A Relentlessly Political Life

March 25, 2008

Op-Ed Columnist

The Long Defeat

By DAVID BROOKS

Hillary Clinton may not realize it yet, but she’s just endured one of the worst weeks of her campaign.

First, Barack Obama weathered the Rev. Jeremiah Wright affair without serious damage to his nomination prospects. Obama still holds a tiny lead among Democrats nationally in the Gallup tracking poll, just as he did before this whole affair blew up.

Second, Obama’s lawyers successfully prevented re-votes in Florida and Michigan. That means it would be virtually impossible for Clinton to take a lead in either elected delegates or total primary votes.

Third, as Noam Scheiber of The New Republic has reported, most superdelegates have accepted Nancy Pelosi’s judgment that the winner of the elected delegates should get the nomination. Instead of lining up behind Clinton, they’re drifting away. Her lead among them has shrunk by about 60 in the past month, according to Avi Zenilman of Politico.com.

In short, Hillary Clinton’s presidential prospects continue to dim. The door is closing. Night is coming. The end, however, is not near.

Last week, an important Clinton adviser told Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen (also of Politico) that Clinton had no more than a 10 percent chance of getting the nomination. Now, she’s probably down to a 5 percent chance.

Five percent.

Let’s take a look at what she’s going to put her party through for the sake of that 5 percent chance: The Democratic Party is probably going to have to endure another three months of daily sniping. For another three months, we’ll have the Carvilles likening the Obamaites to Judas and former generals accusing Clintonites of McCarthyism. For three months, we’ll have the daily round of résumé padding and sulfurous conference calls. We’ll have campaign aides blurting “blue dress” and only-because-he’s-black references as they let slip their private contempt.

For three more months (maybe more!) the campaign will proceed along in its Verdun-like pattern. There will be a steady rifle fire of character assassination from the underlings, interrupted by the occasional firestorm of artillery when the contest touches upon race, gender or patriotism. The policy debates between the two have been long exhausted, so the only way to get the public really engaged is by poking some raw national wound.

For the sake of that 5 percent, this will be the sourest spring. About a fifth of Clinton and Obama supporters now say they wouldn’t vote for the other candidate in the general election. Meanwhile, on the other side, voters get an unobstructed view of the Republican nominee. John McCain’s approval ratings have soared 11 points. He is now viewed positively by 67 percent of Americans. A month ago, McCain was losing to Obama among independents by double digits in a general election matchup. Now McCain has a lead among this group.

For three more months, Clinton is likely to hurt Obama even more against McCain, without hurting him against herself. And all this is happening so she can preserve that 5 percent chance.

When you step back and think about it, she is amazing. She possesses the audacity of hopelessness.

Why does she go on like this? Does Clinton privately believe that Obama is so incompetent that only she can deliver the policies they both support? Is she simply selfish, and willing to put her party through agony for the sake of her slender chance? Are leading Democrats so narcissistic that they would create bitter stagnation even if they were granted one-party rule?

The better answer is that Clinton’s long rear-guard action is the logical extension of her relentlessly political life.

For nearly 20 years, she has been encased in the apparatus of political celebrity. Look at her schedule as first lady and ever since. Think of the thousands of staged events, the tens of thousands of times she has pretended to be delighted to see someone she doesn’t know, the hundreds of thousands times she has recited empty clichés and exhortatory banalities, the millions of photos she has posed for in which she is supposed to appear empathetic or tough, the billions of politically opportune half-truths that have bounced around her head.

No wonder the Clinton campaign feels impersonal. It’s like a machine for the production of politics. It plows ahead from event to event following its own iron logic. The only question is whether Clinton herself can step outside the apparatus long enough to turn it off and withdraw voluntarily or whether she will force the rest of her party to intervene and jam the gears.

If she does the former, she would surprise everybody with a display of self-sacrifice. Her campaign would cruise along at a lower register until North Carolina, then use that as an occasion to withdraw. If she does not, she would soldier on doggedly, taking down as many allies as necessary.

A Foreign Policy Risk

Beyond Obama's Beauty

By KENNETH BLACKWELL

February 14, 2008

Civilizational war is real, even if political leaders and polite punditry must call it by another name.
— Robert D. Kaplan in the December 2001 issue of the Atlantic Monthly

Now that Barack Obama steps to the front of the Democratic field, we need to stop talking about his race, and start talking about his policies and his politics.

The reality is this: Though the Democrats will not have a nominee until August, unless Hillary Clinton drops out, Mr. Obama is now the frontrunner, and its time America takes a closer and deeper look at him.

Some pundits are calling him the next John F. Kennedy. He's not. He's the next George McGovern. And it's time people learned the facts.

Because the truth is that Mr. Obama is the single most liberal senator in the entire U.S. Senate. He is more liberal than Ted Kennedy, Bernie Sanders, or Mrs. Clinton.

Never in my life have I seen a presidential frontrunner whose rhetoric is so far removed from his record. Walter Mondale promised to raise our taxes, and he lost. George McGovern promised military weakness, and he lost. Michael Dukakis promised a liberal domestic agenda, and he lost.

Yet Mr. Obama is promising all those things, and he's not behind in the polls. Why? Because the press has dealt with him as if he were in a beauty pageant.

Mr. Obama talks about getting past party, getting past red and blue, to lead the United States of America. But let's look at the more defined strokes of who he is underneath this superficial "beauty."

Start with national security, since the president's most important duties are as commander-in-chief. Over the summer, Mr. Obama talked about invading Pakistan, a nation armed with nuclear weapons; meeting without preconditions with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who vows to destroy Israel and create another Holocaust; and Kim Jong Il, who is murdering and starving his people, but emphasized that the nuclear option was off the table against terrorists — something no president has ever taken off the table since we created nuclear weapons in the 1940s. Even Democrats who have worked in national security condemned all of those remarks.

Mr. Obama is a foreign-policy novice who would put our national security at risk.

Next, consider economic policy. For all its faults, our health care system is the strongest in the world. And free trade agreements, created by Bill Clinton as well as President Bush, have made more goods more affordable so that even people of modest means can live a life that no one imagined a generation ago. Yet Mr. Obama promises to raise taxes on "the rich."

How to fix Social Security? Raise taxes. How to fix Medicare? Raise taxes. Prescription drugs? Raise taxes. Free college? Raise taxes. Socialize medicine? Raise taxes. His solution to everything is to have government take it over. Big Brother on steroids, funded by your paycheck.

Finally, look at the social issues. Mr. Obama had the audacity to open a stadium rally by saying, "All praise and glory to God!" but says that Christian leaders speaking for life and marriage have "hijacked" — hijacked — Christianity. He is pro-partial birth abortion, and promises to appoint Supreme Court justices who will rule any restriction on it unconstitutional. He espouses the abortion views of Margaret Sanger, one of the early advocates of racial cleansing. His spiritual leaders endorse homosexual marriage, and he is moving in that direction. In Illinois, he refused to vote against a statewide ban — ban — on all handguns in the state. These are radical left, Hollywood, and San Francisco values, not Middle America values.

The real Mr. Obama is an easy target for the general election. Mrs. Clinton is a far tougher opponent. But Mr. Obama could win if people don't start looking behind his veneer and flowery speeches. His vision of "bringing America together" means saying that those who disagree with his agenda for America are hijackers or warmongers. Uniting the country means adopting his liberal agenda and abandoning any conflicting beliefs.

But right now everyone is talking about how eloquent of a speaker he is and — yes — they're talking about his race. Those should never be the factors on which we base our choice for president. Mr. Obama's radical agenda sets him far outside the American mainstream, to the left of Mrs. Clinton.

It's time to talk about the real Barack Obama. In an election of firsts, let's first make sure we elect the person who is qualified to be our president in a nuclear age during a global civilizational war.

Mr. Blackwell, a fellow at the American Civil Rights Union and the Family Research Council, is a columnist for The New York Sun, and a contributing editor for Townhall.com.

http://www.nysun.com/article/71278?page_no=2

The Politics Of Self Destruction...

The Great Political Divide Of 2008

I must admit that I am enjoying the current, ongoing “dustup” in the Democratic Party immensely. This inter-party mess was inevitable once Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were the two candidates left standing in the primary battle on the Democratic side. A left-leaning woman against a left-leaning black man… Democrats being somewhat evenly divided about which candidate they like best because their liberal philosophy is largely interchangeable. Being personally critical of either by the other is not politically correct, as was evident during the “praiseathon” at one of the debates, so the fight they are having in the primaries has to be waged indirectly and somewhat underhandedly.

At this point in time, in mid March, the conventional wisdom says that there is no way that Hillary Clinton can end up being the nominee of the Democratic Party in the November election simply because of the mathematics of the delegate count. The Democratic Party, it would seem, wisely (from a Republican standpoint) built in a self-destructive system some years ago for the “proportional” delegation of delegates. So, obviously Clinton’s failure to get the most delegates awarded to her would mean that the nominee will be Barack Obama, and that seemingly inevitable result will bring on as nasty an election campaign for president that this country has ever seen perhaps with a rancor even approaching the divisive Chicago Democratic convention in 1968.

So, to kick things off, I will make this politically incorrect observation: there is no way, in my humble opinion, that the people of the United States will elect a black man, especially a misguided, very liberal one, as president at this time in our nation’s history. There has been a lot of discourse in the news recently about Obama’s roots… A black Muslim father and a white mother makes him only half black.

One gets the impression that being only half black was not good enough for him, so he joined this radical black church in Chicago which was led by a black, racist pastor in order to ingratiate himself with the black community as a whole; a half black who felt the need to associate himself with a racist pastor in a racist church in order to be accepted by the black majority because of his feelings of inadequacy as a half white, half black man – an incomplete black man as it were.

Additionally, this notion of whites needing to elect a black out of some latent feeling of remorseful guilt for the slavery issue is absurd. I sure don’t feel that way and I don’t know of any white person who does. Of course, by saying this, I will immediately be labeled as “racist.” Fine. Go for it. Whatever makes you feel superior and important. The issue of race differences in humankind will never be settled. It’s as old a problem as the feeling that the day’s light offers security versus the feeling that the night’s darkness brings with it possible danger and uncertainty. It’s an inbred, natural thing in the same way that chickens and wolves don’t get along.

I personally would not vote for a black for president at this time in our history. We are not yet far enough removed from the recent historical battles of civil rights to be comfortable with that notion. There is still too much anger among the radical members of the black race that hotly simmers beneath the surface. Whites still do not yet trust the black population as a whole because of the likes of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and other extremist black organizations. I don’t think a Louis Farrakhan as Secretary of State would sit very well with most Americans.

One day after Barack Obama delivered his speech calling for improved race relations in America, the New Black Panthers, who inherited their name from the radical and racist Black Panther Party of the 1960s, had a page on the Obama campaign’s Web site’s public forums that says they are backing Obama. Once this was “discovered” by the Obama campaign, it was quietly removed. However, they still endorse Barack Obama for president and I have not heard that Obama has discouraged their backing of his presidential ambitions.

The New Black Panthers organization demands slavery reparations, the release of all black prisoners from American jails, trials of blacks only by all-black juries, an end to all black cooperation with police departments, exemption for blacks from the all-volunteer U.S. military and a separate country for African-Americans. What rubbish! Bring the races together? Not this way, that’s for sure.

“We believe that black people should not be forced to fight in the military service to defend a racist government that holds us captive and does not protect us. We will not fight and kill other people of color in the world who, like black people, are being victimized by the white racist government of America,” the Web site reads. I wonder who the real racists are here with that kind of divisive thinking.

I find it very difficult to believe that Obama did not know these hateful racist views were a part of his campaign’s website. Besides, what makes Obama think he should be the one to make whites more blacklike? I’m perfectly happy being white and I resent anyone telling me to be more like the blacks. And why if he’s only half black should we not wonder why he doesn’t want to be more white rather than make himself more black? Perhaps because that wouldn’t fit in with his underlying radical and racist agenda?

I would not vote for a woman either, especially Hillary Clinton. The notion of having the likes of Bill Clinton roaming around the White House, looking for young interns again, is repugnant to me. Stains on one blue dress was enough.

I’m sorry but that’s just how I feel about the whole stinkin’ thing this time around the election cycle. The United States of America is slowly becoming a third-world, socialist nation. I sincerely hope that the Supreme Court upholds the Second Amendment and finally rules in June that the individual citizen’s right to bear arms shall not be infringed - that the Second Amendment does indeed apply to individuals so that the question is legally settled once and for all. When that happens, you better run to your local gun dealer and buy that handgun and some ammunition before the election. The radical black population will not accept an election that denies their best hope for a government take-over with a smile and a shrugged shoulder. Not on your life… and I mean just that.

Democratic Meltdown...

IN DEFENSE OF GERALDINE FERRARO

I do not generally agree with Geraldine Ferraro as I am not a registered Democrat but am registered as an Independent. A few days ago, Ferraro made some observations to a small newspaper which were immediately pounced on by the presidential campaign of Obama and subsequently “repudiated” by the Clinton campaign in which Ferraro was an unpaid volunteer.

What exactly was said by Ferraro that caused this outcry of veiled “racism” from Obama’s campaign?

In her interview with Daily Breeze, published late last week, Ferraro said, "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman, he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept."

This is the exact quote that the Obama campaign quickly pounced on and said was veiled racism and “divisive”…

Obama himself has called the comments "patently absurd." "I don't think Geraldine Ferraro's comments have any place in our politics or in the Democratic Party. They are divisive," he told the Allentown Morning Call.

Well, why are they considered divisive when they accurately reflect the facts as can be seen in the results of the recent poll that follows?

RASMUSSEN POLL AS OF 13 MARCH 2008 of Likely Democratic Voters Nationwide

Among Blacks: Obama favored by 81% - Clinton favored by 7%
Among Whites: Clinton favored by 50% - Obama favored by 39%

Among Women: Clinton favored by 51% - Obama favored by 40%
Among Men: Obama favored by 60% - Clinton favored by 28%

The question is as follows: If Obama was white, would he really be favored by 81% of Blacks? I don’t think so. It’s obvious that the Obama campaign knows that this is true, but does not want to remind voters of this fact, and the Clinton campaign is so afraid of being called “racist” that they feel they have to deny this fact publicly and apologize for it. Anyone for forced “political correctness”?

Well, that’s what the Democrats get for having put themselves in this now awkward position of Democratic voters having to choose between a Black and a woman. How do you spell “meltdown”?

I for one agree with Ferraro on her observation, and am happy that she has had the guts to stick with her position which is undeniable to anyone who is not a racist…

Good for her!