Earlier in a post I noted that one of the effects of accepting the media's conclusion that this is a race between two candidates rather than three, one a woman and the other of African American descent, was the elimination of the factor that kept the battle for the "natural" bases of the two candidates (i.e., women and black voters) largely below the surface. That is, both campaigns had to consider that white male voters would be sickened by overt efforts to take or maintain a "natural" base. This concern was not small because both had to recognize that only one of the two historically disenfranchised groups could be the first to successfully jump the hurdle of presidential leadership. Thus, the limitation on the two campaigns was the fear of mutually assured destruction.
So here we are. The media has announced that Edwards is no longer in the race. Both campaigns see benefit to a single, flawed, opponent. And, like the "celephane man" in Chicago, Edwards, poof, has all but disappeared, leaving establishment politicos the "choice" between the two.
The result: the ugly possibility of a race-gender war is no longer looming before us, it is here. Because it works.
Two pillars of the Democratic Party, women and African Americans seek, at the same time, to stop watching white men lead. From both of these historically disenfranchised groups come two credible candidates (I do not care for one of them but do not deny the seriousness of her candidacy).
Over the last several decades, the Reagan Revolution has sucked out of the Party conservative white voters. Thus, those white voters who chose to stay in the Party are the kinds of people who would gravitate toward a remedy for historical discrimination. That is, they would see a candidate's female gender or black skin as an asset not a liability.
So far so good. In a perfect world, all of our candidates would be equally or near equally good, we could all gladly accept any of them just as we rallied around John Kerry, we would all get together, hum a few bars of a patriotic song, tell each other how much we love each other and that we will make up and hug when it is all over and then go about cheerfully choosing from among the two diverse candidates the one best -- thereby advancing the cause of only one of the disenfranchised groups first. But, of course, this is not a perfect world.
The perfect world is challenged by the limitations of "our" candidates we so earnestly want to ignore (we can pretend that the Republicans will also) and by the poaching and anti-poaching tactics to firm up or take away from the other candidate's natural base. The friction that comes from that process is funded by millions of dollars in campaign war chests and carried on by armies of serious warriors whose mission every waking minute is to advance the cause of a particular candidate no matter the collateral damage.
Indeed, I am amused by the noble effort by posters here who want to have a summit between the two campaigns to rachet down the ugliness. Good luck. The campaigns are achieving precisely what they now want with an eye to winning the same small prize won by John Kerry: the Democratic Party nomination. At the moment, the real prize, the presidency, is not the issue.
If you haven't figured it out, for both of these campaigns, this has become a no holds barred life or death struggle and, if playing the gender or race card works, it will be used. It works as it always has.
We now see the tactics employed to play the gender and race card: say or do small things to remind the base that you are part of it; have the other side appear to start a fight based on race or gender; be indignant; line up armies of supporters to add to the indignation; demand apologies; force leaders of your group to abandon pretense of neutrality for fear that they will be deemed disloyal. Back and forth. Insult, demand for apology. Outrage. Demand for apology.
As this process goes forward, the natural forces of selection will cause women voters to prefer the woman and African American voters to prefer the African American. This favors Hillary. It's the math thing.
The lone exception for favoring Hillary is in South Carolina, where the majority of voters in the primary are black. Hillary briefly considered conceding SC to Obama but decided not to because Edwards might have reappeared and because the SC racial war helps firm up her natural base. As the "ground war" in SC grinds on relentlously, black leaders who once supported Hillary or proclaimed neutrality are being pressured to support "one of their own" or face retribution.
I tend to think that Hillary will emerge the victor in this awful exercise. The female block is larger. More than half of black voters are also female. And, most importantly, the Clintons, in the clinches, know more about dirty politics than Obama and his team could even imagine.
Which is really awful for people like me who will never vote for Hillary for many reasons and know so little about Obama that it is difficult to turn over to him the keys to our civilization. This, "who is he" concern, is met by angry push backs at any effort to find out much more than "we will get change we can believe in." Never being one easily sold the virtue of believing that which I do not know, by the size of an adoring crowd with glazed eyes, this does not persuade me.
For those of us who are simply trying to find a President who could redress the rape and pillage of our country during the never ending Bush/Clinton/Bush era (deny it all you want, but the centrist Bill, was right there with them), this situation is enough to make many of us invisible.
My last thought for those whose adoration for a candidate and desire for us all to hold hands and sing, I remind you of the Pelosi/Reid Congress. How many have died since we elected a majority to end the war?