Mrs. Clinton’s advisers had hoped that the uproar over inflammatory remarks made by Mr. Obama’s longtime pastor that has rocked his campaign for a week might lead voters and superdelegates to question whether they really know enough about Mr. Obama to back him.
When McCain was endorsed by Hagee, he wasn't forced to explain which of Hagee's bigotted views he renouces. Immediately after that endorsement Geraldine Ferraro's broadcast, then affirmed her racial bias, and her claim that women are the most oppressed. Mrs. Clinton's reaction was weak. Finally, in an effort to bind White America's race fears to Sen. Obama, 30 seconds of Rev. Wright's sermons were conflated. It worked, and Senator Obama stepped directly into it, addressing race as directly as any political figure ever has.
It is now time for Senator Clinton to speak to gender bias. Sen. Clinton, tell us about your understanding of the problem as Senator Obama explained his understanding of our racial problem. We do not expect you to match Senator Obama's delivery as inspiring people is not your forté. You promote yourself as a policy wonk; tell us the practical steps you would take to raise consciousness about gender bias, to actually address it.
Then we can turn to McCain and ask why he doesn't publicly repudiate Hagee's anti-Catholic and anti-Semetic teachings.
What do you say?
Clinton Facing Narrower Path to Nomination
By ADAM NAGOURNEY
WASHINGTON — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton needs three breaks to wrest the Democratic presidential nomination from Senator Barack Obama in the view of her advisers.
She has to defeat Mr. Obama soundly in Pennsylvania next month to buttress her argument that she holds an advantage in big general election states.
She needs to lead in the total popular vote after the primaries end in June.
And Mrs. Clinton is looking for some development to shake confidence in Mr. Obama so that superdelegates, Democratic Party leaders and elected officials who are free to decide which candidate to support overturn his lead among the pledged delegates from primaries and caucuses.
For Mrs. Clinton, all this has seemed something of a long shot since her defeats in February. But that shot seems to have grown a little longer.
Despite Mrs. Clinton’s last-minute trip to Michigan on Wednesday, Democrats there signaled that they are unlikely to hold a new primary. That apparently dashed Mrs. Clinton’s hopes of a new showdown in a state she feels she could win, and it left the state’s delegates in limbo.
The inaction in Michigan followed a similar collapse of her effort to seek another matchup with Mr. Obama in Florida, where, as in Michigan, she won an earlier primary held in violation of party rules.
Without new votes in Florida and Michigan, it will be that much more difficult for Mrs. Clinton to achieve a majority in the total popular vote in the primary season, narrow Mr. Obama’s lead among pledged delegates or build a new wave of momentum.
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Clinton, having been unable
Clinton, having been unable to change the rules of the DNC to favor her, having failed to overcome an overwhelming national bias against her, having through her surrogates attacked Obama's race, having ignored her own negatives and lack of experience, now has called on the FEAR FACTOR. This strategy goes beyond race-baiting. It goes so far as to appeal to white folks fear of Black men, men who sound intellectual and rational, but who--when they think no one is looking--harbor racial animus against White America. Black men who, though they seem polite and well-mannered, want to drink the blood of innocent white children! Black men who have been carrying a grudge against white folks for centuries, and, once in the White House, will probably call on their brown brethren and illegal aliens to wield machetes and murder poor, hard-working white folks in their beds! This is the REAL Barack Obama! The stealth candidate of the Muslims, who prays to Satan, and who has the NERVE to think that whites are WRONG to hate Black people! How dare Obama make white folks feel guilty for not trusting him!
These are the white men Hillary's attack appeals to. Just watch Sean Hannity suggest that electing Obama would put an anti-Semitic racist in the White House! (For real. He said this.) Make white folks afraid of Obama. He's not who he says he is! We can't trust him! Unfortunately, this kind of bullshit works. Swiftboating Kerry was a piece of cake, so why not Obama, too?
If the American electorate falls for this nonsense (again), they deserve the president they'll get--just like they EARNED Bush and the cataclysm he brought on. White folks are determined to run this country into the ground.
White folks are determined
It's worse than that.
They are determined to stay the same AND keep their relative position, while the nature of the game changes.
You can do one or the other. Can't do both. And most are to ignorant of the nature of things to realize it.
Of course, the net result of all this is that the country is run into the ground so WTF, you know?
The Fear Factor
At the beginning of Ralph Ellison's great novel Invisible Man the grandfather of the unnamed protagonist tells his grandson from his death bed to "agree them to death and destruction." Later, when the grandson has become an adult and goes underground he wonders about the utility of his grandfather's death bed charge. Because if we "agree them to death and destruction" i.e., do not demand that America fulfill its democratic promises, are not we then complicit in the nation's failure and doomed to death and destruction ourselves.
African Americans have struggled mightily with this question, in one form or another, since our arrival in this country. Answering this question was certainly a preoccupation for many of us who came of age during the Civil Rights Era. We never quite received a definitve answer but we felt it was important to stay in pursuit of what does it mean to fashion a pluralistic democratic society.
I supported and continue to supprt Barack Obama because I sensed that a younger generation was yearning, in fact, chafing at the bit, to do what it could to move this country closer to a more nuanced and comprehensive answer. I suspect, and I hope that I am wrong, that the so-called post-Civil Rights generation may have reached the end of its string in this struggle. This country may not be worth the blood, sweat and tears that black folks have expended since 1609. We shall see.