I'm Surrounded by Obama-philes!

Written by: Michael Kuykendall on Apr 24, 2008 1:47 PM EDT

An argument against Obama-mania from a die hard Democrat worried about his party's prospects in the fall.

I am really starting to get sick of the inherent anti-Hillary bias I have seen spring up in the media and online, even from sources I had previously thought to be moderately fair and objective (if advocacy blogs can even qualify for either term, including this one!) If you don't believe me, read the afore-linked (is that even a word? If not it should be!) "articles" and tell me if they pass the journalistic Pepsi-challenge. To me they read like some weird nightmare version of Fox for liberals.

It's as if the entire country, infected with the ideological politics practiced by the Bush regime for the better part of a decade, has shifted to a "new kind of politics" but kept the process intact, complete with the circular reasoning and closed minded, stubborn defense of decisions made with the emotions, as opposed to cold, hard, political reality and reason.

The Left and those partial to it, or at least those driven from the Right by the fiascoes of the last two presidential terms, are now doing the same thing the Republicans did in nominating, helping to elect and re-elect, and politically support every dumbass move President Bush has made; they are allowing emotional decision-making to undermine their reason in electing the most important public official in our nation.

The reason I say that is this; the argument for this fall's general election put forward by the Obama campaign and their surrogates is that the Senator has shown he can somehow forge a new electoral map by putting red states back into play, namely the ones he has won thus far. This despite the fact that the majority of Obama's wins are a direct result of dominating the remarkably un-democratic state caucuses, which do not translate to the general election to come, and the fact that primary results are in no way representative of likely general election wins as shameless Obama advocates such as Josh Marshall have explicitly explained, in this case ironically while making an argument against Hillary's "big state" strategy;

 

The dynamics are simply different between general elections and primaries. You have on the one hand patterns and preferences that Democratic voters show for different candidates in Democratic primaries. Then you have the separate question of whether these same voters will vote for the Democratic or the Republican nominee in the general. One is simply not predictive of the other. It could be -- if one candidate's voters simply refuse to vote for the other candidate. But who wins a primary doesn't tell you that.

And it's really not a big mystery that the argument doesn't hold up because it wasn't devised or conceived as an electoral argument. It's a political argument -- one that only really came into operation at the point at which the Clinton campaign realized that it was far enough behind that it's path to the nomination required making the argument to superdelegates that she's elected and Obama is not.

 

(I assume the inestimable Mr. Marshall meant "electable" in the last sentence. I guess blog success negates the need for good editing.)

Thus by TPM's own logic, Obama's unspoken promise that he can re-write the map or that he can swing the big states despite outspending his opponent 3 to 1 (and not moving the white working class vote one iota since Ohio) is moot. In essence he's saying "trust me"; because of the only evidence we have on this newcomer thus far, namely his pathetic primary results and triumphant mobbing of caucuses, he says he can defeat the opponent from the entrenched incumbent party- this despite thus far being unable to defeat someone from his own party for the nomination.

That's why I think Obama advocates are, in essence, living in la-la land- the Republican strategists are already running ads using Obama to help endangered downline GOP races. So the argument is, yes, Obama can't win Pennsylvania or Ohio or Florida or Michigan or California etc in his own party primaries, but once he's up against an opponent like McCain, a ruthless opponent who has no reason to pull his punches as Hillary most assuredly has for the eventual sake of party unity, he'll win like gangbusters. Oh, and don't worry about the horribly important House and Senate races- they'll work themselves out.

Am I missing something? That just doesn't make sense.

And please, Obama-philes, please stop making the "this race is SO negative" complaint. The Democrats have been accused of being wimps my entire 32 years on this planet, and now that the wind is in our sails and we're cruising towards the best electoral prospects for our party in a generation, our frontrunner and his surrogates are flooding the airwaves with gripes about bruising and supposedly destructive primary tactics from Senator Clinton. We look like the nerds in high school desperately trying to argue our way out of a drubbing from a football player.

Oh and about the much maligned Clinton "kitchen sink" strategy- so noting a few of his questionable past associations is negative? Try this on for size;

In denouncing the Sage of Monticello as "an atheist" in a fiery sermon, Rev. Timothy
Dwight, president of Yale, warned that national catastrophe would be the inevitable result of Jefferson's election. In his eyes the future looked black indeed: the Bible would be burned publicly, the "Marseillaise" sung in the churches, and, worst of all, "We may see our wives and daughters the victims of legal prostitution; soberly dishonored; speciously polluted." Federalist newspapers were equally alarmed at the prospect of Jefferson in the White House. Declared the Columbian Centinel: "Tremble then in case of Jefferson's election ... for your ruin is at hand."

The father of our Constitution (and the Democratic party, as a matter of fact) took a far worse beating than Obama...

...and that was 207 years ago!!!

John McCain and his buddies are salivating at such tender meat, and if you actually believe Mr. Straight Talk when he professes a desire for a clean campaign, be assured there's a thousand Rove-like strategists with clips of Jeremiah Wright cackling with glee over the splicing table as we speak. These same politicos did everything they could to destroy the Clintons when they had all the power of the federal government at their disposal and couldn't do it. Will Obama be able to withstand the onslaught if he's wringing his hands now? If he truly can then the incessant complaining does nothing but highlight weakness for all the world to see.

To sum up, as George W. Bush proved to us, just because you like the guy it doesn't mean he'll be a good president. As Al Gore also proved to us, the popular vote strategy of getting America to fall in love with you en masse does not work.

Only a nuanced, seasoned approach to electoral politics that actually reflects on the primary-like nature of general election voting will armor Democrats for the vicious fight in store for us this fall, and ensure electoral success when so much hangs in the balance.

Bellyaching about negative politics and shutting out Michigan and Florida delegates is not the way our eventual nominee should act. Please, Obama fans- wise up and let your love affair wane, so we don't have to look longingly back to the time when we could have nominated a candidate who could win, rather than a Jimmy Carter-esque Dukakis clone (with a dash of George McGovern, of course) who will be eaten alive by the GOP this fall.

UPDATE: Here's another summation... this time from Hillary's newest campaign line; why can't Obama close the deal?

I mean really, come on... why not?

His fans insist Clinton must drop out for the party's sake, as if he can't win unless he has no opponents. If Obama is a crackerjack like everyone believes then his arguments and issues should be able to withstand a mildly negative assault. If he's got an Achille's heel then it is in our party's interests to find it now before the Republicans hijack the election.

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