I've been in shul most of the past few days and haven't gotten around to blogging anything on the so-called debate of last Tuesday night. Now that I think about it, I've actually avoided it. Because the reality was that I turned it off after the first 45 minutes and put some Coltrane on and tried to forget what those two clowns from ABC - Walt Disney Entertainment were doing: talking about exactly the things that thinking Americans, concerned for the future, could not give a damn about. The first half was strictly about ratings and sensationalism to rank with that of the National Enquirer's lower competition. Being an avid watcher of "This Week" since it was David Brinkley, I was most disappointed, nay, disturbed with the obvious bias that was being shown against not only Obama, but against the intelligence of the American voter. Stephanopoulous, who owes his professional life to the Clintons, should have known to recuse himself from "moderating" this "debate". There was nothing moderate about what I saw.
At the first, they were talking still, still, still, talking about Jeremiah Wright. I thought: "aren't we past this?" and "why are they still talking about this BS?" I was in more or less a state of shock that this could be happening, right here in the so-called bastion of freedom in the world where the press is free to do pretty much whatever they want or (according to this morning's New York Times), what the government wants, at least from former military who are connected with the military contracting business somehow. Of all the issues faced by this country at this moment in its history, immediately prior to a potentially pivotal primary vote in Pennsylvania, these two, whose elevators stop at their pockets, not their journalistic integrity center in their brains, decide to talk about trash. Where did they find the ONE voter in this country who "is concerned" with Mr. Obama's patriotism because he doesn't wear a lapel pin? Why are we talking about this "because I know X, therefore I think like X" business? It's almost beyond words and is the reason why I turned it off.
If Obama was pissed off, I don't blame him one bit. If he looked irritated, he had a right to be so. I was irritated. If he would have overreacted, people would have found a way to get on his case about his "temperament" or some nonsense. Having spent the better part of four years studying political science in college, loving politics, this was the equivalent of florid syphillis. Painful and disgusting.
I very briefly perused some of the comments on the ABC website after reading Frank Rich's column in the Times, having just come back from seder at Rav Menashe East's home, where he hosted 45 people. if you have not read that column, you should. If you didn't see the "debate", allow me to tell you that I will not deem it appropriate to remove the quotation marks from that word, as what happened, at least from the half that I saw, was more of a hatchet or axe job on Obama. I have mentioned this to several people, and I invariably hear "oh well, he needed to be tested!" Tested on what? Whether he wears a lapel pin? To vouch for the opinions and statements of people that he happens to know? This is just like the Communist witch hunters headed by the Senator from Appleton, Wisconsin in the 1950s. Nothing less. They used guilt by association then, and Obama's opponents, including and especially Mrs. Clinton, are doing the exact same thing now. The below was an example of a particularly well-done comment that I thought was worthy of attention here:
I love reading the comments of people who think that the moderators did a good job because they "tested" Obama with questions that might be used against him later by Republicans. Is that really the job of moderators of a Presidential debate? Did they tell Obama that they were going to do that when they invited him to a "debate?" It would be like taking your car in to get an oil change and the guy picks up a hammer and smashes your windshield in. And then his buddy excuses his behavior by telling you that the guy did it to "test" you, in case somebody smashes your windshirld in sometime in the future. I'm sure we would all accept that. Let's put this as straight as possible. The moderators of a debate are supposed to be moderating a debate between the candidates, not attacking one of the two candidates incessantly in order to "test" that candidate. That's just a nice little fake excuse you can use if you want to attack somebody, just like the guy with the hammer who was just supposed to change your oil. Stop with all the excuses, already. These guys were supposed to be objectively moderating a DEBATE between candidates who were running for the highest office in the land. Instead they chose to use the time to attack the candidate that they obviously want to lose the contest. Think up all the stupid excuses you want. They don't work. We know a hatchet job when we see it. This was a hatchet job, pure and simple.
I agree and endorse wholeheartedly the sentiments and their expression. There are over 19,000 comments on the debate story on ABC.com. From reports from people who get paid to review those commentary boards, the trend is overwhelmingly in favor of the views I hold and share here. Let us hope that most Pennsylvania voters on Tuesday April 22 see the so-called "race" for what it is: over.
Chag kasher v' sameach....
Randy Shiner
Showing posts with label Democrats. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Democrats. Show all posts
21 April 2008
16 March 2008
What’s the Real Racial Divide?
What does this say about me? You?
RS
March 16, 2008
The Way We Live Now
What’s the Real Racial Divide?
By MATT BAI
When old-time Democrats in Washington reminisce about the days of brokered conventions — floor fights and frantic early-morning calls, deals cut under the haze of cigar smoke — they talk about them the way a paleontologist might describe the hurtling stride of a velociraptor: an awesome spectacle, to be sure, but not one you would really want to see up close. Last week, Democrats woke up to find that the unthinkable may be upon them. There might still be an unforeseen turn in the titanic clash between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, but the way it looks now, the outcome will probably rest with the party’s nearly 800 superdelegates, many of whom will no doubt expect to be bribed and beseeched by both campaigns. If that’s the case, there is about as much chance of settling the issue before the convention as there is of, say, Obama waking up one morning and deciding that “hope” is kind of a dumb slogan after all.
You can already discern the outlines of the argument that Clinton will make to the superdelegates: The contest is basically a draw, and now it’s time to choose the candidate who can be elected. Sure, Barack’s won all those little states like North Dakota and Idaho, but what does that really get you? I’m the candidate who has won all the big states, and that’s what matters in November. In fact, Clinton has already declared that Democrats will never carry states like Idaho and Alaska, which sided with Obama — an argument that has to rankle Howard Dean, the party chairman, who has been pouring money into rural states as part of his “50-state strategy” for expanding the electoral map.
Clinton’s argument highlights the most vexing contrast of this Democratic campaign. Obama, fueled by overwhelming African-American support, has trounced Clinton in most big cities, while Clinton has pounded him in outlying areas. In Ohio, for instance, Obama won only the four largest urban areas in the state, while Clinton took 70 percent of the vote in smaller cities and towns; if you took only a passing glance at the electoral maps of states like Ohio, Missouri and Texas, you would think you were looking at one of those stark red-and-blue maps from recent general elections, with Obama cast as the Democrat and Clinton as the Republican. And yet, oddly, it is Obama who has emerged as the preferred candidate of sparsely populated rural states that are thought to be more conservative, and it is Clinton who has taken the larger, industrialized states. (Obama did carry his home state, Illinois, and neighboring Missouri, but he won the latter by only a single percentage point.) To put this simply, Obama wins in major urban areas but can’t seem to win in urbanized states, while Clinton wins in rural communities but consistently loses in rural states. Why?
One relevant fact, as many Clinton supporters have pointed out, is that rural states often hold caucuses rather than primaries, which require the kind of local organizing at which Obama’s team excels. It might also be that the economic downturn has had a more traumatic effect in bigger states, making the voters there responsive to Clinton’s more pragmatic message. It is also possible, however, that the disparity between Obama’s performance in urban primaries and rural caucuses tells us something larger — and counterintuitive — about race in America.
The assumption has always been that a black candidate should perform worse among white voters in states with less racial diversity because those voters are supposedly less enlightened. In fact, the reverse has been true for Obama: in the overwhelmingly white states of Wisconsin and Vermont, for instance, he carried 54 and 60 percent of the white voters respectively, according to exit polls, while in New Jersey he won 31 percent and in Tennessee he won 26 percent. As some bloggers have shrewdly pointed out, Obama does best in areas that have either a large concentration of African-American voters or hardly any at all, but he struggles in places where the population is decidedly mixed.
What this suggests, perhaps, is that living in close proximity to other races — sharing industries and schools and sports arenas — actually makes Americans less sanguine about racial harmony rather than more so. The growing counties an hour’s drive from Cleveland and St. Louis are filled with white voters whose parents fled the industrial cities of their youth before a wave of African-Americans and for whom social friction and economic competition, especially in an age of declining opportunity, are as much a part of daily life as traffic and mortgage payments. As Erica Goode wrote in these pages last year, Robert Putnam and other sociologists have, in fact, found that people living in more diverse areas evince less trust for others — no matter what their race. Maybe it shouldn’t surprise us that while white Democrats in rural states are apparently willing to accept the notion of a racially transcendent candidate, those living in the shadow of postindustrial atrophy seem to have a harder time detaching from enduring stereotypes, and they may be less optimistic that the country as a whole would actually elect a black candidate.
For Obama, no matter what social currents may be at play, the issue is hardly academic. At two critical junctures in the past six weeks, he has been on the precipice of securing the nomination only to fall frustratingly short in primaries in the most populous states. For this reason, the contest next month in Pennsylvania, the last of the big battleground states to hold a primary (aside from possible do-overs in Florida and Michigan), may carry a significance beyond the delegates themselves. There is no question that Obama could lose to Clinton in that state and still go on to give the acceptance speech in Denver. But this may also be his last chance to reassure his supporters — and maybe even himself — that he can break through whatever barriers have limited an otherwise stellar and historic campaign. Obama holds himself out as the candidate whose own life and lineage embody the nation’s new racial complexities. The question is whether he can win the sprawling states that embody them too.
Matt Bai, who covers politics for the magazine, is the author of “The Argument: Billionaires, Bloggers and the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics.”
RS
March 16, 2008
The Way We Live Now
What’s the Real Racial Divide?
By MATT BAI
When old-time Democrats in Washington reminisce about the days of brokered conventions — floor fights and frantic early-morning calls, deals cut under the haze of cigar smoke — they talk about them the way a paleontologist might describe the hurtling stride of a velociraptor: an awesome spectacle, to be sure, but not one you would really want to see up close. Last week, Democrats woke up to find that the unthinkable may be upon them. There might still be an unforeseen turn in the titanic clash between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, but the way it looks now, the outcome will probably rest with the party’s nearly 800 superdelegates, many of whom will no doubt expect to be bribed and beseeched by both campaigns. If that’s the case, there is about as much chance of settling the issue before the convention as there is of, say, Obama waking up one morning and deciding that “hope” is kind of a dumb slogan after all.
You can already discern the outlines of the argument that Clinton will make to the superdelegates: The contest is basically a draw, and now it’s time to choose the candidate who can be elected. Sure, Barack’s won all those little states like North Dakota and Idaho, but what does that really get you? I’m the candidate who has won all the big states, and that’s what matters in November. In fact, Clinton has already declared that Democrats will never carry states like Idaho and Alaska, which sided with Obama — an argument that has to rankle Howard Dean, the party chairman, who has been pouring money into rural states as part of his “50-state strategy” for expanding the electoral map.
Clinton’s argument highlights the most vexing contrast of this Democratic campaign. Obama, fueled by overwhelming African-American support, has trounced Clinton in most big cities, while Clinton has pounded him in outlying areas. In Ohio, for instance, Obama won only the four largest urban areas in the state, while Clinton took 70 percent of the vote in smaller cities and towns; if you took only a passing glance at the electoral maps of states like Ohio, Missouri and Texas, you would think you were looking at one of those stark red-and-blue maps from recent general elections, with Obama cast as the Democrat and Clinton as the Republican. And yet, oddly, it is Obama who has emerged as the preferred candidate of sparsely populated rural states that are thought to be more conservative, and it is Clinton who has taken the larger, industrialized states. (Obama did carry his home state, Illinois, and neighboring Missouri, but he won the latter by only a single percentage point.) To put this simply, Obama wins in major urban areas but can’t seem to win in urbanized states, while Clinton wins in rural communities but consistently loses in rural states. Why?
One relevant fact, as many Clinton supporters have pointed out, is that rural states often hold caucuses rather than primaries, which require the kind of local organizing at which Obama’s team excels. It might also be that the economic downturn has had a more traumatic effect in bigger states, making the voters there responsive to Clinton’s more pragmatic message. It is also possible, however, that the disparity between Obama’s performance in urban primaries and rural caucuses tells us something larger — and counterintuitive — about race in America.
The assumption has always been that a black candidate should perform worse among white voters in states with less racial diversity because those voters are supposedly less enlightened. In fact, the reverse has been true for Obama: in the overwhelmingly white states of Wisconsin and Vermont, for instance, he carried 54 and 60 percent of the white voters respectively, according to exit polls, while in New Jersey he won 31 percent and in Tennessee he won 26 percent. As some bloggers have shrewdly pointed out, Obama does best in areas that have either a large concentration of African-American voters or hardly any at all, but he struggles in places where the population is decidedly mixed.
What this suggests, perhaps, is that living in close proximity to other races — sharing industries and schools and sports arenas — actually makes Americans less sanguine about racial harmony rather than more so. The growing counties an hour’s drive from Cleveland and St. Louis are filled with white voters whose parents fled the industrial cities of their youth before a wave of African-Americans and for whom social friction and economic competition, especially in an age of declining opportunity, are as much a part of daily life as traffic and mortgage payments. As Erica Goode wrote in these pages last year, Robert Putnam and other sociologists have, in fact, found that people living in more diverse areas evince less trust for others — no matter what their race. Maybe it shouldn’t surprise us that while white Democrats in rural states are apparently willing to accept the notion of a racially transcendent candidate, those living in the shadow of postindustrial atrophy seem to have a harder time detaching from enduring stereotypes, and they may be less optimistic that the country as a whole would actually elect a black candidate.
For Obama, no matter what social currents may be at play, the issue is hardly academic. At two critical junctures in the past six weeks, he has been on the precipice of securing the nomination only to fall frustratingly short in primaries in the most populous states. For this reason, the contest next month in Pennsylvania, the last of the big battleground states to hold a primary (aside from possible do-overs in Florida and Michigan), may carry a significance beyond the delegates themselves. There is no question that Obama could lose to Clinton in that state and still go on to give the acceptance speech in Denver. But this may also be his last chance to reassure his supporters — and maybe even himself — that he can break through whatever barriers have limited an otherwise stellar and historic campaign. Obama holds himself out as the candidate whose own life and lineage embody the nation’s new racial complexities. The question is whether he can win the sprawling states that embody them too.
Matt Bai, who covers politics for the magazine, is the author of “The Argument: Billionaires, Bloggers and the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics.”
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