Discussion

• Preston_P :

  I've said it before and I'll say it again: the Clintons are political geniuses! The Clintons have often used race as a way to win over those Reagan Democrats, so this shouldn't be a surprise at all to anyone who follows politics.

  They know exactly how to spin stuff like this and use it for their advantage. Hillary didn't stop Geraldine--or reject and denounce her--because she wanted a CLEAR message to get out there. She wanted to appeal to lower income whites who feel like affirmative action has allowed black people to take their jobs and opportunities. Hell, even some of the smartest posters here have complained about Affirmative Action and how "social liberals" destroyed the Democratic Party (despite the fact study after study has shown white women more than any group benefits from Affirmative Action programs; but don't let that stop people from buying into the Reagan/Gingrich propaganda). I have read Hillary supporters going on about the cost of Barack's house, his Ivy League education and the fact that he's in the U.S. Senate as proof of being "privileged." The Clinton's own multi-million dollar estates, Hillary is Ivy League educated and she moved to a state she never lived in before to become a senator on the strength of her famous name. I just find it so disingenuous that she repeatedly tries to draw a contrast between Barack and "regular" people when if people are honest Hillary is anything but a middle income American. The opportunities she has had in this country completely eclipse those of her average supporter - yet they project their struggle onto her. The Clintons feel once everything is done, and she lands with the nomination, blacks will come back home because they have no other place to go. This is a huge miscalculation on her part for blacks will feel disenfranchised and sit the election out. Conservatives have been telling blacks for decades that the Democrats often taken them for granted, so I can see black folks sitting it out to send a clear message to the Democratic leadership.

  Now, I'm no fan of Obama, I have made that clear in the past. He's too neoliberal for my taste, and his foreign and domestic platform is too Clintonian. But I do believe the tactics that the Clintons are using will help them and hurt Obama. He was pretty much screwed regardless how he handled this: if he didn't respond, he'll be accused of being too weak when responding to attacks; if he responded--which he did--it will be spin that he's "playing the victim" and whining about being mistreated because he's black (and I can't count how many white liberals and conservatives I've heard tell me they're sick of blacks whining about racism -- grow a pair and some thick skin!, they often say). This will be used as a way to suggest that Obama is really no different than Sharpton and Jackson: whenever he doesn't get his way, he scream "racism" and white people fold due to guilt. Obama was damned which ever way he handled this. I bet because of this matter it will hurt him in Penn.

  Posted on March 13, 2008 1:29 PM

• waltc :

  Preston,

  Social liberals were and are no friends of the working and middle-class. They took economic issues off the table for debate and substituted wedge issues like abortion and gay marriage that only appealed to well heeled whites who want to feel morally superior.

  And when they took away economic issues most working class whites had no reason to vote Democratic and it allowed the GOP pare off large chunks of the electorate as well.

  You want AA to work and be supported? Well you need a robust economy and strong manufacturing base to provide the kind of jobs base to make it feasible again.And we don't have it, thanks to liberals who think we only need low paying service jobs for most Americans and refuse to support efforts to fight against off-shoring and free trade.

  Even now as our country is going through serious economic problems and has entered into a recession. The Democrats and liberals are silent on the economy and things like:

  - no reform of the Bankruptcy law.
  - no effort at fixing privacy and ID theft laws.
  - refusing to limit toxic goods from China.
  - refusing to impose tariffs.
  - refusing to stop IP piracy by the Chinese.
  - refusing to ban H1-b, H-2 and L-1 guest workers. BTW Affirmative Action won't matter when a company can replace American workers with foreigners working for half the salary. Both Obama and Hillary are looking at dramatically increasing the number of foreign guest workers should they be elected. Current estimates are for up 10 million jobs done by Americans to be replaced by foreigners in the coming years. Guest workers will destroy any chance for the African American community to reach middle-class status.
  - refusing to impose criminal sanctions on employers who hire illegals.

  As a working stiff I see no reason to support the Democrats at all.

  
  

  Posted on March 13, 2008 3:33 PM

• Preston_P :

  Walt,

  I agree with you 100%, I just didn't know what posters such as yourself and Max meant when you said social liberals destroyed the party. I understand you clearly now. I thought you were suggesting that along with gays and feminist, blacks helped destroy the Democratic Party mostly because they were agitating for more jobs and good pay in urban communities. It's funny because before I learned more about politics--I'm only 26 now so it wasn't that long ago--I was one of the typical people who cheered on Bill Clinton being the "First Black President" based on how well he played identity politics with black people. Little did I know Clinton done more to desecrate urban communities than any Republican president could dream of--including Reagan. Maybe that's going too far, I will say that he helped push the Republican's neoliberal agenda more than any progressive Democrat. He's no friend of black people, no matter how empathetic he appears to be towards black people history and struggles; his economic policies fractured many families and kicked a lot of them off the welfare rolls, refusing to put in place a safety net in giving these folks more opportunity. The great economic boom and prosperity the Clintons like the tout as an achievement of the 90s did NOTHING to help working-class blacks. And his three-strikes-you're-out crime bill was equally atrocious. He spoke a good game to black voters, but he stabbed them in the back and played politics like a Reaganite Republican.

  Maybe the one good thing that I can see coming out of the Obama campaign is that black people--by and large--are seeing the Clintons for what they're worth: cut-throat opportunists. The sad thing is I don't know what it will take for them to see that Obama is really no different. I guess the only way Democrats will roll up their sleeves and act like true progressives again--like a FDR--is for us to be hit with a huge economic crisis. It's bad now but I think it will be worse later on.

  Anyway, I agree with you--as I often do--and I apologize if I misunderstood what you mean in prior posts.

  Posted on March 13, 2008 4:12 PM

• Frederick Johnson :

  Preston,

  You should see how backwards life can be out here in the deep south. Out here in Spartanburg, people who've lost their homes still use their "Jesus" bullshit talk saying that "god" is opening up the gates. And yeah, a lot of these freaks are very violent on issues such as guns, abortion, and war. They cry for more tax cuts and bombing Iran as if they'll even bother going there to begin with. On top of all this, neither Hillary nor Obama seem to realize just how nasty Red State America will turnout come November. As for the black voters, right now they don't feel like they have anywhere to turn to without Obama and even with Obama, most of them have no confidence that Mccain will be beaten. To make matters further worse, one of my neighbors who used to live in Florida told me about the major Democratic rift that happened in 1998 and gave Jeb Bush a strong victory. As the primary is turning out, I'm afraid a similar pattern will develop and this could be one of the two scenarios:

  1. Obama might win but the conservative Democrats will secretly collaborate to shift the delegate vote in Hillary's favor thereby ousting Obama. This very similar to the way conservative Democrats led by Buzz Ritchie went out of their way to oust a pro-working class black Democrat named Willie Logan. His ouster angered the black voters and many stayed home or even voted Jeb. Jeb beat Mckay by about 10-15 points.

  2. Obama might be able to clinch the nomination but the Clintons will go out of their way to help the GOP win similar to the way LBJ helped Nixon defeat Humphrey although LBJ gave Humphrey a weak endorsement the week before. However, unlike Humphrey, this will certainly guarentee a landslide loss on Obama. The DLC/BlueDog wing of the party will then MISuse Obama's likely landslide defeat to justify that all future Democratic nominees can never be "too liberal" as they would like to put it. The media will no doubt make it look like Hillary would have made this election close or even won were she to win.

  With the media and the GOP already labelling Obama a "terrorist sympathizer" as this article shows:

  http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080331/berman

  this election looks more hopeless than ever.

  Posted on March 13, 2008 5:02 PM

• Green Pajamas :

  Hi Frederick,

  You should have seen how badly the Democrats were sinking in 1998. They were already losing seats in the FL state legislator since 1984 and have not gotten a single seat back at least up to 2004. The Willie Logan tragedy triggered special elections and some Democrats lost while others switched to the GOP out of fear. In fact, the Willie Logan fiasco went national that Gore had to flyover to try and repair the DAMAGE done to the party.

  As for race and politics, the conservative GOP has no problem providing "affirmative action" for ILLEGAL Cubans, Zionist elites, and the rest of the top wealthy elites but bring up women and all minorities and they'll try to start a war !

  Sadly, Obama or Clinton, Florida ain't gonna be swing this time around.

  Posted on March 13, 2008 7:54 PM