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Hillary's back

We have started seeing some daylight between the president and his secretary of state, and, as Con Coughlin notes, there is also a growing sense among Democrats that they chose the wrong candidate. Of course, there is no reason to think that this opinion will abate after the November vote.
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Given the premise of the article, my initial misreading of the title of the post, "Hillary's back" had the apostrophe "s" indicating possession, not "Hillary is back". It actually makes more sense that way, since Hillary was never away. And it is her back that her friends should be watching, and all of could be watching with curious interest. Hillary's back is likely to have some Obama-planted knives in it, shortly, if she seems likely to supersede him in party popularity.

If the regret about "the wrong candidate" is strong enough, then it is the 2012 elections that should be interesting. Unfortunate things could happen to Mrs. Clinton in the next couple of years. Would it be likely that if the Republicans can field a strong candidate in 2012, then the Democrats would want to jettison Obama? Even if they wanted to, could they?

Obama won partly/largely because the Clintons were the most hated pair in American politics. The fact that Obama has exceeded them does not make them desirable or strong in and of themselves. Sounds like they've been listening to their old advisor Bill Galston. Reprise of Kennedy-Carter 1980?

The talk about Hillary in 2012 is a joke. The main constituency in the Democrat party is the black vote. No Democrat candidate for the White House can win a general election without a huge outpouring of that vote in his or her favour.

The notion that any candidate could go on to win a general election after stripping a black man of the nomination is sheer lunacy. Any real, close attempt to strip Obama of the nomination will cause a massive furor throughout black America. They will take it as but another attempt by a white person to strip the black man of what is his due. The only remaining strong support that Obama still possesses is in black America. To really understand how black America views Obama, you would have to live within a black area. They still wear tee-shirts about this jerk. Stickers and posters still adorn, the creature's face is still plastered all over. That this enthusiasm about Obama is due to vast ignorance about the cruel impact of his policies notwithstanding, -------------- the enthusiasm is very real.

The Democrats are stuck within him in 2012, even though things are bound to get much worse. It was difficult for Kennedy to try to wrest the nomination away from Carter; it would be impossible for any Democrat to take it away from a black man without causing violence in urban America. Yes, genuine violence.

That's how much attachment there is to this jerk.

And I suppose you live in one of these "areas"?

Look out, Dan! The race war looms on the horizon! The black man is coming to take your tax dollars and freedom so that he can get his "due"! He'll probably marry a white woman too - in his conspiracy to black-inize America! Better not get in his way or he and his "crew" are gonna kick your ass to the beat of Lil' Boosie and Plies.

Good luck getting any minority votes with this kind of crap floating around your blogs. Keep up the good work, though. Maybe the Democrats will have a chance this fall - just start letting Dan advertise his opinions on billboards and TV (but not newspapers - black people don't really read anything, right Dan? They're probably too busy learning to be violent thugs).

Craig,

Why not list the discrete assertions 'Dan' makes and ask if the counter-assertion in each case is more plausible?:

1. The talk about Hillary in 2012 is a joke.
[debatable]

2. The main constituency in the Democrat party is the black vote. No Democrat candidate for the White House can win a general election without a huge outpouring of that vote in his or her favour.

['Main' constituency may be a poor descriptor. 'Most committed' constituency would not be. Other than public interest lawyers, you are not going to find an identifiable subsegment of the population more committed to the Democratic Party than blacks-in-general. In the last 60 years, there has been only one occasion when a Democratic candidate won the Presidency with a margin such that his black support was not decisive.]


3. The notion that any candidate could go on to win a general election after stripping a black man of the nomination is sheer lunacy. Any real, close attempt to strip Obama of the nomination will cause a massive furor throughout black America. They will take it as but another attempt by a white person to strip the black man of what is his due.

[This is a prediction, and might be faulty. One might suggest that he overestimates the importance of this strand of thought in the black population. Is it your contention that this is no such strand of thought?]

4. The only remaining strong support that Obama still possesses is in black America.

[Not true. It is likely that that is the most intense locus of support he possesses].


5. To really understand how black America views Obama, you would have to live within a black area. They still wear tee-shirts about this jerk. Stickers and posters still adorn, the creature's face is still plastered all over. That this enthusiasm about Obama is due to vast ignorance about the cruel impact of his policies notwithstanding, -------------- the enthusiasm is very real.

[We might criticise Dan for extrapolating from what is going on in his immediate neighborhood. Is it your view, however, that living in a biracial or black neighborhood reliably diminishes your understanding of how he is viewed in such circles?]


6. The Democrats are stuck within him in 2012, even though things are bound to get much worse.

[The last point is possible, but it is unwarranted to state it as if sure].


7. It was difficult for Kennedy to try to wrest the nomination away from Carter;

[True.]

8. it would be impossible for any Democrat to take it away from a black man without causing violence in urban America. Yes, genuine violence.

[Uncharitable, but not completely out of the realm of possibility. The long hot summers were not so very long ago and I am not sure you could say there has been a qualitative change in the worldview and rhythms of life prevalent in such neighborhoods since 1968].

Dan can be faulted for being too self-assured in his opinions and relying too much on personal observation. That aside, it is difficult to see what is deplorable about his predictive and descriptive statements, unless you regard Dan as duty bound to have a respectful regard for the opinions of his neighbors. Be mighty nice if the quantum of contempt in public discourse was suitably reduced. Please tell that to the editorial board of Harper's and Vanity Fair.

Nicely done.

I'm in no need of defense here. Though Art Deco surely did a nice job thereof.

By "main constituency" I simply meant a constituency which the Democrats need in such numbers that without those votes they can't secure the White House, and historically, since 1968, haven't secured the White House without a huge turnout of the black vote. It's well to recall here that even with the black turnout that Al Gore received, which exceeded that of Clinton before him, he did not win the general election in 2000.

As for the Owl of Minerva's comment, ----------- the simple answer is that I've been in such areas for many a year. Moreover, why the quotation marks around "areas." Democrat political operatives tasked to gerrymander Democrat districts have no problem acting on the notion that there exist areas where black Americans predominate, and that those areas are locales with a very high Democrat content. Have you ever heard the term "street money?" In Philadelphia it is defined as a mechanism by which black, urban voters are rounded up by Democrat operatives and dropped off at the polling places. Rest assured, they're not doing that because they're in any doubt which party they're going to be voting for. So I'm somewhat at a loss at your apparent prob with a self-evident observation. But perhaps there was some vague hint or suggestion of a racial animus lurking somewhere in my comment.

If such a thing was discerned, it was only because of the hair trigger inclination of some to launch racist accusations without cause.

I deliberately used terms that I've heard black people use themselves, AND USE REPEATEDLY. Such as "the white man," and again, "the black man." It may be shocking to some around here, by black people of my acquaintance do not hesitate to shamelessly toss around terms such as "the white man" and "the black man."

I fully anticipated that I would be castigated as a quasi-racist for using them. It didn't take very long for a reaction to kick-in. Perhaps Craig and some others would like to go into some black areas, get up on a soap-box, and decry to black Americans themselves there use of such terms.

That would be a hoot!

"Black America"started off with race war, then moved on to miscegenation and ended his first paragraph with threats of physical violence. And I'm sure the twit congratulated himself on a tour de force?

My blog comment concerned the demographic reality of the Democrat party. Hillary herself never went after Obama, and tried to remove him early on by having various emissaries get the word to him behind the scenes that he should wait his turn, that she had a massive war chest, could out spend him, and possessed enough political chits in her favour that it really didn't make much sense for him to essay the nomination. But she never displayed any eagerness to go after him. Sure, she took on his want of experience, but she never really went after his many years in the aisles of an out and out racist, such as Jeremiah Wright. The reason she didn't go after him vigorously was that she needed the black vote in the general.

As for my prediction of genuine violence were any real, serious attempt made to strip him of the nomination, I suggest that some take a much more serious look at what's going on in urban America. It isn't pretty.

I couldn't care less if anyone believes me, but the fact of the matter is that this is my first and only post in this thread - so I have no idea why people are addressing and referring to "Craig" here.

But whatever trips your trigger, I guess.

I suggest that some take a much more serious look at what's going on in urban America. It isn't pretty.

I cannot speak of your specific neighborhood or of public life v. mundane life, but I was spelunking through the New York State Statistical Yearbook today. Index crime rates are less than half what they were 30 years ago.

Hillary blew any chance of being President when she hooked her buggy to Obama's Hope and Change wagon. Any candidate whether Republican, Democrat, Green Party, etc. can rip her to shreds because she is in Obama's administration and did his bidding. She should have stayed in the Senate. On top of that she has another ball and chain called Bill Clinton.

As for Mr. "Black American," what a friggin' joke. The black vote is a write-off, and has been for a very long time. To pretend that it's "in-play" for the GOP if we'll just do the right things is simply absurd.

For too many Americans, black and white, the Federal Government has become a milk cow. It's a sickness that will eventually kill our republic.

Ah, yes. This republic has been nothing been extraordinary from day one. What a shame to see it being altered so consistently. If only we could just go back to the good 'ol days . . .

Well, BA, I guess we could copy Chavez' Venezuela. Would you like that? Or how about North Korea? Lots of "social justice" there.

The problem with people like you is that you expect human social systems to be ever more perfect. They can't be because human nature is deeply contradictory and self-interested. America, for all its problems, has allowed millions the freedom and prosperity denied them elsewhere. After all, I notice lots of black in-migration, but no stream back to Africa (except Obama's father, I guess). Interesting.

I suggest you compare the living standards, life expectancy, and education of African-Americans and Africans. Then let's talk about reparations.

COWGIRL, you got that wrong. The reason she hitched her wagon to Obama was that she knew the impossibility of stripping a black Democrat of the nomination of the Democrat party.

Don't you recall that whenever Bill Clinton got into trouble during his tenure, almost the first thing he did was take off at a dead sprint for the nearest black pulpit he could find, so as to get black Americans to start rallying around him. My point is that the Clintons know full well the importance of black voters for the Democrat party.

CRAIG, if I was wrong to impute some commentary to you, -------------- I ask that you overlook my mistake, and let it pass by.

And ART DECO, I think you would find that a perusal of sheer statistics would veil what's going on.

Pitt Bulls.

Pit Bull fighting.

"Wilding." Have you ever seen that in action? Trust me, you don't want to.

The defense of O.J. Simpson, Michael Vick, Michael Jackson, and all along race lines. Not to mention the defense of incompetent and corrupt black politicians, and again, all because of race. There is a notable, indeed PRONOUNCED determination NOT to damn people such as those aforementioned, REGARDLESS of what they've done, because of racial identity.

The growth of anti-semitism in black America, {though admittedly anti-semitism is increasing everywhere, and is not just confined to black America}.

"Keep it real." Do you know what that means? Have you ever even heard the term? Textbook pathology.

The brutal peer pressure placed on those blacks trying to excel academically.

The frequency with which the term "Uncle Tom" is tossed around.

The growth of islam within black America.

The percentage of young black men who've seen the insides of a prison, {I've personally been on work crews where I was the only non-black, and was also the only person NOT to have been incarcerated}.

Marital rates for young black women. Do you know what the likelihood of young AND ATTRACTIVE black women getting married is? Or to narrow that issue, take a gander at the difficulty for educated black women getting married. Anita Hill anyone?

And relatedly, the incidence of out of wedlock birth.

Or take a look at what's on the syllabus for many of the black studies classes across our country. Steeping young minds in eternal grievance is hardly preparing them to move forward.

So I would put it to you ART, that statistics are not in any way definitive in our understanding of what is going on in black and urban America.

I am perplexed. You are not referring to any phenomena about which there has not been general discussion for the better part of a generation. I first heard the term 'wilding' in 1989. Public discussion of elevated rates of bastardy in the black population has been ongoing since 1965 or therabouts. Tolerance by black electorates of incompetence and corruption by elected officials has been a subject of public discussion at least since Marion Barry's tenure in Washington - which is to say for 25 years or more. All of these are regrettable things. The question is, are they getting worse and are their indicators of a resurgence of the sort of urban violence seen during the years running from 1964 to 1971? Don't think so.

Sure, there has been "general discussion" about out of wedlock births, ---------- but that hardly exhausted the rather cursory list I mentioned.

Nor has there really been a discussion WITHIN black America about the rise of such pathologies. Certainly not at the level where anything is going to be done about it. Bouncing around various ideas in the faculty lounge is hardly a significant "public discussion."

When creatures like Vick are denounced by black Americans, when jerks like Wright are ostracized, again, by black Americans, and when black Americans can admit that pit bull fighting is pathological and that O.J. did it, ----------- then we'll see progress.

And we're not seeing anything like that.

You are not describing a set of acute and threatening social developments, but things which have been chronic conditions in the black population for between 30 and 50 years, conditions to which the remainder of the population has been habituated.

Blowhards like Rev. Wright entered the mainstream of public life in the black community around about 1966. Illegitimacy is no more common than it was 20 years ago and academic failure no worse than was the case 30 years ago. Crime rates are a good deal lower. Given a particular point in the business cycle, the propensity to welfare dependency has declined as well.

"Ah, yes. This republic has been nothing been extraordinary from day one. What a shame to see it being altered so consistently. If only we could just go back to the good 'ol days . . ."


What easy moralizing. Yawn.

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