UPDATE: Cobb, originator of the Conservative Brotherhood, has posted an opinion on this post that simply has to be read because it is just that good. It's called "The Beginning of the End of Multiculturalism."
In what will surely go down as an historic election year, a select number of factors are beginning to coalesce and they point the way forward when trying to ascertain who will win the Presidency in Election 2008. But while the country is obsessed with this form of navel-gazing, the big picture is being missed. And the big picture is the alleged refusal of the so-called "Hispanics" in the Democrat Party to roll with Barack Obama. This, I assure you, is going to become an earthquake in any after-action analysis of this election cycle. I suspect what we're going to find is a split; California Hispanics, for example, refusing to go with Obama but many others, especially in the Northeast & Texas, doing so enthusiastically.
The Hispanic "earthquake" that I presume will factor large in the analysis of this presidential election, however, will be an earthquake because of two other factors.
Factor one: Early on in preparation for the primaries, one question bounced around the political consciousness regarding Barack Obama: is he black enough? If I say so myself, I had an interesting take on that question back on February 26, 2007.
On November 16, 2007 Julie Ponzi posted a great piece at No Left Turns. It was originally a comment to a post by Steve Hayward which was inspired by a Daniel Henninger piece at the Wall Street Journal; all are a reflection of one sort or another on the remarkable inability of the left-wing to move beyond year 1968. Julie's post grabbed my attention and in the first comment to her post I tried to explain why it so fascinated me, sure in my conviction that few readers of that site would come at it from my vantage point. Here's a slightly modified version of what I wrote:
Fantastic comment, Julie.
I had an extended discussion with a friend this morning about the Barack v. Hillary situation. Your comment [The 50+ crowd that created him [RattlerGator: meaning, Barack Obama] now feels a kind of obligation to kill him, as he has been obliged to try and kill them.] highlights a problem likely unseen by much of America but very much bubbling in the black community -- people don't know what to think of how they feel about this Barack Obama guy, and they don't know what to think of their feelings vis-a-vis the manner in which white folks view him and respond to him.
I hope that makes sense.
Stated differently, Barack Obama is about as white bread as white bread can get in the black community. If you're following what I'm saying, this need to kill Obama by the Clinton crowd is going to be [RattlerGator: I had my doubts then, I don't anymore] very tricky. I suspect the Clinton plan has always been to bolster Obama for the sole purpose of making him Vice-Presidential. But -- in a weird kind of way, the wider community that (using your terminology, Julie) has given birth to Barack Obama and now, in this political season, needs to kill him may add a more important, if unintended, casualty to its tally -- especially if Obama catches fire [RattlerGator: and he has, far beyond my suspicions] and has to be brutally put down.
From the vantage point of today, it clearly appears Obama is going to have to be forcefully taken down.
As a result, will 2008 be the year that the Democrats truly begin to lose their nearly 50-year-death-grip on the black community? All because the Clinton machine tried to stage-manage the rise of a cherry-picked proxy who became too popular, too fast? Wishful thinking, to be sure, but supremely good speculation if I say so myself. It wasn't just a 60's Baby Boomer generation that was born way back then. The "good white massa (Democrats), bad white massa (Republicans)" dialectic was also put into play then. And that canard can't live forever, can it?
Race forward to today; there is an open question in the Democratic Party as to who will kill whom.
Dave Winer, $100 to Obama.
Michael Weiss, Everybody Hates Bill Clinton.
Factor two: Most interesting to me, however, is a recent column by Frank Rich. I think it's representative of the rich white perspective -- quite different from the middle-to-upper-middle-class white perspective, apparently -- and exposes a class-based rift among white democrats. Very interesting. To this black man, the comments posted in response to that Frank Rich column are truly something to behold.
In the black community, there exists a large segment of folks who believe that African Americans have had to carry the water on the Affirmative Action front (and bear the brunt of all stereotypes bouncing around based on affirmative action) but white females have been the primary beneficiaries. Taken to its logical extension, that means white families have been the unacknowledged primary beneficiaries of affirmative action. That American subplot, whether accurate or not, explains the outrage in the black community that overflowed when people saw the way the Clinton's were playing their hand in South Carolina.
Very bad move by Hillary. But enough to force a "civil war" in the Democrat Party and a split convention attempting to nominate a presidential candidate? I'm not sure about that one but I have suspected for some time that Al Gore is hoping to lay low and be a compromise candidate capable of being the best choice to try and bring the party back together.
Either way you slice it (Hispanics, White women, African Americans), the Democrats may be screwed.
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