Clinton's Political Hale Mary Wont Work
Unfortunately or fortunately , the reasons many of us have great admiration for Senator Obama also lands him in hot water now and then. From the start he has been unconventional in that he talks , often dispassionately, about normally taboo subjects-- race, religion and human nature. I mean he talks about them in real terms , not just poll driven stereotypical statements. There are many good reasons Politicians and even neighbors ( in big and small towns) stay away from these topics as they are extremely complex and it is unavoidable to potentially offend if one tries to be honest about his or her views or is somewhat inarticulate in presenting them.
Obama, on many different occaisions has taken these sensitive issues in ways which make conventional politicos shutter, yet his core beliefs and ultimate ability to cogently explain them has alllowed him to bounce back from extreme criticism .
This most recent controversy is no different, instead of giving a standard political answer to supporters as to why he does not do better among small town white populations in the midwest, he gave an analysis which was generally true but certainly offensive in the manner it was stated. Does this make the thrust of what he said less true -- No, does it make him less electable-- I do not think so in our current climate where many voters are angry and yes bitter about politics, politicians and the general state off economic and foreign affairs. I am in that category of voters and I think many others are as well which has fueled Obamas campaign.
Obama could have given a standard stump speach for the rest of the campaign and out lasted Senator Clinton as her unpopularity among almost all groups except her base of white females over 45 is palpable. For whatever reason , Obama is just different and he feels compelled to give honest snd sometimes politically unconventional answers to questions posed to him by the media and voters. Foe example,his analysis of the political history of Politicians who changed the trejectory of our Country was certainly unconventional and made for great fodder by the Clinton campaign and media in the run up to the Nevada primary because of the implicit praise of Ronald Reagan as a transformative Political figure. Of course , what Senator Obama said was ture-- but no conventional politician running in a Democratic primary would dare say such a thing as it opened the door to sound bite criticism by Senator Clinton and her supporters. Of course , Senator Clinton and President Clinton had heaped much greater and direct praise on President Reagan in speeches and memoirs. This does not matter to the Clinton campaign as long as there is Political hay to be made in the short term.
This latest dust up is more of the same-- but now the door is closing on Senator Clinton's campaign so the calculation to unleash this Political Hale Mary was an easy one. It is in line with the only winnable strategy Senator Clinton has had since the February primaries--- try to ruin Senator Obama and make him appear unelectable by exploiting to grossly disproportionate degrees Senator Obama's ill chosen comments on why many voters are bitter.
It is no coincidence Bill Clinton was scheduled to appear yesterday in 6 or 7 small towns in North Carolina with pre made stickers saying " Im not Bitter:" and Senator Clinton appeared in Indiana to the music of " Small Town" by John Mellancamp , downed a shot of Whiskey and raved about her love of guns. The pure political calculation and disingenous nature of it all is the reason Senator Clinton is so unpopular. Maybe that is who she really is and her support of gun control and past positions have been a ruse-- who knows and no one will ever know--as the truth is a rare and long dismissed commodity for Senator Clinton and her campaign.
I just don't thin Senator Clinton's Hale Mary will work as this voter and many others want a new politics , something different than the politics as usual and some one who will genuinely speak to the anger, bitterness and cynicism inside us because of the lies and lack of Political courage we have seen for way to long. ( That is why President Bush's popularity is around 30% and Congress is even lower). Yes , to put in more blunt vernacular-- people are pissed and it isn't just small town America.
So, I will continue to embrace Senator Obama with the same respect and support I have given him since he started his improbable campaign ( be honest- did most of you realy think a 46 year old black guy named Barak Hussein Obama would get his far in American Politics and have a 50-50 chance of becoming the next President- Bill and Hillary Clinton certainly missed that calculation). Not becuse he is perfect ( because he is not), not becuse he does not sin ( which he does as do we all more often than many of us would like to admit) and not because I agree with all of his positions and everytjing he says or the way he says it ( which I do not) , but because he generally has very good instincts, is honest , inspirational and represents a new kind of Politics.
Senator Obama has often said he will rely on the basic fairness of the voter which has sustained him so far against a Political machine and now the Political right who have great fear of an Obama candidacy. ( You rarely see Senator Clinton as at target of the Political right )
I suspect Senator Clinton's politically calculated Hale Mary will backfire as prespective and proportion is weighed into the politcal onslaught. I , for one, am going to show my support for Senator Obama by giving an online contribution which I normallly do when the Clinton campaign takes out its now bloody but ever dulling hatchet .
er that would be a hail mary, and if you know so little about language what makes me think you know anymore about politics
candidates say dumb things, there are repercussions, get over it, quit trying to make a positive out of something obama felt constrained to make mealy mouthed apology for, you know for hurting anybody's feelings for trashing their culture as being caused by bitterness.
as americans go to church today, i hope they consider how bitter it all is, how much hate they have, how badly they want to shoot an illegal immigrant that does not look like them.
funny when white people make such egregious stereotpes about blacks, they are racists, includng the clintons, of course, but when obama makes an idiotic statement, its a cause celebre for those who know next to nothing about the way real politics work, not the potempkin village politics offered by the junior senator from illinois.
April 13, 2008 7:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
BF- Um, that would be "stereotypes". The people of your "potempkin(sic) village" seem to be easily offended, perhaps from a false since of superiority which could be construed as elitist. Out of touch really.
April 13, 2008 8:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Glass houses and stones. I try to avoid correcting people's spelling and grammar (and I usually succeed), but when someone has as many egregious mistakes as you, it's always a wise idea to avoid pointing them out in others. If you're going to equate knowledge of language with knowledge of politics, do you realize what that suggests about your knowledge of politics?
If I didn't know better, I'd think you were trying to be funny. I mean, this whole blackflag persona isn't one dreamed up by Genghis or articleman as a piece of performance art, is it?
April 13, 2008 8:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
who, me try to be funny? well, its a possibility, but i also do believe what i am saying, i do enjoy playing with language and insofar as grammar and punctuation is concerned, i can do it and i can not do it, sometimes i just like to let it rip, goofy errors and all.
but, never in my goofiest day would i ever make such a comment as did barrack about small town americans, and even if i did it would not matter much, i am but one cog in the machine, not a very important one at that
it was an unnecessarily harsh take, i admit...but truly a hale mary well met?
April 13, 2008 9:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
Which part is goofy: the underlying message, or his particular choice of words (e.g., "bitter" and "cling")?
Surely you're not disputing the actual truth of what he's saying, right? I understand bemoaning the political mistake of his phraseology (in the primary, but more importantly in the GE), but it's really hard to argue that people in small towns enjoy having politicians manipulate them with false promises about getting rid of them thar evil homosexual types and punishing their fat-cat partners-in-crime for hiring illegal immigrants.
April 13, 2008 10:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
it is really hard for these rubes to be manipulated without being bitter?
you lack much understanding of what makes fly over country tick, sorry.
they do not feel manipulated when they vote against gun control. they love it when their reps and senators go along..they are not manipulated quite as much as your snobbish comments might indicate.
yes, i do dispute the truth of what he SAID...not what he or you spun..he said these rubes cling to their guns and their churches out of bitterness, that it made them afraid of people unlike them
i do not care how he decides to nuance it now, he said it, he lives with it and yes i and most decent citizens do as well.
i do not own a gun, i have used a rifle growing up in rural america, i do not fear them strongly but i do not chose to have one in my home. i do not attend church, having an ambivalent view of life, but i know and respect a lot of ordinary peeps that will not look kindly upon being cast as bitter in re their religion and belief in the second amendment.
you may consider me goofy if you like, but more often than not i am right about these matters, having lived democratic politics longer than most of you have had conscious thoughts
April 13, 2008 12:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
When the people you elect to office sell your jobs to the highest bidder, yes it is hard for them to be manipulated without being bitter. When they use things that matter to them in order to make their lobbyist friends richer, yes it is hard for them to be manipulated without being bitter. Only an idiot wouldn't be bitter about these things, and they're not idiots, are they?
April 13, 2008 2:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're not the only non-youngster here.
"barrack" is where army grunts sleep---"Barack" is the guy's name.
April 13, 2008 8:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Huh? Misspelling Hail Mary has to do with football, not "language" and certainly not politics. But now that you have proclaimed yourself our "language expert," do you call this "flight of ideas" (psych-speak, sorry) a sentence?
"candidates say dumb things, there are repercussions, get over it, quit trying to make a positive out of something obama felt constrained to make mealy mouthed apology for, you know for hurting anybody's feelings for trashing their culture as being caused by bitterness."
You really ought to know better than to correct peoples' spelling mistakes and then be such a doofus yourself at your own construction (or lack thereof) --oh, oh, and then to claim that you don't care about capitalization, punctuation, or other stuff!
April 13, 2008 6:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you-- you are right- I miswrote- It is Hail Mary. Tom Abrams
April 13, 2008 7:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
Re: Hale Hail Mary...
I find it interesting that few are connecting with a possible interpretation behind Obama's words (and, maybe he did or didn't intend this interpretation, but it's there):
The key ingredient to Rovian politics is to take existing frustrations and bitterness and focus them through divisive lenses.
Anti-abortion and more liberal interpretations of the 2nd Amendment are issues that have been used in all elections of the past 30 years to motivate the religious and rural communities to vote, and those issues have been cast as pro-Republican issues. Of course, that those issues were almost completely dropped following Republican wins just points out that the Republicans were using those issues, and the people who believe in them, just to get elected. Ask David Kuo.
Anti-gay issues tend to cross demographic boundaries, but have been chiefly promoted as Republican campaign issues and receive their greatest support from the religious community
Again, the bottom line is that these issues have been used just to gain votes, like spreading chum into the water, allowing those who feel bitter and frustrated to have easy paths into which they can focus their generalized feelings of anger, frustration and bitterness.
For me, a rural resident of Michigan -- one of the most economically hard-hit states in the Union by NAFTA and other Republican-like un-free-trade legislation -- Obama's words seemed less a condemnation of us rural folk than it was an acknowledgment that our feelings of anger, frustration and bitterness have been used, over and over and over again, to keep us all divided, our feelings stirred to a high-pitch, and less able to make cold, clear and rational choices when we cast our votes.
Maybe there is a small bit of criticism of the people directly, in that they have participated in being used, but the truth is that when people are vulnerable, when their feelings are raw and exposed, they can be taken advantage-of.
That small truth is exactly what keeps victims of abuse involved in abusive relationships.
Abusers know it, even if it's at an unconscious level. They separate their victims from all their friends, stir up their emotions to the point they can't think as clearly, convince them that red is blue and blue is red, and the resulting confusion immobilizes them from making that rational choice to "just leave."
We the People have been the victims of political abuse. Any who doubt that need just look at where we are now in this country: Corporate fat cats getting rich while the middle class disappears, involved in a war whose only meaningful outcome is that we have outsourced nearly all the infrastructure of our very government to those corporate fat cats, ruined our military, let the real enemies who actually attacked us at home escape and grow strong once more, and ruined our economy.
And Guns, God and Gays have been the rally flags they waved to separate us from focusing on Government, Law and Wealth that should be the prime focus of our political choices. If our militia is well regulated at home (helping to ensure we are secure), everyone (even presidents) pays a price for breaking laws, we make corporations who send our jobs to China pay high taxes for doing so -- and we pay attention to such issues in making our political choices -- we will have greater freedom to sort out our social issues, and may be able to do so without throwing stones at each other.
Just a thought.
April 13, 2008 9:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Excellently stated. This comment would make an excellent post of its own.
April 13, 2008 10:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
Agreed; a post of its own, RealFish.
What the heck, a letter to the Editor!
April 13, 2008 10:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you TheRealFish. I fell for the missspelling correction, and focused on that. You focused on what matters...I appreciate the lesson, and I agree with others that you should put this into a blog post so it will get more attention. Again, thanks!
April 13, 2008 7:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Please let me know my other gammatical errors-- I try to learn from my mistakes. Thank you!
April 13, 2008 9:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, there are quite a few spelling mistakes in there. If you're not already using the latest version of Firefox, I recommend it, not least of all because it has built-in spell checking (automatically underlining in red misspelled words). Of course, it wouldn't catch a hale/hail mistake, nor the more common (in general) mistakes of its/it's, their/there/they're, your/you're, and would've/would of that occasionally drive me insane.
April 13, 2008 10:22 AM | Reply | Permalink