West Virginia"We have a leader, and he's not a partisan and he can now end fractious intraparty fights with a word and/or a nod. His opinion really matters in a way that even Nancy Pelosi's just did not. He has control of the party apparatus, the grassroots, the money, and the messaging environment. He is also, and this is fundamental, someone that millions of people believe in as a moral force. When you disagree with Obama, you are saying to these people 'your favorite band sucks'." (bold emphasis, and colors mine)For some years now, I have had the misfortune to suffer from chronic bronchitis and thus have lost touch with modern cannabis. Those of my boomer generation, whose health has permitted them to keep up to date with its development, tell me that the strains of modern muggles have nothing in common in power, purity and effect with the substances that brought such joy to those of us who came of age with R. Crumb and Gilbert Sheldon. If I had any doubts to the truth of the amazing tales of my coevals, this post by Mr. Stoller has completely dispelled them. Stoller's mess of infantile power fantasy and mental masturbation reads like a mixture of Walt Disney and Pol Pot (pardon the pun).
The challenge that the Hawaiian Messiah now faces is how to get rid of people like Mr. Stoller as fast and tactfully as possible and buckle down to "politics as usual" ASAP, if he doesn't want to break George McGovern's all time record this fall.
Stoller's statement, and especially its tone, when read in an attack ad would have a worse effect than Reverend Wright's YouTube loops on masses of voters that the Democrats need to win in November.
A lot of the pressure on Hillary to quit the race NOW is due to a panic that is setting in, because polls show that next week she is fixing to win West Virginia by (hold onto your hats) FORTY POINTS. And then there is Kentucky...
This is how Jay Cost breaks it all down over at RCP:
West Virginia is 95% white, and one of the poorest states in the nation. Demographically, Pennsylvania's twelfth congressional district is a decent proxy of it. Clinton won Pennsylvania's twelfth by 46 points. A recent Rasmussen survey put her up 29 points in the Mountaineer State, with 17% undecided. Another poll had her up 40 points, with Obama under 25%. Kentucky is not as poor or as white as West Virginia, but it is nearly so. Demographically, Kentucky falls somewhere between Ohio's sixth congressional district, which went for Clinton by 45 points, and the seventeenth, which went for her by 28 points. A recent Survey USA poll of the Bluegrass State had her up 34 points - with a staggering 72 point lead in the east, where Obama was winning less than 20% of the vote. Rasmussen recently had her up 25 points with 13% undecided.West Virginia or Kentucky by themselves are perhaps not that significant in the Democratic primaries, however they do give a taste of an America that will be very visible in November. It is an America that Chris Rock pungently described as:
"filled up with broke-ass white people, living in a trailer, eatin' mayonnaise sandwiches, f*ckin' wit' their sister, and listenin' to John Cougar Mellencamp records."Now, over the years these folks, all over America, have enjoyed voting against Adlai Stevenson, George McGovern, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis and John Kerry... but Barack Obama has got to be their dream to vote against, not only is he as "pointy headed" and as liberal as the afore mentioned, but they suspect him of being a Muslim and to top it off he is actually black, not a surrogate like Bubba.
This was going to be the campaign that would prove to the world that America has moved beyond race. In fact it is going to prove exactly the opposite and be the ugliest in living memory.
Al Gore would have been perfect this year. Nobel Peace Prize, Oscar, right on the war, visionary on new technology and climate change... Instead we have this nightmare stretching out before us.
The Democratic Party will never be the same again no matter who finally wins the nomination. DS
9 comments:
On race, machismo, and Obama
Americans have a bad habit of voting for the tough guy, or the one who looks tough.
Reagan played gunslinging cowboys on TV; beat a (highly educated) Sunday school teacher. Bush 1, who fought in WWII, beat a guy who looked really uncomfortable photoed in a tank. Bush 1 - the preppy, the wimp -- lost to a guy who had openly and notoriously slept with many bimbos which made him far more macho. Bush 2 actually lost the popular vote. He bacame popular only when he started having people killed. In his debate with Kerry he went on and on about how he was FIRM (and resolute) and (made) HARD (decisions).
On race - Reagan promised to beat up on dark skinned people in the mideast. (he eventually paid them off.) Bush 1 won saying that the other candidate wouldn't protect you against scary black men like Willie Horton. Clinton attacked Sister Soujah to prove his whiteness. Bush 2 promised a crusade against people who don't look like us.
And today -- McCain actually has killed (non-white) people, at least from a couple of miles above them. He also brags of his ignorance of economics (which is more macho than admitting to expertise.) Hillary is desparately trying to prove she is tougher than anybody by threatening to bring down fire from heaven on the Iranians. She has run ads saying she will protect your babies from the 3am phone call telling you scary dark skinned people are attacking. (I exagerate but only a little).
Obama is a black male - in the American psyche that means he is the most macho of all. Remember Eldrige Cleaver's Soul On Ice -- he talked of the image of the "Super Masculine Menial." Obama knows that the image is so macho that he has to run away from the image so he is not perceived to be an angry black man. He doesn't need to prove his machismo.
Remember Obama was actually a professor of constitutional law. My perception is that 1) he is far more educated than any of his opponents and 2) he is tightly controlling his image.
West Virginia has two democratic senators (OK, so Byrd started out in the Klan - he still tried to stop the Iraq war), and is a strong union state. I bet that it will likely vote democratic in November even if Obama is the candidate.
I still think Obama will win - not because he will bring the closeted racists to vote for him, but because the economy is going into the tank, the war is going badly, and McCain (anti-Catholic, lobbyists' friend, 100 year occupation, hypocrite) will self destruct.
Yes, the Obama-maniacs are tiresome. But he has gotten registration up, which can only help.
Forensic Economist
What, exactly, is (was) the Democratic Party you're referring to? From my perspective, at least, it's a damn good thing it's changing.
The party has been Republican (Lite) ever since Gingrich and the New American Conract wiped out the contaminated, corrupt party that once had meant something.
What, exactly, is it that you're nostalgic for? Gore, the only man who should have been running, turned out to be a shattered man politically. There's no one else now who genuinely matters. Hillary Clinton, a deeply, intelligent and hardworking person, has proven herself incompetent on a national political stage.
You may be entirely "wright" about Obama, but it's time to stop complaining and whining, David. "I told you so" is poor compensation against the potential coming disasters.
The best thing about Obama is that his ascension means the old guard is out. Regardless of what comes next, it will be *so* much better than the Emanuals, Shusters, Clintons, Reids, and Pelosis, not to mention the awful Rockefellers and the entire "Blue Dog" segment. I'm trying hard not to gag as I include the Jane Harmons on that list.
As any addict knows all too well, you have to bottom out before you can rebuild to health again.
Dark, dark, dark. Your analysis is right on, as far as it goes. But this isn't 1972, or even 2004. It isn't even yesterday.
I'm as old as you are. Older, in fact. And I can do the world weary bit just as good. But my daughters and my wife's nieces loooove Barack. Their excitement is infectious.
Eat a brownie. Lighten up.
By the way, I check your blog daily. You might care to check mine. http://jaytalker.typepad.com/
Courage. Shuffle the cards.
Somehow I managed to spell Senator Schumer's name as "Shuster" in my comment.
Apparently, the Democratic party these days can make anyone's neurons sputter and misfire.....
"The Democratic Party will never be the same again no matter who finally wins the nomination."
Lordy, I hope so.
David, you are certainly turning into quite the harborer of doom.
PS: I took a wrong turn once and ended up in one of those tailer parks you mention. Unbelievable and scary. Those people don't vote.
CH
Jay. Lovely blog!
Your comment has inspired my post for today that I'll be uploading later.
CH. Don't bet on the trailer people not voting this time.
I can't smoke the shmee any more either, or even eat the brownie as my situation is the blood sugar thing. Oh, but I would if I could.
The Obama candidacy has been an entertaining surprise so far, and the upcoming primaries that you accurately predict, Dave, will offer us some priceless moments. What will Hillary say about her smashing success? What will the media say? Obama must have some brilliantly cutting, yet poker faced comments {as in "Hillary should run as long as wants"}already set to offer to the press.
Yes, he does have the image thing carefully controlled, that's all part of the game now. He screwed up twice. Being a church goer {should have chosen a Quaker congregation I guess}in the wrong church and alluding to bitterness.
The other candidates all stumbled more than he did. Who they were or what they said caused problems.
It's going to be a neck and neck this fall and we already know bigots will be bigots, identities will identify, dog whistles will cause the desired Pavlovian reactions and so on. But we don't know the winner yet because we still don't know how the Hillary legion will march. That's all that's left for us to make the calculations. I am betting Obama because the math says so.
The trailer people will vote, sure.
So will others.
Since I am an expat and haven't been Down South much in 40 years, may I ask the experts the following: Are there no trailer parks outside of the "white areas" and are there reasons why the presence of melanin in a trailer is a prohibited factor, or have I missed something?
Harbinger of doom; whiner and complainer; dark, dark, dark. How about trying to see things with the blinders off? Bush's declairing the mission accomplished certainly hasn't made it so, any more than Obama's being annointed the first post-race candidate makes that a reality. The Rev. Wright saga and Obama's need to qualify his wife's comment about being proud, for the first time, of being an American as that of someone not used to speaking in the public forum more than amply illustrate that America is everything but post-race. The fact that this isn't even yesterday doesn't automatically translate into a bright and sunny, lightened-up future, regardless of the "excitement". It seems to me that Fukuyama's "End of History" theory has been sufficiently disproved. Declaring something changed does not make it so. Obama is as much an operative of the Democratic Party apparatus as Clinton or any of the others mentioned in the comments. Why this puerile insistence on a saviour who will magically change everything?
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