06.02.08
Hillary Clinton has a black people problem
Yes you can stop rubbing your eyes that’s right I went there. She also has a young people problem, a grass roots organization problem, a college educated problem, a math problem, etc… You know it’s funny we are well into the silly season (to quote a phrase), but grouping clusters and splitting hairs to form a willing coalition of voters is beyond silly isn’t it? In the real world people don’t vote in blocks or do they…
The democratic/republican party has without fail every year taken a crap on the swing voters who every election do the heavy lifting to push their respective parties over the hump. In 2008 it will be the conservatives/religious right who sit on their hands. In 2004 it was the youth vote who was the scapegoat for the democrats, party insiders complained openly that youth didn’t “show up”… Why should youth voters show up and continue to support a party that has get out the vote parties and cool people making commercials telling the kids to vote or die then come January, says thanks now get outta here? African Americans also share a common feeling of complete and utter abandonment after every election. And judging by what happens in Denver we shall see what these various groups who are completely ignored by the media will do.
People with short memories don’t recall that Hillary up until Iowa was winning the black vote. And up until South Carolina was competitive with black voters, Barack Obama didn’t take the vote from her, he didn’t steal the vote, they jumped ship to the winning candidate and frankly I can’t blame them. But there was also something else at play here. Black voters saw the writing on the wall, and noticed a certain condescending tone and that hasn’t sat well with these voters for some time now. How bad does it not sit well with them you ask? 90% vs. 10% is not a good average to have for somebody (Hillary Clinton) who would NEED them desperately in the fall. What is even more hilarious is the callous disregard for them as a whole which shows the all around general disrespect from various people in the media and political parties. There is no other voting block out there with such a huge contrast of support or lack thereof. Even with Hillary’s commanding lead among women voters and women over 50 she isn’t winning it 90 to 10. The fact that this isn’t news is what it is, people have brushed it off as just being excited because he is black blah blah blah I’m not a historian but nobody loses that kind of support over night and have it not be a problem in the future. And I don’t have to be a talking blow hard on CNN to realize that, had this been any other voter block like for instance Whites, Hispanics, Catholics, Jews, “hard working Americans” and now apparently Puerto Ricans etc… The media would be going crazy over this right now ohhhh wait… Yet a candidate has lost a commanding lead well over 50% of support overnight from a particular voting group and nothing not a blip not a peep not a sound. Shocking I tell you.
I have a little bit of news for the media, black people weren’t sold on Obama from the beginning; black people aren’t mindless Kool-Aid drinking sheeple. Black people saw what was going on and made a decision. There was no group meeting and somebody got up and said hey the black guy won Iowa we gotta support him now. There was no black memo, voters were split evenly for months on this issue and finally the color coded disrespect/neglect had reached the level of “Enough”. So what does this mean you ask? I don’t know, but what I do know from talking to people is that silently many black people feel they are already living bush’s “3rd term” and have been living it for years McCain, Bush, Bush2, Gore, Clinton, Clinton 2, Reagan, Obama, is no different to them. People assume very poorly I might add, that block voters don’t care or just can’t be bothered with politics. It isn’t because these things aren’t interesting quite to the contrary; it is because many black people do not feel the difference between political parties. They feel that many if not all politicians say things then get into office and ignore them. They feel that this is a game and nothing ever changes on their side of town so to speak. And over the last couple hundred years give or take can you blame them. It is from this “eyes wide open” stance that they view their life and this view is shaped. Their struggle is no different for the hard working white people Hillary Clinton covets today from the Appalachia mountains, but said screw em when her husband first ran for the presidency, their beefs are no less grounded on recurring cycles of thanks for your vote now beat it until we need it again in 4 years.
As we step further into this century if the feeling of neglect continues so will the shifting support that democrats once counted on and bragged about, and to me that sounds like a bigger problem.
05.12.08
Breaking Kneecaps… Clinton’s “hope” stragegy?
Breaking Kneecaps… Today on Meet the Press with Tim Russert it became obvious that this was the “strategy” they have reached too or should i say fallen too. I put strategy in quotation marks because honestly, hoping and praying your opponent trips up while you denigrate him isn’t really something people train, plan, and organize their whole political life for. If that is all that rests in the balance of you winning (somebody else screwing up) you don’t deserve to win. I’ve thought long and hard about this and every thing leads me to disgust, and it’s a shame too because I expected more. The Clintons aren’t trying to win student body council President here. This isn’t some two bit vote for me because he has coodies type election so acting THIS childish is amazing. Their actions when they were flying high and down in the dumps worry me immensely, in the movies they call it foreshadowing.
While I was talking to a good friend of mine she brought up a interesting point and I quote “Is it me or does Hillary not se the elephant dung all around her campaign, nobody wants to talk about it or smell it but the piles are so high she will step in it eventually” What is the dung you ask? Hillary has once again defied the laws of physics, reason, and mathematics. The thing that is most astounding about this new line of reasoning is that it expects you to totally ignore everything that was said previously. I’ve always said from the beginning of this election cycle the Clintons, and even John McCain to some extent, have been running an old school election campaign. Waaaaaay back in yesteryear you could say something then tomorrow say something different and it would take weeks maybe even months for these words to come back if at all. Today our society is based around the internet(s) a series of tubes ala Ted Stevens connected to the google.<– that joke never gets old and this goof is in charge of it.
Double speak is to be expected in such a long drawn out nomination process but I never expected anything like this. In the time it took John McCain to switched sides on abortion, Hillary has switched her opinion from delegates, to super delegates, to popular vote, back to super delegates, and finally in the laps of “hardworking” Americans which is dog whistle for poor white people. There is however a method to this madness, Hillary isn’t racist, she is simply playing the crowd in a micro manor. Every time she hops off the plane she transforms into what ever she believes the people want to hear. Take Pennsylvania for instance, she thought they like guns and whiskey so she pandered to the bar crowd taking shots and bragging bout her guns. In Indiana she thought they drive a lot so she decided it was high time to roll back her husband’s gas tax (yes I kid you not Bill Clinton raised the gas tax that she was fighting against last week) and thus kicked up a fuss for the hard working Americans. And finally in West Virginia and Kentucky she is working the room with I usually win YOUR votes and those matter the most.
There is nothing wrong with reaching out to certain pockets of society, but I think she reached just a little too far with this latest AP poll talk for a number of reasons. For starters there are republicans actively working to inflate her numbers for malicious reasons. However small they are, there is no denying their little voice may have tipped Indiana in her favor. The other problem with this line of reasoning is, many of her supporters (women) are angry she is losing and will say anything to pollsters for shits and giggles, but come November when the choice on the ballet is vote for somebody who agrees with you politically or vote for the guy who will roll back things even worse I think we all know the answer to that. The other problem and this is pretty much the most insane thing about this line of thinking, reasoning, and strategy. Hillary Clinton has completely written off the black vote. (Ok I would like to pause here and just interject my personal opinion here.) As much as she is bragging about getting the hard working White American vote (like all other races aren’t hardworking), neglecting African Americans will have dire straits for her come November. Insulting African Americans has already lead to a unprecedented 90% for Barack Obama. Many clueless supporters and even analysts attribute it simply to them being happy a “black” guy is running. Utter complete and total nonsense these same analysts seem to forget Hillary was winning the African American vote by almost 58% during the onset of this election, it wasn’t until they started to feel taken for granted and insulted that they jumped ship.
People aren’t stupid we can clearly see what is happening and when the mainstream media (which is dumber than a bag of rocks) notices it is no longer subtle, you have reached rock star lemon and lime light levels of obviousness. Earlier during this election watching Hillary self destruct was mildly entertaining, hell I even enjoyed it after the South Carolina primary. It kind of reminded me of a song by Lily Allen, the lyrics go “At first when I see you cry, Yea it makes me smile, Yea it makes me smile, At worst I feel bad for awhile, But then I just smile, I go ahead and smile”. It was a guilty pleasure but something happened last week that changed everything, now that Barack Obama is the presumptive nominee watching this train wreck isn’t as entertaining. It’s a weird thing, when you have a common foe beating up on them is fun but once the battle is over the whole joy is gone and so here we are.
Hope isn’t a strategy.
