The race to be the Democrat’s nominee for president remains fascinating.  Barack Obama trounced both Clinton and Edwards in the South Carolina primary on Saturday, winning a majority of the votes.  Exit polls indicated that the racial politics played by the Clinton camp, led by the former president, soured voters on Clinton.  Turnout of black voters was high and Obama won four out of every five of their votes.  After the primary Bubba compared Obama’s victory to that of Jesse Jackson – an obvious attempt to portray Obama as simply a black candidate, a token, who was able to woo black voters.

The Clinton strategy appears to be to “blacken” Obama and instigate white black lash against him.  The Clintons surveyed the broad primary landscape on the horizon and made a strategic, rather than tactical, decision to drive black voters towards Obama while peeling off enough white voters to make it look like a vote along racial lines.  Losing South Carolina was not a setback for them, but was the actual plan.  Upcoming primaries in delegate heavy states will have much smaller black populations and the Clintons hope to win the white voters over by having already pigeonholed Obama as a black candidate for black voters.

The strategy may prove to be effective, but at a high cost for the party and country.  Obama has been a dynamic campaigner, stimulating high voter turnout and even securing the notoriously fickle youth vote.  His ascendancy and that of the party are likely intertwined.  For the Clintons to submarine his candidacy by appealing to bigotry could cause long term harm to the party by alienating young, excited voters – many of whom are in their politically formative years.

Moreover, the country appears to be ready to install a man who happens to be black into the White House.  Obama won the Iowa caucuses where 95% of the population is white.  He has shown strong support among whites in other contests.  South Carolina marked the first primary in a state with a large black population.  The Clinton’s campaign strategy could instead result in a black man being denied entry into the White House for no reason other than his skin.

The Clinton’s decision to use race against Obama also underscores my impression of how the Democrats really view their minority base.  Democrats have long taken a condescending, paternalistic approach to blacks.  They piously create affirmative action and other race based preference programs which they sell as being supportive of blacks, but are in fact a subtle form of discrimination that say, “We don’t think you can do it on your own, so we’ll give you a boost.”  There is an implicit belief in Democrats of the Clinton’s ilk that blacks wouldn’t – couldn’t – achieve success without their help.  And now that Hillary, the early presumptive nominee, is facing the stark possibility that an upstart black man could derail her ambition she is striking back.  It is analogous to a plantation owner normally who treats his bondsmen with relative kindness and respect reasserting his authority in a most unpleasant manner when one of the slaves attempts to leave the fields.  Will this treatment of a black man weaken support among a group of people that the Democrats have long taken for granted?

The whole spectacle does little for how I think of the Clintons.  They are a conniving, power driven clan who will stoop to any level and make any lie to attain their goals.  Our country would be well served to see both Hillary and Bill dispatched.

Obama, on the other hand, has been a breath of fresh air in the political scene.  I remain uncompelled by his policies, but I think he may have the ability to create a new breed of voters – call them Obama Republicans (like the Regean Democrats) – who are drawn to a more civil discourse and optimistic view of our union.

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This entry was posted by Brian on Monday, January 28th, 2008 at 9:42 am and is filed under Politics, Race Card. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Please note the copyright policy.