Largely spurred on by Hillary's "the sky is falling" panic over Obama's supposed non-electability, the media has been spinning a story about what a rough time Obama is going to have in November against McCain. The electoral map is all wrong for Obama, the pundits say. He can't win white votes, they add, picking up on Hillary's hateful, wrong-headed and dismissive claim. I have friends, too, who are all shaky and frightened. They say things like: "Oh man, the Republicans are going to 'swift-boat' Obama," and "The media looooves McCain."
Looking at recent Democratic wins in congressional contests to fill empty Republican seats, and the nonsense the Republican candidates threw up on the airwaves, I've become pretty confident that November will not only promise a comfortable Obama win, but also Democratic majorities in the Senate and the House.
In the last day or two, we've seen the Republicans use the term "tar baby," in a party-wide memo when discussing Obama's efforts to woo Hispanic voters. As in the past, some Republicans have back-pedalled to explain that, in the South, where the talking-points memo's author, Representative Tom Davis, is from, the term tar-baby refers to a "sticky situation." Although it is hard to believe, this is the third time in the recent past when a Republican has had to apologize for using the term tar baby. So here's my point: even if Davis (and Mitt Romney and Tony Snow before him) is just a moron who doesn't get that African Americans find the term offensive, the use of it in a section aimed at laying out a strategy for reaching out to an ethnic group--in this case Hispanics--suggests the overall cluelessness of party leaders. I'm surprised Davis didn't refer to Hispanics as "bean-eaters."
We've also seen George Bush, Joe Lieberman, and McCain all suggest that Obama will sell us out to the Nazis, er, they mean, the terrorists. The goal here, clearly, is to position in the minds of Jewish voters the idea that Obama will collaborate in a new Holocaust, foolishly sitting down with Ahmadinejad and the genocidal maniacs in Hamas and Hezbollah to negotiate away Jewish lives and our national security. But the facts of Bush's wrong-headed foreign policy can't be escaped--he has made Iran more powerful because of his blundering about in Iraq and he has steadfastly refused to help solve Israel's security problems. That's the sticky truth of things, and the Republicans will have a hard time rewriting that narrative.
Now the Tennessee Republican party is going after Michelle Obama, reminding Tennesseans that she found in her husband's candidacy a reason, for the first time in her adult life, to be really proud of America. This, I guess, will be joined to an effort, at some point, to remind us all what a crazy out-of-his-mind white-person-hater Jeremiah Wright is. These initiatives will be directed toward convincing Americans that Obama is a hate-filled black radical, contemptuous of all the good things America has done for African Americans.
But look at how lame this all is. Does any of this really frighten you? Now if Tom Davis shows up waving pictures of Obama with Ashley Alexandra Dupre, then I'll start worrying.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Hillary and "white Americans"
Hillary Clinton gave an interview to USA Today which is published today. In it she says: "Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again." It seems like she is equating "hard-working Americans" with "white Americans." I don't think that Hillary believes that blacks aren't hard working. I don't think she intends to communicate to racist supporters (or would be supporters) that she shares their view that African Americans are lazy. I think she is tired and in this case, actually, misspoke. But as in an earlier entry I made, I believe this comment is an example of how insensitive the Clinton campaign is to how their language--and blunders--resonate in the black community. If Hillary got it, she would have already issued an apology.
In any event, whatever she meant, it seems like Obama doesn't measure up any worse among white voters than John Kerry did in 2004. The Republican Party has made a practice of seeking white votes with divisive politics (and by positioning itself as the party that parties for the wealthy). So it is not a surprise that the Republican candidate can be expected to grab up a lot of white votes. In the end, with some distance between the Jeremiah Wright story cycle and the general election, Obama might be imagined to do better than Kerry among whites, given the overwhelming rejection of Bush (and, by party and policy affiliations, McCain) by white Americans, black Americans, and Americans of every color. And as the campaign continues, with the promise of something new and more hopeful, and a real opportunity to move forward toward an America where parents, both white and black, can guarantee their children a better life, through improved schools and an economy that spawns innovation and produces jobs, Obama can siphon away white votes that McCain assumes he has locked up. Obama will drink the Republican Party's milkshake in November.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not giddy and delusional. I know that there is a lot of racism out there, and there are millions of racist Americans who don't like to think of themselves as racists, but, nevertheless, will never, ever vote for Obama because he is black. And these voters will grasp at any defect of Obama's, or any slip, or any story however improbable and untrue, and hold it up as evidence that Obama can't be trusted and doesn't deserve their vote. But these will only be ad hoc justifications, ways to write off Obama without acknowledging, to themselves or to the wider world, that they are twisted by bigotry. Still, Obama's message will reach enough voters who will stare down their racial biases and vote for him if only because their love for their children will liberate them, if only for a few moments alone in a voting booth, from a lifetime of prejudice. And this is the important thing to recall: Obama's candidacy (and his eventual election) doesn't signify that we have reached the promised land, and have left our hatreds and intolerances and prejudices behind, instead, it is merely the next step along a long path.
In any event, whatever she meant, it seems like Obama doesn't measure up any worse among white voters than John Kerry did in 2004. The Republican Party has made a practice of seeking white votes with divisive politics (and by positioning itself as the party that parties for the wealthy). So it is not a surprise that the Republican candidate can be expected to grab up a lot of white votes. In the end, with some distance between the Jeremiah Wright story cycle and the general election, Obama might be imagined to do better than Kerry among whites, given the overwhelming rejection of Bush (and, by party and policy affiliations, McCain) by white Americans, black Americans, and Americans of every color. And as the campaign continues, with the promise of something new and more hopeful, and a real opportunity to move forward toward an America where parents, both white and black, can guarantee their children a better life, through improved schools and an economy that spawns innovation and produces jobs, Obama can siphon away white votes that McCain assumes he has locked up. Obama will drink the Republican Party's milkshake in November.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not giddy and delusional. I know that there is a lot of racism out there, and there are millions of racist Americans who don't like to think of themselves as racists, but, nevertheless, will never, ever vote for Obama because he is black. And these voters will grasp at any defect of Obama's, or any slip, or any story however improbable and untrue, and hold it up as evidence that Obama can't be trusted and doesn't deserve their vote. But these will only be ad hoc justifications, ways to write off Obama without acknowledging, to themselves or to the wider world, that they are twisted by bigotry. Still, Obama's message will reach enough voters who will stare down their racial biases and vote for him if only because their love for their children will liberate them, if only for a few moments alone in a voting booth, from a lifetime of prejudice. And this is the important thing to recall: Obama's candidacy (and his eventual election) doesn't signify that we have reached the promised land, and have left our hatreds and intolerances and prejudices behind, instead, it is merely the next step along a long path.
Monday, May 5, 2008
W.V.W.V.
I can't get over the fact that the abbreviation Women's Voices Women Vote uses--W.V.W.V.--looks like an emoticon. And it makes me think of one of those professional wrestling operations. Like the WWF or WCW. Written like this--WVWV--it looks like an EKG. But I'm off topic.
I know I won't drop the topic--I'm holding on to it like Tim Russert holds on to Jeremiah Wright--but this business with WVWV in North Carolina is still bothering me. I don’t get what’s going on here unless it is dirty tricks and vote suppression. The letter Women’s Voices Women Vote sent to the North Carolina State Board of Elections clearly said the campaign involved outreach to “unmarried women” who “W.V.W.V. believes to be unregistered.” See the letter here: http://www.ncvoter.net/downloads/WomanVoicesWomenVoteLetter.pdf. So why did they hire an African American voice actor to record a message and then send those calls ONLY to African American households anonymously (after the registration deadline)? This could achieve two things for theClinton
Everything about this story fails the smell test. In answers to questions posed to W.V.W.V. by Adam B from Daily Kos, the group said: “While our focus is on unmarried women, we have worked to target other under-represented groups through our project, theVoter Participation Center Voter Participation Center Columbia
And, all in all, while I don't think African American voters will be discouraged from going to the polls in any numbers sufficient to make a difference, I find this whole episode dispiriting. In an earlier post I pointed out that the old Hillary--the champion of liberal causes--would have celebrated Obama's win in Mississisppi as a remarkable overcoming of that state's long and ugly racial history. The new Hillary didn't even mention it, and, now, she acts like the Mississippi race--which landed between Ohio and Texas and her recent win in Pennsylvania--never even happened. Here, too, the old Hillary would have been upset if she found an organization engaged in electoral fraud and suppressing the black vote. The new Hillary may have been complicit in building the organization that recently did exactly that in North Carolina.
(Update 5/8: A smart and attuned observer seems to share my conclusions (or paranoia) about W.V.W.V.'s questionable dealings in North Carolina. Michael Dawson says:
That Clinton supporters would stoop this low, that they would use the very same tactics that Karl Rove and his gang of thugs used in Florida to steal the 2000 presidential election from the American people, is shameful and puts them in the same category as Republicans who, in states such as Georgia, are trying to bring back Jim Crow-era methods of black disenfranchisement, such as a new version of the poll tax.
That's stronger than I would phrase it, but the anger and outrage is on target.)
I know I won't drop the topic--I'm holding on to it like Tim Russert holds on to Jeremiah Wright--but this business with WVWV in North Carolina is still bothering me. I don’t get what’s going on here unless it is dirty tricks and vote suppression. The letter Women’s Voices Women Vote sent to the North Carolina State Board of Elections clearly said the campaign involved outreach to “unmarried women” who “W.V.W.V. believes to be unregistered.” See the letter here: http://www.ncvoter.net/downloads/WomanVoicesWomenVoteLetter.pdf. So why did they hire an African American voice actor to record a message and then send those calls ONLY to African American households anonymously (after the registration deadline)? This could achieve two things for the
Everything about this story fails the smell test. In answers to questions posed to W.V.W.V. by Adam B from Daily Kos, the group said: “While our focus is on unmarried women, we have worked to target other under-represented groups through our project, the
And, all in all, while I don't think African American voters will be discouraged from going to the polls in any numbers sufficient to make a difference, I find this whole episode dispiriting. In an earlier post I pointed out that the old Hillary--the champion of liberal causes--would have celebrated Obama's win in Mississisppi as a remarkable overcoming of that state's long and ugly racial history. The new Hillary didn't even mention it, and, now, she acts like the Mississippi race--which landed between Ohio and Texas and her recent win in Pennsylvania--never even happened. Here, too, the old Hillary would have been upset if she found an organization engaged in electoral fraud and suppressing the black vote. The new Hillary may have been complicit in building the organization that recently did exactly that in North Carolina.
(Update 5/8: A smart and attuned observer seems to share my conclusions (or paranoia) about W.V.W.V.'s questionable dealings in North Carolina. Michael Dawson says:
That Clinton supporters would stoop this low, that they would use the very same tactics that Karl Rove and his gang of thugs used in Florida to steal the 2000 presidential election from the American people, is shameful and puts them in the same category as Republicans who, in states such as Georgia, are trying to bring back Jim Crow-era methods of black disenfranchisement, such as a new version of the poll tax.
That's stronger than I would phrase it, but the anger and outrage is on target.)
Friday, May 2, 2008
Page turner
The mystery of where Women's Voices Women Vote got their call lists might be solved. A report by Will Evans, which accompanied NPR's reporting on the issue, shows that Women's Voices Women Vote paid Integral Resources, Inc. $800,000 in 2006. Integral Resources builds and maintains call lists for progressive and charitable organizations, engineers telemarketing campaigns for these groups, and provides associated consulting services. The firm is owned by Ron Rosenblith, the husband of Women's Voices Women Vote President Page Gardner. Rosenblith isn't, like most of the key staffers at Women's Voices Women Vote, a clear-cut Clinton backer. He was once John Kerry's Chief of Staff and played a key role in his 2004 presidential bid. He has reportedly donated to the Clinton campaign this time around. Yet, if you wanted to assemble a list of voters, and wanted to be certain that you targeted African Americans likely to vote for Obama, but didn't want anyone to know you were doing this, you can't beat the convenience of leaning over the breakfast table to say to a spouse: "Hey honey, that list I want for W.V.W.V., can you make sure it's ONLY likely Obama voters?"
It could be there isn't much of a mystery here. In a race as divided by race as the current primary season has been, any list of African Americans will likely be interchangeable with a list of probable Obama backers. Discourage African Americans from voting, and you succeed in suppressing the vote for Obama. Maybe all Rosenblith's firm had to do was deliver a list of African Americans registered to vote in North Carolina. It is an ingenious way to appear to be engaged in noble work--registering African Americans in a southern state--while, in fact, delivering a surprise win for Hillary or, at minimum, keeping enough blacks home that she suffers a narrow defeat, easily besting pre-primary expectations and making her seem to be nipping at Obama's heels even in races that were seen to be in the bag.
It could be there isn't much of a mystery here. In a race as divided by race as the current primary season has been, any list of African Americans will likely be interchangeable with a list of probable Obama backers. Discourage African Americans from voting, and you succeed in suppressing the vote for Obama. Maybe all Rosenblith's firm had to do was deliver a list of African Americans registered to vote in North Carolina. It is an ingenious way to appear to be engaged in noble work--registering African Americans in a southern state--while, in fact, delivering a surprise win for Hillary or, at minimum, keeping enough blacks home that she suffers a narrow defeat, easily besting pre-primary expectations and making her seem to be nipping at Obama's heels even in races that were seen to be in the bag.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Lamont Williams, "voice talent"
Daily Kos has a new story about the robo-call operation in North Carolina I discussed yesterday. I don't buy the answers Daily Kos got from Women's Voices Women Vote and if I could I would ask the following:
1. Where did Women's Voices Women Vote get the list of men they called using the recorded voice of Lamont Williams, an African American "professional voice talent?" They claim they are targeting "unregistered voters and voters that have previously been registered but have moved and need to reregister." Then why did they get so many registered voters? In the case of the men they called, they presumably were targeting "African Americans, Hispanics and young people," which are the groups Women's Voices Women Vote reportedly reach out to, alongside the organization's main target, women. If it turns out they were calling people identified as Obama supporters, and they were using a list they procured from the Clinton campaign, this is an ugly story.
2. Why didn't Women's Voices Women Vote identify they were the source of the call? In February, after a similar series of robo-calls in Virginia created confusion and concern, Women's Voices Women Vote pledged that they never again would make anonymous calls and would, from that point forward, clearly identify that the calls were coming from Women's Voices Women Vote. Yet here we are, almost three months later, and they not only aren't following through and doing what they promised, they are making the strange choice of using a woman's voice to call women and an African American actor to call men. If they aren't up to some deceptive game designed to fool call recipients into thinking a person of color, ostensibly tied to the Obama campaign, is calling, why use different messages for men and women?
3. The calls placed to men, at least, appear to have been made after the deadline for registering to vote in North Carolina passed. What about the calls to women, who, given the trends of this race, were more likely to vote for Hillary? Were those calls made after the registration deadline?
(Update 5/2: This story has made an appearance in the mainstream media, popping up on the ABC News website under the banner "Brian Ross and the Investigative Team." It has not, as far as I can tell, appeared on ABC's evening broadcast. The ABC story, and a follow-up from Facing South, who broke the story, now identify that the calls featuring Lamont Williams were made ONLY to African American households, and that identical calls were made to African American households in Ohio and Louisiana as well as Virgina. I missed Page Gardner's "apology" on the Huffington Post on Wednesday. Gardner is Founder and President of Women's Voices Women Vote and was deputy politcal director for Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign and presidential transition team. Is it too paranoid to imagine Women's Voices Women Vote was launched in anticipation of a role it might play in a Hillary Clinton campaign for president? Facing South, the blog that played a key role in bringing this story forward, has a vital update on its site today. North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper has called the calls illegal and is opening an investigation.)
1. Where did Women's Voices Women Vote get the list of men they called using the recorded voice of Lamont Williams, an African American "professional voice talent?" They claim they are targeting "unregistered voters and voters that have previously been registered but have moved and need to reregister." Then why did they get so many registered voters? In the case of the men they called, they presumably were targeting "African Americans, Hispanics and young people," which are the groups Women's Voices Women Vote reportedly reach out to, alongside the organization's main target, women. If it turns out they were calling people identified as Obama supporters, and they were using a list they procured from the Clinton campaign, this is an ugly story.
2. Why didn't Women's Voices Women Vote identify they were the source of the call? In February, after a similar series of robo-calls in Virginia created confusion and concern, Women's Voices Women Vote pledged that they never again would make anonymous calls and would, from that point forward, clearly identify that the calls were coming from Women's Voices Women Vote. Yet here we are, almost three months later, and they not only aren't following through and doing what they promised, they are making the strange choice of using a woman's voice to call women and an African American actor to call men. If they aren't up to some deceptive game designed to fool call recipients into thinking a person of color, ostensibly tied to the Obama campaign, is calling, why use different messages for men and women?
3. The calls placed to men, at least, appear to have been made after the deadline for registering to vote in North Carolina passed. What about the calls to women, who, given the trends of this race, were more likely to vote for Hillary? Were those calls made after the registration deadline?
(Update 5/2: This story has made an appearance in the mainstream media, popping up on the ABC News website under the banner "Brian Ross and the Investigative Team." It has not, as far as I can tell, appeared on ABC's evening broadcast. The ABC story, and a follow-up from Facing South, who broke the story, now identify that the calls featuring Lamont Williams were made ONLY to African American households, and that identical calls were made to African American households in Ohio and Louisiana as well as Virgina. I missed Page Gardner's "apology" on the Huffington Post on Wednesday. Gardner is Founder and President of Women's Voices Women Vote and was deputy politcal director for Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign and presidential transition team. Is it too paranoid to imagine Women's Voices Women Vote was launched in anticipation of a role it might play in a Hillary Clinton campaign for president? Facing South, the blog that played a key role in bringing this story forward, has a vital update on its site today. North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper has called the calls illegal and is opening an investigation.)
Oprah's fans: mad at her for getting uppity
Confirming something I was speculating on a couple days ago, there is an eye-opening piece about the price Oprah is paying for backing Obama on the Root, a great blog hosting writing by some of the country's leading African American scholars and commentators. After she stepped out to campaign for Obama, Oprah's favorability rating dropped to 55%, a steep plunge from her usual favorability score of around 80%. The piece, written by Marjorie Valbrun, doesn't ask the question I want to ask: is any of this the product of a viral campaign by Clinton, begun, perhaps, with some astroturf postings on Oprah's message boards?
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