Obama’s “post-racial” presidential campaign starting early

Corrente has the links to James Clyburn’s accusation that criticism of Obama’s performance is driven by racism.  Actually, he’s saying something completely different.  He’s saying that the president’s problems are due to his skin color.  I assume he is referring to the question about Obama’s future electoral prospects.  You be the judge:

QUESTION: What do you think of Obama’s election prospects?

CLYBURN: I think they’re improving every day. I think the president has been a good president, a great commander in chief. I think when people allow themselves to — you know, I’m 70 years old. And I can tell you; people don’t like to deal with it, but the fact of the matter is, the president’s problems are in large measure because of his skin color. All you got to do is look at all the signs they’re carrying out there and look at the mail that I get. As I said, I’m 70 years old, I been going through this kind of stuff all my life. I know what kind of mail I get, I know what kind of phone calls I get, I know what people are saying who call the office.

I’m sure he didn’t mean what is underlined. It would be really bad if he was saying that Obama needs a four year handicap because he’s African American.  THAT would be a very racist, unfair, demeaning and untrue thing for Clyburn to say.

It also doesn’t speak well of Obama’s character if his feelings are hurt by the mail Obama is getting.  If it’s racist, it should go directly to the spam filter.  There’s no reason to read it or give it a second thought.  As I have told female bloggers over and over again, trollish comments are only little black pixels on your display.  They cannot hurt you.   They’re meant to make you feel bad for no other reason than to make you feel bad.  Why the hell is Obama reading them??  So, someone out there doesn’t like you.  You’re the fricking president and leader of the free world.  Are you going to let some asshole in Mississippi ruin your day because he doesn’t like your skin color?  It’s such an absurd idea I’m surprised a man like Clyburn would even bring it up.

Lambert also links to a post from Sean Wilentz in April 2008 about the outrageous accusations of racism directed at the Clintons and anyone who did not enthusiastically endorse Obama as the second coming of Jesus.  Many of us do not need to be reminded of one of the most disgusting aspects of the 2008 campaign season.  That was the year we became ugly, kkk grand poobah sheet wearing, knuckle dragging, racists even if we were young enough to grow up in an integrated society, in schools that were racially diverse and were brought up to judge people by the content of their character and not the color of their skin.  It was beyond insulting.  My parents did not raise me to be a racist.  Not only did Obama’s droogs smear us, they smeared our parents.

Some Democrats took those insults seriously and didn’t want to be forced out of the tribe.  They capitulated so the Obama campaign would stop calling them dirty names.  Some of us would not be manipulated by false accusations to vote for a man whose political philosophy and accomplishments were vaporous and indistinct.  We judged Obama by what he did and said, not on any other factors.

And we’ll do it again in 2012.

Clyburn can go jump in the spam filter.

Wishing doesn’t make it so.

I still stand by my hypothesis that the DNC, Dean and Pelosi are actively promoting Clinton behind the scenes and are only pretending to be dense. But we must consider whether an alternative explanation holds water. Enter Sean Wilentz in his recent article for HuffingtonPost entitled, Barack Obama and the Unmaking of the Democratic Party.

Wilentz’s tiresome recitation of indisputable facts lead us to the conclusion that if Obama is the nominee, the Democrats are going to lose because he and his DNC fan base are actively dissing working class voters in places like Ohio and the border states. Sigh. He argues with conviction that the party is denying reality by thinking it can just win with college educated, young and African-Americans and he uses history and past election results to back him up. Like we haven’t heard it all before.

Look, Sean, you are just harshing their mellow. They have the Audacity of Wishing Intensely. You are deliberately undermining their faith with all this annoying historical data and examples. They are not interested in hearing it. Everyone knows that their ideas were not properly executed in those past elections. But THIS year, they have the opportunity to do it correctly with everyone onboard, which they fully expect from the rest of us, even if they have no intention of respecting us in the morning or calling us ever again.

Just because it didn’t work in any other election since Grover Cleveland’s doesn’t mean their movement will meet the same fate as whole language, integrated math or cold fusion. We know that you are just one of those people who can’t wait for Obama to fail, you negative, racist, uneducated Princeton Professor of History from one of those “old coalition” Mid-Atlantic states. But wishing doesn’t make it so, Sean.

Monday- Lookahead

Light posting today from me. I have a lot of catching up to do at work today. My voicemail box appears to be full and I don’t even want to discuss my email. But I love my job and it’s great to be back.

In the meantime, here are some things to peruse and ponder:

• In If the System Made Sense, Clinton Would Be Far Ahead, Sean Wilentz at Salon discusses how the Democratic party’s primary system is less than democratic. People like Kos would like to obscure these truths with petty rules and cackles of inevitability and insurmountatudiness (is that a word? It is now). But what Obamaphiles conveniently ignore is that the reason we had a SuperDOOPER Tuesday this year is because states like CA, NY and NJ always felt left out of the nominating process by having their primaries so late in the season. So they moved them up to have impact. And Clinton carried most of the 800 lb gorilla states on Feb.5. Do the Obamaphiles really think that now that we’ve gone out of our way to have our say that we are going to defer to Wyoming? Nagahappen.
• Anglachel hits another one out of the park in Reality Bites. It’s time for the Obama supporters to get a grip. Meteor Blades, bless his heart, wrote a diary yesterday asking Clinton to unite behind Obama for the good of the party. I just have to include a critique of Meteor Blade’s diary by Conflucian Lori. It’s priceless:
  

  Over at Talk Left, the adorable BTD linked to the most pathetic diary from Meteor Blades I’ve ever read on Kos. To quote Bill Murray, the man has no dick. Seriously.It’s this whole self-important Kleenex weight meander about how he’s met Bill, but he’s never met Hillary but he wants her to know that he went to see her speak in LA and she was wonderful although he disagreed with her on some things. But now, sadly, he has to tell her the horrible, horrible truth. Not that he’s a misogynist or anything like that, but he needs you to know, that it’s his unfortunate duty to join the 12,592 other diariests at Kos and PLEAD with her that she must drop out. because, well, obama can’t do it. Oh yes. Oh, the pity of it. He wants to be honest – he has endorsed Obama, but that has nothing to do with this – so don’t go there. He confesses he hasn’t been as diligent in protesting the muck as he should have been and he apologizes for that. But for the sake of the children – YES, THE SAKE OF THE CHILDREN – including Chelsea and his own daughter Tiffany Vanilla Cherry Dawn Hot Cross Buns (who are just a year a part, don’t ya know), Hillary must step aside. It’s her duty. Oh, it’s true he likes much of her platform but she’s weak on foreign policy stuff – and Obama, he’s just sooooooo dreamy. Now, if the situ was reversed and obama didn’t have even a 30/70 chance (as Clinton doesn’t now) of winning, he would be calling on him to drop out. Even though he endorsed Obama. And you know what, if Hillary would just leave the contest, EVERYONE COULD UNITE BEHIND OBAMA! Wow! Wow! Wow! And every day Clinton stays in is ANOTHER DAY FOR MCCAIN!!!
  Here’s the end:
  And where we are is caught in an unresolved contest whose ultimate results – four weeks or four months from now – are all but inevitable. As a fellow blogger by the name of Kid Oakland wrote in a most excellent essay a few days ago, Senator, right now is a Clinton moment. Right now you can have an instantaneously positive impact on the coming general election that will never again be as powerful. You can seize the moment, today, tomorrow, early next week, and give the Democratic nominee an edge in November. Or you can hang in there and hamstring us. Please. Acknowledge what you know to be so. Every day you wait is a day for John McCain.

  It’s an entire diary of public masturbation – porn for Obamaphiles. All this flailing, groping around and there is no place for him to go with it. It’s not rooted in anything genuine. Just in this self-serving, anxiety ridden, obviously having no fun, masturbation – honestly, I have no idea what to call it.. I did not know we had so many pathetically scared Democrats in this party. I don’t know what to say about it. And if this post isn’t acceptable, please feel free to delete. I’m just absolutely mystified as to how an adult could ever publish anything so flaccid.

  Oh, remember, Meteor Blades has no dick. That’s one thing that i can say with certainty.

  Lori, that is the comment du jour. But getting back to asking Clinton to sacrifice herself for the Tofu Candidate- please. Are you kidding me?! For one thing, Obama hasn’t won anything yet. He and Clinton are still roughly tied and the nomination will be decided by Superdelegates. (Not a coup, Kos. SDs are part of the nominating mechanism in cases like this) But in the unlikely scenario where he wins via the DNC’s 48 State Strategy, Obama and his supporters are going to have to do some major ass kissing to win us back. Let me make this perfectly clear: it is not OUR responsibility to embrace this cypher of a senator with no voting record, this amorphous change agent who shapeshifts for his various target demographic groups. It is the responsibility of his supporters to urge him to win legitimately by waiving the RULZ, NOW!, to seat the Florida and Michigan delegations as is because he wouldn’t cooperate in a revote. And if that means he takes a temporary and perhaps insurmountable hit in delegates, so be it. Don’t dump this guilt trip on US.

• I’m going to PA this weekend to help out. It’s spring in PA and the trees are in bloom (bring your Allerest). The race is tightening, guys, and Obama can be expected to spend mega bucks trying to win this one. Hillary has to win by mucho votes so if you’ve got the time, come to PA for the next couple of weekends and take in the rolling green hills of Central PA, the diverse ethnic neighborhoods of Pittsburgh, the historic landmarks of Philadelphia and make a little history yourself. You can volunteer through this link or contact one of the PA offices found here.
• One more thing:  Nobody outside of the netroots knows who Mark Penn is and those who might have seen him on Hardball, for example, will have noticed greasy haired Joe Trippi and rat faced David Axelrod in the same frame.  You know, that Joe Trippi who ran Edwards’ campaign into the ground by putting all of his eggs in the internet basket and casually spreading rumors?  And that David Axelrod who came up with the race baiting strategy?  Great company.

Tuesday- Turmoil

Good Morning. Everyone ready for another day in the trenches? Here’s what the rest of the world has been up to while you wasted your time sleeping:

• Phil Bredesen, Governor of Tennessee, has a plan to settle the superdelegate count by early June. This plan is to have a pre-convention just for the Supers so they can pick a candidate before the actual convention in August. His reasoning is that it would be sooo much better for the party if we got this out of the way before August so we could get on with the business of crushing McCain. He can’t help it that he’s been duped to stupidity by Obamamania, bless his heart. Much to our surprise, this is a plan that Obama thinks is “interesting” and “would probably be the best way to insure that at least there’s a couple of months before the convention” for the party to unite. I call it a complete non-starter and just another variation on the “Why Won’t That Stupid Bitch Quit?” (WWTSBQ) idea that’s been floated for some time now. (This one may be donation worthy. We must consult Lambert) A Superdelegate convention would just lock in the SDs for whoever is the delegate leader, I suspect, because it would be haunted by zombie Obamaphiles who would threaten to eat the SD’s if they don’t comply with their noisy demands. And that would be risky because if Obama flames before August, it would be very difficult to reverse locked in pledges and nominate Hillary instead. Nice try guys but we’re not stupid.
• Debbie Wasserman Schultz is giving the Big Boyz fits in Florida because she apparently isn’t lifting a finger to help Democratic challengers to 3 Republican congressional districts. Yep, she’s on some kind of Red to Blue leadership team but she’s like, not leading. And it looks like the Democrats could lose some pick-up opportunities in Florida. In FLORIDA! Hmmm, Florida, Florida, where have I heard that word before? Oh yeah! That’s the state whose 1.7 MILLION voters were dissed by Howard Dean and Barack Obama. Those 1.7 MILLION voters votes will not count at DNC convention unless they don’t put Hillary ahead. Who could have predicted that Debbie Wasserman Schultz would be capable of some passive-aggressive Hardball? That is not allowed from a Hillary supporter. Only Obama supporters are allowed to do that. Still, it’s entertaining to see the Big Boyz get their knickers in a twist of rage because Debbie isn’t doing their bidding and saving the Congress for the Democrats. The NERVE of some women. Can’t she see there is a higher purpose at stake here??? (You guys really have *no* idea why Debbie Wasserman-Schultz from FLORIDA is behaving irrationally? It makes no sense whatsoever? Holy smokes!, Even Matt Stoller and KOS have taken note. How unusual it is for them to even acknowledge Floridians. Well, I guess she got your attention, didn’t she?
  Mission accomplished.)
• Jeralyn at TalkLeft had some interesting things to say about Rush Limbaugh getting Republicans in PA to switch parties to vote for Hillary Clinton in the PA primary. Look, I don’t know what Rush is up to. All I know is that there are a lot of people in PA who are fed up with the Republican party and don’t want to vote for McCain. Many of them don’t need a whole lot of pushing to switch parties. And there’s nothing that says that a person can’t change their party affiliation if they get a virtual dope slap after eight years of an idiot in the White House, endless war, higher prices for everything, the country on the verge of an economic collapse and a missing or absent social safety net which they once railed against but suddenly discovered they needed after all. Rush is encouraging voters to switch, Obama is encouraging voters to register as Democrats, *Hillary* is encouraging voters to register as Democrats. Let’s give Pennsylvanians the benefit of a doubt here. They are willing to travel outside of their comfort zones for a variety of reasons. In a few weeks, they will stand before that panel and see two names there and will vote for the candidate of their choice for the same reasons that lifelong Democrats have for years. They want a better candidate, a better president. And if that person just happens to belong to the screwed up party who can’t get its $@#% together, then it’s GOT to be bad on the Republican side.
• Following up on the race-baiting chase, Sean Wilentz has a second article in The New Republic on how the Obama campaign is screaming “racist!” at every chance they get. It’s a couple weeks old, this article, but lucky for us, Ronkseattle is putting together a compilation (beta release) of Obama’s greatest racist! accusations. Dayum!, Ron, you’ve been busy. You’ve chronicled 88 instances? Well, what do you expect from a “typical white person”? Er, you are white, aren’t you Ron? It’s so hard to tell these days. Everyone looks like little black pixels to me anymore.
• One more thing: My site cafeteria had a stack something called Edible New Jersey that it was giving away for free. So, I picked it up and was pleasantly surprised. It’s a quarterly magazine that features the food grown locally by season and recipes to go with them. It’s well written and timely and goes together well with Michael Chiarello’s Seasons in the Wine Country cookbook. But, wait! There’s more. There is a whole Edible Community with similar periodicals for different regions and even Canada. So you too can find locally grown foods and boost your local economy while cutting back on energy costs. (If you feel so inclined. I notice they are no fans of Hillary Clinton but that’s OK. The idea is a very good one and we can’t afford to be purists this year.)

Have at it, guys!