How long have we here at DKos and other blogs been talking about Hillary's problem with the African American vote? Since South Carolina at least and that's been around 3 months. While the MSM has been droning on and on ad nauseum about how Obama can't win over white working class voters, they've been completely ignoring the elephant in the room. Hillary's complete collapse of support within the African American community. Well, the "traditional media" seem to have woken up from their drug induced coma and are starting to see what a really big issue this is.
First there's First Read with this headline: CLINTON'S PROBLEM WITH AFRICAN AMERICANS?
Meanwhile, the Clinton press team did everything possible to minimize Barack Obama's win in North Carolina. He has a "built-in advantage" there, they said. It was a state where they knew the "demographics" were going to be tough, referring the state’s African-American community. Turns out, his margin overall was greater than her's in Pennsylvania.
Ahh, classic Clinton. Marginalizing Obama's win as a "black" candidate again. And why not? It went over so well in South Carolina. /snark
But Clinton's aides continue to argue she's the stronger nominee, because she continues to do well with the most important voters, crucial swing voters, who will make the difference in a race with John McCain in November, blue-collar and working-class voters, most of whom are white.
But how does a candidate claim to be the strongest and most electable nominee, when that candidate has very little support with some of the Democratic Party's most loyal followers, African-American voters? Wouldn't it be fair to say that ignoring that "demographic" tends to marginalize the significance of those voters, who also historically have felt somewhat taken for granted by Democrats?
I urge you to read the whole thing. Very interesting and it looks at the hypocrisy of Clinton's electability argument against Obama not winning "white working class" vote if she can't win the African American vote.
Next comes Ben Smith with this headline: LOSING THE BLACK VOTE Which links to Thomas F Schaller's post entitled HOW CLINTON BOTCHED THE BLACK VOTE:
Though a majority of black voters may inevitably have gone for Obama, nothing precluded the wife of the so-called first black president from keeping Obama's margins among blacks significantly narrower -- say, losing to him by 4-to-1 or even 3-to-1, rather than the devastating 9-to-1 margins by which Obama has often won African-American Democrats. "The Clinton campaign has been focused on Barack Obama's performance with white working-class voters in a few states, but they fail to mention Senator Clinton's abysmal performance with black voters all over the country," says political consultant and Obama supporter Jamal Simmons. "She has gone from leading among black voters to losing them 90 percent to 10 percent in Pennsylvania. One would expect Obama to win these voters, but 90-10 is a total collapse that Obama is not experiencing among any constituency. Simply put, Hillary Clinton has a black problem."
With Obama's triumphant night last night, it seems the media is now going to look more critically at her campaign's electability argument again him. And what's amazing is that her collapse of support from AAs is significantly higher than his is from whites and they are just now starting to notice? It's been the conventional wisdom that Democrats need the AA vote to win, but why did it take till now for the media to start noticing this too?