Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, sex and race... Vaginas vs. Melanin...

Obama won 9 out of every 10 African-American votes in Mississippi. As an Obama supporter, I know there are many good reasons to vote for the guy. At the same time, I'm not delusional. You don't snag 90% of any signficantly-sized demographic unless identity politics are at play.

This is one of those things Obama backers usually won't say, but Barack is locking down the black vote, in large measure, because he's a black guy. Period.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton's greatest base of support seems to be among white women, particularly those who are fairly well-removed from college age. Personally, I think Hillary Clinton is emblematic of just about everything bad about politics, but I do recognize that people have legitimate reasons to supporter her. Nonetheless, the only real explanation for her victory margins within white women, when you look at how the rest of the electorate is behaving, is identity politics.

Clinton fans are quick to bemoan Obama's massive support among blacks, but they don't like to be honest about what's going on with white women. Identity politics again.

It's vaginas vs. melanin right now. I recognize that there are diverse opinions within demographics and I don't really want to hear "I'm a white woman who backs Obama, so you're wrong" or "I'm a black man wearing a Hillary pin, you're wrong". There are exceptions. I'm speaking in broader terms. I recognize exceptions. I'd like to think that I'm one.

Check this out. I'm a white guy. I've long understood and accepted that white guys are usually at the root of major social problems. We've screwed a lot of people over and we've done some bad stuff. If there's something massively goofed up in the USA, it can usually be traced back to the self-interested decisions of white guys.

I tried to break the mold, cognizant of my privilege and "my group's" record of evil. I raged against the machine. I've read more feminist literature than your average senior in a good women's studies program. I'm receptive to the legitimate complaints of minority groups. I've bent over backwards to avoid toxic forms of sexism and racism. I tried to be one of the "good" white guys.

Now, to my surprise, I am a disaster unfold that has little or anything to directly do with white guys. The Democratic primaries are descending into vaginas vs. melanin and white guys like me seem to be the ones who aren't the source of the problem for a change.

Sure, you can blame us for the society that created the situation which has led to this moment. I'll accept responsibility on behalf of all white guys, evil and good, for some of that. You have a point. However, at this point women and African Americans have a choice to make. They can vote with their heads or they can vote with their genitals/skin color (depending on the individual).

As a white guy, I sort of feel bad for both demographics. I also understand the identification thing.

Geraldine Ferraro behaved stupidly with her "Barack is lucky to be a black man" jibber-jabber. Ferraro isn't a Klan member or anything. She's just frustrated. She's a woman who's undoubtedly seen more than her fair share of sexim and is certainly piShe's frustrated because a woman had a legitimate shot at the White House and someone stepped in and blew it for her. It just so happens that guy is black. She's pissed.

I can understand why. As one of the good white guys, I get it. Women haven't had it easy. They've been oppressed. I don't feel like a long dissertation on phallocentric biases and patriarchal domination are necessary here. I'd hope that we all know sexism has deprived women and the world of a lot of greatness over the centuries. Things are a bit better today than in the past, but sexism remains a very real societal force.

Women have been working and fighting for improvement for longer than any of us have been alive. They've sacrificed, they've fought. They've won some battles and have lost others. They've been fighters. Middle aged white women in America have been on the front lines of a battle for equality and the idea of a woman in the White House has tremendous real and symbolic significance to them. That makes sense. A woman President would be meaningful. Very meaningful. If I were a woman, I'm willing to guess I'd want a woman President.

I get it with the African-Americans, too. Again, I don't think we really need to spend a great deal of time talking about the very racist history of this country, the struggles for equality and the assorted evils of our society's long-held bias. As with women, things are better today, but racism is still a very present problem.

The idea of a black President has meaning to African-Americans. If you can't understand that, you're hopeless. Think about what a dark-skinned President might symbolize to those who fought and continue to fight for legitimate equality and civil rights? If I was a black guy, I'd wager I'd love the idea of a black President.

I think there are probably some resentments between the two groups, too. I don't know how strong "fear of the black man" is among white women. I don't know if black men hold a real grudge against white women, either. I do know there are tensions sometimes.

Vaginas vs. Melanin, though. It's a problem. Hillary supporters can't simply concede that they're backing a candidate because she has genitals that match their own. We all KNOW how shallow and silly that sounds. Those of us who identify as Democrats also know that we've been pissy about Republican identity politics for so long that we can't really advertise our own dissent into "voting for our own".

Thus, you get Geraldine Ferraro. Thus, you get the posters at Taylor Marsh's website, who find reverse racism in every utterance of the Obama campaign, sexism in all media coverage of Hillary, and a complete unwillingness to recognize that their support of Hillary is no different from the support of Barack within the black community. It's pathetic deflection and an absolute unwillingness to admit what's really happening.

You also get 90% voting blocs within the African-American community and a sort of hyper-sensitivity about race matters from within the ranks of Obama supporters (both black ones and white ones who just love the consistent lockdown of the black vote). People are engaging in a game of mental Twister to avoid admitting what we all really know. Obama gets 90% of black votes because he is black. Period. It's the melanin, stupid.

It wasn't supposed to come down this way, you know? We were supposed to have a string of white dudes as Commander in Chief until EITHER a black or a woman became a serious contender. We weren't supposed to end up getting them both at the same time.

What happens when two historically disadvantaged groups both have a horse in the race? It gets ugly. Women and blacks are left to duke it out in favor of their choice to the detriment of the other. There is an alternative, but it requires a lot of people to take a big step away from the issues, causes, and beliefs that have, in large measure, defined their politics and their lives. That's asking a lot. Maybe too much, although I personally believe there is a permutation available to reconcile the situation, it's unlikely that the white women and the black guys will figure out the right common ground any time soon.

Meanwhile, you have the "good" white guys trying to make a smart decision and the "bad" white guys defaulting to whichever wrong-headed bias is stronger for them.

Sometimes I wish Barack Obama had a vagina. Hell, I might settle for a black Hillary Clinton.

What do I know, though? I have a penis and I sunburn easily.





Technorati Tags: vagina, melanin, barack obama, Obama, hillary clinton, Election, campaigns, primaries, identity politics, voting Del.icio.us Tags: vagina, melanin, barack obama, Obama, hillary clinton, Election, campaigns, primaries, identity politics, voting Furl Tags: vagina, melanin, barack obama, Obama, hillary clinton, Election, campaigns, primaries, identity politics, voting

Dummies and Eggheads... Why Obama is winning...

Are you puzzled about Barack Obama's popularity? Are you scratching your head, befuddled about his rock star status? Do you find yourself seeing the massive gatherings of supporters and wondering "why, why why?"

This post will explain exactly why Barack Obama is riding a wave of unprecedented (in my lifetime, anyway) political popularity. Maybe not. I could be very wrong.

Why is it happening? Simple. Barack Obama has a message that appeals to most of the voters. How so? Dumb people love him. So do smart folk.

Here's why it's perfect: It appeals to the two most important groups of people in the electorate. Barack Obama is loved by the idiots and the intellectuals--for two very different reasons. The Obama campaign may have a reasonable level of support in the middle of the bell curve, but the outliers represent his rabid fan base.

DUMB PEOPLE LOVE OBAMA

Dumb people love Barack Obama. The simple version of his message and dominant theme of his campaign appeals to them. Hope and Change. Those are nice, warm, fuzzy concepts and people love them. Those ideas work really well with dumb people who are incapable of considering how one goes from concept to implementation. People who don't understand the difference between the legislative branch and the executive branch of government adore these messages.

They want change because things could and/or should be better. They want hope because it gives them a reason to get up in the morning. The actual dirty work of getting creating change and fulfilling hope, however, is too complicated for them. They don't want to dissect the pros and cons of mortgage freezes. They don't want to spend a lot of time discussing the proper role of diplomacy in the conduct of foreign policy.

They want to kick the bums out and get the good guys in. They want change and they want a reason to believe things will get better. If you serve up a dish based on those two ingredients, you're halfway home with the dumb.

And don't be fooled, the dumb vote. They vote in droves. The other night, I was watching that annoying pollster Frank Luntz. You know the guy. He has these little focus groups that he babysits during the debates. He gives them all paddles from old Atari 2600's and records their reactions to what the candidates say, giving us an idea of what "works" and what "fails".

Luntz is an aggravation for 200 different reasons and may be the subject of a later post. That isn't important with regard to this conversation, however. The actual members of his focus group are. These are undecided voters. They may lean toward one candidate, but they haven't expressed outright support for either. They watch the debates and Luntz is then given an opportunity to quiz the shit out of them on a series of cable networks after the top-level spinners do their things.

These focus group members are dumb. Plain old stupid. I'm not talking about "I can't read and I speak like a character from some hillbilly-bashing movie" dumb. I'm talking about "I look like a normal person and I am, which means I'm also stupid as shit" dumb.

You see, most people are sort of dim-witted when it comes the whole governance thing. They spent civics and government classes checking out the ass on the girl sitting in front of them. They worried about the prom committee. They sketched pictures of hot rods or wrote notes to friends during class.

Their intellectual curiosity may have been sufficient for them to limp through college in a similar fashion. Now, if they do any investigation of anything, it's usually because their stuck in a doctor's waiting room with nothing but an old Golf Digest and a 1998 Newsweek at their disposal. If they read, they read horrible Mitch Albom shit or mystery novels. If they watch the news, they go local in hopes of finding out how lousy the weather is going to be be or they seek out the more "exciting" form of television news--shows where people yell at each other in a constant partisan circle jerk. They're dumb.

OK, they might not be clinically stupid. In terms of selecting quality leadership, however, they are dunces. They are stupid, naive, and easily swayed by Hope and Change.

Luntz's focus group participants--people who are sufficiently engaged to participate in a debate-watching and analysis session--are evidence of this. These morons inevitably reference whatever has been the prevailing headline of the last 96 hours and/or incredibly easy-to-understand but amazingly trivial arguments about the not-so-important when they're quizzed. They can get downright heated about the Obama "plagiarism" bullshit, but they're completely baffled by the difference in Barack's and Hillary's health insurance schemes.

They WANT to be involved and they WANT to "get it", but they're unequipped. They don't have the background. They don't do the reading. They haven't been bit by the policy or politics bugs like the people who are probably reading this blog. They can't. They fall into the diversionary traps of campaigns and they fall in love with the simplistic and positive.

Dumb people are a core constituency for Barack Obama right now.

Don't read that as a criticism of Barack. That's not my intent. The winner of a Presidential election probably always gets the stupid vote majority. I'm sure Bill Clinton cleaned up with the dummies. GW Bush probably did, too. The stupid outnumber the bright, and if you can get the not-so-with-it crowd on your side, you're in damn good shape.

Note that I'm exaggerating a bit for effect. I'm not really saying that these folks are "dumb" in a traditional sense. They're just, shall we say, political ignorant? You know what I mean, wink-wink.

SMART PEOPLE LOVE OBAMA

Smart people adore Barack Obama. That's because the sentiments and analyses underlying his simple Hope/Change message form an a priori critique of American politics. Obama's articles about the nature of political discourse, the divisiveness of standard partisan politics and the need to redefine both technique and goal in order to better govern the USA are just what the PhD in poli sci ordered.

Have you ever actually read the kind of stuff really smart people tend to write? I'm not talking about run-of-the-mill smarties. I'm talking about PhD candidates and those who make a living out of intellectualism. They're writing and reading articles that apply history to theory, that test core concepts of democracy and governance, and that question things the rest of the world takes for granted.

In the rarified air of the ivory tower, the day-to-day stuff doesn't matter all that much. An academic may be interested in what a grocery bagger's motivations are and whether her job in a supermarket represents a multi-level subjugation of woman via simultaneous commodification of the the Goddess Earth and the gum-chewing teenager. An academic probably isn't that interested in how the bagger pulls the paper sacks out of the rack or figures out how many cans of vegetables to put in a single sack.

The academic is interested in concept and theory, not in the purely pragmatic. The technocratic concerns of actual operation and policy take a backseat to the critique and the construction of intriguing meta-arguments.

The intellectual Obama supporter is enamored with his meta-critique of the process and doesn't have a really good idea of what difference the presence or absence of mandates in a healthcare policy will make.

Like the dummy, the scholar will fall in love with Hope/Change. Oh, some of it is a matter of the concepts tugging the right heartstrings, but it's mainly about the theoretical aspects of those ideas. "The power of ideas". You hear phrases like that from smart people all the time. They believe it and they think about it--a lot. The nuts and bolts, however, aren't all that interesting.

WHAT ABOUT THE MIDDLE

In Democratic circles, it seems like the middle is voting for Hillary. We're talking about people who aren't necessarily dummies but who don't spend hour upon hour reflecting on the meaning of liberal democracy. Nuts and bolts people. Technocrats and their ilk. The hands-on folk who have some understanding of the machine called government are probably leaning toward Hillary.

Hillary speaks to them. She codes her campaign in vague-as-hope notions like "Solutions" and talks about "readiness", but those keywords are a wink to those who put political nuts and bolts above ruminations on the theoretical.

Hillary fans like to talk about policy differences more than do Obama buffs. Clinton's backers have concerns about experience, just like a prospective employer might prefer and experienced machine operator over a novice.

The middle understands Clinton and her concerns with the question of "how" while the intellectuals ruminate on "why". The dumb? They're still back in the world of simple appeals.

DOING THE MATH

Dumb + Smart > In the Middle

Thus, Obama wins.

That's simple. If you look at in those terms, you'll also find a theory that fits the overall narrative of this campaign. Hillary's supporters grow increasingly frustrated at their inability to win over voters even though they believe they are winning policy debates. Obama isn't having a policy debate. He's having a mindset debate. He's talking about paradigm shifts while Clinton talks about policy construction. The intellectuals chuckle at her for not understanding that you can't answer the Obama critique with discussions of policy mechanics. The eyes of the dumb glaze over and they reach for the positive antidote to boring old political arguments they think they've heard a million times. Hillary loses.

FULL DISCLOSURE

I fall into the intellectual crowd. My (somewhat reluctant) support of Obama is based less upon my assessment of his abilities as an administrator and is premised on the ideas he represents and his apparent dedication to altering the perspective and priority of governance on a "higher" level than that of "mere" policy.

You'll notice I'm sort of hard on the smarty-pants crowd in this post, even though I'm in the club. That's because I recognize the tendency among those who think my way to be self-important and wrapped up in the abstract instead of rolling up our sleeves and actual DOING something. At the same time, I thoroughly believe that smart critique and a recognition of its message are essential to creating paradigmatic changes that are a prerequisite to serious positive change.

(LIMITED) SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL

As this campaign pushes forward, I'm beginning to have a little sympathy for Clinton supporters. Not for the weak-ass "let's say he plagiarized and that's why Hillary should win" bullshitters, but for the ones who think she really is the better candidate in terms of getting things done. I see them struggling to understand why others aren't getting their message. I can sense their frustration. They just aren't keying into the idea that many of the smarter folks believe there are prerequisite issues at play that prevent any real policy success until they are addressed. They don't understand how powerful simple, positive concepts are with those who don't spend all day reflecting upon the theoretical.

Clinton is winning her arguments, on some level. The problem is that the debate itself has already been redefined and she didn't get the memo. HOW you do it is of secondary importance to WHY you are doing it right now. The debate is more about IF anything big can happen if monsters far larger than any policy proposal aren't first slain.

Hillary isn't talking to me right now. She's not talking to the disaffected and frustrated, either. They're with me. They might be with me for different reasons, but they're here. That leaves Hillary with the "pretty smart but not academic/intellectually-oriented" crowd of can-do action people. They're a minority.

My sympathy for Hillary is limited, however. Instead of debating on the more theoretical level and engaging the reservations of those who believe that more than clever policy is necessary, she's decided to take the low road way too often. Her campaign seems to live and die by one-day mini-issues that do little more than distract from the meta AND from her own more policy-oriented positions. She's running a down and dirty old school campaign in a setting where that doesn't resonate with ANYONE. Whoops. That's why March 4 is looking more and more like her Alamo.






Technorati Tags: stupidity, intelligence, smart, luntz, frank luntz, barack obama, hillary clinton, Clinton, Obama, Election, campaigns, primaries, democracts, critique, voting Del.icio.us Tags: stupidity, intelligence, smart, luntz, frank luntz, barack obama, hillary clinton, Clinton, Obama, Election, campaigns, primaries, democracts, critique, voting Furl Tags: stupidity, intelligence, smart, luntz, frank luntz, barack obama, hillary clinton, Clinton, Obama, Election, campaigns, primaries, democracts, critique, voting