We’re Not Experienced Political Coordinators
January 18, 2008
But even we could have predicted that, sooner or later, if Hillary Clinton intended to keep up her Mexican food metaphors and “black/brown” dichotomy talking points that this was going to happen.
The radio ad aired by one of Obama’s labor allies re-injects ethnicity into the Democratic primary contest in sharp terms.
“Hillary Clinton does not respect our people,” the ad says in Spanish (original and Clinton campaign translation after the jump), referring to the lawsuit that failed today to shut down special caucus sites on Las Vegas’ strip. “Hillary Clinton is shameless.”
“Sen. Obama is defending our right to vote. Sen. Obama wants our votes. He respects our votes, our community, and our people. Sen. Obama’s campaign slogan is ‘Si Se Puede.’ Vote for a president who respects us, and who respects our right to vote,” the ad says, according to a transcript provided by the Clinton campaign and confirmed in part by a union official.
If you use racial pandering, you’re going to get counter-productive racial pandering. Suddenly, the question of whether people should be allowed to caucus in a 24-hour casino — a legitimate legal question, but we’ll get to that in a minute — becomes a matter of Hillary Clinton purposefully disenfranchising poor minorities, who seem blissfully unaware that they are pawns in this giant chess game. Democrats have long empowered the “underclass” to promote their solidarity and use class warfare as a means to cow or guilt people into establishing government assistance programs, now, when this group smells support and further handouts from one candidate, and not from the other, the talking points that once saved now hinder. Clinton has been an American Marie Antoinette for some weeks now, declaring herself, unintentionally, out of touch with the very people she needs to succeed, and now, the Obama camp is using it against her.
The lawsuit itself is interesting. Despite only coming to the realization that a casino vote would disenfranchise millions of voters only three days ago, after the casino workers unions backed Obama, the Clinton camp has a point. In a traditional caucus, you go to the caucus; the caucus does not come to you. Muhammed, for lack of a better cultural reference, has to go to the mountain. The system is flawed, yes. Terribly. People who are homebound, who cannot leave small children for long periods of time, who work full time and do not have the day off, are all denied the ability to cast a vote in a caucus, because, of course, the caucus takes place at a fixed location, takes an hour if not several, and involves physical presence — an absentee caucus is pretty much impossible. The Clinton lawyers are making this claim: other people who work during the day and are unable to attend their local caucus — why aren’t their caucuses coming to them, too? What makes casino workers so special that they get to have a caucus right in their place of business?
Conversely, the Obama camp is complaining that the caucus system is inherently biased against casino workers who are disproportionately among Nevada’s low wage-earners and are, disproportionately, minority. They are also claiming, rightfully, that Nevada has adjusted the weight of casino-located caucuses to reflect their unreliability (there’s also the problem of basically anyone walking into a casino caucus and casting a vote) and their convenience. Casino caucuses can earn no more than six delegates for a candidate, making them some of the least effective caucuses in the state.
All of this is pretty much for nothing, though, as it appears all of the pawn-brokering has barely made a dent in Clinton’s huge Nevada lead. On the other hand, the whole matter has been making Bill Clinton so angry that he’s turning purple in public several times a day and threatening to off reporters for major news conglomerates.
Posted in Uncategorized
January 19th, 2008 at 10:24 pm
[...] We’re Not Experienced Political Coordinators January 18th, 2008 unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptDespite only coming to the realization that a casino vote would disenfranchise millions of voters only three days ago, after the casino workers unions backed Obama, the Clinton camp has a point. In a traditional caucus, … [...]
January 21st, 2008 at 3:20 pm
But the people who are complaining about not getting to vote - and whom Obama wants to enable to vote - are ILLEGALS. They can’t vote! It sure looks like someone is getting ready to pull a fast one at the polling places. (and I thought only dead people were allowed to vote in democRAT primaries.)