I’m not going to name names but I’m getting a little tired of the petulant attitude a lot of other bloggers are taking about the rise of Barack Obama. I wrote two pieces last week on the meta aspects of the blogosphere and the race: Why the Blogosphere Went for Edwards and Obama and the Blogosphere. My basic point was that Obama’s differences with the blogosphere were less about substance than style and that Obama’s style was, in large part, due to constraints facing any African-American candidate running for president.
Now that Obama has won Iowa and is poised for a blowout win in New Hampshire, there are a bunch of sour grapes. Boo hoo, the people are changing their preferences and moving in hordes for Barack Obama. It’s so unfair. Why should a few corn farmers in Iowa change the preferences of so many people. Are they sheeple…what’s their problem?
This is basic psychology. Go down and talk to the black community in South Carolina. I know what they’ll tell you. They have experienced so much institutionalized racism in their lives that they simply couldn’t imagine that a black man could win the nomination, let alone the general election. Therefore, they were inclined to support Hillary Clinton. The Clintons, after all, have a very good and long lasting relationship with the black community, especially in places like South Carolina. There was a lot of good will and trust built up…and then there was the electability issue. Add to this the inclination not to make oneself vulnerable by getting one’s hopes up. But that all changed once they saw Obama knock the living crap out of the vaunted and feared Clinton Machine. It’s going to totally evaporate when Obama clubs the Clintons by double digits on Tuesday. In fact, Obama’s momentum will be so strong after New Hampshire that there will be very strong peer pressure in the black community in South Carolina for everyone to band together behind Obama.
Does this make them sheeple? Or does it mean that Obama has passed a test, a hurdle, and allowed people to let down their guard and dream?
People are flocking to Obama, not because they saw him on television dressed in garlands and basking in victory. They’re flocking to him because he has answered their doubts. You think he isn’t tough enough to win? Tell it to Hillary Clinton and her team. They got hit so hard they don’t even know what state they’re campaigning in anymore.
The scope of Barack Obama’s victory in Iowa has shaken the Clinton machine down to its bolts. Donors are panicking.
The bigfoot reporters smell blood.
Is this what it would have been like had Elvis been reduced to playing Reno?
Former President Bill Clinton has been drawing sleepy and sometimes smallish crowds at big venues in the state that revived his presidential campaign in 1992. He entered to polite applause and rows of empty seats at the University of New Hampshire on Friday. Several people filed out midspeech, and the room was largely quiet as he spoke…
Why wouldn’t people be newly impressed with Barack Obama. Last week he was just one senator out of 100 that hasn’t done shit to stop the Bush administration. This week he is queen killer. He’s proven his ability to build an organization that works, and he’s taken down the most formidable political family in American politics. What is Mike Huckabee by comparison? And he did it in two of the whitest states in the nation. What was that about a ‘black man can’t win’ again?
People are flocking to Obama because he is now a proven winner with a proven organization who obviously knows how to fight. People are just tuning in and they’re seeing a man and a campaign that is operating on a very high level. And, so, yes…they’re changing their minds…they’re losing their skepticism. They’re convinced he can win.
Edwards is doing pretty well, too. Edwards is still in the game. But just because your preference is for Edwards is no reason to get grumpy about the Obama surge. It doesn’t mean people are stupid. It means they like what they see.
All this grousing is unseemly. It’s about as lame as watching Bill Clinton’s visible disappointment at the high turnout of young voters in Iowa.
