I don’t know who will win tonight’s primary in South Carolina. It looks good for Barack Obama but New Hampshire showed us that nothing is certain until the votes are counted. But, whatever happens, the Clintons have won the expectations game and they have succeeded in turning this into a racial contest. Just look at this Wall Street Journal headline: To Truly Win in Carolina, Obama Needs Large Margin. And what do you think of this?
Early on, the primary appeared likely to be an intriguing competition between an African American with broad appeal to white voters and a woman with strong ties to the black community.
Instead, what has developed is an electorate polarized along racial lines. An MSNBC-McClatchy newspapers poll this week showed Obama with 59 percent of the black vote and about 25 percent for Clinton. Among white voters, Obama’s support is barely in the double digits, with Edwards narrowly leading Clinton among the rest of the white community.
More than four in five African American voters said they have a favorable impression of Obama, but only about a third of white voters have a positive view of his candidacy. Big majorities of white voters give Clinton and Edwards positive marks, but fewer than half of blacks rated them positively.
I know some people have an issue or two with Barack Obama’s campaign (on the issues or his post-partisan tone) but it’s hard to figure out why someone would have negative view of his campaign, which has aspired to be relentlessly positive and hopeful. Yet, two-thirds of white South Carolinians express a negative opinion. This is an expression of the power of dog whistle politics, and these results show that the Clintons are masters of the genre. Ironically, injecting race into the contest has benefited Edwards as much or more than it has benefited Hillary. With any luck (and justice) Edwards will come in second place tonight and punish the Clintons for their heinous campaign tactics.
More likely, however, Hillary will come in a strong second and move quickly to dismiss the significance of the result. The media is already doing the job.
For Sen. Barack Obama, anything less than a decisive victory Saturday might lead some political operatives and observers to shrug off a first-place finish as a given…
…Even with a decisive victory in South Carolina, Mr. Obama could face new challenges. After nearly a year of avoiding the issue of race and running a campaign based on positive change, the Illinois senator has addressed the issue more directly in both his stump speeches and in TV ads that boast he was the first black president of the Harvard Law Review.
Being seen through a racial lens may diminish his chances in other states, especially those with fewer black voters, says Julian Zelizer, a professor of contemporary American politics and public affairs at Princeton University in New Jersey. “Obama will need to regroup and think about his image leading into other primaries,” Mr. Zelizer says.
In the past week, Mr. Obama’s support among white Democrats fell in South Carolina to 10% from 20%, according to a McClatchy/MSNBC poll. Many of those voters switched their allegiance to South Carolina-born candidate John Edwards, the former North Carolina senator.
In this media narrative there is no possible result out of South Carolina that won’t benefit Clinton. If Obama doesn’t win by a huge margin, he loses. If his vote is heavily black, he loses. If the white vote rejects him, he loses. And, by the way, it’s his fault that racial divides have opened up because he had the gall to mention that he was the first black president of the Harvard Law Review.
With the deck this stacked against him, what hope is there than Obama can gain any momentum out of a victory tonight?
Earlier didn’t you say that Obama would lose if he won big, lose if he won by a small margin and lose if he lost?
The Clintons’ extensive experience is showing, and it’s not in effective governance. It’s in masterful demolition of any and all adversaries.
According to the press, the worst thing he could do is win period. Unless, of course, he loses.
once the Clintons (yes they’re a power couple) declared that they’re entitled to return to the White House, the process was theirs. As titular head of the party, Bill called in IOUs.
Edwards not a chance. Obama even less of a chance.
The question now presented is; by releasing the demon of race and voter supression, has Bill Clinton cleared a path for Republicans to win on November 4th?
Clintons cannot recover from the damage they’ve caused. The party is deeply wounded.
Around the World, The Economist
Having the Clintons as our standard bearer will allow a GOP victory. The candidate will be Bill Clinton. And nostalgia for those prosperous 90s? The current financial crisis will be laid at his feet. Count on it. He and Rubin led the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, deregulating the banks.
adversaries except the GOP of course. They’ll just triangulate with them if they get into office. They can’t actually beat them. So we lose anyway.
Two things:
First, this is all media narrative. As we have often observed to our endless annoyance in the blogosphere, the general public doesn’t follow the news all that closely, and the punditocracy doesn’t represent the views of very many people outside of the Beltway echo chamber.
Secondly, South Carolina isn’t typical of much of anything but South Carolina. It’s not typical of the country in general, and it’s not even typical of the South.
I think the main thing that will come out of this is that an Obama victory will increase black turnout elsewhere, and it will drive another nail into the Clinton inevitability narrative. And it may breathe new life into the Edwards campaign, especially if he comes in second. (I don’t think Edwards has much of a chance at the nomination, but strong showings could score him a veep position with Obama.)
Will white people panic because of a largely black-driven victory in SC? I doubt it. Those white people weren’t going to vote for Obama in the first place. Let them rot in SC.
there is nothing more powerful that the media narrative, especially as expressed on cable news. It drives the polls more than any other factor. It’s true that people do not pay much attention to what Beltway pundits says in their columns and editorials, but they do get almost all of their political news from their teevee. For over a year, the media has been salivating for a Hillary-McCain race and it is no accident that we are on the cusp of getting just that. McCain was flat broke and came back almost entirely through the power of cable news.
IMO, Clinton was always going to win this one. She had the institutional advantage – money, DLC crowd, all the Cintonistas from Terry McAuliffe, Wes Clark, Madeline Albright, James Carville, etc and the media establishment – Murdoch raised money for her.
Obama got a flash in the pan with Iowa that was quickly nixed by New Hampshire.
So what kind of a administration will we get if Hillary wins the general (which will be very narrow)? 90s redux – sista Souljah and triangulation! This time instead of welfare queens – its going to be national security. We’ll have an expansion in the surveillance state and an aggressive foreign policy posture – it will be Dubya lite however.
Wall Street and the media oligarchy will continue to run the roost. Bill gave us NAFTA, what will Hillary give us?
And, the Repubs will have a field day – back to the scandals, attacks and politics of personal destruction. The Democratic party will once again lose its momentum as it will not stand for anything. Dean gets the boot and the Clinton hacks take it all back. I predict the Dems will lose big time in the 2010 mid-terms.
We’ve been there. Clinton II compared to Clinton I will be what Bush II was compared to Bush I.
I think a strong Obama showing will help him in the rest of the Southern states that hold a primary on Feb. 5, along with the caucus states.
California and NY will be big…if Obama can keep it in the 5-10% point loss in CA while hitting the 31% threshold in NY to pick up 40% of the delegates, along with winning several of the rural states (e.g. 12 field offices in CO, compared to 1 for Clinton; only one in ND and AK to have any campaign field staff), then he’ll definitely still have a fighting chance. I also think the post-Feb. 5 contests are generally favorable towards Obama as well.
Of course Clinton is favored. But if Obama can pull off a great SC showing (e.g. 15% victory or so), the narrative might change.
I just finished writing an actual diary on what I think Obama should do about this and then I find this one posted. I agree that the media narrative is a problem for Obama now. Especially at NBC where Chuck Todd, head of the political division, seems determined to do him in, unless Obama puts up a fight.
Now South Carolina, with its ugly racial history as the one-time largest slave state and its wounds that may never heal, is not representative of the nation as a whole, but the coverage of it will affect any momentum gained from a win there.
I think it’s time for Obama to change the narrative by taking off the gloves, showing he’s no victim and hitting Hillary back – HARD.
Another example of the ‘Obama loses by winning’ genre.
That is a perfect example of why Obama has to change course and start beating the shit out of the Clintons by showing the Feb 5 states just what scumbags they can be. Tell the voters that they’re being had and compare the Clinton Gang to Rove.
Explanation needed:
http://demconwatch.blogspot.com/2008/01/superdelegate-list.html
http://demconwatch.blogspot.com/2008/01/superdelegate-list.html
…and they can pick the next candidate?
Yes, it looks like he loses the media narrative — no matter what. No SC bounce. The best he can hope for is that Edwards provides a deflation of Hillary and I think that’s unlikely. But … it’s hard to predict this campaign, so a pop of Hillary’s balloon by Edwards remains a possibility.
But depicting Obama as a victim of the Clintons doesn’t help him. People don’t vote for a candidate out of pity because the other side is being mean to him – especially when hard ball tactics are a part of every campaign. You are giving Hillary way too much credit and not holding him accountable for his own campaign.
He bears responsibility for his own campaign. There is absolutely nothing that has happened in this campaign that was not predictable — except Hillary suddenly attracting women by having an unexpected emotional moment that created a backlash against the media and votes for her in NH (but even that discounts her excellent GOTV campaign that is focused on women).
Anyone who intends to run for President and play with the big boys has to have a winning strategy. Even if the big boy is a gal. So far I have not been impressed with his strategy. His message of “change” is too squishy to provide him with stark contrast to Hillary. In state after state he doesn’t win self-identified Democrats. In my own state where people are just starting to focus on the primary, people are asking “what does Obama stand for?” And there isn’t an easy answer. “Change” isn’t enough. This is a problem that wasn’t created by Hillary but by his own campaign strategy.
As for tonight, since the media narrative is entirely predictable, and has been predictable for quite some time, Obama should have a plan to deal with it. We’ll see what he does.
I’d like to see him attack the “media narrative” in a moving victory speech that focuses on unity between white & black, shaming the media for their endless “debate” that only divides us.
It would be a use of his strength. He’s fantastic at giving speeches. Inspiring.
He’s also great in small group Q&A – which unfortunately won’t play a large part in a Super Tuesday strategy.
But the key is the message – which needs to move him into the next phase of the campaign, not just respond to SC. He needs to get out in front of the Clinton campaign so he’s setting the message and not always responding.
thats a great suggestion, Randy
See the post I just put up. First, the question was whether Obama was “black enough” to be competitive in the South. 😀 Enjoy.
my question is if a whole bunch of people figure that white america isnt going to vote for obama…and they dont want hillary for whatever reason….are they then going to turn to edwards?
people like winners…..thats why its important to win a few in the beginning….you get a bump from people who vote because they had an aha moment when they figured maybe you can win…..if all the candidates were white men who would people be voting for i wonder? maybe there is an advantage to all the candidates being the same race and sex….maybe then people really look at what the candidate is saying….it will be interesting to see what happens when all the candidates are black lesbians.
I have sensed in the past 48 hours a growing resentment towards the Clintons for the way they have poisoned this campaign. The commentary on the News Hour last night was devastating.
I expect some higly respected leaders of the Democratic Party to speak out during the coming week.
The Clintons have many friends in the MSM but they may not be able to stop the growing backlash.
here’s another one from the same genre: CBS News.
Wrong link.
sorry.
For the life of me I cannot see how you can blame this narrative on the Clintons. It was plain as day that the media is driving this racial/gender narrative from the start. After New Hampshire it was “Did Clinton’s crying save the day?” The first thing after Nevada results came in was the media commenting on how poorly Obama did with the Hispanic vote. That quickly changed to “How many whites will Obama pick up in South Carolina?” Division is the only aspect the media wants to dwell on and it is not the fault of the Clintons. I do think the media is attempting to do whatever it can to make sure another Republican gets elected.