White Women are Punishing Obama, Not Oprah
Earl Ofari Hutchinson

What started as a trickle of puzzled queries on Oprah’s message board when she touted Obama in October eventually turned into angry complaints from many white women when she barnstormed for him in January. They raged that America’s long standing reigning queen of daytime talk TV had strayed way over the line. Oprah took note for a good reason. The loudest complaints came from middle-aged and middle class white women. They are the ones who have done as much as any other of Oprah’s longtime regulars to make her fortune and keep her at the top of daytime talk show ratings. They are also the part of the voter segment that has done much to make Hillary Clinton’s political fortunes and keep her competitive with Obama in the slog to the Democratic presidential nomination.

A legion of Oprah’s handlers, show producers, magazine editors, TV moguls, syndicate heads, and media talking heads hotly deny that she’s lost any of her luster because of Obama. Many of her women fans even jump to her defense and lambaste the women critics. Her ratings, cash spigot and superstar image still top that of most of her competitors in the TV business. It’s also true that celebrities who get too political can tick off a lot of their fans. It’s also an undeniable fact that Oprah has slipped in the ratings and the slip can be directly traced to her Obama support.
Within days after she touted Obama, a Gallup poll found that her favorable rating plunged by nearly ten percent and her unfavorable rating climbed by almost the same percent. As criticism mounted after her Obama foray to South Carolina, Oprah read the tea leaves. She hasn’t made a public utterance about Obama since then.
But the issue is not really whether Clinton’s staunch white female supporters are smacking down Oprah. The issue is Obama. He’s opened wide the racial and gender sore between black and white women. In the days just before the South Carolina primary in January, nearly three times more black women said they'd back Clinton over him. The support for Clinton was greatest among lower income, working class black women. They admired Clinton as a woman, mother, and most importantly, many black women saw her as a strong advocate for health care and women's interests. White women, and that’s middle class white women, backed her for pretty much the same reasons at the time.
Immediately after the Obama-Oprah roadshow, complete with shouting, and fawning fans, banks of TV cameras, and non-stop chatter and praise from the pundits, black women made a sharp volte face. Polls show that the overwhelming majority of black women now exuberantly back Obama. Many of the black women before Obama’s surge to the top who praised Hillary for fighting for women’s issues now complain bitterly that she is standing in the way of a black man getting to the White House.
It is more than just Oprah’s halo that stirs the change. For them, it is a matter of pride, accomplishment, and the sense that he fulfills their date with racial history making. Race simply trumps gender. But for older, middle class white women this is not the case. The issue is still gender and women’s interests. Clinton was, and is, still seen as the most informed, effective and passionate advocate for women’s issues. Having the first woman in the top spot in the White House is a matter of pride, accomplishment and the sense that she fulfills their date with gender history making.

The mini-Oprah backlash also tossed an ugly glare on another side of race. While Oprah has never given the faintest hint that her tout and early bankroll of Obama has anything to do with race, and is careful to make it clear that she backs him solely because of his competence and qualifications and that makes him the right presidential stuff. Yet the lurking suspicion is that there is more to it than that and that she is just as thrilled as many other blacks at the thought that an African-American can actually bag the presidency. This is not exactly a play of the race card. But for many skeptical voters, and obviously from the complaints of many of Oprah’s one time devoted white female loyalists, it comes uncomfortably close to a veiled racial motive.
Oprah acknowledged the risk that she ran in cheerleading Obama. In a statement sent to ABCnews.com shortly after the mini-furor broke last year, she walked the thin tightrope between explanation and mollification. She admitted that she might offend some by “stepping out of my pew.” She got it almost right. It’s not that she stepped out of her pew that offends the women that tune her out. It’s stepping into Obama’s.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).

R. Kelly’s Conviction Will Jingle Cash Registers Even Louder
Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Here’s a bet. Accused child pornographer and sexual panderer, R. Kelly has three albums in the can ready for release. If Kelly is convicted of the multiple counts slapped against him in his Chicago trial, the albums will fly out the can fast and even faster off the store racks. Kelly’s well documented penchant for underage teens, and his boasts and taunts in his songs, topped by the very real possibility that he had sex on the homemade, smutty videotape with a very underage teen, mean little to his legions of devoted fans.

Kelly and a handful of other influential R&B singers and rappers who are rich and famous beyond their wildest fantasies and who brand themselves with a criminal, thuggish image are still very much in commercial vogue. They exult the bad actor life style, thumb their nose at the establishment, and reinforce the sexually rapacious cardboard image of young blacks.

Kelly, and the others, know that the record industry can and will deftly parlay their sexual outlandishness and defiance into millions in record sales. Kelly brashly seized on the commercially prurient relationship he has with the record companies in his last album, “The Champ,” “Point fingers, throw stones, hate me I’m clever enough to know that the industry needs me.”

It does. He owns a mansion and property in Chicago and Florida, was once spoken of in the same breath as Oprah and Michael Jordan among Chicago’s wealthiest black elite.

But in the process, young black artists such as Kelly rekindle the vilest of racial and sexual stereotypes about young black males. Their artistic degradation has had especially dangerous consequences for black women. In Kelly’s case the victims of his sexual vandalism, as witnessed by settlements of other lawsuits against him for having sex with underage teens, were black women. And his sexually odious singles, Feelin on Yo Booty, Bump and Grind, and Your Body’s Callin' were virtual invitations to sexually trash black women.

Black women, especially young black women, have been the victims of that and much more. Homicide now ranks as one of the leading causes of deaths of young black females. A black woman is far more likely to be raped than a white woman, and slightly more likely to be the victim of domestic violence. Their assailants are not white racist cops or Klan nightriders but black males, and if they are a poor black woman, and their alleged assailant happens to be a fawned over rap star, justice will be slow forthcoming, if at all.

The Kelly case is a glaring example of the oft times laxity in how authorities treat crimes against black women. The lewd alleged Kelly sex video was made years ago, yet it took police and prosecutors years to charge him, and six more years for him to get to trial. No charges have been filed against him in the other cases that he subsequently settled, even though sex with a minor is a felony.

Some blacks make things even worse by dredging up a litany of excuses, such as poverty, broken homes, and abuse, to excuse the sexual abuse and the violence by top black male artists. These explanations for the misdeeds of rappers and singers are phony and self-serving. The ones who have landed hard in a court docket are anything but hard-core, dysfunctional, poverty types.

P. Diddy, who predated Kelly as the poster boy for music malevolence, is college educated and hails from a middle-class home; he typifies the fraud that these artists are up-from-the-ghetto, self-made men.

When men such as Kelly commit, or are charged with sexual assaults, they leave a long trail of victims, cast shame and disgrace on themselves and, worst of all, reinforce the notion that young black males are indeed menaces to society.
Kelly seemed to grasp that disastrous fact. In a concert appearance with gospel singer Kirk Franklin he did a tear jerk, kind of sort of self-confessional and declared that he had given up his promiscuous, self-indulgent ways and had embraced Jesus. His Saul on the Road to Damascus epiphany was welcome, but unfortunately it was made a decade ago. And apparently from the sex tape, lawsuits, and the sex laced braggadocio lyrics on some of his songs since then it was a very short lived epiphany.

Kelly has yet to be convicted of any crime. But his possible fall from grace almost certainly won’t mean that his hitherto adoring fans that slavishly elevate him to a demigod perch and put king’s ransom wealth in his bank account will desert him in droves. Informal polls show that many listeners will continue to buy his records, and some blacks have even trotted out the tired claim that he’s another prominent black man victimized by whites. In fact, one fan was unceremoniously hauled out of the courthouse for haranguing the Kelly jurors. This is yet one more sign that Kelly’s ill-gained notoriety is a sure fire guarantee to jingle cash registers no matter what happens in court, or maybe because of what happens in court.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).

Are the Black Voters Who Wildly Cheer Obama Racist?
Earl Ofari Hutchinson

A question that’s been whispered, grumbled about, and on occasion even angrily shouted out on blogs and chat sites is why is it that the whites who back Hillary Clinton are lambasted as racist, yet the black voters that back Obama in near record numbers aren’t? The question has angrily rolled off more than a few lips in the wake of the steadily firming up racial brick wall that Obama crashed against with legions of white voters in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Kentucky. The charge of a racial double standard started with a few random comments from some white voters who said they wouldn’t vote for Obama because they were turned off by the sight of so many blacks deliriously backing him. This convinced them that blacks backed him solely because he’s black and their only interest was to get one of their own in the White House.
A number of whites in Kentucky and West Virginia almost certainly voted for Clinton not because they believed she’ll be the most able commander -in-chief but simply because the only other choice was Obama. In exit interviews, some flatly said so. Clinton indirectly fed that visceral racism with her disastrous, an ill framed quip that hard working, white Americans back her and not Obama.
There’s little doubt that a top heavy black vote powered Obama’s crushing wins over Clinton in the South, and helped keep him competitive in Ohio and Indiana, the states that he lost. It’s also true that blacks have a special enthusiasm for his campaign that’s fueled by a mix of pride, admiration, accomplishment, and the sense that he can win and make history. He’s also the presidential candidate who they desperately long for to wipe away the horrid taste of the Bush years. But the enthusiasm is also fueled by him being black. In exit polls in North Carolina nearly a quarter of black voters admitted that race was the big factor in motivating them to vote for Obama. This is the sore point for some whites.


But Obama’s color and the pride blacks take in his historic first tell only part of the story of why so many blacks cheer him. Obama is a Democrat, and so are the overwhelming majority of black voters. They have given every Democratic presidential candidate and incumbent since Lyndon Johnson in 1964 a consistent, and at times off the chart, percentage of their votes. They gave Democratic presidential candidates Al Gore and John Kerry nearly ninety percent of their vote, and they were white Democrats. If Obama hadn’t come along, many would have been just as exuberant about Hillary Clinton, and they would have given her as big if not a bigger percent of their vote than Gore or Kerry got. In fact, given the love fest many blacks had with Bill Clinton, at least before Bill’s perceived early campaign racial mud sling at Obama, Clinton still might have gotten a respectable percentage of black votes.
There has never been a reverse Bradley Effect among black voters. That’s
the penchant for some whites to lie to pollsters and interviewers and say that a candidate’s color doesn’t matter only competence and ability. Then in the privacy of the voting booth they vote for a white candidate over a black one. Black voters in contrast have voted party allegiance, and now that they have a candidate who represents their party who happens to be black it’s an easy call to make to support him.
While race, though, is a compelling issue for some blacks, it’s also problematic for Obama, especially if there’s the perception among large numbers of fence sitting independents, and Reagan Democrats that an Obama White House will have a racial tilt.

The hard reality is that black votes alone don’t put candidates in the White House. The votes of white males, especially blue collar white males, do.
Even before the controversy over Jeremiah Wright broke and Obama’s disastrous crack about blue collar whites and their penchant for guns and religion soured many of them toward him, he hadn’t made much headway in bumping up his numbers among them. They make up nearly forty percent of the American electorate. In every election dating back to Reagan’s big wins over the Democrats in the 1980s and since they have been the sure ticket of GOP presidents to the White House. In exit polls, one quarter of Clinton backers said that if Obama is the nominee they’ll vote for McCain or turn into Election Day no-shows.
Here’s the Catch 22. Obama could not have come as far and as fast as he did without the votes and cheers of African-American voters. But for some whites that translates out to reverse racism. It isn’t, but the perception that it is is a two edged sword that will continue to cut at Obama.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).

Clinton’s Working Class Heroes
By Sikivu Hutchinson

Surrounded by a sea of white faces after her big win in West Virginia, Hillary Clinton’s racial message was abundantly clear—while Obama’s “we are the world” candidacy is fine and dandy for his fantasy world tribe of elite whites, blacks and young folk, she can deliver the heartland and Bubba. Over the past few weeks, Clinton’s repeated evocation of Obama’s alleged failure to win “hard working” white Americans was yet another reminder of her penchant for playing the race card. Hard working white Americans, as distinct from the trust-fund harboring, white-wine sipping, Volvo-driving constituency that catapulted Obama to victory in Iowa, Minnesota and North Dakota, cherish middle-American values like faith, family and the right to bear arms, and rightfully disdain the uppity ways of a big city black politico like Obama. Granted, with its 96% white population West Virginia is certainly a snapshot of red state intractability. According to one exit poll, 20% of whites cited race as a factor in voting for Clinton over Obama and a majority cited the economy as their number one issue in the election. To be sure, entrenched racism poses a significant challenge to Obama’s electability. Clearly, whites who are comfortable enough to disclose their racist views on Obama are in the minority.

In her paeans to white working class sensibilities Clinton played on this sentiment, well aware of how her “my kind of people” rhetoric would go over in small West Virginia towns like Parkersburg. Yet it is important to note that the campaigns of both Al Gore (who won the popular vote) and John Kerry struggled to win swing state white working class votes in 2000 and 2004. Moreover, the states where Obama scored big with white voters are hardly bastions of prosperity; by painting Obama as the other Clinton’s big tent pretense of inclusiveness is exposed as a sham once again.

Clinton’s appeal to white supremacist class consciousness is a preview of Republican tactics in the fall. Implicit in the appeal is the notion that other racial groups, specifically African Americans, are not hard working, represent a political monolith beholden to the welfare state, and are solely defined by race. This image fits squarely with conservative notions of black indolence. The appeal to white supremacist class consciousness implies that those who suffer most from the US’ economic downturn are underemployed or unemployed rural and suburban whites, not people of color who make less on the dollar than do white men and women. When whipping up class sentiment among whites, the reality of the earnings and household income gap that exists between whites and people of color is not one that the Dems (Obama included) have ever truly been willing to address.

In the fading weeks of her campaign, Clinton has proven that she will try and win by any means necessary, displaying the integrity and accountability deficit that Bill Clinton demonstrated during his administration when it came to issues of social justice. If the Democratic National Committee denies Hillary Clinton’s desperate bid to have votes from the discounted Michigan and Florida primaries included, and Obama wins the nomination, he would do well to keep her ease with the Republican playbook in mind when the drumbeat to nominate her to the vice-presidency begins.

Sikivu Hutchinson is editor of blackfemlens.org, a journal of feminist criticism.

The GOP Hit Plan, Smear Obama with the L Word
Earl Ofari Hutchinson
The president of a conservative political action outfit with the amorphous name of Citizens United minced no words. David Bossie flatly said that Obama is now their target. The independent committee has nearly a million dollars in the bank and almost certainly much more to come, and will churn out endless hit pieces on Obama. Bossie ticked off Obama’s connection with former Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers, indicted Chicago financier Tony Rezko, and a revisit of his tie with Jeremiah Wright as fair game to splatter dirt on him.
John McCain and the RNC will disavow the dirty, beneath the belt stuff, that fringe GOP independent committees specialize in. Their hit plan is much simpler. Paint Obama as yet another tax and spend, pro abortion, pro gay rights, and weak on national security Democrat who’s way out of tune with mainstream America.
The L word smear of a Democratic presidential candidate is the oldest, most predictable, and durable page in the GOP playbook. Thomas Dewey slapped it on Democrat Harry Truman. Dwight Eisenhower slapped it on Adlai Stevenson twice. Richard Nixon slapped it on JFK, Hubert Humphrey and George McGovern. Ronald Reagan slapped it on Walter Mondale twice. Bush Sr. slapped it on George Dukakis and tried to slap it on Bill Clinton. Bush Jr. slapped it on Al Gore and John Kerry.
The L word smear has been honed, massaged, tweaked and sprinkled with ad-ons over the years. Soft on communism morphed into soft on terrorism, lax on permissiveness and law and order was retooled as lax on crime. The ad-ons are that Democratic presidential candidates flip flop, are wishy washy, and will be weak commander in chiefs. In the case of Obama, the extra add on is he’s an elitist, and hopelessly inexperienced. McCain banks that the L word ploy will once more be the GOP’s keep the White House ticket.
Obama waves this off and says that voters ultimately won’t look at labels, but at whether a candidate can deliver on the gut issues of the economy, the housing crisis, and ending the war. He’s right up to a point. But politically incendiary labels do inflame emotions and passions and stir visceral deep seated fears and beliefs in many voters. The GOP has masterfully turned liberalism into a dread word, and a dread fear for many voters.
Obama’s relatively liberal voting record on core liberal issues does give the GOP an opening to sow that fear. He got a perfect 100 rating from the NAACP, National Organization for Women, National Education Association, the Children's Defense Fund, the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees, and the Illinois Environmental Council (during his stint in the Illinois legislature), and the ACLU for his votes on labor, education, the environment, choice, civil rights and civil liberties.
Not surprisingly, Obama bombed badly in the ratings he got from the conservative National Taxpayers Union, National Right to Life, the Gun Owners of America, the NRA, the Federation for Immigration Reform, and the American Conservative Union. These are some of the nation's top conservative advocacy groups, and they reflect the interests and views of millions of voters on immigration, spending, guns, abortion, and military prowess. They are the voters who will also scrutinize his record and his views with a laser eye. They are also the voters that gave Nixon, Reagan, Bush Sr., and Bush Jr., their decisive margin of victory over their Democratic opponents.
In 2004 Kerry tried to parry the L word ploy by trying to out GOP the GOP on their strong point issues of national security and terrorism. It didn’t work. Countless polls showed that the voters repeatedly gave Bush huge percentage margins over Kerry when asked who they thought would do a better job in the anti-terror war. In other words if the election came down solely to a referendum on who best to fight terrorism, Bush would beat him handily. But if it came down to the issue of who would manage the economy better, do better in boosting education, creating more jobs, providing affordable health care, and protecting civil rights and civil liberties, Kerry would have beaten Bush handily.
Nothing has changed. Obama can’t out McCain McCain on the GOP’s trump cards of national security and terrorism. He’s tried to talk and sound tough but it rings hollow against McCain’s tougher and more believable talk on these issues. But if it’s a matter of who does the better job on the economy, and jobs, affordable health care, and a war wind down, voters again consistently say that the Democrats will do it better than the GOP. These issues have been the Democrats trump cards back to the Democrat, Truman, who first beat back the GOP’s L word smear. Obama can do the same but only if he can masterfully play those same cards.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).

Much More than Race and Wright behind Obama’s Blue Collar Woes
Earl Ofari Hutchinson



A few days before the vote in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary, an audience member at a town hall forum in Scranton shouted at Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama “send them back.” The fellow’s blunt and grating answer cut through Obama’s thoughtful and detailed answer on how he’d deal with immigration reform. A few hours earlier at another forum Obama dealt with the prickly issue of gun control. He gave an equally, thoughtful and detailed answer that straddled the fence between defense of gun ownership and a modified gun control plan. The audience responded with polite but scattered applause. The blunt crack from the audience member on immigration and the modest applause he got from mostly working class whites on the gun issue tells much about why Obama stumbles badly with white workers.

It has little to do with race and disgust over Obama’s tie to Jeremiah Wright. Immigration and gun ownership are economic and cultural litmus test issues for many non-college educated, blue collar white males. They want plain speak not policy wonk nuanced, winded answers that conform to their beliefs and views. Obama has not learned the painful lesson that plain speak answers on their concerns translates to moral clarity on their concerns.



But it’s much more than a failure to grasp the right style and words that cause moderate and liberal Democratic presidential contenders Al Gore, John Kerry and Barack Obama to falter with white male, blue collar workers. Republicans have also played hard on the anger, frustration, and hatred that many of them harbor toward government and the blame they heap for government’s perceived failures on liberal Democrats.

The angry white male was more than a cleverly coined buzz word in the 1990s to describe the fear, frustration, and the sense that males, particularly white males, were losing ground to minorities and women in the workplace, schools, and in society. The trend toward white male poverty and alienation first surfaced in the early 1980s when nearly ten million Americans were added to the poverty rolls and more than half were from white, male-headed families. Two decades later, the number of white men in poverty or among lower income wage earners continued to expand. The estimate was that more one in five white males who voted in the presidential election in 2004 made less than $45,000 in household income.
“Liberals didn’t realize they had a whole constituency of disenfranchised people without rights who were called standard masculine men,” Harvard University social psychologist William Pollack explains. “I’m not saying that all liberal Democrats saw these men as the enemy, but they didn’t see them as the victim — but these men felt more and more victimized.”



The main culprit in the eyes of those blue collar whites that saw themselves as forgotten, and economically strapped victims was always a big, bloated federal government. It tilted unfairly in spending priorities toward social programs to the detriment of head of household male wage earners and taxpayers.

Though the tax cuts that Reagan and later Bush Jr. shoved through Congress benefited the wealthiest taxpayers, they were also the fulfillment of Reagan's promise to deliver mid-America from big government and big spending. It was more than a dream. Reagan delivered on his promise. Reagan cut inflation, boosted employment, and his tough talk on the Soviet Union (“evil empire” plain speak) and terrorism appealed to the simplicity and moral clarity that blue collar workers demanded. Bush Sr., Bush Jr. followed the Reagan script with mid-America. Bill Clinton did too. He broke the GOP White House stranglehold by masterfully hijacking Reagan’s plain speak, emphasis on middle-class pain and the disdain of many blue collar workers for liberals and big government. Hillary delivers a modified version of that message.

The sense of security and economic boost that Reagan and Clinton gave to blue collar whites stands in sharp contrast to their feeling that Democrats refuse to offer much that will make any substantial changes in their lives. And that they fail miserably to deliver even on the symbolic promises they do make to them.

During the 2004 Democratic primaries, short term Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean made a clumsy, off-the cuff quip that the Democrats must grab a bigger share of the Confederate flag-waving, pick-up truck, gun rack-displaying, white male vote to win. That brought a howl of protest from some Democrats and charges that Dean was a closet bigot from the other Democratic presidential contenders. A contrite Dean backpedaled fast, did his racial mea culpa, and promised to zip his lip on the flag and kowtowing to Southern white guys.

Dean was right. But the rage at him from other Democrats also reinforced the deep suspicion of white blue collar males that the Democratic Party is a hopeless captive of special interests, i.e. minorities, gays, and women, and that white men especially are persona non grata in the party.

So it’s much too simple to say that race and Wright are the big reasons for Obama’s blue collar woes. Gore and Kerry had the same woes. And it had nothing to do with race, let alone with Wright.
Much More than Race and Wright behind Obama’s Blue Collar Woes
Earl Ofari Hutchinson

A few days before the vote in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary, an audience member at a town hall forum in Scranton shouted at Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama “send them back.” The fellow’s blunt and grating answer cut through Obama’s thoughtful and detailed answer on how he’d deal with immigration reform. A few hours earlier at another forum Obama dealt with the prickly issue of gun control. He gave an equally, thoughtful and detailed answer that straddled the fence between defense of gun ownership and a modified gun control plan. The audience responded with polite but scattered applause. The blunt crack from the audience member on immigration and the modest applause he got from mostly working class whites on the gun issue tells much about why Obama stumbles badly with white workers.
It has little to do with race and disgust over Obama’s tie to Jeremiah Wright. Immigration and gun ownership are economic and cultural litmus test issues for many non-college educated, blue collar white males. They want plain speak not policy wonk nuanced, winded answers that conform to their beliefs and views. Obama has not learned the painful lesson that plain speak answers on their concerns translates to moral clarity on their concerns.

But it’s much more than a failure to grasp the right style and words that cause moderate and liberal Democratic presidential contenders Al Gore, John Kerry and Barack Obama to falter with white male, blue collar workers. Republicans have also played hard on the anger, frustration, and hatred that many of them harbor toward government and the blame they heap for government’s perceived failures on liberal Democrats.
The angry white male was more than a cleverly coined buzz word in the 1990s to describe the fear, frustration, and the sense that males, particularly white males, were losing ground to minorities and women in the workplace, schools, and in society. The trend toward white male poverty and alienation first surfaced in the early 1980s when nearly ten million Americans were added to the poverty rolls and more than half were from white, male-headed families. Two decades later, the number of white men in poverty or among lower income wage earners continued to expand. The estimate was that more one in five white males who voted in the presidential election in 2004 made less than $45,000 in household income.
“Liberals didn’t realize they had a whole constituency of disenfranchised people without rights who were called standard masculine men,” Harvard University social psychologist William Pollack explains. “I’m not saying that all liberal Democrats saw these men as the enemy, but they didn’t see them as the victim — but these men felt more and more victimized.”

The main culprit in the eyes of those blue collar whites that saw themselves as forgotten, and economically strapped victims was always a big, bloated federal government. It tilted unfairly in spending priorities toward social programs to the detriment of head of household male wage earners and taxpayers.
Though the tax cuts that Reagan and later Bush Jr. shoved through Congress benefited the wealthiest taxpayers, they were also the fulfillment of Reagan's promise to deliver mid-America from big government and big spending. It was more than a dream. Reagan delivered on his promise. Reagan cut inflation, boosted employment, and his tough talk on the Soviet Union (“evil empire” plain speak) and terrorism appealed to the simplicity and moral clarity that blue collar workers demanded. Bush Sr., Bush Jr. followed the Reagan script with mid-America. Bill Clinton did too. He broke the GOP White House stranglehold by masterfully hijacking Reagan’s plain speak, emphasis on middle-class pain and the disdain of many blue collar workers for liberals and big government. Hillary delivers a modified version of that message.
The sense of security and economic boost that Reagan and Clinton gave to blue collar whites stands in sharp contrast to their feeling that Democrats refuse to offer much that will make any substantial changes in their lives. And that they fail miserably to deliver even on the symbolic promises they do make to them.
During the 2004 Democratic primaries, short term Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean made a clumsy, off-the cuff quip that the Democrats must grab a bigger share of the Confederate flag-waving, pick-up truck, gun rack-displaying, white male vote to win. That brought a howl of protest from some Democrats and charges that Dean was a closet bigot from the other Democratic presidential contenders. A contrite Dean backpedaled fast, did his racial mea culpa, and promised to zip his lip on the flag and kowtowing to Southern white guys.
Dean was right. But the rage at him from other Democrats also reinforced the deep suspicion of white blue collar males that the Democratic Party is a hopeless captive of special interests, i.e. minorities, gays, and women, and that white men especially are persona non grata in the party.
So it’s much too simple to say that race and Wright are the big reasons for Obama’s blue collar woes. Gore and Kerry had the same woes. And it had nothing to do with race, let alone with Wright.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).

Superdelegates Must Tell Color of Change What it can do with its Silly Vote for Obama Petition
Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Color of Change which presumptuously bills itself as the premier national grassroots organization is the latest to jump into bully the super delegates for Obama game. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, DNC Chair Howard Dean tried their hand at it and failed. Now Color of Change says it will urge the alleged legions of activists it claims to speak for to petition and flood Pelosi, Reid, and Dean with letters demanding that they stop Clinton from hijacking the nomination.
Reid, Pelosi, and Dean should toss this silly petition and their letters in the can. Here’s why. The group claims that Clinton thumbs her nose at blacks, plays the race card (figure that contradiction out), sows divisions, and disenfranchises millions of voters. She also, they assert, falsely says that the Democratic race is a tie. This thwarts the will of the pledged delegates who overwhelmingly back Obama. These are all self-serving myths.
The assumption that all blacks scream with one voice for Obama is foolish, arrogant, and racially myopic. In some states, mostly the South, blacks have voted ninety percent for Obama. But they also voted in nearly the same high percentage for white Democratic presidential candidates Al Gore and John Kerry. Overall Clinton nets about one in five black voters. The Congressional Black Caucus remains split between Clinton and Obama. There are hundreds of prominent black state and local officials from New York governor David Patterson to the former chair of the California Legislative Black Caucus Mervyn Dymally that back Clinton. There are packs of black personalities, celebrities, business and professional persons that support Clinton.
Even if all black voters backed Obama, the black vote is only one of several crucial vote demographics in the Democratic fold. The Democrat’s hope to bag the presidency hardly hangs solely on the wishes of black voters.
Color of Change’s claim that a vote for Clinton disenfranchises millions is even more ludicrous. It ignores the nearly two million voters in Florida who overwhelmingly voted for Clinton and now because of a clueless and bungling DNC chair Dean they will likely remain disenfranchised. It also erases the millions of white, blue collar, rural, Latino, older white females (and a not inconsiderable number of black females), and Jewish voters who powered Clinton to big state and swing state victories. Without their vote neither Obama nor Clinton have a prayer of raising their hand in January at the presidential inauguration. Nearly one quarter of these voters are adamant that if Obama is the nominee they will vote for McCain or stay home. They apparently don’t count either.
Color of Change says that the Clinton/Dean claim of a tie in the popular vote is dead wrong. They’re right. Clinton is ahead. Her total: 15,112,000 votes. Obama’s total: 14,993,000 votes.
The group charges that Obama has trounced Clinton in the number of pledged delegates. This is another myth. He has a bare eight percentage point lead over her in pledged delegates. If the Democratic primaries were winner take all as is the GOP’s, Clinton would be decisively ahead of Obama in pledged delegates. Even with the Democrats confusing, shoot-themselves-in-the foot proportional system, count Florida for Clinton and she’s ahead of Obama in the number of pledged delegates. A solid win in Indiana, West Virginia, and Kentucky, (North Carolina is suddenly very much in play for Clinton) and she’ll be ahead or in striking distance of him in the number of pledged delegates.
Color of Change scoffs at Clinton’s claim of electability. But the magic number to win the White House is 270 electoral votes. To get those votes, a Democratic presidential nominee must beat McCain in a majority of the 15 key battleground states. Clinton won 9 battleground states in the primaries. They hold 116 electoral votes. The 6 battleground states Obama won hold 54 electoral votes.
If Clinton wins the 15 solid Democratic states and the 9 battleground states, she wins the presidency with a comfortable 312 electoral vote. If Obama wins the 15 solid Democratic states and his 6 battleground states, he winds up with 250 electoral votes, and loses the presidency.


In late April, polls in the three most crucial battleground states, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Clinton beats McCain by nearly 10 percentage points. Obama either trails is slightly behind or is only marginally ahead of McCain in those states. Clinton is competitive or outright beats McCain by corralling white blue collar, and rural voters. But Color of Change doesn’t give a hoot about them.
When Reid, Pelosi and Dean tried to bully the super delegates to make a down and dirty final decision most refused. Their job is to back the Democrat who can win. They must do their job again and tell Color of Change what it can do with its browbeating petition and letters.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).



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