May
14
2008
I don’t mean to start some shit here, but seriously…
Posted by: JT in Culture, Election, RantWhat the fuck does winning the West-Virginia primary really prove, at this point?
Seriously, guys (and gals). What’s does this fucking say? Are we to place these voters in some higher bracket than the rest of the hundreds of thousands of people who voted thus far? It’s such bullshit I can’t even breathe. I’m glad that Clinton’s cornered the much sought after Appalachian Mountain folk demographic. I’m surprised that they stopped raping canoers long enough to jab their shit covered, callused hands on the ballot console.
May 14th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
I was talking to MJS about this earlier and my contention is that the West Virgina primary showed that Obama still has some big hurdles to overcome in terms of race and how it effects his overall “electability”. They had some exit poll interviews on CNN and they tried making the point that Hilary received such a large portion of the WV vote mainly because she is white. It’s the first primary that I’m aware of where the main case of one canidate’s win and another’s loss is being attributed to race. It’s possible it could be viewed as preview of things to come during the Presidential election if Obama is nominated. So if you’re a voter, or more importantly at this point a Superdelegate, it could start to bring into question just exactly how electable Barack Obama is? I think that’s mainly why Hiliary has made it this far, because the delegates, Superdelegates, and Democratic party members are all treading very carefully with their votes and support simply because this is the first time in history they’ve had to seriously ask themselves the question “When it comes right down to it, does this country elect a black man or a white woman”? McCain represents what has been the Presidential status-quo of “white male” since the inception of this country so at this point no matter who the Democrats elect they are directly challenging to break that status-quo. There’s no precedent for this in U.S. history so it’s causing them to pretty much exclusively play things by ear. In that respect the WV primary bears some thought since, as I said earlier, it could represent the first symptoms of a underlying racial virus in this country that, when put to the test, would kill Obama’s chances but may just allow Hilary to survive and win.
I think the last thing the Democrats want at this point is to nominate Obama and then have him get defeated badly in a landslide victory against McCain because they miscalculated and found out race was a much bigger deciding factor that what thought it would be. WV may be showing us that, in fact, it is.
May 15th, 2008 at 10:19 am
Well the DNC is certainly in a fucking pickle now. Now because more people have voted for Obama and more pledged and super delegates are behind Obama they aren’t going to stand for a “switcheroo” right before the convention, on the premise that whites won’t vote for Obama. The DNC has the ability to hand over the nomination to Hilary at any time, you know. All the way up until the convention the supers and “pledged” delegates have the ability to switch sides.
In my opinion, it’s too late to strong arm Obama out of the race, and why would we want to? Because the majority of West-Virginian’s wouldn’t vote for him over another Democrat? All that proves is that Hilary(f) > Obama(f) {given f = West Virginia]. We need to know if Democrat(f) > Republican(f) {where f = USA}.
More to the point; would people be seriously racist to the point where they would vote for a Republican-after everything we’ve gone through and will go through because of the last 8 years- over a Democrat just because that democrat is not White? Would they seriously choose the destruction of our nation over a black man, for christ’s sake? Would they look at the $4.05 per gallon sign, the ass-end of the unemployment line, or a summons from a bank saying that they are in default and honestly be that criminally negligent as to elect another Republican to finish the job? If that’s the fucking case, FUCK THEM AND FUCK US ALL! We deserve anything that happens as a result. It was bad enough that people were so goddamn stupid as to give Bush a second term, but that would be the moment I stopped giving a nugget of fuck.
And seriously, how stupid would we look if even WE (the reasonably informed, Democratic electorate) didn’t have faith that a perceptibly Black candidate could be elected in 2008?
May 15th, 2008 at 11:38 am
The concept that white Hilary supporters would switch their vote to McCain, if she doesn’t get the nomination, simply because he’d be the only white candidate blows my fucking mind. I mean, as you say, how seriously fucked up does that show us to be. But the really fucked up thing is at this point you have to take it seriously since we’ve never had this kind of situation and therefore no past frame of reference. You know how you always hear the saying “Vote your heart”, well this may the 1st election in a long time where people actually do that. No matter the outcome (Hilary, Obama, or McCain) it’s going to serve as clear and precise report about the current state of race and gender relations in this country as well as hold a mirror up to the face of many Americans they may be unwilling to look at.
May 15th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
The whole discussion about electability-including Hilary’s statement about still having a better shot among white voters-points directly to the fear of losing votes to a republican based on the democratic candidate being black.
It’s fucking sad.