Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Hillary, Fear Of A Black Planet, Yellow Dog Democrats

Former Clinton advisor Dick Morris has some interesting observations about how The Clintons will play the race card.
(The only way I'll have a dog in that fight is if Huckabee gets the nomination or Ron Paul dies, but anyway....)
The essence of Morris's argument is that Obama will take something like 80% of the African-American vote. Why that number isn't higher is God's own mystery.
So The Clintons have more to gain by writing off the Black vote altogether, and prey on the Fear Of A Black Planet sentiments of aging Yellow Dog Democrats in the deep south and elsewhere. (That's my prediction of who they'll aim for, not Morris's.)
All of this will be done by surrogates, of course.

If you believe that The Clintons could never do something like this, please use the comment field below.

BTW, The Clintons ran unopposed in Michigan last night and a large number of people showed up for the sole purpose of voting "uncommitted". Exit polling has revealed that a large number of those were minority votes. Here's the always excellent Jay Cost, from the Horserace blog:

As for the Democratic side - the big story is Hillary Clinton losing the African American vote to "uncommitted." The exit poll pegged African Americans going against Clinton, 68% to 30%. It appears that opposition by African Americans induced a split in Wayne County (where Detroit is), 50% to Hillary, 45% to uncommitted. People in the media are going to connect these results to the racial kerfuffle of the last few days - and they are partially right to do so. But I think there is more to it than this. Since his Iowa victory, Obama's numbers among African American voters have been trending upward. Tonight's results are another indication that African Americans are breaking his way. The Clinton campaign should be worried about this. It appears as if Obama might be able to take an important part of the traditional Democratic coalition. He is thus moving beyond the relatively narrow appeal of previous "insurgent" Democratic candidates like Bill Bradley and Gary Hart. This is bad news for Clinton.

Barack Obama, barring some massive ethical lapse, is going to be President of The United States one day. Maybe not this time, running against someone who thinks HE was the First Black President, or Monica Lewinsky's boyfriend's wife, but it's going to happen.

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