By Jennifer J. Foster
Posted 05/12 at 09:49 AM
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John Edwards endorsed Barack Obama ... or did he?
This article from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution shows how crazy things have gotten in the endorsement watch. Edwards was talking about voting in the North Carolina primaries last week when he said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” show, “I just voted for him on Tuesday, so—.“
He was interrupted and asked whether he voted for a him or a her.
Edwards demurred and said he wasn’t indicating an endorsement. But that didn’t stop reporters from frothing at the collective mouth:
“So did he misspeak? Mangle his syntax? Or unwittingly reveal whom he will eventually endorse for the Democratic nomination for president?“ NY Times News Service reporter Julie Bosman breathlessly wondered.
Bosman got this explanation from one Edwards surrogate:
“The problem is you people don’t speak Southern,“ said John C. Moylan, a former adviser who lives in South Carolina. “He says, ‘I just voted for ‘em on Tuesday.‘ ‘Em is not a gender-specific noun.“
“You people”—meaning, presumably, Yankees from the New York Times News Service. Ha ha!!
So that begs the age-old question: Is grits singular? Or are grits plural?
Oh, wait—wrong question.
What does it mean when we’re left to parse Southern syntax in the race for the presidency? We’ve come a long way, baby.
By Jennifer J. Foster
Posted 05/12 at 09:23 AM
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According to CNN, Barack Obama has just overtaken Hillary Clinton in superdelegate support.
U.S. Rep. Tom Allen (D-ME) is the latest of Clinton’s longtime friends to endorse Obama.
In a statement released by the Obama campaign Monday, Allen said both Democratic candidates were “supremely qualified” to be president.
“I have been friends for a very long time with former President Clinton and Senator Clinton. I respect their service to our nation. Hillary Clinton has run a vigorous campaign and has attracted a passionate following in Maine and around the country. She loves this country and is a true leader. For her service, I am grateful,” he said.
“Most of the primary voters across the nation have now spoken. It is time to bring a graceful end to the primary campaign. We now need to unify the Democratic Party and focus on electing Senator Obama and a working majority in the United States Senate…”
Allen is also a senatorial candidate.
Allen’s support means that Obama now leads Clinton, 274 superdelegates to 273, according to CNN’s estimates. She had begun 2008 leading in superdelegates by 100.
Clinton now trails in every significant indicator in the presidential race.
By Jennifer J. Foster
Posted 05/12 at 07:53 AM
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Every time I hear a Democratic strategist say how good this primary process has been for the party, I shake my head in disbelief.
It might have been true early on, and it might have been true even as late as halfway through the process. After all, Democrats are seeing record turnouts, high numbers of new voter registrations and excitement and interest in the race that have made news on their own.
But the longer this thing goes on, the more supporters of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton seem to dig in their respective heels. As CNN’s Candy Crowley put it, the last month has seen a definite “hardening” of each candidate’s supporters—and it’s especially true of Clinton’s backers.
Exit polling in Indiana last week showed that only 48 percent of Clinton supporters said they would support Obama if he is the nominee; that’s compared to 70 percent of Obama’s supporters who say they would back Clinton if she leads the ticket (see “The bitterness factor” from last week’s election returns coverage).
That’s the statistic to keep an eye on as the primary season wraps up over the next three weeks. It’s been dubbed the “bitterness index,“ and it could have just as much to with electability as the nominee.
And that was before all the race- and class-baiting by Clinton’s supporters in the wake of Tuesday’s results. There was Paul Begala’s much-covered “eggheads and African-Americans” comment (which, setting aside the obvious divisiveness of the word choice, is still curious: Democrats can’t win with just those groups, Begala said, but they certainly can’t win without them, so why alienate them?), and then Clinton herself gave an interview to USA Today in which she said:
“I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on,“ she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article “that found how Sen. 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.
I read one comment that asked whether Clinton was insinuating that black Americans aren’t hard workers.
It was as if Hillary Clinton was introducing a new slogan:
Hillary Clinton: The White Folks’ Candidate.
Yes, Hillary’s right; there is a pattern emerging here—but it’s not the one to which she’s referring.
It’s a pattern of race-baiting that began with ugly undertones in South Carolina and has never been more apparent than now, as Clinton continues to hope that delegates will override the results of the entire primary season and hand the nomination to her even in the face of her trailing in every indicator the campaign could produce.
You know the old axiom: Desperation does ugly things to people.
Democrats are sick of this. If you doubt it, I refer you back to the now-infamous Begala-Brazile exchange. I was listening to it when it happened, and I stopped what I was doing to look up and see what was going on. If you haven’t seen it, I really encourage you to watch it. You can see for yourself that it was remarkable for its raw tone, which reflected the frayed nerves, the irritation and aggravation this drawn-out process has created.
Their talking points notwithstanding, this nomination fight has taken its toll on Democrats. And every minute that Hillary Clinton stays in the race is another minute with an opportunity for her to make a “white Americans”-like comment that makes it worse—and spikes the bitterness index.
By Jennifer J. Foster
Posted 05/12 at 07:30 AM
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... well, as told by Saturday Night Live’s Amy Poehler as Hillary Clinton, anyway.
In this hilarious clip from this weekend’s show, “Clinton” lays out her argument to superdelegates.
If you don’t laugh out loud at this—especially Reason No. 2—something’s wrong!
By Jennifer J. Foster
Posted 05/12 at 07:00 AM
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Party disunity, nefarious plots ... No, I’m not talking about the race for the Democratic presidential nomination!
A few weeks back, I noted that former U.S. Rep. Bob Barr (R-GA) was closing in on a run for the presidency ... on the Libertarian ticket. He’s expected to make it official today.
I was annoyed with the idea when it first made news:
Can I just ask one question? (OK, that was one, but there’s one more.) How much sense does it make to run for president, commit to the grueling travel schedule, participate in all those debates, choke down who-knows-how-many chicken cordon bleu dinners at party events, shake an untold number of hands, suffer through all the local political soirees and fulfill all the other obligations of a major presidential campaign and then turn around and endorse someone who didn’t think running for president was important enough—or the American voters are important enough—to go through the process the way that you did?
... and I’m no fonder of it now.
Sure, Libertarians can do what they will. My only point is that it discredits U.S. Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) and his efforts so far for Barr to enter the race at this point as a Libertarian. Paul is a Libertarian (yes, I know he’s a registered Republican, but we all know that he’s a Libertarian) running as a Republican; now we have Barr, who made his name as a Republican, running as a Libertarian.
Paul is still in the race. I’d like to ask those in the “reLOVEution:“ Are you going to support Paul, who became a bult phenomenon as he carried your standard for nearly a year, or Barr, who is best known for his work as a manager of the impeachment proceedings against President Clinton?
There are plenty of stories available about this, but I picked this one from the LA Times because it offered an interesting headline: “Ron Paul’s forces quietly plot GOP convention revolt against McCain.“
And you thought Democrats were having all the fun!
