But are we planning to win?
Something I’ve been struggling with for the last couple of days has come into focus as of late. It’s something that as Democrats (most of us), Progressives (most of us), and human beings (all of us) that we don’t want to admit or think about too much.
But it’s the most important issue in 2008 election, really. Because if this issue isn’t discussed now, dealt with now, solved now, there’s going to be another Republican in the White House come November 2008.
And that issue is this: More than anything else on Earth right now, the Republicans want this to be a two person race on our side between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
Why? Why is that?
Well, if you think like a GOP operative, the reason becomes painfully clear. That is, you assume Democrats will be motivated in the end by their darker impulses. You assume in the end, they’re just like you. You’d want to make sure as a matter of fact the Democrats did exactly that, and you’d do that by sending those darker messages through the media.
If you were the odious Karl Rove for example, you’d think “I would love nothing more than to see this race on the Democratic side of the coin come down to the first serious female candidate for a major party’s nomination for President versus the first serious African-American candidate for a major party’s nomination for President.”
But why? Isn’t that everything you would hate to see as a misogynist, bigoted jackass? Of course. But that’s the point. Because deep down you know the true explanation of Iowa vs New Hampshire is the one thing the pundits and the talking heads aren’t talking about.
The difference is Barack Obama won Iowa. Hillary Clinton then won New Hampshire. Despite all the polls to the contrary saying that Barack Obama had come from 20 points down to 8-9 points up, he lost by 3.
What happened? Barack Obama won Iowa. The “Oh Shit!” factor kicked in. When Barack Obama was just another candidate, he was just that. But when he won Iowa and won it strongly, he became the first real African-American to have a legitimate shot at the White House.
And that led to New Hampshire. An 8 point lead evaporated into a 3 point loss that was evident from the absolute beginning. Hillary kept a 3% lead from 15-20% of the precincts counted all the way until the end, which means it was statewide.
We don’t want to talk about what the worst possible scenario is that could have caused that outcome to be so wrong from every single poll taken. We don’t want to admit what that means about us as Democrats, as progressives, as human beings. So, we put up reasons why we believe Hillary won that don’t touch on this. We put up reasons why Obama lost that don’t touch on this. We put up reason why we believe that crazy stuff could not happen, and why there weren’t grand conspiracies.
But we don’t put up reasons that admit we might have the capability to vote against Hillary or Obama out of prejudice.
We’d better explore the possibility NOW.
You better believe the other side is thinking about EXACTLY what the results in New Hampshire say about Democrats.
In fact, they’re counting on it.
Now, here’s why the GOP is happy. They figure Hillary versus Obama is going to eventually go negative, because it has to. They’re counting on a long, brutal fight between Hillary and Obama. Eventually it will lead to both sides playing the various race and gender cards. Remember, you have to think “worst possible outcome” and then base everything off that happening. Hillary will attack Obama because she will say he can’t win a general Presidential election because he’s black. Obama will attack Hillary because he will say she can’t win a general Presidential election because she’s a woman.
One of them will end up the nominee for President. The other will most likely get the VP ticket. But remember, you are thinking like A REPUBLICAN here. Ideally, you want a razor thin delegate margin with the deciding factor being John Edwards and who he supports. One person will win. The other will be a trivia question on Jeopardy in twenty years. If I’m Karl Rove, I would want to see a brokered convention where in the end Edwards, a white male, decides who will be the Democratic candidate between a white female and a black male. Think about this. Think about the message that this is going to send. Think about the message that, as a GOP operative, you would spin it as sending.
That message is whoever loses gets the final “fuck you” from the Democrats. If John Edwards would in that situation pick Hillary, the message is “Is the African-American community really going to stand to see Obama get passed over at the last second when he could have been President? We’ve done more for this party than anyone. After decades of whites telling blacks ‘I believe in your issues and I’ll fight for them’, we finally got a crack at the brass ring for one of our own, and in the end we got put at the back of the campaign bus. We will never forget.”
If Edwards picked Obama in that situation, the message would be the same, only it would be white women getting hit by the ultimate glass ceiling right in the head. “The final act of ultimate political misogyny…something long expected by the hated Republicans, but committed in the end by the Democrats. It wasn’t the GOP that kept the first woman out of the White House who would have won, it was one of our own. Et tu, Edwards? We will never forget.”
Hell, ideally as Karl Rove’s evil bastard self, you’d want the winner to pick John Edwards as their VP to stamp that message loud and clear.
And from Denver to November 2, the GOP would drive that wedge deeper into the wound of whoever lost that convention…and drive the whip hand of fear to defeat whoever wins the convention. “You’re not going to stand to see that happen, are you?”
A GOP united in hatred. A Democratic party shattered by the oldest of this country’s wounds. And the end result would be a substantial chunk of the Democratic base sitting home in protest against the Dems’ nominee, and a GOP bound and determined to keep that nominee out no matter what. Democratic turnout repressed, Republican turnout overwhelming.
The end result would be another Rethuglican in the White House. Four more years of Bush’s failed, miserable, hideous policies, writ even larger by Romney’s econocons, Huckabee’s theocons, or McCain’s warcons.
That’s what we’re facing as progressives if we don’t address the truth of New Hampshire’s result right the hell now. We have to admit that this is a distinct possibility and disarm the bomb now.
Anybody is better than Bush on our side. But the other side is thinking that too for their own, and this is how they plan to win in 2008, by exploiting what we refuse to talk about now.
There’s still time now to talk about it. There’s still time to deal with it and defuse the bomb now.
November will be far, far too late. Hell, September will be far too late.
And if you don’t think that’s going to happen, remember that our major candidates’ strategy people are most likely wanting to see the Republicans split among religious and economic lines in the general election between Romney and Huckabee. Our saide wants the Repbulicans so disillusioned in November they either sit out or vote for our side.
Both sides want the other party so broken that there’s a dominate mandate for their side.
So we’d better play to win. And the first thing we need to do is address how the other side will attack us.
And that means discussing the race and gender issues we have as Democrats, as progressives, and as human beings.