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The real challenge for Democrats in the fall
CHRIS BURNS
Monday, March 17, 2008
Never mind the political excitement rippling through the US Democratic presidential contest. Likewise, don't lose sleep over media-induced and etymologically weak acronyms such as "mos" as in big and small momenta. Better yet, avoid the confusion of the delegate count, because every news organisation has a different result, which points to an across-the-board arithmetic deficiency and confirms that many children were left behind.
It's beginning to look a lot like disaster everywhere I go, with Republicans getting merrier and definitely won't spoil their show. In the meantime, John McCain is busy mending his tattered relationships with Karl Rove and the Texan clique, so the dough can flow. However, the challenge for the Democrats is to unify the party without alienating significant traditional or cross-over voters, but the current venomous inter-party stings will make this task difficult.
Preface aside, a sobering reality has begun to emerge that says any one of the two candidates could lose the presidential elections in November and Democrats would have no one else to blame but themselves for the fiendish, self-inflicted political wound. My sister, Marcia, known for her soft political views, called it candidly during a discussion last weekend. She (a devout feminist and a Clinton supporter) put it bluntly: "I have a gut feeling that Clinton's candidacy could reignite unquenchable political thirst among Republicans who hate her guts sufficiently to undermine her ambitions to become the next commander-in-chief."
When asked if she would continue supporting Clinton, she graciously replied, "You know how it goes," while poking fun at Michelle Obama's mirroring of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis' hairdos, and before saying, "It will be as tenacious a fight for Barack too." Nonetheless, my sister is not the only person to hold this view. A friend of mine, with whom I discuss politics, told me several weeks ago that it will be an arduous task for either Obama or Clinton to beat John McCain.
According to his analysis, both candidates are seen as minority candidates and mainstream-America - despite claims of being egalitarian - may be loath to embrace either a woman or an African American for president. Both points of view are similar to my reading of the current political climate in the United States. I have lived in the States long enough to understand the peculiarities of its race relations, to evaluate the impact of race on the new political zeitgeist as well as to know the distinctions between profound political conviction and cosmetic support. I see too much of the latter in the Obama camp to feel comfortable about his prospects.
Don't let duppy fool you; there are still deep-seated racial prejudices in America, especially in the Bible-Belt, and no amount of band-aiding will close the chasm. So, Barack Obama has his work cut out for him should he win the nomination. According to The Pew Research Center For The People & The Press, "Overall, 20 per cent of white Democratic voters say they would vote for McCain if Obama is the Democratic nominee. That is twice the percentage of white Democrats who say they would support McCain in a Clinton-McCain match-up. Older Democrats (age 65 and older) lower-income, and less-educated Democrats would also support McCain at higher levels if Obama, rather than Clinton, is the party's nominee."
Yet, this is just the tip of the political iceberg facing democrats. Like the divisive and imprudently long 2006 People's National Party presidential campaign that divided the party and ended up relegating it to the Opposition benches, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) may suffer the same fate as a result of a bunch of recalcitrant surrogates in both campaigns, but more so in Hillary Clinton's camp. The Clinton campaign is so convinced about Hillary's entitlement to the coveted office that it has all but declared her the nominee, even though the nomination process is still in-train. This is patently presumptuous and absurd.
This strategy of pre-emptively claiming the nomination, while in second place and offering the vice-presidency to the man who is not only in first place in delegate count and the popular vote, but is the winner of a majority of the contested states, is moronic at best and despotic at worst. It paints the perfect picture of a campaign that is all too willing to destroy an entire city in order to catch a useless ant, while foolishly and unwittingly handing over an armada of useful ants to the competition.
The Clinton campaign has been inconsistent on message, except in the area of political malpractice, as exemplified in the claim that the former first lady has extensive national security experience; knowing fully well that she did not even have national security clearance. A similar claim has been made that she played a major role in negotiating the Northern Ireland Good Friday Agreement. Nobel Peace prize winner David Trimble, who played a major role in those negotiations, dubbed this claim "silly", But Ralph Emerson could not have said it better when he said, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines."
Having confidence is one thing, but cultivating the kind of contemptuous confidence that the Clinton campaign has cultivated, and is nurturing, is an entirely different combustion that the Clinton campaign must move to dose before it spreads and condemns the DNC's ambitions to win back the Whitehouse to the political dung heap. The Jamaican saying sums it up best, "Fire deh a muss-muss tail 'im tink a cool breeze." It appears Clinton will stop at nothing to diminish Obama's candidacy and to characterise his accomplishments as worthless, while cunningly and audaciously telling a gullible public about his value as a "second-class" partner in her efforts to win the presidential elections, but "what sweet nanny goat good a run ar belly".
Burnscg@aol.com
CHRIS BURNS
Monday, March 17, 2008
Never mind the political excitement rippling through the US Democratic presidential contest. Likewise, don't lose sleep over media-induced and etymologically weak acronyms such as "mos" as in big and small momenta. Better yet, avoid the confusion of the delegate count, because every news organisation has a different result, which points to an across-the-board arithmetic deficiency and confirms that many children were left behind.
It's beginning to look a lot like disaster everywhere I go, with Republicans getting merrier and definitely won't spoil their show. In the meantime, John McCain is busy mending his tattered relationships with Karl Rove and the Texan clique, so the dough can flow. However, the challenge for the Democrats is to unify the party without alienating significant traditional or cross-over voters, but the current venomous inter-party stings will make this task difficult.
Preface aside, a sobering reality has begun to emerge that says any one of the two candidates could lose the presidential elections in November and Democrats would have no one else to blame but themselves for the fiendish, self-inflicted political wound. My sister, Marcia, known for her soft political views, called it candidly during a discussion last weekend. She (a devout feminist and a Clinton supporter) put it bluntly: "I have a gut feeling that Clinton's candidacy could reignite unquenchable political thirst among Republicans who hate her guts sufficiently to undermine her ambitions to become the next commander-in-chief."
When asked if she would continue supporting Clinton, she graciously replied, "You know how it goes," while poking fun at Michelle Obama's mirroring of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis' hairdos, and before saying, "It will be as tenacious a fight for Barack too." Nonetheless, my sister is not the only person to hold this view. A friend of mine, with whom I discuss politics, told me several weeks ago that it will be an arduous task for either Obama or Clinton to beat John McCain.
According to his analysis, both candidates are seen as minority candidates and mainstream-America - despite claims of being egalitarian - may be loath to embrace either a woman or an African American for president. Both points of view are similar to my reading of the current political climate in the United States. I have lived in the States long enough to understand the peculiarities of its race relations, to evaluate the impact of race on the new political zeitgeist as well as to know the distinctions between profound political conviction and cosmetic support. I see too much of the latter in the Obama camp to feel comfortable about his prospects.
Don't let duppy fool you; there are still deep-seated racial prejudices in America, especially in the Bible-Belt, and no amount of band-aiding will close the chasm. So, Barack Obama has his work cut out for him should he win the nomination. According to The Pew Research Center For The People & The Press, "Overall, 20 per cent of white Democratic voters say they would vote for McCain if Obama is the Democratic nominee. That is twice the percentage of white Democrats who say they would support McCain in a Clinton-McCain match-up. Older Democrats (age 65 and older) lower-income, and less-educated Democrats would also support McCain at higher levels if Obama, rather than Clinton, is the party's nominee."
Yet, this is just the tip of the political iceberg facing democrats. Like the divisive and imprudently long 2006 People's National Party presidential campaign that divided the party and ended up relegating it to the Opposition benches, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) may suffer the same fate as a result of a bunch of recalcitrant surrogates in both campaigns, but more so in Hillary Clinton's camp. The Clinton campaign is so convinced about Hillary's entitlement to the coveted office that it has all but declared her the nominee, even though the nomination process is still in-train. This is patently presumptuous and absurd.
This strategy of pre-emptively claiming the nomination, while in second place and offering the vice-presidency to the man who is not only in first place in delegate count and the popular vote, but is the winner of a majority of the contested states, is moronic at best and despotic at worst. It paints the perfect picture of a campaign that is all too willing to destroy an entire city in order to catch a useless ant, while foolishly and unwittingly handing over an armada of useful ants to the competition.
The Clinton campaign has been inconsistent on message, except in the area of political malpractice, as exemplified in the claim that the former first lady has extensive national security experience; knowing fully well that she did not even have national security clearance. A similar claim has been made that she played a major role in negotiating the Northern Ireland Good Friday Agreement. Nobel Peace prize winner David Trimble, who played a major role in those negotiations, dubbed this claim "silly", But Ralph Emerson could not have said it better when he said, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines."
Having confidence is one thing, but cultivating the kind of contemptuous confidence that the Clinton campaign has cultivated, and is nurturing, is an entirely different combustion that the Clinton campaign must move to dose before it spreads and condemns the DNC's ambitions to win back the Whitehouse to the political dung heap. The Jamaican saying sums it up best, "Fire deh a muss-muss tail 'im tink a cool breeze." It appears Clinton will stop at nothing to diminish Obama's candidacy and to characterise his accomplishments as worthless, while cunningly and audaciously telling a gullible public about his value as a "second-class" partner in her efforts to win the presidential elections, but "what sweet nanny goat good a run ar belly".
Burnscg@aol.com