The Race is becoming the 'Perfect Liberal Storm.'
Sun Jan 20, 2008 at 02:46:17 AM PDT
I'm surprised that Edwards message is not being heard or being pushed aside and drowned out, but now I know why. I figured it was the timing and the messenger. I like his message but I don't care for the messenger.
The battle facing us is bigger and more important:
The woman vs. the black guy
Who's more terrifying to red states, smart Hillary or savvy Barack? The nation trembles
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
It is this: Just how the hell did it come to pass and which planets finally aligned and what sort of Kool-Aid has been gulped by the universe that the two white-hot Dem frontrunners, the two brightest lights on the political spectrum for the 2008 presidential election also just so happen to be members of the two most controversial/least represented groups in modern uber-white ultra-patriarchal American snake-oil politics — which is to say, a smart, savvy woman and a smart, savvy black male?
Women and blacks are the right wings worse nightmare. That Hillary is a Clinton is a double sharp thorn to the righties (and the so-called progressives here who bought into the MSM slime over the years.)
It's a stunning thing to watch. Right now, the various spurts of venom aimed at Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama from conservative pundits and politicos are, at best, scattershot and convulsive..
The woman angle:
Yes indeed, the sexism that surrounds Clinton's run like a toxic fog is almost too easy to spot. (Fox News is, naturally, fueling its entire 2008 programming schedule with it.) It is de facto, built-in, implied and inherent in the coverage of just about everything she does, and what's most amazing to me is that people are still surprised that the sexism is there at all, much less so apparent and shameless.
To which I can only reply: I'm sorry, did you somehow miss the last seven years of brutal, testosterone-drunk war-sucking macho neocon hell? Did your noise-canceling headphones somehow block out the sound of those 10,000 tiny, clashing penises, banging like Satan's own baby rattle all the way from Osama's cave to the Oval Office to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's gay fetish dungeon in downtown Tehran?
Because truly, while a record number of women currently serve in Congress, Washington is still very much an inbred old-boy's network, so deeply entrenched in ancient male power structures and so drunk on stagnant machismo and so poisoned by the Christian right's woman-in-her-place mentality, it will require a couple more decades and a few hundred more dead southern congressmen before the innate sexism finally fades to a tolerable scar.
The black angle:
As for Obama, well, he's not so easy. The inherent racism simmering all over Bush Nation right now over his, um, Negro-ness? Blackitude? Really good tan? (they don't know what to call it, safely) is decidedly more subtle, more insidious, less acceptable as public display than flat-out, everyday Chris Matthews-grade sexism, and therefore, not so easy to spot. Not yet, anyway.
So far, no one on the right really seems to know the best way to play the race card against Obama. Not that they won't try. Will they go after the drug thing? Paint him as a friend to scary hip-hop thug rappers? Resort to saying 'Obama' and 'Osama' in the same sentence so as to confuse the same red state knuckle-draggers who still believe Saddam orchestrated 9/11? Hard to tell. But rest assured, they'll find a way.
This battle has been going on for centuries. It is a battle that also needs to be won. The glass ceiling needs to be crashed, shattered and for me either Hillary or Obama will do just fine as the first one to do that.
The people empowering battle is bigger than money issues, and hopefully, always will be more important.
Edwards message just is not as important this time around. If Obama had Edwards message (which he and Hillary both do in many regards) it would be a slam dunk. But a rich white man is not the right messenger..for now.
Permalink | 75 comments