Today both Donnelly, an Atlanta attorney, and Brown, a retired schoolteacher living in the North Carolina mountains, look back at that time with regret. Like many Americans, they've built new perceptions of race on top of a foundation cracked by prejudices past — and present. Yet they rarely speak of the subject.

 

 

Michelle addresses 'elitism and all of that'

Carrie Budoff Brown emails from Haverford, PA:

Michelle Obama took an almost mocking tone as she laced her speech today at Haverford College with references to her husband's remarks about small-town America.

Rather than address the controversy head-on, Obama made subtle references to the issue, rebutting the charges of elitism with details about their life: his mother's use of food stamps, her father supporting a family of four on one city salary, and their school loan debt into their 40s.

"We are struggling like we have never struggled before in my lifetime," Obama said. "I haven't been around very long, but when I look at the life I had growing up, things have gotten hard. But I think of the life through the lens of how I grew. There's a lot of people talking about elitism and all of that.

"So let me tell you who Barack and are, so you are not confused," she continued. "Yeah, I went to Princeton and Harvard, but the lens through which I see the world is the lens I grew up with. I am the product of a middle class upbringing, I grew up on the south side of Chicago, in a working class community."

The crowd in this wealthy suburban community received her message well, at one point giving her a standing ovation when she said there were "no miracles in my life. There nothing miraculous about how I grew up. I want people to know when they look at me to be clear they can see what an investment in public education can look like."

At another point, she said "maybe I am out of touch" when she talked about the dim economic outlook.

 

 

 

Bill Clinton: Older voters too savvy to fall for Obama

QUAKERTOWN, Pa. -- Older voters gravitate to Hillary Clinton because they're too wise to be fooled by Barack Obama's rhetoric, former president Bill Clinton told Pennsylvania voters today.

 

MSNBC called Super Tuesday for Obama, (Chuck Todd is in a class all by himself), but the AP's Singleton  did not call the winner until four days later.  He just could not stand to see a black man win!!!

 

Now he calls Osama, Obama as if that was an error.

 

That was no error.  It's all a part of Clinton's Operation Overlord attack on Obama.

***

 

After the event, an embarrassed Singleton could be heard off camera, but on microphone, telling an unidentified man: "Can't believe I did that. I didn't think I did. But he said it so I assumed I did. So, certainly wasn't on purpose."

 

 

 

 

 

 The Clinton evil attacks on Obama continue unabated.  This time in minstrel black-face-Robert Johnson.

Posted on Tue, Apr. 15, 2008

Johnson cites race in Obama's surge

JIM MORRILL

Wading back into the Democratic presidential race, billionaire businessman Bob Johnson said Monday that Sen. Barack Obama would not be his party's leading candidate if he were white.

Johnson's comments to the Observer echoed those of former vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro. She stepped down as an adviser to Sen. Hillary Clinton last month after saying Obama wouldn't be where he is if he were white.

"What I believe Geraldine Ferraro meant is that if you take a freshman senator from Illinois called `Jerry Smith' and he says I'm going to run for president, would he start off with 90 percent of the black vote?" Johnson said. "And the answer is, probably not... ."

"Geraldine Ferraro said it right. The problem is, Geraldine Ferraro is white. This campaign has such a hair-trigger on anything racial ... it is almost impossible for anybody to say anything."

Johnson, who made a fortune after founding Black Entertainment Television and now owns the Charlotte Bobcats, is a longtime friend of Clinton and her husband, the former president.

It was during a January appearance for the New York senator in Columbia that he first stepped into controversy, referring to Obama and "what he was doing in the neighborhood."

Many took that as a reference to Obama's acknowledged drug use in his youth. But in a statement, Johnson said he'd been "referring to Barack Obama's time spent as a community organizer and nothing else. Any other suggestion is simply irresponsible and incorrect."

On Monday, Johnson alluded to the incident.

"I make a joke about Obama doing drugs (and it's) `Oh my God, a black man tearing down another black man'," Johnson said.

The Obama campaign dismissed Johnson's comments.

"This is just one in a long line of absurd comments by Bob Johnson and other Clinton supporters who will say or do anything to get the nomination," said spokesman Dan Leistikow. "The American people are tired of this and are ready to turn the page on these kind of attack politics."

Johnson disputed the notion that Obama has built a broad coalition. Most of his support, he said, comes from African Americans and white liberals but not white, working-class Democrats.

"I don't think he has that common -- what I call `I-want-to-go-out-and-have-a-drink-with-you -- touch," Johnson said.

An Observer/WCNC Poll this month found Obama and Clinton splitting the votes of white North Carolinians who say they'll vote in the May 6 primary. Obama led 59 percent to 7 percent among African Americans.

Johnson said Obama is likely to win the nomination and has had the support of "the liberal media."

"They sort of dislike Hillary for her vote on the war. They don't want to see Bill and Hillary in power again," he said. "So Obama comes in and runs a smart campaign. But that's not the Second Coming, in my opinion, of John F. Kennedy, FDR or the world's greatest leaders."

http://www.charlotte.com/559/v-print/story/581394.html

 

 

Michael Steele-If you want to stand by and let Sean (McCarthy) Hannity, trash Obama, then that's your choice, but are you also going to standby and let him trash Michelle too?

 

If you have any decency at all, I call on you and Larry Elder to publicly rebuke Hannity, for hurling insult after insult at Michelle Obama.

 

If you let Hannity get away with this garbage, then Neimoller says that your wives, sisters, nieces, mothers, and grandmothers will be next.

 

 

Hillary Clinton is against Obama.

Bill Clinton is against Obama.

John McCain is against Obama.

Charlie Black works for McCain and is against Obama.

Mark Penn, who is Charlie Black's boss,  works for Clinton and is against Obama.

President Bush, his adminstration, and republicans have endorsed McCain and are against Obama.

 

Clinton, Clinton, McCain and Bush are working in concert against Obama.

***

 

 

After feinting Calais, Bill Clinton's mudslinging gutter politics-attack against Obama has begun:

 

(1). Republican Davis calls Obama "boy."

 

(2).  Eight days before the Pennsylvania primary, Bush Administration witness Stuart Levine smears Obama's name at Rezko trial saying he saw Obama at a meeting with Rezko, and an investor; but providing no other evidence except his word.

 

(3).  John "owner of eight homes" McCain calls Obama "elite."

 

(4). Hillary "$109 million" Clinton calls Obama "elite."

 

(5). Bush's FBI let out an embarrasing tape of a movie star supposedly with the Kennedys to embarras the Kennedys and Obama

 

This is light stuff; the unparalleled gutter main attack will occur within the last two days before the Penn primary.

 

Until then we will see a steady stream of Clinton slimmy politics. 

 

 

 

Davis apologizes for calling Obama 'boy'

 

 

Black people and world-see what we are up against-Bill and Hillary and McCain are all in it together.  These are the same type forces  arrayed against black people in our daily lives; when we go to get a job.

 

Nobody is on our side!!!

 

MCCAIN: 'HILLARY CAN STILL PULL IT OFF';
SENATOR PREFERS CLINTON CONTEST
Mon Apr 14 2008 10:46:19 ET

**Exclusive**

Republican presidential hopeful John McCain has confided to his inner circle that Hillary Clinton may yet be the Democratic nominee, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned, a development the senator from Arizona would personally welcome!

"Look, I know something about long odds, they had me written off last summer," McCain explained over the weekend, according to a top source.

McCain would prefer to go up against Clinton in the general election, insiders reveal.

He has instructed his campaign staff to "chill out" on countering Hillary Clinton's torrent of claims and promises as primary voting comes to an end over the next 6 weeks.

McCain made the tactical decision to downplay Clinton's tale of Bosnia sniper fire, leaving some McCain staffers frustrated and perplexed.

Instead, the critical focus has been on Barack Obama. McCain's official website features 14 press releases taking on Obama since the first of the year, only 3 for the former first lady.

 

 

 

Dan Agin:The Huffington Post

 

4/13/2008

 

 

The cover of the just-out April 21st issue of that sophomoric rag National Review has a close-up photograph of Michelle Obama looking angry -- with the headline: Mrs. Grievance: Michelle Obama and Her Discontent.

The obvious aim of the article is to ridicule Michelle Obama.

Before I go on to consider some of the details of the article, I want to make it clear what National Review is all about. It's the late William Buckley's hobby magazine, a place where conservatives foam at the mouth in their hatred of progressives, liberals, Democrats, non-Anglo-Saxon immigrants, and anyone who struggles to survive in our free-market paradise. For example, a few years ago, when National Review celebrated its 50th anniversary, the senior editor Richard Brookhiser decided it was time to enlighten the American public with his views about "Happy Darkies". Here's what Brookhiser told us (National Review September 19, 2005):

Happy darkies are most of the world: people with skins generally darker than mine, who live in Africa, most of Asia, and much of the Americas. Sometimes they start at Calais. These days they certainly inhabit every restaurant kitchen in New York. It seems paradoxical to call them happy. They are poor, numerous, and pregnant; if they work, it is to little purpose; their religions span a simple spectrum from witchcraft to wrath, and their societies alternate between tyranny and chaos; they beat their wives, scarify their daughters, and occasionally eat their enemies; they have never read (if they can read) a book that was not holy, or heard a piece of music unrelated to copulation.

What a tragedy that Brookhiser seems so proud of his ideas, so unaware how un-American he is.

The piece in National Review about Michelle Obama is so badly written and incoherent that it's difficult to make sense out of anything but its vitriol. But here are a few pearls:

The author, Mark Steyn, says, "There's something pitiful about a political culture that has no use for Mitt Romney, a hugely successful businessman, but venerates a woman who gets more than 300 grand for running a 'neighborhood outreach' and 'staff diversity' program.

Now, pray, what the hell is this? Are we expected to make Mitt Romney president of the United States because he's a "hugely successful" businessman? Was Mitt Romney rejected by the same people that "venerate" Michelle Obama? Romney was rejected by his fellow Republicans, and if anyone is venerating Michelle Obama, I assure you it's not Republicans. The quoted sentence is so fatuous it jangles one's eyeballs.

In discussing Michelle Obama's Princeton education and undergraduate thesis, Mark Steyn says, "Ah, the benefits of an elite education. The thesis is dopey, illiterate, and bizarrely punctuated, but so are the maunderings of many American students."

Of course, given such a personal attack on a college student's talents, we hunger to read Mark Steyn's undergraduate thesis. No maunderings or bizarre punctuations?

Mark Steyn says Michelle Obama "embodies a peculiar mix of privilege and victimology, which is not where most Americans live."

Yes, indeed, most Americans don't live there, and they also don't live where Mitt Romney lives. But there's no inherited privilege in Michelle Obama, only achievement through intelligence and education, and the "victimology" is that of a black woman living in a thoroughly racist society. Is the mix "peculiar" or merely natural? Does Mark Steyn really believe that if a black woman finds success in America she ought to abandon any resentment at the many years of idiot prejudice thrown at her by the likes of the editors of National Review?

Thanks for the piece, Mark. Here's a toast to you and Richard and perspicacity.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-agin/michelle-obama-and-the-po_b_96317.html

 

 

 

All those in the press who say that they don't know Obama, call the Pentagon.

 

I'll bet you a shrimp dinner that the Pentagon knows everyone in the Soviet military chain of command from at the least colonel level on up and may know it  from the captains level on up, in the Soviet Army, Navy, AirForce and Marines.

 

How come the Pentagon knows every military person of consequence in the Soviet military, 5000 miles away, and you the American press don't know Obama who lives in America in your own back yard and who has been a public figure for at least 11 years?

 

I'll tell you why?

 

The Pentagon takes care of business and you don't.

 

They have the information on the Soviet military locked down tight, while you guys have been asleep at the wheel when it comes to covering black people.

 

So don't whine about your own derelection of duty.

 

You have nobody to blame for your lack of knowledge but yourselves.

 

 

 

Nico Pitney

The Huffington Post

Bill Clinton Flashback: "All These Economically Insecure White People...Are Scared To Death"

      April 13, 2008 02:41 PM  

As the rumination continues over Barack Obama's comments about economically-depressed small town voters, statements made by Bill Clinton on the same topic -- uttered while he was running for president in 1991 -- have now surfaced.

"The reason (George H. W. Bush's tactic) works so well now is that you have all these economically insecure white people who are scared to death," Clinton was quoted saying by the Los Angeles Times in September 1991.

A couple months later, Joe Klein, writing for the Sunday Times, reported that Clinton made the following remarks:

"You know, he [Bush] wants to divide us over race. I'm from the South. I understand this. This quota deal they're gonna pull in the next election is the same old scam they've been pulling on us for decade after decade after decade. When their economic policies fail, when the country's coming apart rather than coming together, what do they do? They find the most economically insecure white men and scare the living daylights out of them. They know if they can keep us looking at each other across a racial divide, if I can look at Bobby Rush and think, Bobby wants my job, my promotion, then neither of us can look at George Bush and say, 'What happened to everybody's job? What happened to everybody's income? What ... have ... you ... done ... to ... our ... country?'"

For comparison's sake, here is Obama's statement, reported by Mayhill Fowler for Huffington Post's OffTheBus:

Here's how it is: in a lot of these communities in big industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, people have been beaten down so long, and they feel so betrayed by government, and when they hear a pitch that is premised on not being cynical about government, then a part of them just doesn't buy it. And when it's delivered by -- it's true that when it's delivered by a 46-year-old black man named Barack Obama (laugher), then that adds another layer of skepticism (laughter). [...]

But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there's not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

What do you think -- are they similar?

Update: Jason Linkins notes a statement from Harvard political scientist Theda Skocpol to Talking Points Memo, which reads in part:

I have been in meetings with the Clintons and their advisors where very clinical things were said in a very-detached tone about unwillingness of working class voters to trust government -- and Bill Clinton -- and about their unfortunate (from a Clinton perspective) proclivity to vote on life-style rather than economic issues. To see Hillary going absolutely over the top to smash Obama for making clearly more humanly sympathetic observations in this vein, is just amazing…

 

 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/13/bill-clinton-flashback-al_n_96433.html

 

 

 

Why Gov. Bill Richardson didn't endorse Clinton

The New Mexico governor says he was dismayed by pressure from the Clinton camp, and impressed by Obama's optimism. Besides, 'you don't transfer loyalty to a dynasty.'

By Mark Z. Barabak, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

April 12, 2008

SANTA FE, N.M. -- Before he endorsed Barack Obama, before he drew the wrath of the Clintons and was likened to Judas, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson nearly endorsed Hillary Rodham Clinton for president.

But Richardson hesitated, and as the Democratic campaign turned ugly, he grew angry.

There was that "3 a.m." TV ad, in which Clinton questioned Obama's personal mettle. "That upset me," Richardson said.

There were some ham-fisted phone calls from Clinton backers, who questioned Richardson's honor and suggested that the governor, who served in President Clinton's Cabinet, owed Hillary Clinton his support. "That really ticked me off," Richardson said.

Still, even as he moved from Clinton toward Obama -- "the pursuit was pretty relentless on both sides" -- Richardson wrestled with the question of loyalty. After 14 years in Congress and a measure of fame as an international troubleshooter, Richardson was named Clinton's U.N. ambassador, then Energy secretary: "two important appointments," Richardson said.

He finally concluded that he had settled his debt to the former president: He had worked for Clinton's election in 1992, helped pass the North American Free Trade Agreement as part of his administration, stood by him during the Monica S. Lewinsky sex scandal, and rounded up votes to fight impeachment.

"I was loyal," Richardson said during an extended conversation over breakfast this week at the governor's mansion in Santa Fe. "But I don't think that loyalty is transferable to his wife. . . . You don't transfer loyalty to a dynasty."

He was impressed by the mostly positive tone of Obama's campaign, and grew to appreciate the substance and depth of their private conversations. The more Richardson heard from the Washington heavyweights backing Clinton, the more convinced he became of the need for a change inside the Beltway.

It has been three weeks since Richardson embraced the Illinois senator, an endorsement that continues to rankle and resonate -- the significance, it would seem, going far beyond the preference of a governor from a poor, rural state.

But this is a family fight, between kin of the Clinton years, so perhaps the raw emotions shouldn't be surprising. "They're very similar in personality," said Art Torres, chairman of the California Democratic Party and a friend of both Bill Clinton and Richardson. "There was a bond established, and I think [the former president] feels a little hurt."

Attention to the endorsement might have quickly passed but for the strenuous protest of Bill Clinton and others. Speaking for the campaign, advisor Mark Penn suggested Richardson's endorsement came too late to be much help to Obama. "Everyone has their endorsers," he said.

But then James Carville, the pundit, strategist and Clinton loyalist, hurled a lightning bolt by comparing Richardson to Judas and his surrender of Jesus for 30 pieces of silver.

Soon after came an odd back-and-forth concerning a private conversation in which, supposedly, either Hillary Clinton or Richardson dismissed Obama as unelectable. (Neither party will discuss particulars, but Richardson said he never made that statement.)

Days later, just when interest in the endorsement seemed to wane, former President Clinton exploded in a rant about Richardson at the California Democratic Party convention. He later apologized, but his tirade in a closed-door session with superdelegates rekindled the story for several more days.

People close to Clinton said he views the governor's action as a personal betrayal. "I think [Richardson] really owes a big chunk of his success and his career to the Clintons," said an associate who has discussed the matter with the former president and requested anonymity to speak candidly.

 

"Look," Richardson responded, "I was a successful congressman rescuing hostages before I was appointed. I was a governor afterward, elected on my own."

Even more than the endorsement, Clinton's associate said, the former president was angry because he thought Richardson broke his word. The two men watched the Super Bowl together at the governor's mansion -- Clinton made a special trip from California in bad weather -- and the former president walked away convinced that Richardson would endorse his wife or, at least, stay neutral.

Richardson was, in fact, close to backing the New York senator that day, though his advisors -- many of whom backed Obama -- urged him to wait. "I remember talking to the president and saying, 'I'm leaning. But I'm not there yet.' He denied pledging neutrality if he changed his mind. "Sometimes people hear what they want to hear," Richardson said.

Normally the most gregarious of politicians, the governor during the interview this week was subdued as he slowly worked his way through a plate of scrambled eggs, bacon and green chiles. His voice was soft, and he rarely smiled.

His endorsement had been highly coveted, due largely to his stature as one of the country's most prominent Latino leaders. The pursuit began soon after Richardson quit the presidential race on Jan. 10.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/la-na-richardson12apr12,0,1175443.story?track=mostviewed-storylevel

 

 

 

No, Hillary Clinton shouldn't be winning

Sean Wilentz spun a fantasy in his Salon piece about Clinton's electability. In the real world, it's Barack Obama who's more electable.

By Brad DeLong

Apr. 10, 2008 | Hillary Rodham Clinton has won fewer votes this spring in contested primaries than Barack Obama. She has persuaded fewer of her supporters to turn out for caucuses. She has won fewer pledged delegates. Yet Sean Wilentz writes that she "should be winning." And in response I say: "Huh?"

It turns out that when Sean Wilentz says that Hillary Clinton "should be winning" the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, what he means is that if all the Democratic caucuses and primaries had been winner-take-all, then "Clinton would now have 1,743 pledged delegates to Obama's 1,257."

Sean Wilentz is a Yankees fan. I am a Red Sox fan. Perhaps Sean Wilentz could write that the American League championship should go to the team with the most hits instead of the most wins, which would have made the Yankees rather than the Red Sox the real champions last year. After all, isn't the real point of baseball to hit the ball and get on base? That's why it's called baseball, and not run-ball or win-ball, right? I would not find that argument convincing. Wilentz's winner-take-all gambit is a talking point, not an argument: "If my grandmother had wheels, she would be a bus" is rarely a persuasive line of reasoning. If the rules for winning delegates and the nomination had been different, the candidates would have run different campaigns and put their resources into different places and different proportions.

Is there another argument out there, one based on the way things actually work in 2008? Does Sean Wilentz have an argument that, say, a critical mass of superdelegates might take as a reason that they should support Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination? Reading through his piece, I see unsupported allegations of cheating, references to "blatantly anti-democratic maneuvers" by the Obama campaign, and "the same kind of tactics as George Bush's camp used in Florida in 2000." But I find two, and only two, things that I would take to be real arguments. They are interrelated:

1) "Clinton has won the popular vote in all ... large states [except Illinois]." Wilentz claims that Clinton is the stronger candidate because she would deliver big states in the fall.

2) "The latest state-by-state figures ... indicate that if the election were held today, Clinton would defeat McCain ... because of her lead in big, electoral-vote-rich states such as Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania -- and McCain would beat Obama."

Argument 1 is simply wrong. Small states have electoral votes too -- more electoral votes per capita, in fact, than large states. A good many large states are not in play in any reasonable election: The Democrat will win New York and California, and the Republican will win Texas and Georgia, unless it is an absolute blowout landslide.

Argument 2, by contrast, is interesting, since it posits that Clinton is the stronger candidate against the GOP nominee in specific swing-state matchups. If true, this could provide a good reason for public-spirited superdelegates to support Hillary Rodham Clinton over Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention. Wilentz cites "DaveOinSF," writing on March 20 at MyDD, who updated state-by-state polls and found that Hillary Clinton does better than Barack Obama against John McCain in 13 swing states, meaning the 13 states where the margin between the two major-party candidates in the last two presidential elections was closest to the nationwide split. In five states with a total of 42 electoral votes -- Michigan, New Hampshire, Iowa, Nevada and Colorado, Obama beats McCain and Clinton does not. In four states with a total of 78 electoral votes -- Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Florida and Ohio -- Clinton beats McCain and Obama does not. Both Democrats lead McCain in three states with 22 electoral votes, Oregon, Wisconsin and New Mexico. McCain beats both Democrats in Missouri, which has 11 electoral votes.

I take this to be an argument about "electability," meaning an assertion about which candidate has the greatest chance of capturing the electoral votes of the true swing states. I take Wilentz to be saying that Barack Obama is less electable -- that there is something about Barack Obama and his campaign that makes him less likely to win a majority of electoral votes in a close election this November.

Unfortunately for all of us, Wilentz doesn't develop this argument. This means that I have to do Sean Wilentz's job as well as my own.

The Argument Sean Wilentz Should Have Made:

So: Consider the 153 electoral votes in these 13 swing states -- Michigan, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Oregon, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Iowa, New Mexico, Florida, Ohio, Nevada, Missouri and Colorado. What reasons do we have to think that one or the other of the Democratic candidates would have an easier time capturing the bulk of these crucial electoral votes?

The best -- what I think is actually the only -- "electability" argument for Hillary Clinton was made by Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo in a commentary on posts by bloggers David Sirota and Brendan Nyhan. Marshall wrote that he believes that states with a midsize African-American population are especially difficult for Obama to win:

    [R]acially polarized voting increases with the size of the black population in a given state. That leaves Obama winning a lot of states with few blacks. But once the black population gets into the high single digits, racialized voting kicks in and Obama then can't get enough of the white population to win. Only when blacks approach 20% of the population does the black population get large enough to make up for and often overcome the increased white resistance to voting for Obama ...

Only a quarter of the nation lives in states where the African-American population is in "the high single digits" -- that is, where "racialized voting kicks in" but where the African-American population is not large enough "to make up for and often overcome the increased white resistance to voting for Obama." But 96 out of the 153 swing electoral votes belong to five key states where voting is racially polarized, and where the black population is not big enough for an increased black turnout to offset the white vote. The states, in order of black population by percentage, are Michigan and Florida (14 percent); Missouri and Ohio (11 percent); and Pennsylvania (10 percent).

The argument that Wilentz should have made is that this spring's primary results show that white reluctance to vote for an African-American candidate could be a real and important factor this November -- and potentially key in these five states, all of them crucial to Democratic hopes. Superdelegates should therefore make a coldblooded calculation to cater to the prejudices of the American electorate in swing states by choosing Clinton over Obama.

Is this argument true? Is it supported by statistical fact? As best as I can tell, no.

As Nyhan pointed out, there is no visible tendency for Obama to fare worse than Clinton as the African-American portion of the population increases. Nyhan presents a graph showing that the higher the black share of the population, the better Barack Obama has done in the primaries. Any increasing racial polarization as the black share of the population rises is offset by greater African-American turnout.

But would this same logic apply to the general election? I believe that it would. First of all, there is no sign that states with demographic compositions like the key five -- Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, Michigan and Missouri -- are necessarily hard terrain for Democratic politicians. Consider this graph, which is constructed to show the correlation between percentage of black population and the Democratic vote in the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

With the exception of Washington, D.C. -- that blue dot way off in the upper-right corner, which has both a black majority and a population that votes 80 percent Democratic -- the linear relationship between African-American population share and Democratic vote share is flat. There is some evidence, albeit weak, that states with demographics like the key five are the most hospitable to Democrats. Democratic presidential candidates do fine in states in the middle of the black population range, like New York. It's mostly the states with the lowest and the highest African-American shares -- both Idaho, less than 1 percent black, and Mississippi, nearly 40 percent black, are GOP fiefdoms -- that are the least hospitable to Democrats.

 

Second, wherever Barack Obama has campaigned this spring, the results in terms of voter turnout have been astonishing and phenomenal. There are two ways to win a general election: mobilizing and achieving a high turnout from your issue and demographic base, and persuading independent swing voters to come to your side. Barack Obama has shown a remarkable power to get independents who do not usually turn out for the Democratic primary to show up and vote for him. And he has shown a remarkable power to turn out his base. Both of these would have to vanish mysteriously in the general election before Obama could be called less "electable."

Thus my judgment is that the argument that superdelegates should support Hillary Clinton because Barack Obama is not very "electable" falls to the ground of its own weight.

I think that Wilentz agrees with me. He talks about a winner-take-all system that doesn't exist, but spends little time engaging the real-world issue of electability. And that is: Which Democratic candidate, Obama or Clinton, has a better chance of carrying Michigan, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Oregon, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Iowa, New Mexico, Florida, Ohio, Nevada, Missouri and Colorado against John McCain in November?

And, alas, the arguments that Clinton would fare worse in those states, and that she is less electable generally than Obama, are numerous and distressingly powerful:

    * She is a Clinton, and hence will energize the Republican base against her nationwide as nobody else can.

    * The press corps has never given her a fair shake, and as Machiavelli once said, we can never forgive and be fair to those to whom we have done injury.

 

    * Barack Obama is a charismatic, historic figure.

    * The positions that Clinton has been taking vis-à-vis Obama in the past month appear to open up major vulnerabilities in the fall. McCain's national security experience in Vietnam trumps Clinton's national security experience in Tuzla, Bosnia.

Now, none of these are Hillary Rodham Clinton's fault -- well, except for that last one, which is her fault, or perhaps Mark Penn's. None of these are fair. But they do make me believe that flinty-eyed Democratic superdelegates making coldblooded calculations about the national interest are making a better bet on the future if they decide to support Barack Obama.

n      By Brad DeLong

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/04/10/wilentz_reply/print.html