There are any number of events that stand out as turning points in the
2008 Democratic campaign.
We could go back long before 2008 if we liked, to August, 2004, and
note the millions of people who saw and heard Barack Obama for the
first time giving his now-famous keynote speech at the Democratic
convention.
We could point to his Iowa victory speech ("They said this day would
never come!", or his New Hampshire concession speech ("Yes. We.
Can!"). Or we could suggest the Edward and Caroline Kennedy
endorsements, reaching out as they did to an older generation with
memories of past glory and heartbreak.
But it all might have been for naught but for a single sentence. That
sentence was not uttered by Barack Obama, despite his rhetorical skill
-- it was uttered by his most formidable opponent, Senator Hillary
Rodham Clinton.
The sentence was easy, if you aren't an African-American, to ignore or
dismiss. You might not even remember it now after four months of
endless back and forth about change, experience and electability. But
it was a sentence that quite possibly changed the face and destiny of
the United States.
"It took a President to get it done."
On January 6th, responding to Obama's rejoinder about there being
something vaguely un-American about dismissing hope as false, and how
that sentiment did not jibe with the ideals of John F. Kennedy or
Martin Luther King, Senator Clinton responded:
"Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed
the Civil Rights Act. It took a President to get it done."
It was a quote that reverberated through the African-American
community like an 8.5 Richter-scale quake. It was a quote that quite
likely was the defining instant for a demographic making up 20% or
more of the Democratic party. It was a quote that jump-started the
process of turning an entire demographic from around a 50-50 split in
the polling to an Obama rout.
I so clearly remember manning an Obama table a day or two after the
quote came out. I was working the table with a middle-aged
African-American woman. She started telling me about the anger, the
feelings of disrespect and insult that everyone in her circle began to
feel towards the Clintons because of that statement. The intensity
was palpable. No greater sin could Senator Clinton have committed
than to insult the legacy of Dr. King, regardless of her intent and
regardless of its truth as a statement of plain fact. There are some
things that cannot be said in a political arena, and she managed to
say one of them.
From South Carolina on January 27th (African-American split: 78% O,
19% C 2% E), the wave begun by that statement washed across the South.
Georgia (88% O, 12 C) on Super Tuesday, Virginia (90% O, 10% C),
Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and up even into Maryland it went,
culminating in an amazing O 91%, C 7% sweep in North Carolina on May
6th.
And not just the South. African-Americans turned an Obama victory in
Wisconsin into a blowout (91% vs 8%). They flipped Missouri. Their
unfailing support kept Clinton from winning anything but Pyhrric
victories in the Texas primary, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana (89%,
11%).
Had Senator Clinton maintained the support of even a quarter of
African-American voters, those same voters who had been her husband's
clear margin of victory in 1992 (83% Clinton, 10% Bush, 7% Perot),
Barack Obama would likely not now be the all-but presumptive nominee.
Senator Obama would not have achieved the blowout victories he did in
February, and with them his insurmountable pledged delegate lead.
Senator Clinton might well have pulled the race back to even with
Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania.
It would have been Obama and Clinton down to the wire for pledged
delegates, with Clinton retaining a commanding lead in superdelegates
the Democratic Party machine still behind her, and the threat of
Michigan and Florida hers to wield.
It was a big mistake, but one I'm glad she made (of course, it was
compounded with additional, similar missteps afterwards, but that's an
entire other essay...)