Posted on 04/27/2008 7:27:48 AM PDT by XR7
So my home state of Pennsylvania handed Hillary Clinton a win and a reason to keep fighting to be the Democratic nominee. As I write, Terry McCauliffe is probably on CNN pleading his candidate's case, facts about her low delegate and popular vote counts be damned.
But before Democratic superdelegates get too itchy to snuff the Obama campaign, they should consider the new animal that move might spawn: the Obama Republican.
I know: the notion of black folks and young folks and progressive white folks abandoning the Democrats en masse if the Wife of Bill is the nominee ain't exactly new; Right here on The Root, the writer William Jelani Cobb espoused a McCain protest vote in November, and has since accepted a ticket to Denver as a Democratic delegate in August. But that makes the threat no less real. Any Democratic honcho needing a lesson in the power of disaffected black voters need only Google "2002 and Clarence Mitchell IV."
Mitchell's name probably won't ring any bells nationally during a presidential election cycle, but Maryland's establishment Democrats probably still cringe at its mention. A scion of Maryland's most significant civil rights clan, in 2001 Mitchell held a state Senate seat in West Baltimore that had all but belonged to his family for years. But Mitchell, nicknamed 'C4', wasn't good at playing go-along-get-along with party bigwigs.
Dissatisfied with entrenched politicking, Mitchell threatened to switch his party affiliation – not a backbreaker but certainly an embarrassment to a party that for 40 years had a lock on the statehouse and black voters.
Mitchell's antics didn't help him when newspaper articles led to an ethics investigation of some of his business dealings. He was never charged with a crime, but was nonetheless censured by the Democratic-controlled legislature. When he was up next for re-election, he lost his seat to an establishment-backed candidate. His career in Maryland politics was supposed to have been extinguished, but he had an ace in the hole.
When the 2002 gubernatorial election came along, Mitchell used the occasion to raise his middle finger once more at party bosses. Kathleen Kennedy (yes those Kennedys) Townsend was the Democratic candidate, a two-term lieutenant governor who should have mopped the floor with the Republican nominee, Bob Ehrlich, at the time a four-term congresman. But she had to contend with a deep disaffection and resentment among the state's black Democrats.
Ehrlich tapped Michael Steele, a black Republican businessman from well-heeled, very-black Prince George's County as his running mate. Then he engaged Mitchell to help him woo pissed-off black Baltimore Dems. T-shirts, signs, and bumper-stickers with a not-so-subtle message began to dot some black Baltimore neighborhoods. They read "Steele Democrat", a coy double-entendre that was both the rallying cry for Mitchell's effort to drive black voters into the GOP camp and a thumbing of the nose at the Democratic establishment that had displaced him.
The same establishment allowed Townsend to commit the fatal gaffe of picking a white, career Republican as her running mate in a state brimming with young, progressive black voters. Ehrlich and Steele won 51.5 percent to 47.6 percent, carrying a higher percentage of black votes than any Republican candidate in a statewide race in recent, if not recorded, history.
Steele, staunchly GOP, became something Democrats had never even envisioned: the state's first black lieutenant governor.
Fast forward six years. Barack Obama is no Clarence Mitchell IV, threatening to burn the party down if he loses. Nor is Hillary Clinton a Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, susceptible to political miscalculation on a grand scale and aloof enough on the stump to mistake the name of one black college for another.
Still, parallels exist that should worry Democratic strategists come November. Some Pennsylvania exit polls suggest that a small but significant number of Obama supporters would still rather stay home or vote elephant if Hills gets the nod. And though we can presume Obama would do his best to get his supporters marching lockstep with Clinton if she is the nominee, you can bet some operative is already in the wings with "Obama Republican" shirts, signs, and bumper stickers to hand out.
Anyone got C4's number?
Or perhaps McCAIN DEMOCRAT ?
Don’t worry, we have plenty of them here on this forum.
Yup... no-Obama = no-vote.
and who recognize and wholly reject his:
Circle of anti-American associaitions, backers, and supporters.
On election day, should he be the democratic nomineee, we will see that many more than the liberal pundents expect recognixe the:
Only problem is, Obama will still get their vote. Them and all the young College age voters (white) who are coming out of our Marxist Universities by the millions.
Anyone who thinks this election is a slam-dunk for McDrag, had better change their medication or get counseling.
I don’t agree. I believe that they’ll react the same way they always do. Don’t underestimate the tribal revenge template that we’ve seen so often.
Blacks may someday vote Republican in significant numbers. I’ll believe it when I see it. Predictions are worthless.
“If Obama’s not on the ticket, they will stay home.”
Right. But what if the ticket is Hillary/Obama? I believe that ticket just might beat McCain. If Hillary is the chosen nominee, she knows she will need Obama on her ticket in order to win. Remember she was the FIRST to suggest they join forces with her at the TOP. My biggest fear is a Hillary/Obama ticket!
Check on the numbers of college age kids who actually voted in the primaries. They usually go to the rallies, party it up, then, come election day, don’t get out and vote. Thank God. And, come to think of it, the millions of kids in college are probably getting fed grants. Why bite the hand that feeds you?
To predict the actions of someone who has been deceived and to predict the actions of someone who prefers to be deceived...There is a difference.
Another McCain booster trying to pass off the improbable and inevitable in order to convince common-sense conservatives to vote for a traitor to their cause.
If Obama loses the bid for POTUS to Hillary, he will be on the ticket as the VP running with her. No matter what they say today, no matter what they have bombed each other with to this point in the campaign, Hillary NEEDS Obama to win in November.
Obama out of the running means disillusionment amongst a hefty amount of MSM indoctrinated, thus naive electorate whom will simply not vote period.
The crowd that pays little or no attention to reality, only the Disney perspective (MSM, MTV, holding hands, dancing to and fro with their Leftist saviours in the manicured rolling green meadows, accentuated with the bluest of skies and greenest of trees.) of life will not vote for Hillary without their Obamagic man.
Nope.
Neither can have the other on the ticket because the staffs hate each other so much, and neither could trust the other to hew to the policies of the ticket leader.
Instead, Obama will nominate some other nondescript woman. Hillary will nominate some other nondescript black.
This will calm most blacks and/or most women. But not all. The net gain on this will be maybe 1-2% — which will suffice to win.
The young college kids — don’t worry; don’t forget this is a small generation, the Abortion Generation. And they will not be registered to vote if they are like our son, whose registration is here but who attends college in another state. It takes effort and thinking to re-register; won’t happen.
“Blacks may someday vote Republican in significant numbers. I’ll believe it when I see it. Predictions are worthless.”
Yes.
But it only proves that by pandering to a certain race, the democrats are saying that ‘race does make a difference’.
It’s not if you are an AMERICAN Citizen or AMERICAN Voter;
It’s what color you are.
The biggest sources of racism are politicians and the media.
Don’t Think Black Voters Won’t Vote for McCain...
will white voters vote for b. HUSSEIN....things will be very different once the curtain in the voting booth closes!!!!
“Neither can have the other on the ticket because the staffs hate each other so much, and neither could trust the other to hew to the policies of the ticket leader.”
It will be Hillary’s staff running the show,.....or else. Hillary (and Bill) micromanage EVERYTHING, and blame others for their mistakes, but it will be totally them in control.
It will be Hillary and Obama on the Dem ticket for ‘08.
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