Operation Anti-Chaos: The Narrative on “White Voters” Is Fiction
I turn on the TV, read the political columnists (and a significant number of analytically-challenged bloggers, too) and all I hear is a bunch of white folk prattling on about their favorite narrative: “Obama’s losing white voters!”
They’ve swallowed the Clinton racially-obsessed spin, hook, line and sinker. Some, because they are gullible, haven’t an original idea in their little pea brains, and follow the pack of what everybody else is talking about. Others, because they like to toss around knowing falsehoods. Nary a superdelegate can go on Fox News without being berated by an anchorperson screeching (this is pretty close to an exact quote): “But your duty as a superdelegate is to select the most electable and that’s Hillary Clinton!” That these anchorpersons are Republican partisans openly cheering for Senator Clinton is our first clue of the game afoot. One of the major successes of Rush Limbaugh’s Operation Chaos is that it has got all the right-wing pundits and reporters marching lockstep behind the effort to give Clinton enough oxygen to keep slashing away at Senator Obama, who remains the prohibitive likely Democratic nominee.
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You should link that image that shows his support expanding and Clinton's eroding.
May 4, 2008 12:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks TM -
The link to the Image is here: http://ruralvotes.com/thefield/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/blowcorrected.gif
Here is the to the story in the NYT and the image: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/03/opinion/03blow.html
May 5, 2008 4:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
There just aren't enough African Americans and college professors to account for Obama's success thus far. And while I know that some of Starbucks' loyal customers are Republicans, that leaves a lot of white people supporting Barack Obama. Now, I know what you're thinking: Surely some of those Starbucks customers support Hillary Clinton, right?!?!?! But that doesn't fit with their blue collar, working class roots... Hillary supporters drive trucks and get their coffee from the break room. Sure, the plant closed a long time ago, but the break room is still there and the coffee maker is still plugged in...
May 4, 2008 1:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'd really like to know what white registered Democratic voters think of Hillary Clinton and how that has or hasn't changed. Seriously. Wonder if they even analyzed that?
May 4, 2008 1:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hallelujah!
At last Operation Chaos has hit the MSM. It played on Face the Nation
"Does A Right-Wing Conspiracy Help Hillary?
Obama Supporter Says Republican Commentators Are Aiming To Skew Primary Results"
(CBS) In states such as Indiana where open primaries allow independent and Republican Party members to vote for Democratic presidential candidates, right-wing radio commentators are exhorting their listeners to cross party lines and vote for Sen. Hillary Clinton, in the hope that she - and not Sen. Barack Obama - will become the nominee against Sen. John McCain, a supporter of Obama said.
Mayor Douglas Wilder of Richmond, Va., a former senator, said a concerted effort by right-wing media was driving voters to Clinton because, he feels, she is the weaker candidate for the Democratic nomination.
"Why are the poll numbers showing a certain element of the voter being unreachable as far as Barack is concerned? Let's get real. Who is running all of the ads on a regular basis? The bloggers, the right-wing commentators on the radio," Wilder told Face The Nation host Bob Schieffer. "Who are they supporting? Not Barack Obama. They are literally begging people - and these are Republicans - literally begging people, 'Please vote for Hillary Clinton.'
"They have no intention of supporting Hillary Clinton in November. And why are they doing that? Why is it Barack Obama can reach what some call the 'elite voter' but he can't reach the others? That's poppycock. There is a concentrated effort to derive those voters away from him and to drive them to Hillary Clinton, because many of them think that Hillary will be the weaker.”
Concurring with Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., Wilder said that the Democrats faced a "riotous" convention if the will of the people - in terms of a candidate with the greatest number of pledged delegates and primary or votes - was usurped by the party's superdelegates. "People would be tremendously upset," he said.
Clyburn, however, went further, believing that such a decision might inspire violence.
It would certainly breed discontent, he said, especially among younger voters, as he described his visits to historical black colleges and universities in his district: "That is what these young people were saying to me. They were very, very upset with all of this talk about superdelegates overturning their energies and overturning their efforts.
"A lot of them were saying that they felt that all of this talk about Senator Obama [was] just ways to damage him permanently for making it impossible for him to win even if he were to get the nomination.
"These young people have come into this party to the extent that I have not seen in 40 years. And we ought not be doing or saying anything to tamp down their enthusiasm."
Clyburn's message to the superdelegates who are free to vote their will? "They are free to take all of these things into account. And I think that they should. What they are not free to do, in my opinion, is to just outright reject or overturn without sufficient cause what may have happened in these various caucuses and these primaries.
"Be very, very careful. Don't do it just because you got the power to do it, but have good reasons if it comes to that."
May 4, 2008 8:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Narratives are never true or false; they are propaganda on steroids.
Racial subtexts are so interwoven into the folkways and mores of this country that narratives never really have had much of chance, the wink and nod is the biggest problem( yes, greatly simplified). Difference are never a matter of race; the past four mouths have been very instructive.
Long live Strum Thurman! ????? Remember his older daughter! Propaganda is propaganda regardless.
May 4, 2008 1:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
It seems to me the person bringing race into the race is Barack Obama. He started off way back in S. Carolina saying Hillary dissed Martin Luther King. Because of Obama's close association with Jeremiah Wright we had to endure video clips of wright's paranoid racial conspiracy theories and his cursing America over slavery, and using the N-word. Then Obama devoted a thirty-seven minute speech to his pastor's racism, and in it he essentially called his grandmother a racist. He later called her "a typical white person". Then we were treated to a family feud with the re-emergence of Wright, and Obama's subsequent denunciation of him. And on the blogs we get to read posts from Obama supporters such as yourself complaining about "white folk". What a treat Obama's candidacy has been!
May 4, 2008 4:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Just keep practicing aloud; "President, Barack Obama"!
May 4, 2008 10:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hey, Otto:
Just because you see all of these things in racial terms says more about you than it does about Obama. A certain percentage of Americans have 'issues' about a black man running for president. Given our history, I'd be shocked if it were any other way. But it sounds better if they can play word games and blame him somehow for their problem.
This is the real subtext of all this yammering about "white voters".
This is also complete and utter bullsh*t. I don't know your true feelings, and for all we know, you're just a paid operative doing what you're told by one of the other campaigns. But it's still bullsh*t. It won't wash. Not this time.
May 4, 2008 12:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
So Otto, why has Clinton's approval ratings with blacks plummeted?
May 4, 2008 5:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Kanobi11, can I call you Obi Wan? Boy, is this the right place to blog this opinion! "(and a significant number of analytically-challenged bloggers, too)", that makes my quote-of-the-day.
And everyone thought this was about South Carolina...guess you can only dip into the Jesse Jackson ink-well once. Next thing you know they'll bring up O.J.
I do feel sorry for those who are so deep in their denial of racism that they don't realize they are few, and not well respected, even as they are blogging.
May 4, 2008 5:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
The media is concern trolling Obama.
May 4, 2008 11:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
I was reading this yesterday morning and really liked it. I suggest everyone read it.
As well as the Bill Moyer after interview which can be found here, where he addresses emails from people after the Jeremiah Wright week.
Just watch the video:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/5/2/232140/6420/373/508129
May 4, 2008 12:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Operation Chaos hit MSM for awhile now, but it wasn't Rush Limbaugh's push that made MSM follow the Republican strategy, it was Saturday Night Live. When they spoofed the CNN debate to say the media is in bed with Obama. MSM has been anti-Obama ever since. In fact before that SNL spoof Limbaugh was pushing his listeners to vote for Obama to take Hillary out.
May 4, 2008 9:32 PM | Reply | Permalink