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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Obama, Not Wright, Is Obama’s Worst Enemy
Earl Ofari Hutchinson



Whoever on Team Obama keeps feeding into Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s seeming compulsive need to speak out on the Reverend Jeremiah Wright should get the swift boot. When Wright went on his latest public and media tear, Obama should have simply issued a statement saying this: Wright is no longer my pastor. And as I have said repeatedly, his views do not reflect mine, and then move on.

But no, Obama’s Wright compulsion drove him to deliver a defensive and apologetic so-called race speech in which Wright was the centerpiece. Next, he denounced Wright’s views in an interview. Now he holds a halting, stumbling, anguished voice press conference to denounce Wright again. Here’s the effect of all this. He’s given a slew of gossipy, media talking heads more salacious grist for the gossip and rumor mill about Wright, the church and Obama’s long term relationship with both.

He’s elevated Wright from a relatively obscure, local preacher to a nationally known polarizing figure. He’s deepened the suspicions of those who all along felt that he was a closet radical and race panderer. This hurt him with white voters in Ohio and Pennsylvania, and almost certainly it will hurt him in Indiana. It has pecked away at the razor thin lead he had over Clinton among Democrats, and dropped him behind McCain in the general election. (Hillary beats McCain by ten points).

He created clouds of doubt among some of his non-rabid, and non-true believer supporters that maybe it’s time to take a second look at him and his candidacy. He’s given political analysts and pundits boundless ammunition to fire the jibe that maybe he is unelectable. After all, if he bombs with blue collar, rural, and less educated white voters in Ohio, Pennsylvania who are Democrats, what chance does he have of getting a big swatch of the must win independents who fit that same vote demographic in the South, the Midwest and the West to back him in a head to head showdown with McCain? He’s gotten so bogged down with the obsessive need to slam Wright that he’s managed to self-derail his campaign from the issues that should matter to debating Wright on of all things as to whether Wright and the black church as Wright claims are one and the same.



Finally, and worst of all, no matter how much he protests that Wright doesn’t represent him or his thinking, the fact is he sat in his church for nearly two decades, called him a spiritual mentor and family confidant, appointed him to an advisory post in his campaign, and in his so-called race speech refused to disown his two decade experience and relationship with him. This instantly makes his Wright protest sound like the wail of a politician running scared, and who sees the long, arduous, time consuming and patient work he put into building up public trust in him as the nation’s great political hope fast washing down the drain.

But Obama is no different than other inexperienced politicians who get blind-sided by damaging and hurtful allegations and associations. They panic, do their public mea culpas, and hope and pray that it all blows over. It never does. The clouds of doubt remain transfixed in the air of the voter’s minds, and that doubt will always be there with whispers, wisecracks, and raised eyebrows that maybe the politician with a taint who so many put their fervent faith and hope in is not all that he’s cracked up to be.

The more optimistic Obama backers point to Bill Clinton as the best example of a much admired, effective political leader who rebounded from a scandal and attacks and whose popularity ratings soared to the stars. That’s true but there are some big differences. Clinton was a battle tested, second term president, the economy was booming, there were no major foreign policy crises, and millions of supporters including many Republicans saw the GOP assaults on him as nothing more than vindictive partisan politics. That was more than enough for him to ride out the tide.

Obama is hardly Clinton. And the issue that dogged Clinton was sex. The issue that dogs Obama is race. That in any season is perennially for a politician, especially a black politician, their worst nightmare. That’s even truer for Obama who has worked tirelessly to sell white voters on his non-racial message of unity, harmony, and hope.

Obama then must understand two things. Wright isn’t going away. His ego and a press insatiable for any inflammatory Wright quip will insure that. If that’s so then Obama should button it up on Wright. Anything else he says on him will further insure that Obama not Wright is Obama’s worst enemy.

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).

Vote Demographics Spells Much Bigger Trouble for Obama than Pennsylvania Loss
Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Barack Obama’s decisive Pennsylvania loss to Hillary Clinton was predictable and inevitable. Obama pretty much confirmed that when he tossed in the towel and spent the crucial countdown hours to the primary vote at a fundraiser in Indiana. But the loss in that state is the least of Obama’s troubles.
But let’s start with Pennsylvania. More than eighty percent of the voters there are white, a significant percent are blue collar, rural, less educated, and less financially well-endowed. Many are gun owners and devoutly religious. The Democrats among them are solid Clinton backers. Pennsylvania voters mirror the voter profile in a majority of states.
One in five Pennsylvania voters made it clear that race was a factor in their vote. Translated; they would not vote for an African-American for president, no matter how fresh, articulate and race neutral his pitch. If Obama hadn’t gotten ninety percent of the black vote mostly in Philadelphia and other urban spots in the state, Clinton would have demolished him.
Obama’s one big and consistent trump card has been the youth vote, those aged 18-29. They are voting. And the overwhelming majority of them are voting for Obama. But Pennsylvania showed the problem in banking on them to propel a candidate to victory. There simply aren’t enough of them. They make up slightly more than 10 percent of the vote in the state. Their number is dwarfed by older voters over age 45 that make up nearly seventy percent of the vote there. Older, white male, rural voters have been the pathway to the White House for GOP presidents since Nixon. In a head to head contest with McCain, Clinton almost certainly wouldn’t beat him out for their vote, but she’d be competitive. Obama wouldn’t be. The highest percentage of young voters is in solid Democrat or Democratic leaning states. In 2004 the youth voter turnout was highest in Minnesota (69%), Wisconsin (63%), Iowa (62%), Maine (59%), and New Hampshire (58%). In Pennsylvania, there was even an ominous note with the youth vote; race sneaked in. Clinton did surprisingly well with white voters under age 30.


The hard numbers and demographics may be less troubling than voter attitudes and that’s Democratic voter attitudes towards Clinton, and especially Obama. They can be summed up in one word: polarization. That polarization has gotten wider and deeper with every swap of a name call, finger point, and character attack by Clinton and Obama on each other. One quarter of Democrats say they will either cross over and vote for McCain or stay home if Obama is the nominee. Fewer Democrats say they will defect if Clinton’s the nominee. Put bluntly, a general would be hard pressed to win a major battle if one quarter of his troop’s desert before the first shot is fired.
The dominant issue for voters is no longer the Iraq war but the economy. Those that are most likely to stampede the polls in anger over a turned South economy are the voters that Clinton best appeals to. In exit polls, voters said that they thought Obama and Clinton would do better than McCain in handling the economy, but more favored Clinton in handling the economic meltdown.
Pennsylvania was a crowning vindication of Clinton’s win the big state strategy. These are the states that are in play for the Democrats and these are the states that will decide ultimately who will sit in the White House. Obama’s wins in the South and West are side show, feel good wins. These are locked down red states. With the exception of Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996, a Democratic presidential candidate has won only one Western state since Lyndon Johnson in 1964.
Four of the states with remaining primaries are textbook examples of the meaningless of a Democratic primary win in these states. The last Democrat to win Indiana was Lyndon Johnson in 1964. The last Democrat to win North Carolina was Jimmy Carter in 1976. Clinton was the last Democrat to win West Virginia. He also broke the Democratic presidential drought in Kentucky with his wins in 1992 and 1996. While it’s true that some of these states have Democratic governors and senators, this means little in a national election. The Democrats that win in these states are independent, self-reliant and conservative. They are the exact opposite of the Obama and even Clinton profile.
There’s one more troubling note for Obama. The majority of voters overall and that includes a significant percentage of Clinton’s backers think that Obama will eventually get the Democratic nomination they aren’t exactly doing handstands at that prospect. More Obama backers say that they will be just as content if Clinton gets the nomination. Fewer Clinton backers say they’ll be content if Obama gets the nomination.
Obama’s Pennsylvania loss does not dampen his chance of eventually getting the Democratic nomination. But the voter demographics that stack up high against him dampen his chance of getting the White House.

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).

The Ethnic Presidency

Sexism is the X Factor for Hillary that McCain and Obama Don’t Have to Worry About
Earl Ofari Hutchinson


Chelsea Clinton is incredibly naïve, incredibly sheltered, incredibly in denial, or maybe a bit of all three. In late March, Hillary Clinton’s daughter told a Young Democrats audience in North Carolina that she was shocked at the nasty things some male (and even female) folk on the campaign trail are saying about her mother such as “Iron my shirts,” and “the nutcracker in your…….” The vulgarities are heaped on top of the hard headed belief of many men and women that a woman just doesn’t have the right stuff to be the nation’s commander in chief.

Chelsea would have gotten a healthy lesson in Sexism 101 if she had glanced at polls, and that includes a CBS News poll taken just a week before her talk, that have consistently shown that far more Americans have a bigger problem voting for a woman for president than an African-American.

The worst part of this is that if any one dared make a racial crack about Barack Obama they’d be pounded into the sand. Yet, blatant sexist and anti-woman remarks are routinely spewed out, often unchallenged, and even cackled at. In the CBS News poll though more said they have heard more racist cracks in the past few months than sexist cracks, they were less likely to be offended by the sexist ones than the racist ones.

The big worry for the Clinton camp is not the sexist inuendoes, wisecracks and even the double standard that gender and race are treated on the campaign trail but how many voters it might scare away from Clinton in a head to head showdown with John McCain. There’s good reason for the scare.

The gender gap was first identified and labeled in the 1980 presidential contest between Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter. That year Reagan got more than a 20 percent bulge in the margin of male votes over Carter. Women voters by contrast split almost evenly down the middle in backing both Reagan and Carter. Men didn’t waver from their support of Reagan during his years in office. Many of the men that backed Reagan made no secret about why they liked him. His reputed toughness, firmness and refusal to compromise on issues of war and peace fit neatly into the often time stereotypical male qualities of professed courage, determination and toughness.

The gender split is always apparent when there’s a crisis such as a brush fire war, a physical conflict, or the threat of a terrorist attack. Even before he took office, pollsters noted that far more women than men openly worried that Reagan would get us into a war. This was not a major concern for men. The divergence between men and women on the issue of war and peace showed up again in even more stark contrast two decades later on the Iraq war. Polls showed gaps of nearly twenty percent between men and women when asked how long they thought American troops should stay in Iraq. Far more women than men said that the troops should be withdrawn as quickly as possible.

The huge spread in male and female views on public policy issues was just as pronounced in the terrorism war. More men than women by nearly 20 percent took a harder stance against nations that they perceive back terrorist groups.
In countless surveys, polls, and anecdotal conversations, women say they are less likely to stay up on political issues than men, and are more likely to vote for a candidate based on personal likes or dislikes than men. When asked what they liked about Clinton, many women reflexively said they liked her toughness. That's generally considered a rough and tumble male quality.

The issues of war, national security, strong defense, and terrorism doesn’t totally explain the constant 15 to 20 percent gender gap between men and women on candidates and issues in elections noted as far back as 1980. Another possible explanation for that is how men and women perceive the messages that male candidates convey and whether they use code words and terms to convey them.

GOP presidential candidates and presidents in past decades have at various times skewered social programs and nakedly played the race card in presidential campaigns beginning with Goldwater in 1964. Since then other Republicans at times artfully stoked male rage with racially charged slogans like "law and order," "crime in the streets," "welfare cheats," and "absentee fathers." Bush's John Wayne frontier brashness, and get tough, bring em' on rhetoric in talking about the Iraq and the war against terrorism was calculatingly geared to appeal to supposed male toughness.
The endemic sexism buried deep in the skulls of many American voters alone won’t sink Clinton. It’s just simply another X factor for Clinton that Obama and McCain don’t have to worry about.

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).

The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House

Race Is Still the X Factor for Obama
Earl Ofari Hutchinson



There’s a good and bad note for Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama in the recent exit polls of white voters in Democratic primaries. The good note is that by a lopsided majority of six to one whites said that race was not a factor in considering whether to back Obama or not. That pretty much conforms to virtually every poll that’s been taken since Obama tossed his hat in the presidential ring a year ago. His red state Democratic primary and caucus wins and the handful of endorsements he’s gotten from the red state Democratic senators and governors seem to bolster the poll findings as well as his camp’s contention that the majority of whites have bought his race neutral change and unity pitch.

The bad note for him, though, is buried in the racial rose tinged poll numbers. In fact, they were actually buried there even as he rolled up big numbers in his primary victories in Georgia, Mississippi, Maryland, Virginia, Alabama, and South Carolina, and the District of Columbia. Blacks make up a substantial percentage of the vote in those states, and he bagged eighty to ninety percent of their vote. But much less noted was that Clinton got almost sixty five to seventy percent of white votes.

It wasn’t just the reverse racial numbers for Clinton and Obama. Obama does incredibly well in netting the vote of college educated, upscale whites. But Clinton does just as well in bagging support from lower income downscale, and rural white voters. This has huge potential downside implications for Obama in a head to head battle with John McCain in the red states. A significant percent of the voters there are lower income, rural and less educated whites. Obama banks that he can pry one or two of the red states from the GOP. Yet, if he can’t convince Clinton’s white vote supporters, and they are Democrats, to back him, the chances are nil that he’ll have any more success with Republican and independent white voters in these states.

A hint of that came in the Democratic primary in Ohio. Clinton beat out Obama in the primary, and she did it mainly with white votes. But that wasn’t the whole story. Nearly one quarter of whites in Ohio flatly said race did matter in voting. Presumably that meant that they would not vote for a black candidate no matter how politically attractive or competent he was.

An even bigger hint of the race difficulty could come in Pennsylvania’s April 22 primary. The voter demographics in the state perfectly match those in Ohio. A huge percent of Pennsylvania voters are blue collar, anti-big government, socially conservative, pro defense, and intently patriotic, and there’s a tormenting history of a racial polarization in the state. Pundit James Carville has even described Pennsylvania as Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, with Alabama in between. Carville’s characterization is hyperbolic, but devastatingly accurate. Take the state’s two big, racially diverse cities out of the vote equation, and Pennsylvania would be rock solid red state Republican. While polls show some fluctuation in Clinton’s decisive lead over Obama there, she still has a solid lead.

The near unanimous backing that whites give to the notion of voting for a black candidate for president also deserves to be put to a political test to see how much truth there is to it. The question: “Would you vote for a black candidate for president?” is a direct question, and to flatly say no to it makes one sound like a bigot, and in the era of verbal racial correctness (ask Don Imus), it’s simply not fashionable to come off to pollsters sounding like one. That’s hardly the only measure of a respondent’s veracity. In a 2006 study in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, a Yale political economist found that white Republicans are 25 percentage points more likely to cross over and vote for a Democratic senatorial candidate against a black Republican foe. The study also found that in the near twenty year stretch from 1982 to 2000, when the GOP candidate was black, the greater majority of white independent voters backed the white candidate.

Republicans and independents weren’t the only ones guilty of dubious Election Day color-blindness. Many Democrats were too. In House races, the study found that Democrats were nearly 40 percent less likely to back a black Democratic candidate than a white Democrat.





Obama’s Democratic primary and caucus wins certainly show that many white voters will vote for him. They obviously feel that he has the right presidential stuff. But a large number of whites aren’t quite ready to strap on their racial blinders even for a candidate who has leaned way over backward to run a race neutral, bipartisan, unity campaign. The big question is just how many whites will refuse to strap on the racial blinders on Election Day. That’s still the X factor for 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).

Political Analyst Earl Ofari Hutchinson Challenges Barack Obama to Answer Ten troubling Questions about His Campaign

Political Analyst Earl Ofari Hutchinson Challenges Barack Obama to Answer Ten troubling Questions about His Campaign


Description: Political analyst Earl Ofari Hutchinson has asked Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama to explain his positions and actions on ten documented and questionable political dealings and statements from the Iraq War to indicted financier Tony Rezko.

Los Angeles, Ca. U.S. April 1, 2008—

Press Release


Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama has sold himself to millions as a politician of a new type. .His campaign is based on the firm pillar that he represents a new, open, fresh, and transparent politics. He is the candidate that is supposedly the antithesis of the political duplicity, double dealing, evasions, lies and corruption that mars other candidates.



However, Hutchinson contends, his statements and positions reveal a pattern of ambiguity, evasion, and misrepresentation on the Iraq war, his dealings with nuclear giant, Exelon and indicted financier Tony Rezko, the acceptance of tainted campaign contributions, a poor attendance record in the Senate, and the failure to record votes on key issues.

Hutchinson says that if Obama is indeed the candidate of transparency that he claims to be he will answer the ten troubling questions that Hutchinson has formally submitted to his campaign headquarters. These questions raise serious doubts about his contention that he represents a radical break from the political past. Hutchinson notes that if he’s the Democratic presidential nominee, John McCain and the GOP truth squad will ask him these questions.

About Us:

Earl Ofari Hutchinson:

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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Contact:

Earl Ofari Hutchinson
Hutchinson Political Report
Los Angeles, Ca. U.S.
323-383-6145
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Contact Name: Earl Ofari Hutchinson
Contact E-mail: hutchinsonreport@aol.com

Ten Troubling Questions I Asked Obama to Answer before McCain Asks Them
Earl Ofari Hutchinson


Here are ten troubling questions for Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama that he’d be wise to answer coming from me, If he’s the Democratic presidential nominee you can bank that John McCain and the GOP truth squad will ask him them. The questions were sent directly to him at his national campaign headquarters Friday, March 28. The questions are not campaign rhetoric, gossip, and partisan allegations. They are fully documented, and totally a matter of public record. If Obama won’t answer them, then the challenge is for his supporters to answer them point by point. This doesn’t mean hurling the usual cheap shot, brainless, personal invectives, name calling, personal insults, or character assassination. This is no substitute for factual answers. The Questions.


1. You stated that you were not in the Senate in October 2002 when President Bush rammed through Congress the resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq. But you also stated that “perhaps the reason I thought it was such a bad idea was I didn’t have the benefit of U.S. intelligence.” This implies that you might have voted for the war if you had been in the Senate when the vote was taken. Why then do you condemn Hillary Clinton and other Senators who voted for the war authorization resolution when you admit the possibility that if you had been in the Senate you would have done the same?

2. As chairman of the Senate subcommittee on Foreign Relations you could have held oversight hearings, called witnesses and offered alternatives to Bush’s disastrous efforts against A Qeada in Afghanistan. Your subcommittee held none and provided no alternatives to Bush policy that you condemn, why?

3. In the Senate you have one of the poorest attendance records, and you often simply vote present on thorny issues, why?

4. Senate Legislation was proposed to require nuclear giant, Exelon to make public disclosure of its radiation leaks. You did not fully support that requirement. Exelon has been identified as your fourth biggest campaign contributor. Why did you oppose the tougher regulatory proposal for Exelon?

5. Chicago financier Tony Rezko has been accused of numerous financial illicit dealings. You have claimed that you did no political or personal favors for Rezko. Yet as an Illinois state legislator you wrote endorsement letters to government agencies on his behalf, as well as having conducted other documented financial transactions and dealings and with him. Why do you deny that you have no relationship with Rezko?


6. The head of your campaign finance chair is Penny Pritzker. Before taking over Obama’s campaign finances, she headed up the borderline shady and failed Superior Bank. It collapsed in 2002. The bank engaged in deceptive and faulty lending, questionable accounting practices, and charged hidden fees. It made thousands of dubious loans to mostly poor, strapped homeowners. A disproportionate number of them were minority. Why does she still have a principal financial role in your campaign?

7. You have taken money in past campaigns from straw donors. These are donors that have taken money from tainted and dubious sources and then contribute to your campaign under their names. You have talked much about financial openness in campaigns. Why did you take money from straw donors in the past? And do you take money from them now?

8. Following a speech by Hillary Clinton praising Lyndon Johnson for his role in helping pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act, an Obama campaign advisor privately released a four page memo urging hammering Clinton for denigrating Dr. King. Yet, you told reporters that neither you nor anyone in your campaign had made the accusation that Clinton denigrated King. Why did you say that when clearly it was the memo from your campaign advisor that triggered the media and public assault on Clinton regarding King?

9. You have not produced a single public document that would provide the public with greater insight and knowledge about legislation, initiatives proposed, your votes on key bills, and your attendance record during your terms in the Illinois legislature. Why?

10. You have repeatedly charged that Clinton violated a pledge not to put her name on the Michigan Democratic primary ballot. However, neither Clinton nor any other Democratic contender pledged to the DNC not to have their name on the ballot. Three other candidates had their name on the ballot in addition to Clinton. Why do continue to make this claim that the other candidates, but especially Clinton, violated a pledge not to have their name on the Michigan ballot?

Obama’s campaign is based on the firm pillar that he represents a new, open, fresh, and transparent politics. He is the candidate that is the antithesis of the political duplicity, double dealing, evasions, lies and corruption that marred other candidates. Obama can prove it by answering these questions; questions that raise serious doubt about his contention that he represents a radical break from the political past. If he won’t answer them then will his supporters answer them for him? That’s again, before McCain asks them.


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).

Damned if He Does and Damned if He Doesn’t: Obama, Race and the Media Regime
By Sikivu Hutchinson
The recent flap over Chicago liberation theologian and Obama supporter Jeremiah Wright has finally given the right wing enough ammo to begin its blitzkrieg against Barack Obama’s presidential bid. Wright’s fiery oratories on racism and American imperialism have whipped the jackboots of Fox News into an orgiastic heat in their mission to out Obama as a radical black nationalist. Caving to the media-drumbeat on Tuesday, Obama delivered a reflective speech on race, acknowledging America’s racist history while drawing dubious parallels between the economic struggles of middle and working class whites and African Americans impacted by racial segregation. Prior to Obama’s plea for racial healing he’d denounced Wright’s comments and removed him as one of his campaign advisors. Obama’s swift censure of Wright, and his willingness to act as white America’s native informant interpreting the gaffes of bad Negroes, is yet another example of how his ambivalence about fully confronting racism is driven by political expediency. Portraying Wright as a throwback to the “divisive” past of the 1960s in one interview, Obama resorted to Kumbaya rhetoric to let black folk know that they aren’t the only ones hurting—in essence, been there done that, let’s move on.

Much of the outrage over Wright has centered on comments he made about 9/11 in 2001 and a recent sermon he gave on Obama’s experience as a black man in racist America. Wright charged that Clinton, due to her wealth and white privilege, has never had to suffer the indignities of being passed up by a cab or racially profiled by the police. The footage of Wright declaiming against Clinton’s privilege was replayed on Fox and other news outlets ad nauseum, casting Wright as a foaming at the mouth zealot making a reckless charge. Yet Clinton’s entitlements as a white elite female whose husband was once one of the most powerful men in the world have been conveniently omitted from the mainstream media’s hand wringing about whether race trumps gender in the presidential contest. Deftly relying on patriarchy, while decrying her status as a beleaguered female in a male dominated arena, Clinton owes her once presumed march to coronation to a form of political capital that has never been available to American women of color.

In their zeal to skewer Wright, the Fox jackboots played their own race card, trotting out a duo of black conservatives to trash his credibility. Wright was caricatured as a David Duke-meets-Farrakhan buffoon, a demagogue spewing anti-white anti-American bile with no historical basis. In the parallel universe of the right wing media regime, it is black “bigotry,” not white racism, which poses the biggest threat to the multiculti allure of Obama. Never mind that the reality of institutional racism, signified by deep disparities in black unemployment, household income, homeownership and health care, belie claims by the likes of Geraldine Ferraro and the Fox crew that Obama’s success is primarily due to his blackness. Set against this backdrop of black disenfranchisement Obama’s meteoric rise is a paradox, defying the traditional white supremacist terms of presidential politics while placating Middle America. Though his high-minded musings on racial unity may help him dodge Fox’s attempt to “Sharptonize” him, they won’t satisfy the black electorate’s need for concrete policies addressing the divide in income, homeownership and education that make the wages of whiteness a bitter reality for people of color in the U.S.

Sikivu Hutchinson is the editor of blackfemlens.org and author of Imagining Transit: Race, Gender and Transportation Politics in Los Angeles (2003).

More Woes for Obama and Clinton with Ferraro’s Fingerpoint of Race and Gender
Earl Ofari Hutchinson



A defiant Geraldine Ferraro told ABC’s Diane Sawyer that she had “absolutely” no regrets about saying that Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama was getting kid glove treatment because he’s black. Ferraro could be defiant. The former Democratic VP candidate and Hillary Clinton advisor had just voluntarily stepped down in response to the howls from the Obama camp for Clinton to fire her for what they called her racist and insulting remarks. The Ferraro-Obama flap was just the latest in the long and rancorous, name calling, and finger pointing attacks that Clinton and Obama have leveled at each other.

But the Ferraro tiff did raise one intriguing question. And that’s, does race trump gender, or is it the other way around? That question has been perched on the lips of pundits since Obama and Clinton tossed their hats in the ring last year. In the case of Obama the question was always would whites back an African-American for president. In the case of Clinton the question was would men back a woman for president. Ferraro flatly said that the media was sexist and that it had relentlessly dumped on Clinton because she’s a she. Obama in his retort hinted that race was an obstacle and that he had worked doubly hard to cast his campaign above race, and stick to the theme of change, presumably that meant change for all.

But Ferraro no matter how crude and intemperate one thinks her racial dig at Obama was, she had a valid point about gender. And so did Obama about race.

Clinton has had to deal with a relentless barrage of gender tinged wisecracks and outright insults on the campaign trail. At one rally, hecklers yelled to her to iron their shirts. Other gender taunts and slurs were even less flattering. Radio host Rush Limbaugh told listeners in one of his nationally syndicated shows, "Will this country want to actually watch a woman get older before their eyes on a daily basis?" Clinton has been taunted in some online websites with fake ads for toilet brushes labeled, "First Cleaning Lady" and a Clinton nutcracker was also for sale. It cracked nuts between her legs. Hillary Clinton's hairdos, ankles and even her cleavage did not stir any sustained protests or outrage from either men or women.

A female in the White House would shatter the frozen in time mindset that the first lady isn't the president but the emotional helpmate to the president. That notion, though, is still a foreign concept to many men. In February, the Associated Press and Yahoo News found that 40 percent of Republicans said they would be reluctant to vote for a woman. A much smaller percentage said they would be reluctant to vote for a black.

However, Obama and his backers have constantly been on guard against any hint of a racial backlash to his candidacy. The first hint of that was in the New Hampshire primary when some polls showed Obama handily beating Clinton only to suffer a close loss. That brought whispers that Obama was a victim of the Bradley Effect. This was named after the loss in the 1982 California governor’s race by African-American Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley to a white candidate. Bradley had a double digit polling lead over him before the election. The Bradley effect is the propensity of whites to tell pollsters that race has no importance in their vote and then show at the polls that it does. But Obama seemed to dispel the Bradley Effect by garnering substantial white support in primary victories in other states. Yet, the potential for subtle white resistance to his candidacy is something that the Obama camp privately worries about.

The politically correct view is that Clinton and Obama’s entrance into and drive for the presidency will permanently alter the hostile mindset of many men that a woman is not equipped to hold the highest office and the thought of many whites that a black man is not equipped to be president. Yet, in Democratic primaries in January and February Obama held his own or surpassed Hillary’s vote total with white men. He did it in some of the most traditional bastions of white male voter resistance to backing a black candidate in elections past. Meanwhile, Clinton got substantial white male support in her big primary win over Obama in Ohio. But the racial divide did appear with a vengeance in the Mississippi primary where Obama got the bulk of the black vote, and Clinton got the bulk of the white vote.

So whether Ferraro was totally on the mark about men and Clinton and race and Obama will continue to be debated, squabbled over, and finger pointed at by Clinton and Obama. The one thing that’s for sure is the one candidate who has a Cheshire cat wide grin on his face at the rancor between them over race and gender is named John McCain.

New America Media National Political Affairs Writer Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book is How the GOP Can Keep the White House, How the Democrats Can Take it Back ( Middle Passage Press, July 2008).

Black Voters Can’t Put Obama in the White House
Earl Ofari Hutchinson

African-American voters will help insure that Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama keeps his slight edge over Hillary Clinton—for now. They will not help him beat John McCain if he eventually gets the Democratic nomination. Yet it’s still a virtual article of political faith that a strong, united, and crusading black vote can tip the scale for a Democratic presidential candidate. This is a myth and it’s risky business for Obama and the Democrats to believe that. It’s easy to see why Obama might be tempted to think that. When Obama needed a surge early on in the campaign, he called on Oprah, and she delivered. She made a blatant racial pitch for blacks to in the crucial South Carolina primary to vote for him, and they did in near record numbers. That put him over the top and propelled his campaign.

With the black vote firmly in hand, that gave him the freedom to craft his hope and change message in broad, bland, and especially non-racial terms. The idea was to avoid any appearance of a Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton racial tilt. That would be the political kiss of death with many white voters.
But that didn’t change the political reality that black votes still provided the decisive edge for Obama in key primary state wins. And even in his losses to Hillary Clinton in Ohio, California and Texas, black votes kept the race close. Those votes, though, will never be enough to put him over the top in the big states against Clinton, let alone against John McCain in the South and Border states.

The myth that the black vote wins presidential election has been bandied about for so long that it’s taken on the proportion of a political urban legend. In 2000, black voters made up nearly 11 percent of the overall voter. They gave the Democratic presidential contender Al Gore 90 percent of their vote. In 2004, black voters made up nearly 12 percent of the vote and gave Democratic presidential contender John Kerry 88 percent of the vote. Gore and Kerry lost.
The Clinton wins in 1992 and 1996 also helped fuel the myth that black votes put Democrats in the White House. Clinton managed to pry four Southern states out of the GOP orbit but he did it by downplaying racial and social issues and stressing family values, tough defense, and a strong economy. He got lots of white votes, especially, white male votes, and that made the difference since he got the same percentage of black votes that Democrats traditionally got in prior elections.
In 2004, then presidential contender Howard Dean openly worried that Democrats could not beat Bush unless they got a bigger share of white male votes. He quipped that the Democrats had to court beer-guzzling white guys who wave the Confederate flag. That brought howls of protests from Dean’s Democratic rivals and the charge that Dean was pandering to unreconstructed bigots to get more white votes in his column. A livid Sharpton called Dean a turn coat Democrat and warned that heeding Dean would be a betrayal of black voters. They could have saved their breath. Kerry made only a weak, half-hearted effort to court white male voters in the South. Bush still got nearly seventy percent of the white male vote there, a second sweep of the South and a second term.

A chastised Dean got it right. He simply crunched the numbers and recognized that white males make up more than one-third of the electorate. .
In 2000, exit polling showed that while white women backed Bush over Gore by 3 percentage points, white men backed him by 27 percentage points. Four years later the margin was 26 points for Bush over Kerry among white males.

A huge first red flag waved high for Obama and the Democrats in the recent Ohio Democratic primary that warns that they can’t win without white votes. Clinton won a smash victory over Obama in large part with white votes. And even more ominously, blue collar lower income white voters roundly rejected Obama. In fact, nearly twenty percent of white voters defied political correctness and said that they would not vote for an African-American. That contrasted with national polls, which showed that more than 90 percent of whites said that race would not be a factor in determining their vote. The Ohio mini-white backlash to Obama doesn’t bode well for the Democrats if he’s the eventual nominee. No Republican or Democrat has won the White House in the past four decades without winning Ohio.

Black voters will cheer and dash to the polls en masse for Obama, but their votes won’t be enough to put him in the White House. Despite the myth, they haven’t put any other Democrat candidate in the White House either.

Obama's Farrakhan Dilemma
Earl Ofari Hutchinson
Here's what a spokesperson for Democratic Presidential contender Barack Obama said when he got wind of former Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan’s virtual endorsement of Obama’s White House bid, “Senator Obama has been clear in his objections to Minister Farrakhan's past pronouncements and has not solicited the minister's support." Farrakhan made the glowing tout of Obama at the NOI’s annual Savior's Day confab in Chicago. Obama’s denunciation of Farrakhan was blunt and pointed. But he did not reject Farrakhan’s implied endorsement.
Even after Hillary Clinton publicly demanded that he forcefully reject Farrakhan’s endorsement, Obama waffled. He weakly said after more Clinton cajoling that he rejected the endorsement. He still did not mention Farrakhan by name. A candidate shouldn't need to be prodded by his opponent to emphatically reject the endorsement of a controversial, and in the case of Farrakhan, much vilified figure. Obama, of course, does not endorse Farrakhan's views, politics, or his organization, and he has made that clear on more than one occasion.

Yet his failure to flatly say he does not want his endorsement is no surprise. Farrakhan may be a controversial and much vilified figure but he is not a fringe figure within black communities. He is still cheered and admired by thousands of blacks. They are also voters too and most have embraced Obama with almost messianic zeal. This zeal has been a driving force in powering Obama's surge past Clinton. Many blacks are exhilarated by the prospect that a black man will sit in the Oval office. In other words, Obama is a racial fantasy come true for many blacks.
Few blacks publicly demand that he assume the role of a black leader. They have made no demand that he tell what he’ll do to boost civil rights protections, fight the HIV/AIDS plague, or take strong positions on the other pressing social issues. It’s just as well they haven’t since his image is that of the new generation African-American elected official who thinks and speaks as a unifier and consensus builder, not a racial crusader.

However, many blacks quietly expect or at least hope that if he’s elected it will be more than a historic first for blacks. They hope that he will be a vigorous proponent of civil rights and social programs. As long as that hope is there their impassioned zeal be for him will be there too. If Obama denounces Farrakhan too strongly that would raise the eyebrows of the thousands of blacks who admire Farrakhan and his organization.

But, if Obama doesn’t blast Farrakhan as an anti-white hate monger that could raise questioning eyebrows with many white voters. He can’t afford that. He’s far exceeded the predictions of many who questioned whether whites would vote for an African-American for president. They have and he has even done what was thought to be even more implausible and that’s net considerable backing from white males. They have been rock solid backers of GOP presidents going back to Ronald Reagan. Obama got their support with his open-ended message of change and unity. Farrakhan, then, is the absolute last thing that Obama needs now that he’s on a roll with so many diverse voters.

Obama isn’t the first politician to face the Farrakhan dilemma. It got Jesse Jackson into momentary hot water during his presidential bid in 1984. Jackson rashly agreed to let the NOI briefly handle some of his security. That drew howls that Jackson was in bed with the Farrakhan. Jackson backpedaled fast and dropped the NOI as part of his security. That didn’t stop the loud grumbles that Jackson as a presidential candidate was too cozy with Farrakhan. But Jackson did not denounce Farrakhan. He stayed mute in part out of his stubborn insistence that no one should tell him who could support him, and in bigger part with an eye on the black vote.

Obama is closing in on a place in history. If he wins the March 4 Texas and Ohio primaries, his fierce nomination battle with Clinton will be virtually over. The movement will be irresistible among Democrats to nominate him and that will evaporate the Democrat’s worst fear, namely a fractured convention, split between the two warring Obama and Clinton factions. A divided party would be a lethal blow to the Democrat’s chances to take back the White House.

But Obama also knows that he doesn’t just need black votes. Any Democratic presidential contender will get the majority of black votes. That was the case with Democratic presidential contenders Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004. Both still lost. He needs blacks to turn his drive to the White House into a crusade. They must make a spirited and massive rush to the polls. Farrakhan can help insure that some of that spirit and some of those numbers are there. Obama can’t publicly applaud him for doing that. But he can’t totally reject him either. That’s Obama’s Farrakhan dilemma.

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).

Obama is No JFK but Even If He Was His Inexperience Can’t be Cavalierly Dismissed
Earl Ofari Hutchinson

In a recent address at Cincinnati State Technical and Community College Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton blasted arch rival Barack Obama for his inexperience. This should not be dismissed as another frantic, grasp at straws by Clinton to slow the momentum of his campaign or a badly overrated quality that few first time presidents need bring to the Oval Office anyway. The tout of Obama as the second coming of John F. Kennedy is supposed proof that a Senator with ideals and vision, ala JFK, can work wonders for the country even if short on experience.
The Obama-JFK comparison is a bad stretch and the dismissal of experience as a president-to-be attribute is an even worse stretch. JFK majored in foreign policy at Harvard and was a decorated naval war hero. His father, Papa Joe, was a multi-millionaire diplomat, confidant of presidents, and consummate political deal maker. This enabled JFK to meet a slew of European leaders. He wrote a Pulitzer Prize winning book, served fourteen years in the Senate and Congress, and came close to getting the vice presidential nomination in 1956.

Despite JFK’s years of public policy experience and political acumen, that Obama can’t match, he was still woefully ill equipped to deal with the two biggest crises that confronted his administration; the Cuban Missile crisis and the civil rights crisis. The mythmakers have spun a picture of a cool, calm, and collected JFK facing down Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in 1962. He allegedly forced him to get Russian missiles out of Cuba and that saved the world from nuclear destruction.
The truth is far different. In his memoirs Khrushchev gloated that the Soviet Union never had any intention of going to war over Cuba, and that the missiles were a bargaining chip to get the U.S. to remove American missiles from Turkey aimed at the Soviet Union. The other aim was to get the U.S. to guarantee the security of Castro’s regime.

Even if Khrushchev’s boast is sloughed off as a face saving historical falsity to burnish up his badly tarnished image; the fact is that American missiles were removed from Turkey. And in the nearly half century after the missile show-down, there has been no US military effort to oust Castro. He stepped down voluntarily and will likely die of old age.

The U.S. –Soviet stand down was brokered through back channel talks initiated by Robert Kennedy with the Soviet ambassador to the U.S. After they hammered out the bare details of the agreement it took urging by RFK and other Kennedy senior advisors to get Kennedy to finally approve the deal. JFK’s inexperience in a crisis moment cost valuable time, delays, and raised tensions. It had another tragic by-product. It earned JFK the undying enmity of the thousands of Cuban-Americans.
Then there’s the issue of civil rights. The Obama camp twisted and mangled an innocent comment Clinton made in which she praised President Lyndon Baines Johnson for driving the 1964 civil rights bill through Congress. Supposedly Clinton defamed Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by minimizing his role in getting a civil rights law. Clinton, of course, got it right. It took every bit of Johnson’s relentless political arm twisting, cajoling, and deal making skills to get wavering Republicans and hostile Southern Senators who controlled key committees to back the bill or soften their vehement opposition to it.

The bill though was not Johnson’s. It was introduced by Kennedy. Despite his efforts, Kennedy could not budge Congress to take action. JFK simply did not have the political muscle to budge the bill’s opponents. Johnson did have the experience and the muscle to ultimately force passage.

The rap against Obama that he lacks the requisite experience to get the job done effectively in the White House is not a cheap and meaningless campaign shot at him. The American presidency should not be an OJT position. Voters shouldn’t be asked to make a leap of faith that an untested candidate can smoothly and effortlessly handle crisis situations that inevitably arise. Inexperienced presidents are poor crisis managers. They get us into costly and unpopular wars and brush fire conflicts. They alienate foreign friends and allies. They bungle the economy. And their administrations more times than not are riddled with corruption and cronyism. The disastrous proof is the administration of the man that Obama seeks to replace.
Even without fingering Bush’s foreign and domestic policy bumbles and ineptitude, the presidents that have been most successful in recent decades have been FDR, Bill Clinton and Dwight Eisenhower. They had two things in common. They had extensive executive and administrative experience either as governors, or in the case of Eisenhower, in the armed forces before they became president.

The lack of administrative and crisis management experience shouldn’t disqualify a prospective presidential candidate, or mean that he or she will crumble under fire. At the same time, their inexperience raises a giant question mark about the candidate. That can’t be cavalierly dismissed.

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). Ethnicpresidency.com

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Age Won’t Be Obama’s Trump Card against McCain
Earl Ofari Hutchinson


Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama coyly hinted at something that has been virtually taboo during the fierce hunt for the White House in 2008. That’s likely GOP presidential candidate John McCain’s age. In a speech at the Jefferson-Jackson dinner in Virginia in early February, Obama hailed McCain for his half-century of service to the country.
This borderline ageist damn with faint praise of McCain was of course tame stuff compared to the dumb crack from B karate movie action guy Chuck Norris before the Florida primary last January that McCain was just too old to be president. Norris subsequently apologized but he still got a swift and deserved disappearance as a prominent mouthpiece for McCain’s GOP presidential rival Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. It probably ramped up in the number of votes McCain got from the loads of AARP seniors that retired in the state. That sweetened McCain’s victory there and rocketed his once seemingly DOA campaign forward faster.
Norris aside, age is and will be a factor in the possible showdown between McCain and Obama. Some Democrats undoubtedly bank that Obama’s boyish looks and fresh faced vigor will stand in stark contrast to the weary, and slow pace gait of McCain. But age won’t be an Obama trump card against McCain.
It just doesn’t titillate and get the tongues furiously wagging as race does with Obama and gender with Hillary Clinton. It shouldn’t. Age is no legitimate measure of McCain’s mindset, physical health, or even his possible longevity in the office. JFK, Nixon, and Clinton were all in their forties when they took office. Each had serious health problems, and each one faced serious political and personal crises during their terms, but their health didn’t lay them low. McCain released hundreds of pages of his health records before his presidential run in 2000 and last year to head off talk that he’s medically and emotionally incompetent (that pertains to his torture as a Vietnam POW) to be president. Even if he hadn’t, and even if there were health issues with him, his age still holds minefield peril for Obama.
Reagan is the best example of that. Other than sniggers, and wisecracks about his memory lapses and occasional gaffes, there was no evidence Reagan lost a single vote because anyone thought he was too old. The early signs of Alzheimer’s came much later in his term and by then the Reagan myth and legacy had been well ensured. The eyes of many in their audiences misted over the countless times McCain and the other one time GOP presidential candidates evoked Reagan’s name during their debates and on the campaign trail.
Reagan for his part did much to defuse the age issue when he turned to his Democratic opponent Walter Mondale in their presidential debate in 1984 and challenged, "I want you to know that I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience." The aim was not to score a quick debate point or to cut Mondale low, it was to make the point that age is not a liability but a desired quality in a head of state; that age equates with experience, level headedness, and maturity.
Then there are the voter demographics and age related issues. The vast array of programs from social security to education and housing subsidies for seniors soaks up more than a quarter of the federal budget. Legions of senior citizen advocacy groups keep a hawk like watch on funding, spending, and possible cuts in those services. The slightest hint of any attack on social security either real or manufactured politically is the political kiss of death for a candidate. Seniors have the political muscle to make sure of that. Those aged 60 and older make up almost a quarter of those who turn out on Election Day.
There is no such thing as an old age voting bloc. Seniors vote based on their needs, personal tastes, interests, and political preferences, just like other voting groups. But seniors have been far more likely to vote for Republicans than Democrats. In 2004, those over aged 60 gave Bush a wider vote margin over John Kerry than any other age group.
McCain deftly snatched a page from Reagan’s political playbook, dampened the age issue, and will try to turn the age table on Obama. He’ll pound on the point that a school boy looking, relative political newcomer on the national scene simply can’t be trusted too make the mature, sober, and vital decisions that presidents have to make especially in times of war, terrorist peril and domestic crisis. The irony is that age may just turn out to be McCain’s trump card instead of the Democrat’s even if Obama tries to help him out of his chair when they debate.

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

What to Make of Obama’s Strange Bedfellows, Namely Blacks and White Males
Earl Ofari Hutchinson

This is an election with some strange things happening. One of the strangest is the penchant for so many white males to join with African-American voters in a few primaries to back Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama. It’s strange not because of anything Obama has said or done to get so many white males behind him. It’s strange because of the possible motive many of the men that are voting for him. Let’s put it this way. Are they voting for him because they truly buy his flowery pitch of hope, change and unity. Or, is there something darker, and more insidious at work here. The something is the deep, persistent, and widespread notion among many men that a woman is not fit to hold the highest office especially if that woman is named Hillary.

Males make up slightly more than forty percent of the American electorate, and of that percent, white males make up thirty six percent, or one in three American voters. They have been the staunchest Republican backers since Ronald Reagan’s trounce of Democrat Jimmy Carter in 1980.

Without their solid support in 2000, Democratic Presidential contender Al Gore would have easily won the White House, and the Florida vote debacle would have been a meaningless sideshow. In 2004, Bush swept Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry in every one of the states of the Old Confederacy and three out of four of the Border States. He grabbed more than 60 percent of the white male vote nationally. In the South, he got more than 70 percent of their vote. That insured another Bush White House.

Male voters gave not just Bush but Republican Presidents Bush Sr., Ronald Reagan, and Richard Nixon the decisive margin of victory over their Democrat opponents in their presidential races. The majority of them that voted for the GOP presidents were middle-to upper-income, college educated, and lived in a suburban neighborhood. This closely parallels the demographic of the men that are voting for Obama. But at the same time, fewer than one in five white males labeled themselves as liberal.
The reasons for the intense and unshakeable loyalty of working and middle-class men to the GOP are not hard to find. The gap was first identified and labeled in the 1980 contest between Reagan and Carter. That year Reagan got more than a 20 percent bulge in the margin of male votes he got over Clinton. Women voters by contrast split almost evenly down the middle in backing both Reagan and Carter. Most men made no secret about why they liked Reagan and what they perceived that he stood for. The tough talk, his apparent firmness and refusal to compromise on issues of war and peace fit neatly into the stereotypical, male qualities of professed courage, determination, and toughness.

Then there’s the thing that’s even less politically and gender correct to admit and that’s that the bias of many men toward women in high positions is so deep seated that they refuse to believe that they are even biased. Psychologists have testified in countless gender bias law suits that the “unconscious bias” of male managers against women, especially against women attaining power positions. The refusal of men to promote women has been the biggest factor fueling gender discrimination in corporate hiring and promotions. Male managers in charge of promotion and pay decisions unwittingly engage in "spontaneous" and "automatic" stereotyping and "in-group favoritism" that results in the most desirable jobs at the company being filled by white males.

Even if unconscious gender bias affects only a relatively small percent of men in a close contest between a male and female candidate in which the two are rated fairly evenly in competence, qualifications and experience, the refusal of many men to vote for her could harm her candidacy. Female candidates offset the male bias by getting solid support from women voters.

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

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Democrats Pose Greater Peril to Obama or Clinton than GOP
Earl Ofari Hutchinson

There was absolutely no surprise at the results of Super Tuesday. This writer flatly said days before the first vote was cast that Super Tuesday would be anything but super for either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, and that neither would or could deliver the knockout punch.
There are two colossal reasons that virtually preordained the muddled, confused and frustrating outcome for the two Democratic presidential contenders. The first is the Democrat’s winner-not-take-all proportional system and the system of super delegates that they have dumped onto the primaries. Super delegates are at large delegates and can pretty much vote for whomever they want, and under the proportional system delegates can be divvied up according to the vote total that the respective candidate gets in Congressional districts. The idea behind that is to bring democracy with a small d to the vote process and snatch the decision about who gets the big prize out of deal making party bosses at the national convention.

But the first reason for the Democrat’s Super Tuesday muddle pales when stacked up against the second reason. And that’s the fast emerging and much alarming polarization among Democratic voters, or put another way, the hard lines between those backing Obama and those backing Clinton and the reasons why they’re backing them. Exit polls showed two clear things. The overwhelming majority of African-Americans in the South back Obama. The overwhelming majority of Latinos in the Western states back Clinton. The other is that white men in increasingly bigger numbers are backing Obama. And Democratic voters are supporting their picks with passion and zeal.

Latinos and blacks are the two big, strategically placed, and dependable voting blocs for the Democrats. In every election back to Lyndon Baines Johnson’s smash victory over Barry Goldwater in 1964, blacks have been the loyalist of loyal foot soldiers for the Democrats. With the surge in Latino voting numbers in the past two decades, Latinos have just as important to the Democrats and have been nearly as loyal to them as blacks.

The tormenting question for Clinton then is if she eventually gets the grand Democratic prize will African-American voters who have virtually turned their tout of Obama into a messianic crusade back her with the same fervor and more importantly numbers? A lackluster and lukewarm turnout by blacks for her would spell big trouble for her and the Democrats in November.

The equally tormenting question for Obama is if he eventually gets the Democratic grand prize will Latino voters back him with the same fervor and numbers as they did Clinton? The same rule applies to him as Clinton. A lackluster and indifferent turnout by Latinos would spell big trouble for him and the Democrats in November.
Then there’s the question of white male voters. They make up nearly forty percent of the American electorate. In every election dating back to Ronald Reagan’s big wins over the Democrats in the 1980s and since, they have powered GOP victories in national elections and more importantly have been the sure ticket of GOP presidents to the White House. Bush got a whopping sixty four percent of the white male vote, and he did even better among white males in the South. Their sudden like of Obama then is suspect. The perplexing question is are they voting for Obama because they are truly sold on his message of hope and change, or is there a darker reason? And that is that they hate the thought of a woman bagging the highest office, especially if that woman is named Hillary.

A dirty secret little of the campaign just may be that in this age of supposed gender enlightenment when men profess profusely that they have no problem backing a woman for president many secretly do. This is not idle speculation. Polls have consistently shown that while whites are virtually unanimous in saying that they have no problem voting for an African-American for president, far fewer say the same about a woman.

When the dust finally settles in the fall, the eventual GOP presidential nominee will do his internal fence mending in the party, and will placate the warring other presidential opponents and competing factions. He will have the usual king’s ransom campaign chest, the spin of Fox and other major cable TV news outlets and conservative talk radio jocks, the solid backing of millions of conservatives and Christian evangelicals, the sure electoral votes of most of the South and the heartland states, the X factor of race and gender working in his favor against Hillary and Obama, and the hunger to maintain Republican dominance.

The last thing that the Democrats need is a fractured Democratic Party that’s hopelessly split into two feuding, finger pointing and irreconcilable factions. That could pose an even greater peril to their bid to take back the White house than the GOP. That possibility is looming bigger and bigger.

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