With Pennsylvania the last big test of the Democratic primary season, we can expect to see some ugly campaigning.
Already, the desperate Hillary Clinton campaign has been turning to racial politics, appealing to Hispanics in order to counter the built-in advantage Barack Obama has with black voters.
What makes this strategy dangerous and ugly is that Pennsylvania, with 10.7 percent African-Americans and 4.2 percent Hispanics in its population mix, is ripe for this kind of racially divisive political strategy. Worse yet, outside several major urban areas, and especially the Philadelphia region, the state is largely white, and largely arch-conservative--so much so that the large swath of the state that lies between Philadelphia in the southeast and Pittsburgh in the far west, is frequently called the Alabama of the north.
Actually, that's a misnomer, though, because in Alabama, you have a large African-American population. In central rural Pennsylvania, all you have, pretty much, is white folks. We're talking about a region where innocent blacks were shot during a riot, and where a school district tried to mandate the teaching of creationism (that would be York, PA).
It doesn't bode well for the Obama campaign heading into the April 22 primary that Gov. Ed Rendell, a Clinton supporter, has openly predicted that many of the state's white voters will not vote for a black candidate.
Clinton, whose own staff has played the race card in multiple ways (one ranking staffer asserted that Hispanics don't like voting for black candidates), including trying to paint Obama as a black candidate in the South Carolina and Georgia primaries, is likely to go full out with this divide-and-conquer strategy in Pennsylvania, in an effort to head into the convention with the last large state on the primary list added to her camp.
It's a terrible strategy--one that betrays the party's basic premise of being the working people's party--and it dooms the party's presidential candidate in the November election if it succeeds in winning the nomination for Clinton.
Obama, if he is to avoid the same fate his campaign suffered in Ohio (where he was trounced by Clinton as white voters voted for her in droves), or in Texas (where he lost in a squeaker because Hispanics went heavily with Clinton), will have to combat Clinton's strategy with a two-fold, almost self-contradictory effort: one, he must encourage massive turnout and support by black voters, especially in the Philadelphia area, , and two, he must run his state-wide campaign on a rigorously non-racial basis, so as to minimize his losses in the conservative middle reaches of the state.
An additional problem for Obama: Pennsylvania's primary is Democrats only. Obama has been appealing to independents, but any independent who might want to vote for him here would have to be reached before the March 24 deadline for changing one's party affiliation with the Board of Elections.
Those are all tough hurdles. If Obama cannot jump them, my guess is Pennsylvania will go the way of Ohio. Then Clinton will pull out the stops to convince the super delegates to give her the nomination. If she succeeds at that, having first played the race card, and then the political insider card, the election in November will be Republican John McCain's to lose.
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DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His latest book is "The Case for Impeachment" (St. Martin's Press, 2006 and now in paperback). His work is available at www.thiscanbehappening.net
http://www.thiscantbehappening.net
Dave Lindorff, a columnist for Counterpunch, is author of several recent books ("This Can't Be Happening! Resisting the Disintegration of American Democracy" and "Killing Time: An Investigation into the Death Penalty Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal"). His latest book, coauthored with Barbara Olshanshky, is "The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office (St. Martin's Press, May 2006). His writing is available at http://www.thiscantbehappening.net
Hillary managed to do what Bill Clinton muffed in SC, I agree. To make things worse, now there is only McCain to work against on the other side, Religious conservatives and flat tax proponents lost their Huck. It's as though there is a similarily between what you describe in Appalachia and what goes right down the Trial to Tennessee. Hillary is religious and Obama is suspect. Huckabee was the man here. And I guess it's a little ironic that the two, who both have political history in Arkansas, know how to massage the message.
It's for that reason I see the recently enfranchised as being one bright spot.
by
Margaret Bassett (19 articles, 1023 quicklinks, 23 diaries, 569 comments)
on Wednesday, March 5, 2008 at 4:20:12 PM
It devalues any kind of intelligent discussion, eliminates any chance of doing anything, and makes people catatonic. Observation: Pennsylvania doesn't have one kind of voting system. Each county does its own thing. Two, there is no one power running things in PA--some places are run by Obama backers, some by Clinton backers, some by undecided people, some by Republicans. Three, not all Republican officials are criminals, nor are all Clintonites criminals. Four, most places have paper trails.
Take a deep breath. There are enough problems that need solving without making them out of thin air.
by
Dave Lindorff (295 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 141 comments)
on Wednesday, March 5, 2008 at 7:00:40 PM
and have failed to substantiate it at all. This is a serious breach of ethics. Do you simply imply that by going after the hispanic vote , a long time stronghold of support for the Clinton name, Senator Clinton is playing the race card? Are you serious?
by
ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2388 comments)
on Wednesday, March 5, 2008 at 6:38:47 PM
I'm saying that the Clintons have sought to make Obama a "black" candidate, both to scare off whites and to dissuade Hispanics. They have also tried to stoke Hispanic distrust by actually claiming on several occasions that "hispanics don't vote for black candidates."
It is clear, whatever his shortcomings, that Obama is trying to build a coalition across race, class and even party. Clinton, like her husband before her, is trying to win through division.
by
Dave Lindorff (295 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 141 comments)
on Wednesday, March 5, 2008 at 7:03:26 PM
unscrupulous tactics from candidates since becoming politically aware. Ive seen nothing in this race, from either side, that would seem atypical. The supporters of both candidates seem bound and determined to make this race a soap opera. This says nothing about the candidates fitness but speaks reams about the fitness of our electorate to decide things on the issues.
When did we all become Karl Rove?
by
ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2388 comments)
on Thursday, March 6, 2008 at 6:34:43 AM
