Soccer Dad

Will a clinton nomination suppress the vote in november?

Maybe Charles Krauthammer's onto something with Black Dreams, White Liberals.

First Krauthammer notes the history:

The principal objection was that Clinton appeared to be disrespecting Martin Luther King Jr., relegating him to mere enabler for Lyndon Johnson. But it is certainly true that Johnson was the great emancipator, second only to Abraham Lincoln in that respect. This was a function of the times. King was fighting for black enfranchisement. Until that could be achieved, civil rights legislation could only be enacted by a white president (and a white Congress).

That does not denigrate King. It makes his achievement all the more miraculous -- winning a permanent stake in the system for a previously disenfranchised people, having begun with no political cards to play.

Here's where he finds fault with Sen. Clinton's remark:

In my view, the real problem with Clinton's statement was the implied historical analogy -- that the subordinate position King held in relation to Johnson, a function of the discrimination and disenfranchisement of the time, somehow needs recapitulation today when none of those conditions apply.

The analogy Clinton was implying was obvious: I'm Lyndon Johnson, unlovely doer; he's Martin Luther King, charismatic dreamer. Vote for me if you want results.

Forty years ago, that arrangement -- white president enacting African American dreams -- was necessary because discrimination denied blacks their own autonomous political options. Today, that arrangement -- white liberals acting as tribune for blacks in return for their political loyalty -- is a demeaning anachronism. That's what the fury at Hillary was all about, although no one was willing to say so explicitly.

Maybe he's reading too much into the statement. (Maryland Conservatarian, for example, didn't see things this way. And, frankly, I agreed with him.)

However consider other signs of black disenchantment with Hillary Clinton. Red State reports:

Mayor C. Jack Ellis, the recently term limited out of office Mayor of Macon, GA, called in the show. Mayor Ellis was the first black mayor of this racially charged city. And he is hopping mad at the Clintons. So mad, in fact, he's off to South Carolina to help organize the vote for Barack Obama.

He said this morning that the African-American community stood by the Clintons through eight years of everyone else abandoning them. After all (and this is me, not him), they took the Sister Souljah moment, they took welfare reform. Hell, they took Ginsberg and Breyer. How did the Clintons' pay them back?

They didn't.

Or looking at a larger sample, African-Americans in Michigan voted nearly 70% for uncommitted and only 25% for Hillary Clinton.

For all the talk of the problems Republicans are having and how each candidate might alienate a critical segment of the base who will stay home in November, there's been precious little speculation of what might happen to the black vote in November should Sen. Clinton win the nomination.

Finally, Krauthammer's closing is brilliant:

The nation has become inured to the playing of the race card, but "our first black president" (Toni Morrison on Bill Clinton) and his consort are not used to having it played against them.

Bill is annoyed with Obama. As Bill inadvertently let on to Charlie Rose, it has nothing to do with race, and everything to do with entitlement. He had contemplated running in 1988, he confided to Charlie, but decided to wait. Too young, not ready. (A tall tale, highly Clintonian; but that's another matter.) Now it is Hillary's turn. The presidency is her due -- the ultimate in alimony -- and this young upstart refuses to give way.

But telling Obama to wait his turn is a tricky proposition. It sounds patronizing and condescending, awakening the kinds of racial grievances white liberals have spent half a century fanning -- only to find themselves now singed in the blowback, much to their public chagrin.

Who says there's no justice in this world?

UPDATE: WolfHowling doesn't think that the charges of racism will end with the Democratic nomination and sees the seeds of an even more divisive general election:

I can truly appreciate Krauthammer's enjoyment in this conundrum of our modern left, but I see in it a great potential for harm to our nation. As I stated in my post a few days ago, if Obama becomes the nominee and allows Republican's to be smeared with charges of racisim for any criticism they aim towards Obama, this portends to become a destructive and bloody Presidential campaign indeed.

hillary clinton, barack obama.