Clinton's racialism will backfire
posted by hazmat 04/23/2008 01:34:04 PM EST
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As I have stated in many previous posts, Clinton's pandering to the nativist crowd, and wink-an-nod racial attacks (muslim-Wrightgate), and flag-pin nonsense (do all you clinton supporters wear flag-lapel-pins?) will be for naught. The republicans will turn it around in the fall and use it against her. Only when they use it, it will work. On the downside, in exchange for modest gain in a couple of states (OH and PA) that will make no difference to her nomination prospects, the damage she is doing to the democratic party is enormous. Matthew Yglesias
nails it:
Certainly one easy opportunity Clinton has to expand her coalition is that versus John McCain she would pick up all these African-American Obama supporters. But conversely, I don't see Hillary Clinton's feminist supporters suddenly deciding that they want to see John Paul Stevens replaced with an abortion-banner. The theory here seems to be that Clinton's strength among white working class Democratic party loyalists will translate into strength among white working class non-loyalists. But there's no evidence for this theory -- both Al Gore and John Kerry formed "beer track" primary coalitions and then went on to perform terrible among white working class voters overall. This is an electoral challenge for either candidate, but it really is an electoral challenge for either candidate. Young, anti-war Obama supporters will back Hillary over Old Man War and Clinton's supporters in the public sector unions (notice all the AFT and AFSCME signs behind her at every rally) will easily sign on with Obama. Ultimately, for the party not to unite behind the eventual winner there would need to be a much more serious substantive cleavage between them.
Ultimately, the only thing we really know about either candidate's base of support is that Obama's is slightly larger, and that he's demonstrated more ability to expand it over time through campaigning. Either way, though, I think Democrats can be fairly confident. What voters "know" about the three candidates right now is that John McCain is a war hero maverick, Hillary Clinton is a castrating harpy, and Barack Obama is a radical black Muslim and given that . . . the race is about tied.
