they vote for you. But more to the point, how do you fail to see the racism oozing out of that statement? Those poor deluded African-Americans, how easily duped by a cleaver huckster. Too damned dumb to make an informed decision. I know, you’re shocked and offended that I could suggest such a thing. Save it.
I hope a year or two from now you go back and read some of what you’ve written and supported here in the last few months and begin to see how you’ve allowed your support for your preferred candidate to blind you. The 90% of African-Americans who voted for Obama made a careful, rational decision and deserve no more derision for their votes then you do for yours.
votermom: “Clinton’s “I would have left that church” remarks
By that logic Oprah is also racist.”
No, it’s not.
Snuzy:
the problem is when we talk about “lower class” or “working class” in this country, we almost always mean “white lower class/working class”. black urban poor people are viewed as a separate problem entirely. which is the only way that people can get away with claiming that obama has never done anything for poor or working class people.
that’s a good observation. Soon after I moved to Philly, I heard a great piece on NPR by a a black guy who had moved here for college. He was from the Appalachian south, and so to him white poverty meant hillbillies living in hollers. When he saw what white urban poverty was like, he was shocked to see that it was nearly identical to black urban poverty.
Speaking of urban poverty, who campaigned on, and passed, NAFTA? Gee, maybe some people kind of noticed their jobs got shipped off and remembered who did the deed?
Are you kidding me. OBAMA as the person who made this a racial contest. Give me break. Anybody who believes that is just a sore loser and is seeking for some reason not to vote for him in the fall because they really cannot stand that she lost to a black man. Pure and simple. Hillary and Bill did everything in their power to make Bubba’s see Barack’s color, first and foremost. He’s not a muslim “as far as I know”….The Jesse Jackson comparisons. The way she exploited the Fiery Black Preacher issue. Give me break. She lost because she ran a lousy campaign and everyone finally saw her for what she truly is….
I am a 53 yr old black woman with a stupid husband whom is supporting Obama just because he is black my only solace is Taylor Marsh, Hillaryis 44 and this and other sites or where I can hear people talking with goos sense instead of the madness that black people are talking about.
Here are some very important reasons that Nobama will and never could get my support these are all the reasons that Obama will never get my vote. I am so sick of Obama and his surrogates playing the race card even as far back as SC like black people are so sensitive to Jesse Jackson being compared to Nobama but enter Rev Wright and no more race card. Persoanlly I have told my son since Jan that I think Barack & Michelle are closeted radical racists themselves even before I learned of thier various associations mentioned below. I even registered with the John MCcain website and sent the welcome page to the DNC and Dean when they e-mailed me begging for money if Hillary is not the nominee I will campaign vigourisly for John Mccain.
Obama does not deserve to hold the highest office in the land we dont need a snakeoil salesman in that office.
Check out this link:
http://www.barackobamaassociates.info/
if link is wrong goto Hillaryis44 first entry in thread dated 5-7
I support Hillary financially every month with an automatic deduction and extra whenever I can. Will my hubby support Barack financially are u kidding not even a dime so stupid it makes me sick to see how he is using the AA community and the crazy Rev Wright which he came out when he felt he was used and I dont think we have seen the last of as wrong and as crazy as Rev Wright is he will not be used either.
Thanks to everyone for thier support for Senator Cinton
Hillary44 2008
Check out that website it is a morale booster print it you will get the need to push on.
marie3548 | 05.07.08 - 11:37 am | #
http://www.barackobamaassociates.info/
Yes it is.
;p
So would that make the clinton campaign all about misogyny? That we don’t vote for her because she is a woman as opposed to we don’t like her big campaign donors or the fact that she simply parrots right wing attacks against THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY! She is willing to sell out every dem to get what she wants…she is worse than lieberman at this point!
I can’t believe that my comment didn’t make it through moderation but that “marie3548’s” at 30 did.
I didn’t even think I wrote anything objectionable. I called for all of your more rational commentors to chill out and let you guys grieve for a bit before we start flipping out over calls to stay home on election day.
I dare you to publish my comment and let the readers decide if it should have been swept up in the moderation net.
Comments are moderated?
See comment 17. Please check before ranting. Thank you.
Comments are moderated?
No, but we do have to use a spam filter. It makes mistakes more often than we’d like. Drexeldem is suffering a rare side effect of that which, if left untreated, can lead to acute moronism.
DrexelDem @ 33
I believe that the comment you left was #17 and is still in place. (Was editing this as Susie was posting apparently)
And I find it very difficult to reconcile what is in this post to one posted on this site earlier this year. http://susiemadrak.com/2008/01/14/15/44/i-will-not-support-hillary-clinton-for-president/
There is a higher level of acceptance in the Clinton blogosphere than I expected.
I remember a funny story. The Political Eye column in the St. Louis American relayed complaints that Obama was not explicitly courting the African-American operators in the city and assumed he would get the black vote anyway. Well, he got Lacy Clay, and that may have been the only MO African-American endorsement that mattered, and the state turned for him on African-Americans in the 1st District.
At least since 2007, the Hillary Clinton campaign has known that her base was lower-income white women. The campaign was designed to court them, and their loyalty has kept her in the race all this time. If the nomination had gone the other way we might see congratulatory posts about these voters the same as Andrew Sullivan has put up about black voters today. Although it is important for the Democratic party to get the participation of lower-income white women just as it is important for blacks, the people voting for Hillary were already Democrats. The Hillary base’s ability to identify with Hillary also split the party.
It is important for the Democratic party to get black participation. Blecch.
You’ve marginalized black people, any poor person who didn’t agree with you all, and so-called intellectuals for decades. You expected us all to fall in line and support the party anyway, and we did. Now it’s your turn. We won, you lost. Thats what a primary is about. Don’t go pulling a ‘dixiecrat’ on us just because yours aren’t the dominant factions in this party anymore. We supported your candidates, even when they were completely losers like Kerry and Mondale, or neoliberals like Clinton who shared maybe 1/2 of our views. We expect you to do the same for us now. If you don’t, we’ll know you all were always lying when you waved the supreme court and Roe V Wade under our faces to force our compliance for all those years. We’ll know that you never really cared about the party or liberalism, and that all you wanted was obedience.
First, Sen. Obama has not played “the race card”. The media did it big time, with Rev. Wright on cable news 24/7, even after Sen. Obama’s public repudiation of Rev. Wrights positions.
I have yet to see an example of Sen. Obama trying to use race to divide the party; certainly none were offered in this thread! And saying Sen. Obama “pitted Dem against Dem” is dumb. It’s a primary. In primaries you run against members of your own party. Tell River to try and keep up.
“There was no reason for the African-American community to spurn Clinton” is simply silly. Her vote for invading Iraq, her business friendly votes at the expense of the middle class, her continuing statements about Iraq that sound so much like “I support Bush” are all reasons to support someone other than her.
African-American voters really do vote based on things other than race. Your post, and the post you lead with, make us look like nothing matters but skin, which is very far from the truth.
Many women are voting for Sen. Obama, not their gender sister Sen. Clinton. When are you going to take them to task for voting their sex? And yes, I am offended.
I am a 53 yr old black woman with a stupid husband whom is supporting Obama just because he is black my only solace is Taylor Marsh, Hillaryis 44 and this and other sites or where I can hear people talking with goos sense instead of the madness that black people are talking about…
…I will campaign vigourisly for John Mccain.
How I pity your long suffering husband.
Susie,
I’d like to know just how you think Axelrod “pursued a strategy of racial division?” Do you believe that because African-Americans voted overwhelmingly for a mixed-race candidate that the Obama campaign is guilty of some conscious strategy of dividing Democrats along racial lines? What specifically did the Obama campaign do?
The way to achieve unity is not with more vacuous rhetoric (”Honey, I’ve changed”) but with policy proposals. If Obama really wants unity, he could do something to fix his broken health care plan, and get some surrogate to walk back the Harry & Louise ads (even a “regret that some misinterpreted” would be fine).
I don’t think Obama will or can do that. The “old generation” and the “new generation” may in fact have different models of what a party should be. If so, the Obama campaign executed a strategy to fracture of the Democratic base flawlessly, give credit. Their ground (and online) game has been excellent. And if I’m marginalized, so fucking what. Change comes from the margins.
& of course, NAFTA, disappearing the poor under the guise of welfare reform, pandering via the gas tax debacle, sitting down with that bastard Scaife & then accepting his endorsement, lying about being under sniper fire (more than once), having her top surrogate in PA, the gov., publicly & enthusiastically praise Louis F. & the nation of Islam from the mayor’s dais (which the Clinton supporting blogs refused to even allow in their comment, the URL, I mean), disparaging MoveOn who were her & her husband’s super defenders, etc., etc., had nothing to do with it, Lambert?
The Clinton camp has been pushing the notion that Obama fails to connect with white, working-class voters. Well, African-Americans make up just 13% of the U.S. population, and yet HRC has been getting her butt kicked in this primary contest. Seems to me that tells us that Clinton is the one having trouble connecting with the white working class.
The way to achieve unity is not with more vacuous rhetoric…
If there were an award for vacuous rhetoric Lambert you’d win it hands down. Your blog is little more than a repository of childish insults and name calling directed at Obama supporters.
And while we’re at it, African-Americans didn’t “spurn” Sen. Clinton. Of course we are thrilled to have a chance to vote for one of our own who has a genuine chance to become President.
But if Sen. Obama was advocating the policies of the GOP, he’d get precious few black votes. Race is in it, but this is about a lot more than race.
Sen. Clinton staked her campaign on certain issues. Other posters have given us long lists of them. A lot of Democratic voters do not share her enthusiasm for those positions and choose to vote for someone with different positions.
On consideration, Susie, you and Riverdaughter are not giving us credit for being able to decide who’s best for the nation. Which includes us.
lambert @ 44 - please, just go away. Sorry your candidate ran and lost but them’s the breaks. Go pout somewher else. You’re doing McCain’s work at this point - a real liberal thing to do.
Bob is shooing lambert away from susie’s blog. That’s too damn funny.
i’m completely with riverdaughter, with the added amendment that i already *know for certain* that i’m not voting for obama. but that’s only because i agree with lambert here: http://www.correntewire.com/the_obama_campaign_as_hostile_takeover. it’s the worst possible thing to happen, in the worst possible year, when such a disgusting maneuver could be so utterly effective in the worst possible way. it makes me sick. if the “new” dem party is what it looks like, then it can count me out for good.
What I want is a Democratic leader in the White House. The Obama campaign (supporters) on blogs and other media continue to stereotype Clinton voters as low class, racists, fearful traditionalists, and old feminists. As someone commented elsewhere, people use the term “working class” with the connation of “underclass”. The Creative Class? ugh, smug.
How does that win support?
I will vote Democratic in the fall, but I won’t be supporting” Obama for President”. I’ll be supporting” Democrat for President” . Maybe I’ll have to make my own bumpersticker or campaign poster. Or maybe I’ll just vote for all the Dems down ticket.
oh and bob, you please go away. you obviously don’t get it.
p.s. if i’d wanted to vote independence party, i would’ve done that. why the hell did obama have to take over our party, in a year when we finally have the chance to push to the left and GET SHIT DONE? i know the answer to that, of course, but that doesn’t make me feel any f’ing better. his self-absorbed opportunism makes me furious.
why the hell did obama have to take over our party
How dare he win the primary?
Nancy: You’re right - and I am being sincere - I don’t get it. Obama and Clinton went through the exact same vetting process, Obama won (ok, I know, technically not yet and if a picture of Obama having sex with Rev. Wright surfaces it could all change) and now……everywhere I turn I’m hearing Clinton supporters bail on the Democratic Party. Great! 8 years of Bush followed by at least 4 years of McCain - that’ll show Obama not to run a better campaign.
No, I honestly don’t get it.
If the numbers were exactly reversed right now I’d be 100% behind Clinton. But then I’m a liberal, a Democrat, and someone who wants to see the madness of the last 8 years stopped. I’m not someone so vested in one particular candidate that any other outcome is impossible for me to tolerate.
So no, I don’t get it.
you obviously don’t get it.
This is basic passive aggressive BS.
Nancy, you want to “push to the left” and you’re supporting Hillary? Seriously? She’s a lefty like I’m Elmer Fudd. As others have already pointed out - war votin’ NAFTA supportin’ GATT supportin’ Let’s bomb Iran talkin’ … come on now let’s be real about it. Hillary ain’t a lefty. She just ain’t, on the facts.
And again, as others have said, this really is a very ugly piece of writing from Riverdaughter.
“But in this America, in 2008, color is everything. It seems like the civil rights movement of the 60’s was just a dream. As long as you are the right color, you’re golden. Color masks a multitude of deficiencies- ”
Yow! No racism there. All this, plus accusations of porposefully dividing the party along racial lines while offering no evidence of such whatsoever. And what? Obama wants to chase white voters away so he can lose in November??? Or … he’s trying to attract black voters? What an awful thing for the angry scary black elitist to do! The nerve, trying to attract black voters! Dividing the party … yeah, right.
As far as not voting for either reviled Dem in the fall, Snuzy has it right:
“The bottom line is that they’re just not all that different policy-wise. while their governing styles and emphasis might be different, in terms of content they’re very very close.”
Which is mostly right, though I think it gives insufficient weight to Hillary’s disturbing willingness to let the bombs fly. But even with that, either of these candidates is waaaaaayyyyy better, for us, for America, and for the world, than John McCain. Let’s keep some perspective folks.
this meme that Obama took black votes from Clinton and therefore is a racist is really amazing to me.
it wasn’t Obama that had surrogates find ways to remind everyone on a weekly basis that Obama was black, that he lived in the hood, that he might be a muslim terrorist….if one person from the Clinton campaign made a race-specific remark regarding Obama, it can and should be dismissed as a stupid lack of judgment on that person’s part. when, however a number of people make such remarks (his campaign is just so much shuck and jive, he is every liberal’s imaginary black friend, he is only popular because he is black, etc etc etc…) at least 7 times, then a pattern of behavior is discernible. a disturbing pattern.
when ferarro said that Obama is where he is because he is black i had to stop and think….
suppose a famous first lady, married to a popular president ran for president against a black man named Barack Hussein.
who in their right mind would say the black man with the muslim name would have an advantage?
and BTW, he IS getting white votes….are you suggesting in the GE that white Hillary supporters will vote republican rather than vote for a black man?
Joe in OK - they are not suggesting it — they are threatening it. Just bitter and clingy apparently…
apparently
Not that this is going to clarify things for Bob, Steveeboy, all Joes but the race baiting and painting the Clinton’s as racists originated here…
The Race Memo at Democratic Underground
in fact, reading this link at Politico is all you really need to figure out how it all came down.
But I suppose if the goal was to win the nomination, that looks to be achieved. If the goal was to have a united party in November, good luck Obama supporters.
white_n_az: Obama is behind flouridated water and those “black” helicopters that follow you everywhere too.
naz: Fact is if hrc and co won AA votes at 20% (what she was capable of and expected) versus the <10% clip after SC (remeber SC? it’s when Mr hrc compared OB to J Jackson and fairly tales) she would be ahead in the popular vote and ahead 60 delegates…facts (likes votes and rules) matter. Of course OB played to AA’s. hrc played to over 60 white females. So what! Both candidates would have been foolish not to…playing to a voting bloc is much different than tossing aside a voting bloc…did OB’s camp say “shuck and jive”? did OB say “as far as I know” when answering about his opponents religion? did OB and co spread rumors of angry black man/cocaine history (drug user=black person)? so many dog whistles then came the pandering and the then the sickening pandering (promising Guam statehood? wtf!). her campaign went from doggedly fighting to get back to abusive to comical to disgraceful and now…just sad really. The Clintons had a decent legacy - now they have become pitiful shadows of once unlimited potential. her campaign and their one time political dynasty will be studied for a long time in political science labs. If this were sports it would be called the greatest choke-job in history. After 9/11 and all the high wierdness, who would have guessed a half black man with a sort of mulsim name would beat the mighty clintons!!?? Great time to be alive actually.
white_n_az - The Clintons, both Hillary and Bill, got themselves into a mild media storm because they made several comments which were ill considered at best, some of which were in fact racially tinged.
When Bill, out of the blue, compared Obama’s campaign in S.C. to that of Jesse Jackson, a lot of people went, “Huh? What’s Jesse Jackson got to do with this?” Well, of course Jesse’s black, which was the only apparent connection, so naturally that ruffled some feathers - Clinton was apparently making a statement about Obama based primarily on his race. This may or may not have been Clinton’s intent, but that’s how his remark came across.
Hillary’s MLK remarks were indeed diparaging of the civil rights leader - “It took a president [LBJ, with brief mention of JFK] to get it done.” She was attempting to make the case that her political experience (a la LBJ) was necessary for progress, where mere “rhetoric” (Obama) wouldn’t get it done. She may have been only clumsy (an aide said she “mis-spoke”), and she went out of her way afterward to try and diffuse the remarks, but the essence of it was indeed raciall insensituve at the very least. MLK FORCED the issue of civil rights on LBJ, and on American politicians in general, he made it impossible to ignore. To make a statement that LBJ is the one who “got it done” is historically muddled and is ndeed offensive. Hillary herself realized this and tried to finesse the issue in subsequent appearances. I see nothing wrong with calling her on this statement, and pointing out this implicit racism of it.
Not to mention Ferraro’s statements which were flat out undeniably racist. Ferraro may herslef not be particularly racist generally, I don’t know. But what she said most definitely was racist.
Etc. The Clintons and some in their camp made statements with racist overtones, or outright racism (which we see in amplified form in Riverdaughter’s piece above). Some people in Obama’s camp called them on it and made it an issue in the media. And this is wrong of them because …?
Joe
seems to me that WJC is the only living twice elected Democrat and in the last 28 years, the only Democrat to win the presidential election at all.
I suppose Obama has the opportunity to change that - good luck - he’s got my vote. I think the flame-out will be unspectacular and his fate will be much like Kerry and Gore and great…we will all feel better because the Dems nominated a black man to run…so when he loses, we only need to kick ourselves because this was a year that Dems should win it going away.
By the way, if you’re going to argue points that I raised, you should have had the courtesy to read the links I included.
I get it that you don’t like the Clintons’ - point made
Check back in November after the general and we’ll take your pulse then.
THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN AFRICAN AMERICANS FINALLY HAVE ENOUGH POWER TO ELECT CANDIDATES THAT LOOK LIKE THEM BUT ARENT REALLY THE BEST QUALIFIED CANDIDATES….YOU GET RANDY PRIMAS IN CAMDEN NJ, WILSON GOODE IN PHILA, JOHN STREET IN PHILLY, MARION BARRY IN DC, NAGIN IN NOLA, ETC ETC…..THESE PEOPLE WERE ELECTED TO OFFICES EVEN THOUGH THEY WERENT THE BEST CHOICE, EVEN THOUGH THEY WERENT REALLY CAPABLE OF DOING THE JOB WELL….THEY WERE OWNED AND OPERATED BY WHITE INTERESTS AND POWER BROKERS….ITS WILL BE MANY ELECTION CYCLES BEFORE WE FINALLY GET AN AA CANDIDATE WORTH A CRAP. AND HE OR SHE WILL PROBABLY END UP BEING A REPUBLICAN.
MacJazz…Jesse Jackson is a friend of Bill’s and he didn’t take it as a negative. It was all artificially gaming public opinion…read the Democratic Underground link I provided which ***gasp*** was written by an AA.
As for LBJ, he was the arm twister in chief in the Senate prior to becoming Vice-President. He twisted the arms of all the southern democrats to vote for the civil rights act to the point that it took 2 decades for the Democratic party to recover…all of the south went Republican after that. The party paid a terrible price for that vote and yes, it actually took a president with a lot of balls to push it through. You probably should read up on the history of that because all Hillary did was to recognize his role too. RFK wasn’t going to run against LBJ because of that courage and it wasn’t until LBJ announced that he was not going to seek the nomination in 1968 that allowed RFK to run.
I recognize that this is the closest a woman and an African American have ever come to being president and someone has to lose in the process. It would have been silly to think that this would have played out without racism and misogyny rearing its ugly head. I even get the point that in order to beat Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama had to eviscerate the successes of the Bill Clinton presidency but to do that was to split the party. The fruits of this philosophy are that he will have to hope that enough of those who were dismayed by the way things played out will come back.
I guess I’m a racist like RiverDaughter because I don’t see the racism in the quotes above. I suppose pointing out that throughout the process, as Obama’s percentage of the AA votes has increased, his percentage of the white votes has steadily decreased as indicated in both IN and NC where I think the best he did was 37%.
Obama will perform somewhere between McGovern and Dukakis…net result is that Arizona gets a new Senator.
Aneris…take your racist crap elsewhere
Naz, I’m well aware of the history of all this - believe it or not I was actually around back then. None of what you’ve said negates what I’ve said. (And I did read your links - in fact some of what I wrote is referencing those links.)
Oh, and re: Riverdaughter’s piece -
“But in this America, in 2008, color is everything. It seems like the civil rights movement of the 60’s was just a dream. As long as you are the right color, you’re golden. Color masks a multitude of deficiencies-”
What part of that ISN’T racist? I mean, it’s pretty plain English. It’s sort of Ferraro’s comments on steroids.
MacJazz…
I think that the voting pattern is self evident and that Geraldine Ferraro’s comments were an honest assessment of the way things are/were. Obama gets 90%+ of the AA vote - more power to him but that makes Ferraro absolutely correct.
If you want to identify her remarks as racist, so be it. I didn’t see them that way at all.
If the idea is that someone can’t make observations about racial turnouts and voting patterns without being branded a racist…doesn’t that just roll back the clock in terms of racial divisions? I personally think that people calling Geraldine Ferraro’s remarks racist are simply concern trolls.
I have no problem with an AA candidate…I don’t think that Obama has achieved much to get where he is but c’est la vie…he’s where he is and he will get my vote in November. I’m quite certain that he won’t win in AZ where I live and that my vote won’t make a difference but the same would be true for Hillary in AZ. I think he is not only behind in all of the traditional ‘battle ground states’ but his nomination puts the ‘blue states’ from 2000/2004 into play (MA, NJ, CA, PA) and he has little chance of winning some of the states that pushed Clinton across like FL, AK, TN, WV. One of these days the horror of the electoral map is gonna dawn on Obama supporters and my hope was that it was before Hillary was eliminated but that doesn’t appear to be the way things will go down…c’est la vie…we endured 8 years of chimpey.
and by the way…saying MLK FORCED LBJ to pass the civil rights bill is just this side of fucking stupid. I defy you to cite a credible source that suggests that MLK FORCED LBJ to do anything.
Lyndon Baines Johnson - Wikipedia / Civil Rights
Boston Globe - How the South Was Won from which I quote…
LBJ did some really stupid things but he had some king size balls and I don’t know that any other president could have gotten this done. You are doing Hillary a disservice by suggesting that she wasn’t completely on the mark.
Aneris…take your racist crap elsewhere - white_n_az
Gosh, what Aneris said is pretty much the same argument Geraldine Ferraro and some, but not all, Clinton supporters make about Obama but you can’t see it.
I think that the voting pattern is self evident and that Geraldine Ferraro’s comments were an honest assessment of the way things are/were. Obama gets 90%+ of the AA vote - more power to him but that makes Ferraro absolutely correct.
If you want to identify her remarks as racist, so be it. I didn’t see them that way at all. - white_n_az
As for that Riverdaughter post:
There was no reason for the African-American community to spurn Clinton. But in this America, in 2008, color is everything. It seems like the civil rights movement of the 60’s was just a dream. As long as you are the right color, you’re golden. Color masks a multitude of deficiencies- experience, knowledge base, earned coalitions, even interest. - Riverdaughter
This is a classic example of the right wing race card frame of Race in the USA, which is based on the premise that any real racial problems were solved in “the 60’s” and we now live in a color blind society (just ask Dr. Stephen T. Colbert). Therefore if there is any mention of race “the race card” has been played.
One thing you’ve got to understand about “the race card” is that by definition there is no legitimate way to play it here in the post “60’s” era. It’s always a false claim of victimhood, conjuring images of charlatans like Al Sharpton. Jesse Jackson types who exploit the “welfare queen” community and keep them trapped in a “false victim” mentality, unable to break their dependence on “big government” and “take responsibility” for their circumstances.
Add to this mix the long festering resentment of “affirmative action”, a “big government” form of “reverse racism” (see quotas etc.) that promotes unqualified “minorities” over more qualified regular folks. “Liberal elites” spurn “working class” whites to assuage their “white liberal guilt”.
The term “post racial” was an ill-fated attempt to negotiate this minefield by accepting the “colorblind” fallacy. The question was constantly raised “is Obama back enough?” We now know the answer, yes Obama is black enough to blamed for the existence of racism.
The attitude expressed is defeatist. It is only slightly better than the attitude which thinks voting to be a waste of time.
These attitudes gave us Bush and Cheney and will continue to afflict us.
Grow up.
Ferraro’s comments were similar to some of what Riverdaughter said, and they’re both racist. I’m astonished that thois is hard for anyone to see. Ferraro:
“If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.”
Such statements are not dispassionate or objective observations about racial turnouts and voting patterns, as they ignore the larger part of this picture and attempt to frame being black as an ADVANTAGE in running for national office! Ye Gods. Yeah … because so many previous nominees have been black, right? And the list of former black presidents is a long one, right?
Statements like Ferraro’s ignore the fact that just getting the votes of black people does not give any candidate nearly enough votes to win. Not even close. Obama … must be getting some white votes too, eh? Because he’s black? What Ferrao said isn’t some kind of uncomfortable truth, it’s rather a flat out untruth. And racist. I just don’t know how this is hard to see.
As for LBJ - of course he was famous as a strongarm-er, that was his calling card. I’m well aware of all this history, you should stop assuming otherwise. But the thing about this MLK/JBJ business is, it took a movement to GET the President to get it done. MLK’s movement is what motivated people, and changed public perceptions. Johnson couldn’t’ have “got it done” without the foundation that Dr. King laid, and for that reason, if no other, wouldn’t have tried. Hence Hillary’s comments were wrongly dismissive of King’s place in all this.
.
I didn’t see any citations to your claim that MLK FORCED LBJ to enact the civil rights legislation in your arguments. Your assertion was that LBJ had no choice but to do what he did. That assertion is clearly fallacious and without any proof.
Yes, the march in Selma led by MLK and televised nationally made clear the problems that needed to be solved. So did Philadelphia MS and many other events to which MLK had no connection. No one ever dismissed the contributions of MLK…the point was that it took more than his efforts and those efforts required another kind of courage.
Now the issue of which Ferraro and RiverDaughter spoke of…consider that if Hillary had won 90% of the women’s vote, this nomination would have been settled for her on Super Tuesday. Excuse us all for realizing that 90%+ of the AA and 35% of the white vote in NC is a winning formula in the primary. The problem is that this is a losing formula in the general election.
With all of the discussion about Obama expanding the base, considering the closeness of 2000 and 2004, the Dems with the addition of Obama’s expanded base and the general malaise in the Republican brand means that it shouldn’t be close in November then, right?
HeywoodR…
You’re correct woody…I don’t see it…and your spotlight didn’t help me see it either.
two words aneris:
Michael Nutter.
who supported him?
“eggheads and blacks”
who didn’t ?
“white working-class ethnics”
who said he didn’t have a chance?
certain bloggers that are now hard-core for HRC
Naz: I’ll check back before November - promise. RFK didn’t fear LBJ in any way when it came to running for pres. LBJ was one day away from being connected to murder indictments when JFK went on a sunny Nov car ride in Dallas. Many people (including an retired FBI fingerprint analyst) also think an longtime LBJ associate (problem solver) fingerprints were found on some book boxes on the 6th floor of a notorious building in Dallas. But I’m not a true believer in LBJ having a role in RFK’s brothers death…but a lot about LBJ and his conduct in the 60’s can be learned here: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showforum=126
these comments on this thread have been fun - I had three comments deleted (for what reason I don’t really know) that talked about the Clintons and AA voting bloc and learned quite a bit on the process of grieving a loss…
MLK and the civil rights movement forced the nation to confront its ugly racism, and in that forced LBJ to listen to his better angels and act accordingly. Johnson most certainly had some good liberal leanings socially, and he found himself in a situation which compelled him to implement policies which were in accord with that. Johnson himself recognized who it was that drove the civil rights reforms (from his “We Shall Overcome” speech):
“The real hero of this struggle is the American Negro. His actions and protests, his courage to risk safety, and even to risk his life, have awakened the conscience of this nation. His demonstrations have been designed to call attention to injustice, designed to provoke change; designed to stir reform. He has been called upon to make good the promise of America.”
MLK and the civil rights movement were the ones who forced the changes to happen. As LBJ so clearly stated in that speech.
In fact, the LBJ/Hillary analogy is not the worst one in some ways - both had good social policy inclinations for the most part, but were done in by hamfisted and bellicose foreign policy leanings.
I’m not sure how to respond to all the hypotheticals about what votes Hillary might have won, and I don’t see how that really matters - none of that excuses a statement like,
“But in this America, in 2008, color is everything. It seems like the civil rights movement of the 60’s was just a dream. As long as you are the right color, you’re golden. Color masks a multitude of deficiencies- ”
From which we can draw no other inference than that Obama is winning because he’s black. Which is a racist dismissal of his rather stunning out-of-nowhere, come from behind campaign. There’ve been other black candidates - how come they didn’t, due to their blackness, gather all those same votes? Maybe, just maybe, skin color is not the most salient feature of Obama’s candidacy. And maybe it’s racist to pretend it is.
MacJazz…
Just in case you actually believe the stuff that you write to be true…here’s where you can find out that it’s not true
I never said any such thing (most salient) and you’d probably have to ask RiverDaughter if that’s what she intended. What she is saying, like Geraldine Ferraro was saying is that if you get 90%+ from the black communities (and this is historically true as well as true this cycle), but can add a small percentage of white voters, you have an incredible advantage in the primaries. In the general election though, the solid block of black voters is statistically less decisive. I suppose we have to lose this election to find out how this all plays out now.
“Just in case you actually believe the stuff that you write to be true…here’s where you can find out that it’s not true ”
That link appears to support what I’ve been saying - Obama is obviously winning for reasons other than being black, since, as the article points out re: Jesse Jackson, being black has historically been a very large political hurdle to overcome. And there are still large numbers of people who won’t vote for a candidate simply because he’s black. (Or because she’s a woman, for that matter.) It’s NOT an advantage.
In fact, that was one peripheral reason I supported Edwards - I already favored him as a candidate, based on his positions and his statements, but in addition to that I felt that he probably had the best chance to win it all. Every president we’ve ever had has been a white male of northern European descent. That’s not Obama, and it’s not Hillary. Not a reason to choose Edwards, for me, but a happy bonus if he were the nomineee. Sadly, he’s not. (Actually, my real preference was Kucinich, but that wasn’t happening.)
ME: Maybe, just maybe, skin color is not the most salient feature of Obama’s candidacy. And maybe it’s racist to pretend it is.
Naz: “I never said any such thing (most salient) ”
I didn’t say you did. I said that of Ferraro and Riverdaughter. And there’s no other reasonable interpretation of their statements. Obama’s winning because of “who he is” (not white, or a woman) in other words, skin color. Or maybe she’s mentioing his lack of whiteness for no reason at all, and his skin color is not central to her point?
MacJazz
You are completely overlooking that the statement you made…
was wrong as that Washington Post article points out…the black candidates always got the black votes.
Obama happens to be the first black candidate that gets some white votes…enough white votes that when added to the automatic black votes makes him a considerable candidate.
But I get that the AA community has loyally supported the Democratic party and the first serious AA candidate deserves the support of Democrats and I don’t have a problem with it except that I believe in my heart that Obama loses in November.
I think that if we lose another presidential election cycle, the Democrats are going to have to consider changing the mechanisms used to select their nominee because it really hasn’t worked well but of course November will tell us how much of a problem this proves to be.
No matter how you spin it, I don’t believe that Ferraro’s statements were racist. If women voted as a solid block like AA’s, then Hillary would have been lucky to be a woman. The best indication of a racist statement is to turn it around the other way to see how it comes off…much like the point WJC made about Sistah Souljah when he said that if you turn it around, it sounded exactly like David Duke.
“MacJazz
You are completely overlooking that the statement you made…
There’ve been other black candidates - how come they didn’t, due to their blackness, gather all those same votes?
was wrong as that Washington Post article points out…the black candidates always got the black votes.”
– –
Which shows that you’ve completely missed my point, and have it exactly backwards. My point is that Obama has gotten the votes of a fairly wide spectrum of voters during his campaign (though slightly narrower in recent contests … can’t imagine why … [sarcasm intended]).
If being black were the reason for Obama’s success, why weren’t other black candidates able to do the same? After all, they got most of the black votes too. Why didn’t they win primaries because of “who that are” (black)? Maybe Obama’s not where he is just because of “who he is” (i.e. not white and not a woman) - since when has it been advantageous in national elections to be black??? Since never, that’s when.
So it’s wrong factually to say that Obama’s where he is because he’s not white, as Ferraro explicitly does, and we’re left with simple racism as the underpinning of her statement.. That’s all there is to her statement - it’s demonstrably false, with nothing but racism to prop it up.
Wow @ how deluded some Clinton supporters are. This person sounds like they truly believe that it was OBAMA who split the party up on racial lines. Really quite remarkable stuff from a psychological standpoint.