All Things Political, vol. 7
In this issue: The machine that is Hillary Clinton
So folks are starting to talk (and write) about Barack Obama's stagnating presidential campaign. Even in states where Obama once led, Clinton has slowly but surely eaten up his leads among black voters. This is interesting for about half a dozen reasons, but mostly because I don't think anyone in America would have believed an attractive black candidate could lose the black vote to a white woman.
If you ask my mother, it's because "she was married to the first black president." True enough. Then there's always the "he's not really black" line of thought. That's a separate post (that I'll probably never write). My theory: It's a combo. The name gets her in the door with black voters (when most white women would be left standing on the porch). Questions about Obama's blackness don't lose him votes, but they keep him from being able to take the black vote for granted, further opening the door for Hillary. His complete aversion of race politics exacerbates the effect, since he's essentially a black candidate who wants not to be thought of as a "black candidate," which black voters seem happy to oblige.
The instinct is understandable. Minority candidates are almost assumed to be race candidates until proven otherwise, something Hillary doesn't need to worry about, which is why she can explicity call out the American justice system for discriminating against blacks, while Barack is stuck trudging through his own rhetoric of We-ness, and racial problems that aren't about race.
So we have a white woman who parades her husband in front of black audiences like a walking "I Love Black People" sign, and a black man who does everything in his power to keep race out of his public politics. To cap it off, the former consistently gives performances like this one, which even her haters admit are damn near flawless. And the end result is that black voters, like other voters, judge the two not on race, but on apparent merit.
Even then, one might say, and Barack does all the time, that Hillary got the Iraq vote tragically wrong, while as we all know, he got it right. And that would matter except that A) We're already there; B) People don't primarily blame the Senate for Iraq. That hate is mostly reserved for the President; and C) Hillary almost always comes off as the older, wiser candidate in the "Where do we go from here?" debate. At times, it's just because she gives more nuanced answers. Other times, it's because Barack is trying to bolster his foreign policy credentials by publicly sh*tting on the presidents of allied nations in critical parts of the world, albeit not intentionally.
Supposedly this leaves Barack with two options: wait for Hillary to mess up, which seems less inevitable as time goes on, or go after her, calling into question his own commitment to civility and change. Then there's always John Edwards, one-state candidate that he is. Were he to lose his lead in Iowa he could always take Hillary out with him, the way Wesley Clark did Howard Dean in '04.
Very interesting stuff.
So folks are starting to talk (and write) about Barack Obama's stagnating presidential campaign. Even in states where Obama once led, Clinton has slowly but surely eaten up his leads among black voters. This is interesting for about half a dozen reasons, but mostly because I don't think anyone in America would have believed an attractive black candidate could lose the black vote to a white woman.
If you ask my mother, it's because "she was married to the first black president." True enough. Then there's always the "he's not really black" line of thought. That's a separate post (that I'll probably never write). My theory: It's a combo. The name gets her in the door with black voters (when most white women would be left standing on the porch). Questions about Obama's blackness don't lose him votes, but they keep him from being able to take the black vote for granted, further opening the door for Hillary. His complete aversion of race politics exacerbates the effect, since he's essentially a black candidate who wants not to be thought of as a "black candidate," which black voters seem happy to oblige.
The instinct is understandable. Minority candidates are almost assumed to be race candidates until proven otherwise, something Hillary doesn't need to worry about, which is why she can explicity call out the American justice system for discriminating against blacks, while Barack is stuck trudging through his own rhetoric of We-ness, and racial problems that aren't about race.
So we have a white woman who parades her husband in front of black audiences like a walking "I Love Black People" sign, and a black man who does everything in his power to keep race out of his public politics. To cap it off, the former consistently gives performances like this one, which even her haters admit are damn near flawless. And the end result is that black voters, like other voters, judge the two not on race, but on apparent merit.
Even then, one might say, and Barack does all the time, that Hillary got the Iraq vote tragically wrong, while as we all know, he got it right. And that would matter except that A) We're already there; B) People don't primarily blame the Senate for Iraq. That hate is mostly reserved for the President; and C) Hillary almost always comes off as the older, wiser candidate in the "Where do we go from here?" debate. At times, it's just because she gives more nuanced answers. Other times, it's because Barack is trying to bolster his foreign policy credentials by publicly sh*tting on the presidents of allied nations in critical parts of the world, albeit not intentionally.
Supposedly this leaves Barack with two options: wait for Hillary to mess up, which seems less inevitable as time goes on, or go after her, calling into question his own commitment to civility and change. Then there's always John Edwards, one-state candidate that he is. Were he to lose his lead in Iowa he could always take Hillary out with him, the way Wesley Clark did Howard Dean in '04.
Very interesting stuff.
Labels: All Things Political
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