So historically red states are racially divided? Who knew?
This split has existed in the Democratic party in most of the South and a few other states since 1968. So why is Marc Ambinder so surprised?
The only thing new is watching a fellow Dem so successfully exploit it, with the added impact of the women’s vote, since so many older women are tired of waiting for this glass ceiling to break.
Yet to a student of US history, there’s a parallel in that, as well. After Constitutional amendments passed in the post-Civil War period, suffragettes like Susan Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Isabella Beecher Hooker and Victoria Hooker tried to make the case to Congress that the voting rights wording was sufficiently vague that women were to also be included as new voters. That argument failed.
During that period, Anthony and Stanton would make a number of racist remarks demeaning black men. In their long careers as champions of human rights, this would be the only blots on their advocacy.
As I pointed out after the 2004 and 2006 elections, the women’s vote has become the majority demographic in the country and played the critical role in returning Congress to Democratic majority control. It was why I predicted in the fall of 2006 that Clinton would be the frontrunner and likely Dem nominee. But both the emerging generation gap and a poorly run Clinton campaign in January and February put her in second, a position she needs miracles to overcome.
As her campaign ever since has exploited the demographic divisions, she’s been careful not to speak openly about the the contest on racial terms. But she’s dogwhistled plenty. And has - in my mind - destroyed her own chances to ever be the Democratic nominee in the future, with her electability arguments and her own exploitation of the Reverend Wright controversy.
Racial bigotry is alive and well in the country. The only question is whether it’s alive enough in the blue and purple states to defeat Obama. He’s also tried to tiptoe around the reality of racial division, and the anger of women long denied from the bully pulpit. Both are quite real.
Do they threaten to destroy the party? Only if Democrats remain in denial and don’t start discussing these things and retreat into vengeance and vindictive bitterness.
Personally, I think those accessories look better on Republicans, but we’ll see in 6 months if Democrats are mature enough to overcome such emotions with the more important one of ‘what’s best for the country?’
It sure as hell isn’t John Nastyass McCain.
(Previous post on the racial divide here).
May 6th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
[…] So get over your bad self. […]
May 6th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
[…] She really lost Indiana tonight, a State that I picked long ago on Tsunami Tuesday to be delivered in a big way by Senator Bayh as her clincher and his ticket to the Vice Presidency. That’s why I stick to post even analysis instead of prognostication. Winning the Bigot Vote in a Democratic primary — when those folks will never, ever, vote for the Democrat in the fall — is no victory whatsoever. […]