(We're only watching cause Joe isn't there, usually we flip back and forth every time he opens his mouth)
How can Edwards agree with anything Clinton said in the statement? though reports of statistics appear to reflect trends among Democratic voters, at this point in time, once a Democratic nominee is chosen, there is no guarantee those trends will remain the same.
Isn't Clinton encouraging a certain mind-set among white Democratic voters that edges as close to racist as one can get?
Edwards should have rejected Clinton's generalization that a pattern has emerged which ultimately pits white Democratic voters against black Democratic voters. And working Americans - hard working Americans - that is - are of all stripes and ethnicities last time we checked the job statistics. National and state.
Clinton should have outright refrained from her own oddish generalizations about how white Democratic voters in the Fall - will or will not vote for an African-American man with a white mother who happens to be seeking the Democratic nomination for President.
Where is her crystal ball to match her loudish-colored pants suits. (Ever notice how the woman never wears black??? The only woman in the US who thinks she can get away with wearing garish yellow or orange!)
Paul Begala's comments - if made by a conservative Republican - would have generated cries of censorship, banishment, the worst punishment, but Begala presses on with not a complaint from Clinton - either one.
Clinton's diminishing of black voters
Email|Print|Single Page| Text size – + By Derrick Z. Jackson
Globe Columnist / May 10, 2008
IN HER long, sad self-diminution to being merely a white candidate for subsegments of white people, Hillary Clinton claimed to USA Today this week, "I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on." Clinton exploited an Associated Press poll to say how "Senator Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me . . . There's a pattern emerging here."
more stories like thisThis was on top of Democratic strategist and Clinton supporter Paul Begala saying this week on CNN, "We cannot win with eggheads and African-Americans. OK. That's the Dukakis coalition, which carried 10 states and gave us four years of the first George Bush. President Clinton, you know, reached across and got a whole lot of Republicans and independents to come."
This reaches across the aisle all right, straight to right-wing talk show host Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh, who has been urging people to vote for Clinton to prolong the Democratic primaries, said this week, "Barack Obama has shown he cannot get the votes that Democrats need to win: blue-collar working people. He can get effete snobs. He can get wealthy academics and he can get the young, he can get the black vote, that's about it."
Obama just got done being tarred and feathered as an elitist by Clinton and the talk shows for belittling "bitter" people in jobless small towns who "cling to guns or religion." Yes, that was dumb.
Yet here is Clinton dancing all over stereotypes. There is no way you can say in the same sentence, "hard-working Americans, white Americans," without diminishing black Americans as lazy.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/05/10/clintons_diminishing_of_black_voters/
Clinton: The candidate for white voters?
Posted May 8, 2008 1:19 PM
by James Oliphant
At a press conference in Shepherdstown, W. Va. Wednesday, Hillary Clinton seemed undaunted by Tuesday's results in Indiana and North Carolina. And she has mapped out an ambitious campaign schedule. Thursday, she jumps from Washington to West Virginia, to Kentucky, to Oregon.
But she made news Wednesday, suggesting to USA Today that Obama's lack of support among white voters would cost him in the general election.
Here is the CNN story:
(CNN) -- In what appear to be the New York senator's most blunt comments to date regarding a racial division in the Democratic presidential race, Hillary Clinton suggested Wednesday that "White Americans" are increasingly turning away from Barack Obama's candidacy.
"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," Clinton said in an interview with USA TODAY.
Clinton cited an Associated Press poll "that found how Senator Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."
"There's a pattern emerging here," she said.
http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/politics/blog/2008/05/clinton_the_candidate_for_whit.html
There's a pattern emerging here? Not necessarily. We've looked at it this way after discussions among a few PA "white" voters. Reports show Clinton won by about 24,000 votes in Indiana. That's not an overwhelming win. A few more days of Obama tackling economic issues, hammering away at the for-show plan put forth by Clinton to have a gas tax holiday, and the tide could have turned even more in Indiana, among more white Democratic voters who happen to be in as much economic distress as black Democratic voters.
Those news reports show Clinton held a 60% claim to fame of "white voters" in both states.
Clinton received the support of 60 percent of white voters in both states, while Obama got 40 percent of the white vote in Indiana and 36 percent in North Carolina. Obama won the overwhelming majority of black voters: 92 percent in Indiana and 91 percent in North Carolina.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/05/06/politics/main4073609.shtml
While that may be based on exit polls and other methodology, another analysis shows a different view of stats, including Obama's increase in attracting white Democratic voters, over a period of a year, and into the now.
There is no indication that increase won't well increase when Obama obtains more delegates, and holds steady with more popular vote raw numbers to gain him the Democratic nomination.
A Blacklash?
The question is this: Have white Democrats soured on Obama? Apparently not. Although his unfavorable rating from the group is up five percentage points since last summer in polls conducted by The New York Times and CBS News, his favorable rating is up just as much.
On the other hand, black Democrats’ opinion of Hillary Clinton has deteriorated substantially (her favorable rating among them is down 36 percentage points over the same period).
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/03/opinion/03blow.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Let's surmise Clinton loses the Democratic nomination, Clinton voters can choose to stay home, and they might up to some 25%, but that's not a disincentive for other white Democratic voters to turn out, or register in larger numbers as newcomers than during the primaries, and that's no disincentive for other independents who voted for Hillary to be attracted to Democrat (and winner) Obama over Republican (and winner) McCain.
Note the percentages Obama has obtained over Clinton vs presumptive nominee McCain over his Republican contenders.
McCain will draw more conservatives to turn out and vote for him over Democrat Obama, but will McCain draw more conservatives to vote for him than for any other candiate from another political party. Say the Constitutional Party. Independents may look elsewhere than McCain since McCain isn't exactly the darling of conservatives.
Factor in Ron Paul strongholds and the candidacy of Bob Barr should he obtain the Libertarian nomination and conservatives who vote for anybody but John McCain.
Clinton's generalized comments about a "pattern" emerging should be outright rejected, but if John Edwards won't reject them, he must accept them. He said he agrees in part with her statements.
And that's not acceptable.
Consider that if any other individual had said what Clinton has said about Barack Obama - he's "elitist" and he "doesn't share Americans' values," they'd be branded as what the comments reflect. Somebody who is willing to "diminish" somebody else, for her own political gain.
Clinton April 12, 2008 Indianapolis, Indiana youtube Barack Obama elitist, doesn't share Americans' values...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-hbPmcMFxU
Who supports an always smiling Hillary Clinton and her always open-mouthed husband and former President Bill Clinton.
Peter Paul admits he arranged for fundraisers for Hillary Clinton for her Senate bid in New York in order to capture a former President, Bill Clinton's interest in his own personal ventures, comic books.
Admits the Clinton's took 2-million dollars from him and lied about it...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xq8aopATYyw&NR=1
(Net the Truth Online)
It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
But Barack Obama's support has narrowed dangerously--and he'll need to make critical changes to beat John McCain.
John B. Judis, The New Republic Published: Wednesday, May 07, 2008
http://www.tnr.com/story_print.html?id=de28547d-1946-4d87-b233-c47c8c964cd3
Excellent
Operation Anti-Chaos: The Narrative on “White Voters” Is Fiction
By Al Giordano
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.
And when Clinton wins state primaries that, because of demographics, she was always going to win - last week, Pennsylvania and next week, Indiana - they then wave that event up like a blood-soaked flag as proof of their narrative: See? See? We told you so! White people won’t vote for Obama!
http://ruralvotes.com/thefield/?p=1144
By Jon Cohen and Jennifer Agiesta
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, May 7, 2008; Page A06
Last night's Democratic primaries followed a generally familiar script, with African Americans and new voters lifting Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) to a big win in North Carolina, while deep divisions along demographic lines produced a much tighter race in Indiana...
...According to the Election Day exit poll, Clinton won among white women, seniors and those with lower incomes. But among some of her core support groups, her advantages appeared to have been attenuated.
Clinton's 20-point margin among whites in Indiana is slimmer than it was in Ohio or Pennsylvania. And some of Obama's advance may be due to a better showing among white voters looking for a candidate who understands their problems. In Indiana, Obama did about 10 percentage points better among "empathy voters" than he did in Ohio or Pennsylvania.
As they have in almost every state, white women in Indiana went for Clinton by a wide margin, but her 20-point win among these voters was considerably more narrow than it was in Ohio or Pennsylvania. Moreover, Obama scored a double-digit win among white voters under 30 in both of last night's primaries, better than he has done in recent contests.
Obama may also have benefited from changing the tenor of his campaign. After a decisive loss in Pennsylvania two weeks ago, Obama attempted a more positive stance, and voters in Indiana and North Carolina may have noticed. While half of Democratic voters in Pennsylvania said he had attacked Clinton unfairly, that slipped to about 40 percent last night. By contrast, two-thirds of voters in both states said Clinton had targeted Obama unfairly.
More broadly, a closely watched divide among white voters extended to Indiana, with Clinton winning by 30 points among white voters without college degrees but running even with Obama among those with college degrees. Clinton prevailed among both groups in North Carolina, winning non-college whites by more than 40 points and those with college degrees by seven points...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/05/07/ST2008050700985.html
Race, Not Wright, Affects Voters Most
Whites With No College Education Back Clinton
POSTED: 9:03 am CDT May 8, 2008
UPDATED: 10:30 am CDT May 8, 2008
The reaction -- or lack of it -- by Indiana and North Carolina voters to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's incendiary comments emphasizes how deeply entrenched the racial lines of support are for the two Democratic presidential rivals.
It doesn't seem likely that the renewed focus on Wright has helped Barack Obama, and it is all but certain that he'll hear more about it from Republicans should he win his party's nomination. But for now, there's little evidence it hurt him much in this week's Democratic contests.
After all the attention to Wright and Obama's disavowal of his former pastor, exit polls in the two states found that:
Six in 10 white voters in both states supported Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is waging an increasingly long-shot struggle to become the party nominee. That's close to the average 57 percent of whites who had backed the New York senator in Democratic primaries since Super Tuesday, which was Feb. 5. It's also slightly below the 63 percent of whites who voted for her in Pennsylvania and 69 percent in Mississippi, the most recent contests before Tuesday's voting.
Whites lacking college degrees favored Clinton over Obama by 31 percentage points in Indiana and 45 points in North Carolina. Since Super Tuesday, she has triumphed over Obama among this group by an average 30 points, including 41 points in Pennsylvania and 55 points in Mississippi.
White men leaned toward Clinton on Tuesday, as she got 59 percent in Indiana and 55 percent in North Carolina. Clinton got 57 percent of their votes in Pennsylvania and 67 percent in Mississippi.
About nine in 10 blacks in Indiana and North Carolina voted for Obama, slightly stronger than his usual showing with them. It mattered little whether they said the Wright situation influenced them or not.
Pollsters said there was not enough data to draw conclusions about whether the attention on Wright drove people away from Obama, the Illinois senator, or drew some toward him because of how he denounced the pastor...
http://www.kctv5.com/politics/16199229/detail.html?rss=kan&psp=news
What happened in Ind. and N.C.
By: David Paul Kuhn
May 7, 2008 05:29 AM EST
The contests in Indiana and North Carolina continued long demographic trends that are proving to be destiny in the 2008 Democratic primaries.
According to exit polls, a third of North Carolina voters were black — and with the support of more than nine in 10 black voters, Barack Obama was able to overcome Hillary Rodham Clinton’s white support and win the Tar Heel State.
Eight in 10 voters in Indiana were white — and with the support of six in 10 whites, Clinton won a narrow victory in the state.
On the demographic front, there were no big surprises Tuesday night, as the two groups most personally vested in the symbolism of their candidate — white women and blacks — were once again the most loyal to their candidate.
Still, there were unique findings in the two states that separated these voters from past contests — particularly the power of the issue of economic anxiety.
Nearly seven in 10 Indiana voters said the economy was the most important issue, as did six in 10 North Carolinians. That degree of economic concern in Indiana was above financial angst in Pennsylvania or even Ohio, a state hit especially hard by unemployment.
But unlike in Pennsylvania, the voters most anxious about the economy were not handily carried by Clinton. In Indiana, she won only a slim majority of these voters and in North Carolina, Obama won a majority...
...Yet her emerging strength among Democratic white male voters, the key swing bloc of the primaries, compensated for that dip. Clinton won nearly six in 10 white men, only a couple of percentage points behind white women, in Indiana.
Clinton has won white men in 13 states. Obama has won white men in 10 states. At Obama’s high point, following his victory in Wisconsin, he had won the white male vote in three consecutive Democratic contests.
When Clinton wins hotly contested primaries, she does so with white men. Clinton has now won the swing bloc of white men in all of the recent Rust Belt contests, from Ohio to Pennsylvania to Indiana.
In North Carolina, she also won a majority of white men and maintained the support of more than six in ten white women.
Obama seems to have gained back some of his strength with young white voters. In Pennsylvania and Ohio, white voters under age 30 were split between the two Democrats, though early in the primary race this was a key bloc of Obama’s base. In both states Tuesday, Obama won a clear majority of the white youth vote and, as always, youth overall.
But yet again, whites age 60 and older were more than a fifth of voters and once again at least two times larger than the bloc of young whites. And once again, Clinton won a far larger share of the white senior vote than Obama did of the white youth vote.
Clinton won seven in ten whites 60 and older, reflecting similar performances in Missouri, Ohio,and Pennsylvania. Blacks of all ages, and both genders, overwhelmingly backed Obama.
Obama’s problems with rural and working class whites also persisted — Clinton won about six in 10 blue-collar whites in Indiana. She won an even higher percentage of voters who lack a college degree.
Clinton also won seven in ten small city or rural voters in Indiana and a majority of those from union households. Clinton won the Indiana suburbs while, as expected, Obama won the city vote.
In North Carolina, Obama won a slim majority of those living in the suburbs or rural and small towns, while he again dominated urban voters.
Race appears to have played some role Tuesday. About one in 10 whites in Indiana, as in Pennsylvania, said race was a factor in deciding their vote. About three in four of those voters supported Clinton.
http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=C1309A0C-3048-5C12-0065EFC05C00A134
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