The Great Theft — When?

The “when” is becoming more and more contentious.  At least that’s the way it seems to be coming down from a viewpoint between six and 10 thousand miles from the action.

 

But we in the Philippines do have access to the world through various means: television, albeit only CNN International which broadcasts out of Hong Kong in this part of the world, taking it’s US news from a series of clips originating in its slightly left-of-center studios in Atlanta.   (We used to have FOX but they upped their rates and our provider dropped them.).

 

The BBC World Service keeps gnawing away at the Democrat’s battle if it can drag itself away from Zimbabwe long enough to find an American bone to chew on.

 

Then there’s the internet, which is basically just a bit too much to digest.  I predict that with all the differing opinions on the web, the people of the world will someday soon become so confused, they will begin to suffer horrible, brain-stabbing headaches as endorphin messengers can no longer keep up – and become lost – confused like a deer in a busy city-center intersection: Pittsburgh or Manchester, or God forbid, Tokyo.

 

As I was saying, via email, to my friend in the Los Angeles outback, the big question is when are Hillary and Bill Clinton going to force the issue of stealing the nomination from Barack Obama?  

 

It’s no longer much in doubt is it?  Senator Clinton is going to scheme and chisel her way into seating the delegates from the two errant states of Michigan and Florida — a move that puts her close to Obama in pledged delegate strength because the remaining primaries are not going to alter, by much, the colour of the current picture.

 

But on June 3rd Obama is still going to lead marginally in pledged support, trail marginally in super-delegate support and edge a win in the meaningless popular vote, even counting Florida and Michigan.  That’s when we can expect Senator Clinton and former President Bill Clinton to begin twisting arms, even threaten to bend back fingers, just as long as they have enough of the unpledged variety in their camp to blast a hole in Obama’s balloon. 

 

The question is: when do the super-delegates plan to succumb?

 

If it’s on or close to June three, they will reason that Hillary will have the whole summer to start triple-A bashing at John McCain.  I wonder if she and her advisers have any idea how America’s young population and America’s black population are going to react?

 

1968?

 

If the super-delegates wait until August 25th to start backing the losing candidate at the Convention, they risk a free-for-all on the floor of the Pepsi Center and a greasy showdown live and in blazing red on television.

 

1968?

 

Either way it’s fodder for John McCain, who has only one thing to watch: keeping his temper in check while battling Hillary Clinton for the presidency.  In robbing Obama of the nomination she will have, by that time, proven she can be a royal butt pain.  

 

Finally, the thing we don’t know is how Senator Obama is going to react. Has he got a Plan A? And a Plan B? Is he willing to steam full speed ahead at his erstwhile opponent and risk completely dousing the Democratic party in blood?  After all, he’s the loser in all this, right?

 

Well, him and around 72-million registered Democrats.  

Race? Why, of Course.

I suggested, a couple of days ago, that the dash for the Democratic nomination and what is said by both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the remainder of the campaign should consist of attempts to weaken John McCain’s chances of assuming the presidency next year.  I should have added something else …

Just how much of this remaining dash, or this whole campaign, has to do with Race?

Any American who thinks the race card has not been played in this election is grossly naïve.

Neither Senator Clinton nor Senator McCain has alluded to it — both are far too well versed in American politics to know the lambasting they’ll take if they resort to such tactics, no matter how subtle. The race card has been played by Senator Barack Obama himself; however he has used it in a new way.

He’s made it an assertive.  Anatole Kaletsky, writing in Times Online yesterday made the point that Obama’s tactics have inspired Walter Earl Fluker — executive director of the Leadership Center of Morehouse College and a prominent black American – in the context which is important for Americans to hear.  In so doing, Kaletsky mentioned, by using a quote, that Obama had hit hisKairos moment — his moment of greatest opportunity — in the speech he gave in response to Reverend Jeremiah Wright on March 18^th.

Prominent individuals both white and black have been saying since that the speech is a milestone in the history of America to be quoted in the same breath as the words of Martin Luther King and even Abraham Lincoln.  But Senator Obama’s words, refuting the Reverend’s caustic sermons while at the same time pleading for an understanding of what Wright meant, were generally lost in media coverage. Obliterated.

Example: “I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community.” That we heard on TV and read in the mainstream press. But he also said “(I have) a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people — that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds.

Example: how many times did you see quoted, Obama’s remark: “the last weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we’ve never really worked through – a part of our union that we have yet to perfect.  And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners we will never be able to come together.”  If you missed his speech you didn’t get those words from the media.

Example: same speech yet referring to the immigrant experience:  “A similar anger exists within segments of the white community.  Most working and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race –- as far as they’re concerned, no one’s handed them anything, they’ve built it from scratch.”

The American Mainstream media, the Networks; the Newspapers; the weekly periodicals have also brought race into the picture. But they have done so largely by omission.

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Barack Obama did not, as the first truly serious black candidate who has a chance of winning the White House, begin his quest in this election by speaking of his heritage when the campaign started a year ago.  All one has to do is look back to 2004 and his extraordinarily received Keynote address at the Democratic Convention. The first statement out of his mouth, after ”thank you” was “let’s face it; my presence on this stage is pretty unlikely. My father was … born and raised in Kenya.”

Later he referred to his own country as being “not a Black America and a White America … there’s the United States of America.”

He referred to “slaves sitting around a fire singing songs of freedom.”  He made references to Latinos and Asians as well. Obama was only too well aware that as he faced the country on that podium, four years ago, his viewers were “seeing” a black face.

Uh huh, this election is about Race.  It is about gender but it is more about race and whether the American voter is willing to place a black man in nomination and later vote for him as president.  It’s hardly the only issue because millions of people will merely acknowledge, in passing, that the Senator is black, as they acknowledge Senator Clinton is female and Senator McCain as elderly.

However, there are Americans of all stripes who have thoughts, mostly unspoken, regarding how they feel about voting for a black man; people in each of the 50 states who would not vote for a black no matter whom he was or how well qualified he may be.

A member of my extended family was a school teacher, a creative, intelligent woman who grew up in The South.  She taught young children in a large elementary school in the State of California. Many were the night she and I sat and talked about a range of subjects: the sciences; the personalities of well-known politicians; characters from the entertainment world, even sports.

She was delightful — but no amount of arguing on anyone’s part could make this aging lady accept the fact that a black person was equal to a white person.  To her, a black was a child of a lesser God. In her classes she treated the “coloreds” exactly the same as white kids “They never knew I was prejudiced.”  But to her they were a sub species.

I knew the pastor of a large church. I had known him for years and he was a hard worker in his parish –  made up of at least 99% white people.  He counseled them as he thought best.  It seemed to me he was well qualified, considering his faith and his experience.

One day we were chatting and he mentioned he needed a new gardener; someone to clip the edges and mow the lawn. It happened I knew a first year college student who needed money to buy himself a car.  I sent him over the see the pastor after calling him saying he may be interested in the guy to do his gardening chores.  

An hour later, I received a ‘phone call.  It was the pastor.  He said: “Cas, that kid would never do … he’s a “darkie”.

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A little key turns in our minds when we meet someone who is from a different race.  After the umpteenth time and the person becomes a friend we don’t really notice.  But it’s there in the beginning.  In all of us no matter what colour we are. 

I think Senator Obama has made that pointedly clear. As John Lennon said in his song: “Come Together”, no matter who this character is: “Come Together, right now, over me.”

Barack Obama is saying “This is your chance. Yes this election is about race, it is also about getting rid of race for race’s sake and putting aside the injurious lessons of the past.

“Who knows when you’re going to get another chance as big as this one”?  

Post-Pennsylvania

New Dems Focus should be Presidential.

 

Hillary Clinton did what she had to do: beat Barack Obama and prove she is still capable of gaining public support.  That issue is settled. 

 

There are eight contests left, Depending on what pollster you read prior to the April 22nd Primary, Senator Clinton is favored to take four of them: Indiana, West Virginia, Kentucky and Puerto Rico.  Senator Obama is favored to win North Carolina, Oregon, Montana and South Dakota.

 

If it works out that way and the winning candidate wins by five or ten points in each state the end result will change little from what it is today.  

 

Both candidates will have things going for them — Hillary Clinton will prove she can stay in the race, Obama will prove he hasn’t lost his edge.

 

It has become clear that neither will be able to snap up the nomination without the help of the super delegates, which means that although the voters in those eight contests will still have a say, the impetus will be less when compared to what it might have been.  Had Hillary lost Pennsylvania, the story may have been different, but she won, so it’s moot.

 

We have been hearing since shortly after the Primary season began that the “next” state would tell the story.  That hasn’t happened.  Hillary can claim Texas, but Texas is still in question.  She can claim Michigan and Florida — and make a stab at seating those delegates, but the outcome of that mess seems more and more likely to become a lawyer’s problem. 

 

(A caveat here: by some number crunching, the two populous states — Michigan a Kerry win in 2004, Florida a Bush win (by a scant margin) that year, show Mrs. Clinton could catch Obama should the remaining eight contests take a formidable twist in her direction.  However such is unlikely and would be out of character with the campaign thus far.)  

 

All talk of Hillary either quitting or being asked to step down “for the unity of the party” is now a thing of the past. 

 

All talk of Obama losing Pennsylvania after outspending Clinton three to one on advertising would “bode ill” for his campaign is over. I highly doubt Obama’s campaign spent all that money because they thought their candidate could win the Commonwealth, they spent it to attack figures that showed her with a 20 percent lead and they succeeded.  Granted not as much as they’d have liked — but an eight point win is not a blow out. 

 

Like all the former hype touting the fact that the next state primary will produce a winner, or maybe a loser, it is just that: hype.  We’ll still hear the media crowing away about Indiana and North Carolina on May 6th and I have to admit, I thought that if Hillary won Pennsylvania by double digits those two primaries may have considerable prominence. I don’t think so anymore.

 

The Democratic nomination campaign is going to be decided on one of two dates: June 3rd or August 28th.  And it is not going to be the public — the pledged delegates — that decides, it will be the super-delegates.  

 

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The Super delegates have a hard decision in front of them.  If they decide to throw the race to one or the other of the two candidates on June 3rd, they may risk a backlash from the loser’s supporters with a long summer of probable unrest.  If they wait and decide to seat themselves with either Senator Clinton or Senator Obama’s delegations, at the convention they will still face a probable backlash from the faithful followers of the candidate who is left off the ticket.  A backlash played out on TV; a verbal slugfest; even some hair-pulling and actual blows from people drinking spiked Pepsi.

 

There are between 250 and 300 uncommitted super-delegates left.  Mrs Clinton would need the bulk of them to reach the 2025 winning figure because she trails her opposing candidate by a considerable margin in pledged delegates and leads him by only a scant few super delegates who have already committed.  

 

If they chose Senator Clinton the country could expect a ruckus raised by black voters — potentially a formidable scene. There would also be a large hue and cry from the youth of America who overwhelmingly supported Barack Obama.     

 

On the other hand, 30-and-over white voters, Catholics and members of America’s working poor would be upset if Senator Obama was chosen.  It would not take long for these groups to forget that Obama led in delegate strength; led in the popular vote and led in number of states won. 

 

What it decides to do, this band of super-delegates which was picked in the 1980’s to prevent multiple ballot casting at the conventions and smoke-filled room shenanigans, is not going to be popular with everybody.  However it seems that after Tuesday’s eight point spread over Barack Obama, plus her own assurance that she will fight on “till the end”, the remainder of the Democratic nomination race is less important than the SD’s final decision. 

 

They are the folks who hold the brass ring.

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If you listened carefully to Hillary Clinton’s victory address you will have noted that she had softened her approach towards her opponent.  On Larry King the night before, she said she and her husband would do everything possible to assist Obama if he was nominated.  She did not say, although I’m sure she thought it, that she and her husband would also do everything in their power to make sure he lost the nomination — after all, that’s politics.

 

More than in previous speeches, Hillary, in Philadelphia, bounced the name of the GOP candidate-presumptive Senator John McCain. She was righteously abusive of President George W. Bush in likening McCain’s remarks that he was … well, call him a Bushist — (my word not hers)  – even bringing up the old saw of “one hundred years in Iraq”.  (Don’t you just know McCain fervently wishes he had never used that expression).  She was likable and spoke with a little less rhetoric and a little more of family and friends.

 

Over in Evansville, Indiana, Senator Barack Obama thundered one of his finest addresses to date. Listening to him one would never have thought he had just lost a primary.  He didn’t dwell on his loss, he congratulated Hillary Clinton in the same breath as he thanked John Mellencamp, who had been playing for the assembled throng of mostly campaign workers.  There was a presidential air about his speech that was devoid of any mention of the recent sniping taking place between he and Mrs. Clinton.

 

Both Senators set a tone that the nomination would now shift gears — they had come to the point where they were going after John McCain, and not each other. Within reason, of course.  Hillary has always said “I think I have the best chance to win the presidency” a remark she has repeated ad nauseum.  But she was gracious and friendly, low key and polished, while Obama was positive, full of fight and confident.

 

They needed to quit the bickering.  The average poll count today has Senator Obama leading McCain by just 1.2 percent while Senator Clinton trails McCain by 0.3 percent.  Both figures are well within the margin of error, but they show that work has to be done in disposing of the Republican nominee and less barking at each other because the latter has been rendered fruitless.

 

When all this is added up, these two now know they can’t beat each other on their own, they must depend on “The Chosen”: the super delegates.  They each have a large group of super-delegate hunters to man the phones and pound away at the SD’s like so many carpenters wheeling hammers. 

 

John McCain, the Democrats must be thinking, has had it all to himself long enough and it’s now time to start beating him down a peg.  The candidate, either the Senator from New York, or the Senator from Illinois, who looks most impressively presidential with her or his peg-beating during the coming months will gain favor and likely win the nomination.

 

So to all intents and purposes, the Democratic nomination campaign should now be over.  All that has to be decided is — who won it?