Fears grow that Obama can't win: White working class Democrats will defect to McCain

With senator Barack Obama poised this week to clinch his party's nomination for President, there are growing fears in some quarters that the Democratic party may not be choosing its strongest candidate to beat Republican John McCain.

Senator Hillary Clinton has been making that argument for weeks. Now some recent polls and analysis, looking particularly at vital battleground states and support among white voters, have bolstered her case - even as Obama looks certain to become the nominee.

Obama supporters reject this argument and point to his record of boosting Democratic voter turnout, especially among the young. But sceptics in the party, already nervous about nominating Obama after the furore over outspoken pastor Jeremiah Wright, are growing increasingly concerned. 'There is an element of buyer's remorse in some areas. The question is whether it gets really strong now or in September - or even after the election is over, if he loses,' said Steve Mitchell, head of political consultancy Mitchell Research.

Another boost to Clinton's case came late last week after a pro-Obama preacher gave a race-tinged rant against her at Obama's church in Chicago. In a recent sermon Michael Pfleger - a long-term Obama backer who is white - mocked Clinton as an entitled white person angry at a black man having beaten her. His angry, red-faced speech, in which he mimicked Clinton weeping, was played repeatedly across American cable channels and the internet.

The news sent shock waves through Democratic circles; many had hoped Obama had put 'pastor problems' behind him. 'It is more of the same problem as Wright. It reinforces the image among some voters that Obama does not share their values,' said Mitchell.

The trouble with making race the defining attribute of a candidate is that is what the whole race becomes. Obama has no one to blame but his campaign.

We might very well have a President who happens to be black but we will never have an African American President.

By defining himself as African American when he is half white makes people believe Obama thinks that you have to choose between being White or Black. He chose to be African American 20 years ago and chose to marry a woman who is very angry at the white Community.

White people are afraid to say it but they will vote it - either by staying home or voting against him. The fear is Obama is making this a Race based nation giving special rights to Blacks only. They will have a special status not enjoyed by any other minority or majority.

“Hopefully New York and Pennsylvania will go to McCain.
IMy theory also extends to Ohio and Michigan.”

New York, never.
Pennsylvania, good chance.

New York is now like Vermont and Massachusetts - reaching the point where they will never “vote Republican” again for ANY candidate for national office (senator, representatives, president). Yes, there are a _few_ conservative congressional districts in NY state, and that’s why we still see a few Pubbie representatives coming out of there. But senators, presidents? No mas. Even Spitzer got something like 70% of the vote, statewide.

Republicans are in deep doo-doo in Ohio this year, but there is a chance that McCain might still pull off a victory there. I will go so far as to say that in this time when conservatives are complaining about McCain’s leanings, that he is the ONLY Republican who will have had the chance to win Ohio, precisely because of his “maverick” and “independent” image. We’ll have to wait and see.

- John

From Dreams of My Father, “ I FOUND A SOLACE IN NURSING A PERVASIVE SENSE OF GRIEVANCE AND ANIMOSITY AGAINST MY MOTHER’S RACE”.

From ‘Dreams of my Father’, “THE EMOTION BETWEEN THE RACES COULD NEVER BE PURE...THE OTHER RACE WOULD ALWAYS REMAIN JUST THAT; MENACING, ALIEN AND APART.”

From ‘Dreams of My Father’,
“I CEASED TO ADVERTISE MY MOTHER’S RACE AT THE AGE OF 12 OR 13, WHEN I BEGAN TO SUSPECT THAT BY DOING SO I WAS INGRATIATING MYSELF TO WHITES.”

From Dreams Of My Father, “NEVER EMULATE THE WHITE MEN and brown men whose fates didn’t speak to my own. IT WAS INTO MY FATHER’S IMAGE, THE BLACK MAN, SON OF AFRICA, THAT I’D PACKED ALL THE ATTRIBUTES I SOUGHT IN MYSELF”.

From Dreams Of My Father:
“THAT HATE HADN’T GONE AWAY,” he wrote, BLAMING “WHITE PEOPLE— some cruel, some IGNORANT, sometimes a single face, sometimes just a faceless image of a system claiming power over our lives.”

From Dreams Of My Father;
“There were enough of us on campus to constitute a tribe, and when it came to hanging out many of us chose to function like a tribe, staying close together, traveling in packs,” he wrote. “IT REMAINED NECESSARY TO PROVE WHICH SIDE YOU WERE ON, TO SHOW YOUR LOYALTY TO THE BLACK MASSES, TO STRIKE OUT, AND NAME NAMES. “

From Dreams Of My Father, “I HAD GROWN ACCUSTOMED , everywhere, TO SUSPICIONS BETWEEN THE RACES.”

If she ran as a 3rd Party candidate and had the numbers going in high enough to scare the Obama-ites she would be functioning like Perot did, and probably “throw’ the election to McCain, who would likely have won anyway. It’s six of one, half-dozen of another. The Dem Establishment, which she and Bill in effect “ruled” until just recently, is going to have to decide on their own that they were foolish to have rolled the dice and picked Obama as the “New Clinton”> I do think they made a terrible mistake, and said so over and over on FR since the first big Obama “surge” had everybody stunned. THey are now in the unenviable position of looking at the near future and seeing that it may be “closer” than they wanted it to be.
They know if they continue (with the tacit approval and active help of the MSM of course) to keep promoting Obama as the “heir apparent”, that the negatives about him will probably keep rolling in, and there will be MORE defection to McCain by die-hard Hillary supporters, and that makes it even MORE unlikely that Obama would ever win the Presidency. SO-—just how badly DO the Dems want the Presidency? They are getting a clearer picture every day , like it’s an image slowly coming into focus in the developer bath in the darkroom: Obama is no sure thing. Obama will ENSURE a McCain victory. Should we find a way to get back to certifying Hillary? How can the superdelegates explain their reversal and justify throwing Obama under the bus, when all the propaganda has been directed toward christening Obama with the kind of “inevitability” HRC (and THEY!) thought was hers and theirs just 6-8 months ago??) The picture is coming clearer to me now, that a nice double whammy would be McCain picking HRC for his VEEP, but to do that would be to broadcast that he is indeed the RINO most of us think he is. It would however ENSURE he would win over Obama.
It won’t happen but it is logical that it could. SO, what would eventuate from that scenario? Everything will have come full circle again:The Dem Establishment , seeing the prospect of total defeat, would disentangle Hillary from her new identity as a McCain veep, and find a way to anoint her as THEIR candidate, with Obama perhaps as HER VEEP choice. SHE certainly wouldn’t want this, any more than McCain would want her as HIS Veep. But stranger compromises have happened in the back rooms, and figuring out how this story could run its course, is a lot of fun.
*************************
HAVING said ALL THAT, I am just remembering now a dream I had last night (I just rolled out of bed 30 minutes ago)-——I am on a city street, very alive with the buzz of hundreds of people-—some political event or other is currently taking place, and I am making my way to it-—I look up and notice Teddy Kennedy, looking huge, and wrapped in flowing garments, is making his way down the middle of the street, by himself, probably on his way to his car.....I am shocked to see him, especially by himself, so soon after the terrible news about him was released. A rush of sympathy overcomes me and I want to acknowledge that I see him , so I yell out “Senator Kennedy!!! without even turning to look at me, he replies in a loud bellowing emphatic voice “NEVER MIND!!!!!!!”
-——maybe there’s a symbolic lesson there for all of the
above, and what’s going on in this weirdest of “election cycles”.

>> We just might be incredibly lucky this year. With a poor economy, controversial war, and highly unpopular President, we should be headed for a shelllacking. But the DemocRATS then proceeded to rally around the most unappealing, radical candidates they could find. <<

Sounds like 1948 in reverse. Truman has dismal approval ratings and everyone was sick and tired of Democrats running the White House for years, so it was assumed the GOP would easily take back the White House just as they had solid gains in Congress two years earlier as a backlash against Truman.

Then Dewey and the GOP managed to screw it up and run the worst campaign possible after a bitter primary fight. Dewey wasn't worried, he gave vague speeches calling for "change" and acted like he was a shoo-in. The result, as we all know, was a big Dem upset by the time November rolled around.

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