Clinton's Scorched Earth Campaign: The Dem Southern Strategy?
Wed Mar 12, 2008 at 10:44:08 PM PDT
I must admit that up until now I haven't taken seriously the doomsday predictions of the effects of Hillary's negative campaigning on the Democratic Party. But with Geraldine Ferraro's recent comments, the non-repudiation by the Clinton campaign, and Ferraro's unapologetic (Obama campaign is attacking me) resignation, I think it's beginning to reach a danger point where I think it will start damaging the Democratic Party.
Add to that the race-baiting by Gov. Ed Rendell (whites won't vote for blacks), Bill Clinton (equating Obama to Jessie Jackson, inferring that Obama is a polarizing black politician), Clinton pollster Sergio Bendixen saying that Latinos don't vote for African Americans, and Clinton's Los Angeles debate anecdote of a black man who blames immigrants for his financial woes, and it presents overall a very ugly picture.
The African American community has been one of the most loyal constituencies in the Democratic Party. They've been a reliable vote, even when soccer moms and white lower-class voters turned into Reagan Republicans, when many Latinos voted for Bush because they remembered his relatively moderate stint as governor in TX. African Americans have stayed with the party during the Republican congressional gains and takeover during the Clinton White House years.
But in addition to the Clintons' bruising, race-focused, anti-democratic, insult-40-states campaign, we get this offensive dreck spoken by another establishment Democratic Party icon:
From the Daily Breeze
"If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position," she continued. "And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept." Ferraro does not buy the notion of Obama as the great reconciler.
I think there has always been some suspicion (and oftentimes hard evidence) that the Democratic Party is failing us in some way, that it is merely paying lip service to its constituency. From selling out to corporate interests, caving to a War on Drugs with vastly harsher penalties for drugs that are associated with minorities, don't ask, don't tell, and allowing lobbyists in Washington D.C. to overrule the will of the voters; it's not a stellar record.
And now this recent primary, where establishment Democratic politicians and operatives have shown that they are more than willing to stoop to the lowest-demoninator pandering and race-baiting, how easily they throw constituencies under the bus in order to maintain their hold on power (the ranks of the expendable: African Americans, voters with higher educations, environmentalists (prius owners), middle and upper-class white progressives (latte-sipping, birkenstock wearing), red-state Dems, and immigrants).
It does make you wonder whether Dem politicians truly believed in a progressive agenda or whether they have been playing us for fools all along; that we're just ladder rungs in their upward quest for power. And if you are a minority (and especially African American) it would make you doubly suspicious whether the Democratic Party is automatically the best choice.
With Barack Obama on the ticket, it won't much of an issue. But since establishment Democratic politicians (and icons such as the Clintons) are so willing to use race as a wedge, what happens when there are two white candidates, one Democrat and one Republican? Would the minority voter automatically give the Democrat the benefit of the doubt as being more enlightened? Perhaps not.
At the rate this is going, after this primary that will be an open question. The Clinton campaign's scorched Earth primary tactics may have been successful in muddying the waters, making the election process so distasteful that it drives away some of Obama's core voters (youth, disaffected, minority), but it also may lead to permanent damage to the Democratic Party. Instead of being isolated to one primary campaign, the vitrol and blatant racism may lead to the Democratic Party's version of the Republican "Southern Strategy," hampering it's ability to attract minority voters for decades. Where would these voters go? Perhaps they would vote Republican (since they could discern no difference between the two), or vote third-party, or stop voting altogether, disgusted with a choice of the lesser of two evils. That's why this ugliness needs to stop NOW.
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