Man, I tell ya, this Democratic primary season sure has been different. The long-running nature of the contest certainly has a lot to do with it, and I think that's a factor in seeing a side of the Democratic party and America in general that we don't usually get to see, since usually by now we're paying attention to all the tricks Karl Rove is pulling out of his Lee Atwater Do-It-Yourself Mudslinger's Manual.
Let's face it, Kentucky, West Virginia, North Carolina, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Ohio all have something in common, more or less, and it isn't normally associated with the central tenets of the Democratic Party, unless you count the dwindling supply of reliable union voters, who've been reliable in a clinging to guns and God way since 1980, and voting Republican.
What this can't-quite-put-my-finger=on-it thing might be, why this looks like a big fat rhinocerous in the room, and why it really isn't, upon landing from the jump...
It's amazing what some people will say to avoid sounding a certain way, especially when what they do say comes out all sounding that certain way anyway. Take poor old R.K. Horton of West Virginia, who is quoted in today's Salon article by Mike Madden:
Obama rubs the Hortons the wrong way because they think he's arrogant. It's the same thing you hear from voters in a lot of the parts of the country where Obama's infamous remarks about bitterness would probably also apply. But that's not his only problem in rural West Virginia. "They won't go for a black man, that's just it," R.K. Horton, a retired heating and air conditioning business owner, said of his neighbors. "I don't think it's being racist necessarily, they just don't like black people that well." For that matter, it's not just his neighbors. "The arrogance and all that bothers me more than black, but black is a close second," he said. "Our generation was back when blacks were the back of the bus, and it's hard to change that outlook. I just feel like I couldn't vote for him."
I think arrogance may be in the eye of the beholder. Certainly I can think of a few anecdotes that would seem to refute such a description. Michelle Obama's other-half-deprecating remark would be a start. The repeated references to the steady hand of a focused campaign style would be more.
But apparently a wife's little digs and a quiet, even-keeled manner of campaigning aren't enough for some. As Kevin Merida of the Washington Post reports on Racist Incidents targeted at the Obama campaign in recent weeks, people in some parts just can't get past a "certain something" about Barack Obama:
Victoria Switzer, a retired social studies teacher, was on phone-bank duty one night during the Pennsylvania primary campaign. One night was all she could take: "It wasn't pretty." She made 60 calls to prospective voters in Susquehanna County, her home county, which is 98 percent white. The responses were dispiriting. One caller, Switzer remembers, said he couldn't possibly vote for Obama and concluded: "Hang that darky from a tree!"
I'm not sure exactly what that might be alluding to, perhaps a legal incident in Barack Obama's past? Justice has to be served? Let's continue:
Documentary filmmaker Rory Kennedy, the daughter of the late Robert F. Kennedy, said she, too, came across "a lot of racism" when campaigning for Obama in Pennsylvania. One Pittsburgh union organizer told her he would not vote for Obama because he is black, and a white voter, she said, offered this frank reason for not backing Obama: "White people look out for white people, and black people look out for black people."
I think I see a trend. But let's take another peek into our hardest-working state, as Hillary Clinton would call it:
Pollsters have found it difficult to accurately measure racial attitudes, as some voters are unwilling to acknowledge the role that race plays in their thinking. But some are not. Susan Dzimian, a Clinton supporter who owns residential properties, said outside a polling location in Kokomo that race was a factor in how she viewed Obama. "I think if it was somebody other than him, I'd accept it," she said of a black candidate. "If Colin Powell had run, I would be willing to accept him."
Aha!! I understand now! Barack Obama is a poor rental risk! It all makes sense. So we have established that hard-working Americans won't vote for risky tenant applicants with a suspected criminal history.
But is this all that important? I mean, if these voters were to leave the Democratic party (stated as they send postcards from their long-concluded exodus/vacation), would there be a gaping hole in the progressive coalition Barack Obama is building within the Democratic party of the 21st century? In other words, does a mass defection of the rust belt illiterati signal a fundamental breakdown in the integrity of the principles of the Democratic party being built for the future?
I say no way.
And here's why.
Our nation is at a crossroads. We pay too much for food, because we pay too much for the fuel to move it, and too much for the energy that is needed to cook it, and see it at the table, and which leaves too much pollution behind. We pay too much for housing (at least until recently) because financial instruments were leveraged on too much risk, leaving too much debt for a country with too much military commitment overseas, where too much carnage and death is leaving too much demand for grief counseling and medical care to a population paying too much for coverage that doesn't actually provide too much, in terms of access and treatment. And too much time is being spent on the job, leaving kids alone too much after school, where they have too much lead in their toys and paint and water, and too much fat, salt, and preservative in the snacks, of which they eat too much. That's after spending too much time studying for too much testing, and not too much actual learning. Under too much surveillance.
We need to get out of Iraq, to free up federal funding for education, health care, medical research, and investment in alternative sources of energy. We need to clean up our rivers, streams, soil, and air. We need to restore the Constitution as the law, and we need to deal with the rest of the world fairly, squarely, and honestly, in order to bring about real leadership in the fight against terrorist extremism in all forms, famine and want as the root causes, and tyranny wherever found.
The coalition we must build to accomplish these goals will not be one of identity politics in any form, most certainly not of race, gender, age, social class, economic status, or native status as Americans. This coalition will seek all those who would offer of themselves their talents and energies to fulfill these goals, and build that brighter future of hope.
It's up to the people of Indiana and West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio, to figure out if they want to be a part of that future. Because it's a future that gives their children more opportunity, a better environment, more affordable energy, more open government (and the trust that comes with it), and a more stable military more ready to tackle the real problems of the rogue nations of the world. It's a better life for all, and it includes God and guns and a respect for human life that goes beyond empty talk, and gets to real solutions.
North Carolina I suspect may be on board more than some may suspect, and will show it come November. Because, that's where the innovative jobs, high wages, comprehensive health care, affordable housing and energy, and more liberating governance are.
Update 1: Here is a great video from the AP, posted in comments in the new WV Open Thread.