The Recess Supervisor is usually a an enjoyable and enlightening read on state politics. Even if one doesn't agree with him, his insights are solid, his arguments sound.
That's not the case with his anti-Obama screed.
The indefatigable Seth Zlotocha highlighted a lot of what's wrong in the piece. The Brawler wanted to address two points.
1. As analysis, the piece is ... unfortunate. RS offered this...
Begin by looking at Obama's demographic base - African-Americans and affluent, white liberal suburbanites with college degrees. When it comes to the traditional Democratic base - blue collar types, working-class families - Obama gets slaughtered. And frankly, if I were a Democrat, I would be sure to think back to where these voters went the last few times you didn't give them a candidate that appealed to them.
... at a time when Obama already was making gains among the highlighted elements of "the traditional Democratic base." And of course in Wisconsin Obama beat Hillary among key elements of the base or was just a hair behind her. He beat Clinton among union households, 54 to 45. He beat her among middle aged voters. He beat her among voters with an income of less than $50,000. He barely lost women, 51 to 49 and was close to her with Catholic voters (the Brawler being a heretic who voted for Obama). The fact that voters like Obama more the longer they're exposed to him -- along with the fact most Dems would be happy with Obama or Hillary -- undermine RS's contention that Dems are going to drift away to the likes of John McCain.
This observation ... leaves much to be desired as welll:
Everyone's heard every bad thing about Hillary Clinton that could possibly be said, and she still polls even with McCain. Nobody's heard a bad word about Barack Obama ever, and he's barely beating John McCain in head-to-head matchups. Obama's numbers have nowhere to go but down.
As seen here, Obama beats McCain in head-to-head matchups. And as I've said elsewhere, the argument that "everyone's heard every bad thing about Hillary Clinton that could possibly be said" gives the right very little credit for creativity. Here's a new one, inspired by a Charlie Sykes listener: "She can't run her house, how can she run our country?" There's a million more where that came from. The attacks on Hillary as the (Fill in the blank) wife of Bill Clinton have been written. That doesn't mean fresh attacks on Hillary as preznit candidate -- aimed at waverers on Hillary -- couldn't be worse. And you can be damn sure Jay Leno would be slagging her every night of the week. The implicit assumption that Hillary's numbers couldn't go down is, frankly, BS, RS. (Note: The Brawler is not saying this as a reason to vote against Hillary. He offers it to dispel the notion that Hillary is immune to further attacks.)
2. While RS prides himself on his ability to see things clearly, his view is more clouded by partisanship than he cares to admit.
For instance, he seems to endorse the GOP line that black Americans vote for Dems not because the party best represents their interests but for other, more pathetic reasons. These reasons include (not saying RS endorses all of these) (1) past loyalty and nostalgia, (2) because their leaders tell them to, and (3) because they're manipulated by white liberals.
From RS's post (Brawler's bold):
Of course, Obama is black - well, okay, he's half-black - and that surely is a difference worth noting. All it proves, of course, is that the liberal elites have caved to the identity politics that increasingly defines the Democratic Party. So now they've got Barack Obama, the candidate of convenience, the half-black Trojan horse carrying Howard Dean's old supporters and, somewhere beneath the piles of rhetorical bullshit, Howard Dean's old message.
The left couldn't do it alone, but hey, maybe if they co-opt the black vote, that'll get them the win they've been after. The Obama campaign sets new heights when it comes to political manipulation of black Americans by old white liberals.
So apparently the black Americans who've voted for Obama have done so without exercising rational thought or weighing whether he best represents their interests and values. They've been co-opted! Bamboozled! Manipulated! -- not only by Obama or "old white liberals." Who are these "old white liberals" who cooked up this devious scheme?
RS's rant brought to mind this excerpt from an otherwise reasonable piece he did about Huckabee:
Right now, the GOP uses evangelical voters the same way the Democrats use black voters. Just substitute Pat Robertson and James Dobson for Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. Exact same thing. A kiss on the cheek and a condescending pat on the head, and then they send them to the back of the bus. The rank and file get ignored, while the movement leaders cash their fat checks and go home to their big houses.
Now, the Brawler would be the first to say that Dem strategists and politicians may take the African American vote for granted. And the Brawler would be the first to say the Democratic Party should do a far better job of working for African Americans, particularly the broad swathe of urban poor. (All of which would require a significant amount of public investment, something RS would likely oppose.)
But in this imperfect world, there's little question which party does more to advance African-American interests on everything from health care to labor policy to diversity initiatives to social investment. It's the Democrats. A conservative may argue we're in a color-blind world where those aforementioned items aren't necessary. The Brawler doubts that argument would get much traction with African-American voters.
But there's a bigger problem with RS's evangelical voters-GOP: black voters-Dems analogy that gets to the heart of why blacks don't vote for the GOP, including black Republicans:
Dems, as a rule, don't engage in evangelical-baiting to win elections (some partisan groups do so to raise money, however) or pass laws intended to hurt evangelicals or seek to prevent evangelicals to vote. But Republicans do all those things to blacks.
Purging eligible black voters from the rolls in Florida. Trying to whip up voter-fraud hysteria in Wisconsin and other states. George W. Bush repeatedly snubbing the NAACP. Running an ad in which a white woman jokes how she met Harold Ford at a Playboy party and asks her to call him.
And of course in Wisconsin during the late 80s and early 90s we had the spectacle of Republicans bemoaning how people (read blacks) were streaming up from Chicago to Milwaukee to cash in on Wisconsin's richer welfare benefits (and, yes, the Rs were helped by some Ds on this). Despite the utter lack of evidence for this charge, Tommy Thompson pushed a blatantly unconstitutional residency requirement. And now we have an RPW that still is pushing for a Voter ID bill that would likely dampen African-American turnout.
The GOP tries to make up for this with Ken Mehleman's "outreach" and running sacrificial lambs like Lynn Swann, Michael Steele and Alan Keyes -- guys who get practically nil support from African American voters. But these efforts are more farcical than anything else.
Now, African Americans have shifted their voting patterns in the past if the parties seriously competed for their vote. As Matthew Yglesias lays out here, the black vote was contested as recently as the 1950s, achieving near parity under Ike. It was only after the Voting Rights Act of 1964 that Dems won huge majorities among African Americans -- the GOP doing its part to accelerate the trend by becoming the party of southern white racists.
Black Americans will vote for Obama for reasons ranging from pride (just as JFK got Catholic votes and Bush got evangelical votes) to the belief that he best represents their interests. They will vote against Republicans because the GOP doesn't deserve their votes.
(Update: Lightly edited)
Comments