If Hil Can’t Win Neither Will Obama

At this time in the Democratic Party presidential primary contests, it’s apparent that Barack Obama will most likely win the nomination. As of now, Barack Obama is leading in overall pledged delegates, as well as in the popular vote, after his last night’s loss and victory in Indiana and North Carolina respectively.

There is a strong push for Hillary Clinton to pull out of the context and concede to Obama, however, I am not supporting those sentiments. I support Clinton’s desire and wishes to continue the race even though her chances of winning are very minimal at this point. But it’s her right, and if she feels that this is what she needs to do to leave the race with dignity and grace, then that’s what she is going to do, and I support that. Not because I support her at all, but just because she’s had her fair share of struggles in the race herself.

But while she continues to remain in the race, the question arises, will she continue a negative campaign or will she simply concentrate on her strengths positioning herself in a place where her policies and solutions appear superior to Obama’s? She hasn’t done this enough in my opinion, and has often relied on scaring white voters into voting for her instead of Obama. Fortunately it has backfired on her, at least so it seems and the contest isn’t over yet.

Although she continues to tread on, it appears the negativity from her campaign hasn’t stopped, and this is real cause for concern. Apparently, her campaign is pushing the call for electability PROVING more what I recently wrote about, the racism that’s inherent in posing Clinton as more electable since…well duh! White people are going to vote for her instead of Obama (with her help of course). This has been the central thesis of her campaign as it relates to Obama, especially with the insidious race baiting from herself and her surrogates, but now…NOW they’re saying it explicitly. In an article titled “Hillary Chief Strategist: North Carolina Loss Represented Progress Because We Won Among White Voters” writer Greg Sargent says this:

On the Hillary conference call, Hillary chief strategist Geoff Garin made the case for her electability in some of the most explicitly race-based terms I’ve heard yet.

Garin argued that the North Carolina contest, which Obama won by 14 points, represented “progress” for Hillary because she did better among white voters there than she did in Virginia.

“When we began in North Carolina,” Garin said, “our internal polling and much of the public polling [showed] we were running exactly even with white voters.”

Garin said that the Virginia electorate was the “closest white electorate in the country” to North Carolina, and added that Hillary “started even” among whites in North Carolina, and “ended up earning a significant win of 24 points.”

“We obviously did not do as well as we would want or needed to among African American voters,” Garin concluded.

Put in the context of the Hillary campaign’s chief argument that she’s the more electable Dem, Garin’s overall implication here is that her success among white voters in North Carolina yesterday is “progress” in the sense that it strengthens her case for electability.

In other words, it’s an explicit, and unabashed, linking of her claim of electability to her success among whites.

This is nothing more than an appeal to the super delegates, but it is completely out of line. Since the Clinton campaign likes to remind everyone that Barack Obama cannot carry the white working class votes (because duh, he’s an inexperienced, unqualified Black man), here is something that may be of interest to her campaign taken from here:

According to CNN’s 1996 exit poll, Bill Clinton lost the white vote (Dole 46%, Clinton 43%, Perot 9%). He lost the white male vote by an even larger margin (Dole 49%, Clinton 38%, Perot 11%). And he lost gun owners badly (Dole 51%, Clinton 38%, Perot 10%). However, Clinton won the popular vote overall 49%-41%-8%, and he won 70% of the electoral votes.

In 2000 — when Al Gore won the popular vote by half a million votes — he lost white males to Bush by a whopping 60%-36%, according to CNN’s exit poll. He lost men overall 53%-42%. He lost whites overall 54%-42%. He lost gun owners 61%-36%. He lost small-town voters 59%-38% and rural voters 59%-37%. He lost the Midwest overall 49%-48%.

Clinton is reaching at this point, and desperately trying to appeal to the super delegates. But I keep wondering why she won’t sell herself as having the best policies and best solutions as opposed to scaring people out of voting for Barack Obama. This is unfortunately one of the downer side to having her stay in the race. She is still causing damage to Obama’s campaign when she should be at least trying to part ways amicably.

I really still can’t believe that she would continue down this path. Because part of me was still trying to give her the benefit of the doubt earlier during the primaries that while I don’t like it and will probably harshly criticize it, her campaign wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary, I mean this is what “they” do, but at this point, what is she hoping to gain? It’s almost as if she is sending the message that if she can’t win, neither will any other democrat, especially Obama.