I don’t know if Mickey Kaus is a liberal or a conservative, a Democrat or a Republican, and I don’t suppose he has to be crammed into any particular box. Above all, he is a mentally challenged person. James Wolcott has called him a ‘counterintuitive’ journalist, meaning that he takes positions counter to conventional wisdom. That kind of writing has its place; the merit resides in…well…the merit of the unconventional thinking. That’s the test that Kaus consistently fails. Take today’s column, How Obama Can Win: He can escape his electoral ghetto by playing the race-blind card. It’s idiotic.
Now the idea that Obama has been “ghettoized” as the “black” candidate has become the accepted template for the campaign–even the point that a win in hotly contested South Carolina on Saturday is seen as actually hurting Obama because (in Dick Morris’ analysis)
[w]atching blacks block vote for Obama will trigger a white backlash that will help Hillary win Florida and to prevail the week after.
Here we thought we were getting the Mondale/Hart campaign of 1984–without Mondale’s pleasantness or Hart’s weirdness–and instead we get the Dukakis campaign of 1988, in which a slightly tedious, marginally likeable elite liberal established his mainstream (white) bona fides by running around the country thumping Jesse Jackson.
Worse, it’s hard to see an easy way out of it for Obama, at least before the wave of primaries and caucuses on Feb. 5. He could try to make Hillary the pet candidate of Latinos the way he’s being cast as the pet candidate of blacks–but that would require a shift to the right on immigrant legalization that he doesn’t seem willing to make. (I hope I’m wrong about that.)
The more obvious move is to find a Sister Souljah–after Saturday–to stiff arm. The most promising candidate is not a person, but an idea: race-based affirmative action. Obama has already made noises about shifting to a class-based, race-blind system of preferences. What if he made that explicit? Wouldn’t that shock hostile white voters into taking a second look at his candidacy? He’d renew his image as trans-race leader (and healer). The howls of criticism from the conventional civil-rights establishment–they’d flood the cable shows–would provide him with an army of Souljahs to hold off. If anyone noticed Hillary in the ensuing fuss, it would be to put her on the spot–she’d be the one defending mend-it-don’t-end-it civil rights orthodoxy.
Here Kaus takes two of his pet peeves (illegal immigration and affirmative action) and develops a political strategy for Obama that, just coincidentally, involves Obama taking up those two pet peeves.
Kaus wants Obama to come out swinging on illegal immigration Tancredo-style, as if this would somehow help him compete in California, New York, and other February 5th contests. How congruent would that strategy be with Obama’s core values and his message of unity and hope? But, recognizing that this is not a strategy Obama is likely to take, Kaus wants him to come out forcefully against affirmative action (but only after he suckers the black community of South Carolina into voting for him).
Before we talk about the merits of such a strategy, we need to look at the lay of the land. Obama is drawing his strongest support from African-Americans, but in both New Hampshire and Nevada, he pulled his strongest support from rural and exurban areas (for example, Obama won Nevada’s Elko County by 63%-31%). Clinton, meanwhile, drew her strongest support from urban Manchester and Las Vegas. If there is a simple reason that Obama lost in both New Hampshire and Nevada, it is the relative lack of urban black voters in those two states.
Obama only needs to maintain his strength outside the cities and enjoy the advantage of the urban black vote in places like Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City in order to start winning these contests. The Clintons know this, which is why they are trying to ghettoize Obama’s campaign.
Kaus wants Obama to respond by dissing both the black and the Hispanic population in order to make himself seem more white. Another way of looking at this is that Kaus wants Obama to start running to Clinton’s right. Let’s consider this for a moment. In the New Hampshire exit polls, Obama won the white male vote 38%-30%, and lost the overall white vote by a mere 36%-39%. His problem? Only 1% of the vote was black. Meanwhile, Obama lost the Democratic vote 34%-45%. As for ideology, Obama and Clinton were essentially tied in all categories, from very liberal to very conservative. Do you think he should run further to the right?
Obama is already positioned where he needs to be. What he cannot allow is for the Clintons to turn this into a black vs. white contest, where Obama’s advantage among white men suddenly dries up. Yes, Obama could try to prevent that possibility by pandering to white men that dislike Hispanics and affirmative action, but not without taking a beating from progressives and Latinos, and weakening his support in the African-American community.
What Obama needs to do is firm up his support and make inroads into Hillary’s core constituencies, which are union households, older women, and Hispanics.
I swear, any idiot can get a column in a major newspaper or e-zine if they are either a conservative, or a moron that will say unconventional things about minorities.
“I swear, any idiot can get a column in a major newspaper or e-zine if they are either a conservative, or a moron that will say unconventional things about minorities.”
You ain’t just whistling dixie. I may have to polish up my resume.
are you saying that you’re a moron?
No, but I play one on Teevee.
But damn, it IS kind a no-brainer, isn’t it? Write all kinds of dumb shit a two-year-old could disprove, get it wrong every single time, and you’re set for fucking life! Even people half-demented from Alzheimer’s like david broder don’t lose their jobs.
I was reading about how some of these B-list pundits send out their schedules constantly and make as much as $20K on top of their regular income to say stupid shit on TV. I think Deb Schlossel or whatever her stupid name is makes a pretty penny that way.
I’ll tell you what: grant writing sure isn’t putting me over the top in terms of income. And I’ll bet BMT doesn’t pay you big dividends either. Why not move to the dark Side of the Force: you can hobnob with twits like Wolf Blitzer and I-Want-Candy Crowley. After you make your money, you can pull a David Brock.
I think I’d like to be a Richard Cohen: I could just make shit up and pretend to provide advice for liberals.
or I could just go into human trafficking.
yeah, but you could get arrested for that.
In my plan, you can be responsible for the deaths of thousands, with absolutely no ramifications other than getting fired from Time and getting picked up by the NYT.
Just ask Billy Kristol.
great point.
I thought only Drum read Kaus – though I think he does that only because Kaus is/was on the masthead at WM. Oh, and the people who missed the fact that Slate has sucked since 2000 or so.
Ignore him.
The idea of class-based affirmative action is not a bad one, at least in theory. I suspect there would be some problems in the actual implementation, but I’d like to see the specifics before passing judgment.
On one hand, the whole black vs. white racial divide is just a tool for the rich to keep the poor and the middle class divided against each other. On the other hand, racism is still a real barrier for minorities struggling for equality of opportunity, and it’s not clear that a class-based system would be able to address that bare fact.
What no one is talking about, and what really needs to be addressed to effect long-term change, is education and investment. Out in the civilized world, i.e., Europe, every student with good grades is essentially guaranteed a college education. As a result, the level of economic disparity in Europe is lower than in the US. Additionally, pumping some real money into the SBA to encourage small business growth among the poor and minorities would probably benefit society more dollar-for-dollar than the cornucopia of loopholes and subsidies we offer to giant corporations. We might get really radical and show preferences for employee-owned businesses, but perhaps that’s just the idle dreaming of an old socialist talking again.
Idle dreams of a socialist or not, the whole idea of giving business ownership opportunity to minorities and economically disadvantaged is a worthy goal. Unfortunately, they’ll run into the same problems that many white, middle class employers encounter – the cost of benefits for employees and unfair (i.e., gov’t sponsored) competition from big business. As long as local governments continue to side with the big guys that want to move in (or preserve their monopolies over health insurance and care) over the little guys that are already there and keeping their profits in the community, it will be tough to really charge up the small business environment for anyone, let alone those that already have things stacked against them.
Providing more and better educational opportunity must go along with providing minorities and the poor a chance to control their own destinies. Business ownership is a big part of that path. Since we have already devolved into a country run by large corporations in every way, I’m overwhelmed when I try to eek out the mechanics of how we’ll ever be able to scale all of that back. When the solution to a problem is BIG, it’s got to be tackled by the government, not individuals and the “HA HA HA” free market forces.
I don’t like this game of pitting racial groups against each other, and as I wrote last week, this whole mindset needs to be removed like an ingrown toenail
l agree completely w/ you manny.
but this is just the beginning. the groundwork for the hostile environment we are about to witness was laid prior to the last election by the RATpublicans via the platforms of people like dobbs, limgaugh, beck, etc.
xenophobia, racism, fear of ‘the other’, and hate are going to be the cornerstones of this campaign before it’s all over. l’m appalled that the d‘s, especaily the clintonites, are embracing these tactics.
this does not bode well.
lTMF’sA
yep, we think it’s bad now but during the general, all the proverbial gloves will be thrown off. That we’re already seeing the dirty tactics is disgusting, but not surprising from power-junkies like the Clintons.
I’m in a foul mood today. The news that popped up in my Goggle Alerts was horrid on so many levels. WTF is wrong with people?!?
I recommend everyone click through and read your post. It is very informative in general, but especially right now during this race.
thanks, maryb