Letters to the Editor

• And if Obama says "Hillary has alienated African-American voters in favor of pandering to the fears and prejudices of White Ethnic voters - and allow me, once again, to count the ways..."

  [Read the article: Was Hillary channeling George Wallace?]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  He would be absolutely correct. He would also be divisively playing the race card in a manner that's both vulgar and destructive to the party. But, again, he would be absolutely correct.

  Obama could go a step further as Clinton has, and seek to increase the alienation of African-American voters by constantly pointing out how they abandoned Clinton in droves during the South Caroline primary. How more were set adrift with the Ferraro flap. How nearly all have jumped ship since Clinton started her ridiculous posturing in pursuit of White Ethnic Solidarity.

  He could point to poll numbers showing that many African-Americans are now claiming they would never support Hillary in any campaign, how Bill's negatives have reached George W. levels among this group, and how tensions between Latinos and African-Americans have been inflamed by the Clinton campaign.

  And he would be correct on the facts. And yet still be vulgar, short-sighted and morally dubious for attempting to take personal advantage of them.

  Because the larger point is not the Obama will have a more difficult time gaining the votes of blue collar white ethnics with limited education than Hillary does. The larger point is that the modern GOP has been eating into this (long ago) Democratic base ever since Nixon's "Southern Strategy" and the phenomena of "Reagan Democrats".

  And they've done it in the same way that Clinton has been accused of doing it:

  -by making dog-whistle appeals to their social conservatism and racial prejudices (going all-out Annie Oakley in favor of the 2nd Amendment; claiming over and over in as many ways as possible that Obama's appeal cannot possibly extend beyond African American voters and those hoity-toity liberal elites with their fancy diplomas);

  -by extending BS panaceas and meager handouts that do nothing to change the underlying economic dynamics that are crippling this demographic. ("What's the matter with Kansas (PA, OH, IN)? Nothing that a Gas Tax Holiday can't cure!");

  -by the creation of diversions, wedge-issues, stereotypes, and posturing. (Fear the Persians... who I will obliterate! Fear Black Nationalist jeremiads from the pulpits! Sixties-era Radicals! Latte-sipping, hybrid-driving, diploma-earning elitists... like Obama! Like economists!).

  So, sure, I think she was channeling George Wallace. It was and is an effective strategy, one that the Republicans have been winning elections on for years. But it is also vulgar. And short-sighted. And morally contemptible. And ultimately ruinous for a party that needs the support of the traditional have-nots, and suffers when one such racial/socio-economic subgroup is pitted against the other.

  Permalink Friday, May 9, 2008 10:27 AM