West “By God Race Mattered” Virginia

Last evening, less than a week after Hillary Clinton touted her strong support among “hard-working Americans, white Americans,” she absolutely trounced Barack Obama in West Virginia. Her inelegant phrasing had been roundly criticized in the press far and wide–by Rolling Stone (”Clinton: I’m the Cracker Candidate”), conservative columnist Peggy Noonan (”Damsel in Distress”), in Salon.com (”Was Hillary Channeling George Wallace”), as well as just about every other column, columnist, pundit, and blogger.

Despite the offensiveness with which her remarks can rightly be taken (as a white American who didn’t vote for her, I assumed that I was simply not hard working–a fact that may be true), Hillary was on to something. The promise of Barack Obama’s campaign was that he brought a new kind of post-racial politics to America. Indeed, his support initially was heavier among whites than African Americans, and perhaps we remember the plethora of stories as to whether Obama was “black enough” (see for example, Time from February 2007). As the primary has worn on, Obama has shown an amazing appeal to some whites, particularly younger whites, but his support among whites has dropped, in near congruence with the growth of support among African Americans.

In West Virginia, perhaps a sad sign of the times, the racial numbers were quite scary, and I encourage anyone to see for themselves by checking out the exit polls (CNN has a full posting of the exit polls for Campaign 2008). Pay attention, in particular, to the numbers on race.

• 8% of voters said that race was the most important factor in their vote, and 85% voted for Hillary.

Let me say that again, 8% of voters in the DEMOCRATIC primary said that race was the MOST important factor in their vote, and 85% voted for Hillary (for perspective, that’s 18% higher than her overall percentage).

• 14% of voters said that race was one of several important factors, and 79% of these voters cast a ballot for Hillary
• overall, 22% of voters identified race as an important (or the most important factor), and Hillary garnered 81% from this group
• 50% of voters believed that Obama shared the views of Rev. Wright, even after distancing himself strongly from his former pastor

The racial gap was particularly pronounced among older demographic groups–whereas Hillary won 59% of the white vote among 17-29 year olds, she captured 70% among whites aged 60 and older.

What does all this mean? It could mean quite a lot in the general election, since Barack Obama will certainly need to win the support of the vast majority of Hillary’s supporters, though 54% of Hillary’s voters said they would be unsatisfied with an Obama nomination–particularly troubling for Obama given that almost anyone with access to news knows that he is the overwhelming favorite to win the Democratic nomination–and only 51% of Democratic voters said they would vote for Obama against McCain (29% would vote for McCain, and 18% said they would not vote).

But, the election is still nearly 6 months away, and the silver lining for Obama is that despite it all, he won more votes than John McCain yesterday. Granted, the Republican race has been over for months and not generating much enthusiasm. BUT, as people become accustomed to voting for Obama, they’ll probably be back in the fall. Given the overwhelming tide against Republicans this year, Obama still has a decent shot at winning states such as West Virginia in the fall, after the Democratic establishment (including Hillary) rallies around his candidacy. But, the map that we’ve been used to for the past 16 years is likely to be turned on its head, with Obama competitive in some states in the west/southwest and McCain potentially eating into the blue states of the midwest and east.

Obama certainly knows he has a problem. Yesterday, he was in Cape Girardeau, Missouri (the hometown of Rush Limbaugh and where I formerly lived for five years), yesterday talking with the types of people that Hillary Clinton was referring to in her speech last week. I called a former colleague to ask him about the Obama event and was informed that initially that it was supposed to be a larger rally, likely to be held on the campus of Southeast Missouri State University, but instead it was moved into a small establishment, allowing Obama to speak directly to a group of a couple hundred largely white working-class voters rather than his base of college students.

Written by Michael Levy on May 14th, 2008 with no comments.
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Myanmar, et al.: What to Do About Insane Governments?

Once again, international events have raised the question: Should any state be permitted to have a certifiably insane government? Or, alternatively and perhaps more interestingly phrased, should any certifiably insane government be permitted to have a state?

Just now the question is provoked by the ruling junta in Burma/Myanmar. The generals are obstructing the delivery of food, water, medicine, and other aid to the devastated country while untold ordinary citizens suffer. The generals are usually referred to in the press as “xenophobic,” which we may take to mean “unwilling to be observed closely being as bad as they are known to be.” One recent report has them shipping rice out of the country, taking advantage of currently high world prices, while distributing rotted rice to the starving populace. Plus they found time for a national referendum to further consolidate their hold on power.

This behavior comes as no particular surprise, given the generals’ four decades of misrule. There is no question that they are unfit. The question is, who gets to do something about it? The prospects for their replacement by a democratically elected government are as close to zero as makes no difference, and the likelihood of a successful revolution is only slightly higher. What, then, is the responsibility of the rest of the world?

North Korea is ruled by a man who would be confined to an institution and kept away from sharp objects in any sane country. Instead he is permitted to spend the nation’s meager wealth in organizing gigantic halftime ceremonies for himself while the people pursue that most popular of pastimes in such countries, eating grass.

Or take Robert Mugabe. Please. On a scale of one to ten, with ten being “philosopher-king” and one being “despot,” he doesn’t even score. He may well be flat-out nuts, but he’s in charge in Zimbabwe and heaven help the citizen who disagrees with him.

Recall Pol Pot? He was the Cambodian “leader” who decided, in the interest of fostering the creation of heaven on Earth, to depopulate the cities by driving everyone into the countryside and to purify society by ridding it of anyone who was more intelligent than he – one sign of which was the wearing of eyeglasses. A million and more died, one way or the other. Ought he to have been left alone to do that?

Libya? Venezuela? Your list will differ from mine. But that’s not the point just here. I merely pose the question whether the international “community” has any right or duty to do something when regimes like these first show their true colors. The United Nations might seem an appropriate body to take action, but as we know the noun “action” does not translate into any of the languages spoken there. In the United Nations of Reality, crazy regimes are frequently rewarded with plum committee assignments.

A note to potential commenters: Please do not bother to post anything along the lines of “Oh, yeah, how about George Bush?” If you really cannot distinguish between the government of the United States, for all its sins of omission and commission, and those mentioned above, you’d be best advised to keep that dismal fact to yourself.

Written by Robert McHenry on May 14th, 2008 with no comments.
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