Some people are saying that Barack Obama is finished, that between Hillary Clinton's glee over the issue, Republican hammering away, and blue collar male racism that has been ignited, he is dropping in the polls and should just drop out.
The New York Times today points out Hillary's current strategy to steal the nomination from Obama depends on three things: a continuation of the Wright flap to convince the superdelegates to reject Obama; a decisive win in Pennsylvania; and a lead in the popular vote by June (which would be helped by new primary elections or the seating of the delegates in Michigan and Florida).
Her strategy, of course, ever since the failure of her early strategy to blow everyone out of the race by February, has been to pull the rug out from under the frontrunner Obama by some fancy political footwork. She now has a big assist from the Wright matter, and the latent racism that it has unleashed among white working class democrats and some independents.
Hillary's strategy, of course, is old style politics, brutal, divisive and ugly, and not representative of the kind of change we Obama supporters have seen in our candidate. And if blacks think Hillary's silence as one of her fellow Senators and democrats is being trashed in an unfair and racially motivated way means she is their friend with respect to issues of race, they are mistaken. Hillary Clinton will capitalize on the racial divide brought about by the Wright incident and use it to her advantage, regardless of what it does to race relations in this country.
Hillary Clinton has a chance here to help her party and her country in a way that transcends anything she could do as president. She has a chance to show she really does believe in change, not just change in policies, but change in the way we do politics.
She could drop out of the race, throw her total support to Barack Obama, give her own speech on race, and shame the Republicans, the media, and the rest of the country that is hoping for racial divisions to rescue a Republican Party that was otherwise doomed in 2008.
She could do this, if she really believed in change, if she really believed in healing the racial divide. But she won't do it.
Hillary Clinton does not want to help her party and her country. Hillary Clinton does not want to heal the racial dividel. Hillary Clinton wants only to help herself. And if that isn't politics as usual, then nothing is.
