In the great sexism/racism race, I've always figured white women were less racist than white men were sexist and so, in the end, Hillary's coalition might break first. And, yeah, many of those white male Reagan democrats aren't coming back, I don't care how many right-wing talking points Barack sends their way, see Digby on this http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/02/t... .

Personally, I think if the Dems lose in November, this is where we will have fucked up. In his attempt to make the white male comfortable, Obama may have alienated just enough white and hispanic females to screw himself over in the GE. If we assume that a certain segment of white males is not going to vote for Obama or Clinton against McCain, although they were only too happy to back Obama in the primary,* then the best way to offset that is to woo non-white males.

We pretty much already have African Americans, so while Obama will provide some growth there, it won't be enough. If the only thing keeping Democrats out of the White House was the black vote, we'd have nominated a black guy a long time ago. So what we need are other non-white men, like hispanics, and white women. Who appeals the most to these two demos? The candidate who probably won't be the nominee. Indeed, Clinton's winning coalition in the primaries is a potentially winning coalition in the GE, especially when you add in liberal white men who are never going to vote for McCain.

But more than that, Obama needed white males to get the nomination and so engaged in certain campaign tactics to assure this voter segment that have alienated some of the voters he absolutely must have, white women. The question is whether Obama will realize that his true GE coalition isn't the same as his nominating coalition and repair the damage done to this core democratic consituency. Because he can win over all the "independents" in the world, but if enough women sit home, it isn't going to matter.

* I should add that I suspect a good number of white males who back Obama but will vote McCain in the Fall might currently prefer Obama. It's just after the GOP gets through with Obama - calling him liberal (I wish!) and raising all kinds of subtle racist points about him - these guys are going to decide that they are "just more comfortable" with McCain.

Because dammit, we should get credit for something, once in a while.

Here's Obama's electoral problem, and ours. The white male demographic will chose a male over a female most of the time. They will also chose a white male over a black male most of the time. In the primary that works to Obama's advantage but come the general, he's in trouble right out of the gate. That which promotes him can also destroy him, a Grecian formula tragedy.

Been saying this for a while, still believe it to be true. The question for Barak is not if he's black enough, but is he white enough? It will be a tough sell; all suggestions welcome.

But I think there's a tendency to blame him instead of Patty Solis because, well, she seems like a better person. She may not be, I don't know either of them, but she seems so.

To add to Penn's defense, given the hostility in the SCLM, it was probably Hillary's best shot to wrap this up quickly.

Now to say one negative thing about Penn on which I hope we can agree - he should never, ever, under any circumstance be allowed within a 100 metres of a television camera or a print reporter. That's the other reason why I think he's gotten a lot of the blame - he does a lousy job being the public face of the campaign and that causes people, like me, to project that lousy job into broader incompetence, to assume if he's that bad in front of the camera, he's the problem when the camera is off, as well.

Although even here, credit where credit is due, he doesn't seem any more loathsome than David Axelrod and at least he didn't send his candidate out to talk about how Obama feels periodically blue or deliver the racist dogwhistle equivalent. Low point in the campaign for Obama, personally, and his delivery makes it quite clear the language had been worked out in advance (IMO), that was no slip. No matter what he does from here on out, Obama will always, on some level, be THAT GUY to me. You know the one, the entitled sexist jerk who just cannot help but respond to a criticism from a woman with a "joke" about her having her period.

I hate to be the person coming to Mark Penn's defense, but, IMHO as a strategist, he did the job he was asked to do.

The Clinton campaign adoption a perfectly good strategy at the beginning of this campaign, not based on "inevitability", but in dominating (and defining herself in) the important primary states on Super Tuesday and in the general election. (the only flaw in this strategy was the failure to put resources in two important states that held caucuses -- Minnesota and Colorado.)

Penn's job was to accomplish that -- and he did a great job. Hillary either won by a substantial margin, or was close, in all the states that matter to Democrats in November -- wins in California, New Jersey, and Arizona, New York, Tennessee, Arizona (who knew McCain would be the nominee?), Massachusetts (again, Romney appeared to a strong contender for the GOP nom, which would have made the state competitive), and Arkansas were all sustantial wins for her, New Mexico and Missouri were basically ties, and she lost CN by only 4%. The only primary state that matters to Dems in the general election that Obama won big was his home state of Illinois -- Delaware is only 3 electoral college votes, and Utah, Georgia, and Alabama (as well as Hillary's win in Oklahoma) are meaningless in terms of winning in November.

It wasn't Penn's job to keep track of what was going on in freaking Idaho... his job was to concentrate on achieving the goals of the campaign.

Ultimately, Patti Solis was the problem -- I have no doubt that people in Colorado, and Minnesota, and Idaho, and all the rest of the caucus states were screaming their heads off, telling the campaign that Obama was gonna slaughter them with his caucus ground game -- and it was Solis's job to make sure that this problem was addressed.

As a result, the anti-Clinton media was able to virtually ignore what Hillary accomplished in states that matter, and concentrate on all those essentially worthless (in the GE) states and their delegates that Obama won. Idaho is nowhere near as important as New Jersey for democrats -- but as presented by the media, they are of equal weight, and Obama won the combined delegate totals for those two states by 1 delegate.

That is, indeed, what Obama (and his scriptwriter, Axelrod) have done.

I don't see that Obama has changed the dynamics. So far. And I'm not sure he's going to change them in my favor in any case--other than by allowing me to take dog food with me out onto the ice floes....

The issue is what will Obama do when the next shock comes, as, from Shock Doctrine, we know it will. I'm not re-assured.

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

complete. i won't try to make a poll again until we're freshened up.

I didn't see any buttons, but now there are buttons.

While I think Clinton has certainly made her share of mistakes, I think that the SCLM is more to blame. They've essentially created a playing field where anything less than a perfect campaign by her wouldn't be good enough and, of course, nobody runs a perfect campaign. It's the same dynamics that killed Gore and Kerry only with the added boost of misogyny.

THis time there was even some push back, especially regarding the worst instances of misogyny. But when the misogyny was pointed out at MSNBC, they turned on her with even more fury, which I don't think bodes well for Obama in the general. But the SCLM have made it clear that any complaints about coverage will result in them circling the wagons and giving worse coverage. When Fox and Pat Buchanan are treating Hillary Clinton more fairly than MSNBC, you know there is a problem.

Obama played this dynamic perfectly, but I hope he isn't too dependent on it because it will change. He may never get as bad as coverage as Clinton has gotten, he is a man after all and one who likes rightwing framing, but he's not going to get this kind of glowing press after the wicked witch is dead.

It's the only answer.

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

this?

he corporate media and most Blacks with access to a mass public never seem to seriously examine the meaning of the most dramatic, history-shaking statistic in Barack Obama's march to the White House: he's picking up strong majorities of white men. That's unheard of in the annals of electoral activity in the United States. White men have always been the most reactionary, racially-bonded voting group, the deepest well of anti-Black hostility in the country. So, what makes them flock to Obama's banner? The answer is simple: Obama has based his entire strategy on sending messages to white males, assuring them he will take race and sex privilege off the table of American discourse. They got the message, and vote accordingly. The other side of this color blind coin is Black Americans, who don't seem to hear the conversation that's going on all around them.

and Black Folk? are we 'hearing' what is being said?

um, i agree with you. but i'm a chickenshit and never would've said that myself, because i'm a coward. way to hit all the major meme/datapoints found in the production of Our Savior.

If it wasn't for the corporate media not only openly glorifying Obama (beyond giving him a pass) but also demonizing Clinton, they played an absolutely critical factor in how voters perceived him.* When you add in a blogosphere that refused to check the media, instead opting to reinforce the distortion, it made Obama the Brand all the more difficult to counter.

@dmk47: Obama's organizational prowess would've been a moot point if the media had done its job (e.g., expose him as a faux "transformational" candidate; critique his fundamentally dishonest health care campaign). Basically, there wouldn't have been droves of people to organize without the media.

However, I credit his campaign with not being Mark Penn-like. I swear, if Obama had hired Penn, HRC would be the nominee; he's that awful.

*I'm curious as to how misinformed Obama voters are. I've met way too many people who say they're voting for Obama because he "voted against the war" or he's proposing "universal" health care.

more than anything else. What kind of a moron thinks it's a good idea to position a candidate as the "inevitable" choice? Or to simply choose to not compete for half of the available delegates? Though she did take his advice.

As for the media, they play this game every time - they think it's their job to determine the nominee and president, not ours. Remember what they did to Al Gore? Howard Dean? This has been going on forever. It's not fair, but in the end, it's also not why Hillary is behind - those honors go to Mark Penn and her campaign strategy.

His strategy and organization at every level of the campaign were just vastly superior.

what am i doing wrong? i don't know how to make the vote button appear, sob. could you fix that, pretty plz with taffy on top? thanks.

... if somehow she manages to win.

In any case, she's not dead yet. We'll see what March 4th has to say about that....

But, since there doesn't appear to be a vote button, I'd say the SCLM. They were real good at killing the chances of my first choice. It seems to me that the SCLM has been herding our votes from the beginning.

and even if it isn't, it seems to me the media is doing everything possible to make it so. even if she "wins" at the convention, it's already clear the response will be "and she cheated! it's not legit!" from "democrats," as well as republican Villagers.

?

The poll module has always been a wayward child...

I think there will be a way to include polls with everything....

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

box instead of saying on the post itself: because i want to know what you think. i'm reading last night's comments and stuff, and there seems to be not a little disagreement about this. i know the binary nature of this choice is false, but just for the sake of argument: is it mostly her fault for listening to overpaid Village consultants, or mostly because the media hates her with the fire of 0000 suns and destroyed her, or something i'm missing?

sysadminlb: will the new version have the feature of putting text with a poll post? that would nice.