I was born in Ohio and now live in California, two states that gave more of their delegates to Hillary Clinton than Barack Obama, in large part because of racism, which is still very much alive, and the pushback to sexism that is now causing a majority of democratic women to hang on to hopes for Hillary in spite of her poor chances to win the nomintion.
Clinton won in California because it was early in the campaign and because she was more well known than Obama. But she also won because women broke heavily for her and because she won the large Latino population and the smaller Asian population. Latinos flocked to Clinton, unfortunately, because of race. It is well known that Latinos do not especially like African Americans, and a sufficient number of them took that prejudice into the voting booth.
In Ohio and Pennsylvania, the racism is more overt. In exit polls, whites who said race was a factor in their choice of candidate went overwhelmingly for Clinton. Racism is alive and well in Ohio and Pennsylvania and Hillary Clinton used it to win.
Maybe Barack Obama can't win in Ohio and Pennsylvania in the general election because of the racism of the citizens. Although when pitted against the Republican, it's possible he could, especially if Hillary supported him. But while the contest is between two Democrats, Hillary Clinton wants to manipulate that racism and be the beneficiary of it. She is not interested in helping to overcome it, which she could easily do if she was willing to honor the process by which the Party chooses its nominees rather than try to make her own rules. (I think it was Chris Matthews last night on MSNBC who said the Clintons think they own the Party and can do whatever they want with it – one of the few times I've agreed with Chris Matthews.)
Hillary and Bill Clinton could educate the racist voters of Pennsylvania and Ohio by throwing their support to Obama and giving him their stamp of approval. But they are not interested in the good of the Party or the good of the country. They are not interested in ending racism in places like Ohio and Pennsylvania. Instead they are using the lingering and very ugly racism of white voters to regain the power Bill squandered in the nineties when he unzipped his pants in the Oval Office. And they are willing to throw overboard the 90% of blacks who favor Obama in order to woo the white racist vote.
Hillary and Bill Clinton have obviously studied the Rove playbook down to the last detail. They will create scandals against their opponent using the flimsiest of evidence and they will throw the Democrats' most loyal constituency under the bus. By pandering to gun owners, racists, and religious nuts, they are looking more and more like Republicans. What's next? Accusing Obama of murder, just as Republicans once accused Hillary of offing Vince Foster?
These are ugly people indeed. They nearly destroyed the Party in the nineties when Bill decided to lower his pants and threw the country into its lurid obsession with his sex life.
They nearly destroyed the country by giving the Republicans something to use against him in a circus that entertained their opponents, when all of them should have been focused on the threat of terrorism, which they knew was out there.
They nearly destroyed the world by creating the conditions that allowed a totally incompetent man to come close enough to victory in the 2000 election to steal it. Bush was given the opportunity to throw us into two wars, turn the world against us, squander our resources, and further damage the planet. All because enough people were disgusted with Bill Clinton that they believed Bush when he said he would restore dignity to the White House.
And after all that destruction, the Clintons have returned to wreak havoc on us. I hardly recognize the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party any more. It has moved so far to the right it now touches the outer left wing of the Republican Party, which has been all but amputated.
Sexism is partly to blame for this as well. Hillary obviously has the female vote, especially females over 50. And the reason for this? Men have been so unwilling to allow women into power, so crazed by women who have ability and might show them up, so stubborn in their fantasies of keeping women subjugated, that they have created this monster Clinton, and turned women away from supporting a transcendent male candidate.
Obama, a good and decent man, a man who sees women as equals, a man who transcends race and gender and the pain racism and sexism have caused, is the recipient of feminism's final revenge within the Democratic Party.
Rush Limbaugh thought he was putting an end to feminism when he described feminists as ugly, bitter women. Well Hillary Clinton is one ugly, bitter woman. And her female supporters, having no other powerful woman to support, are willing to distort what feminism was really about and follow her right into the hell of the Rove play book. Hell hath no fury, as they say, and many women in America are ready and willing to foist this monster on the country because it’s the first time they had the opportunity to put any woman into the presidency. That's a powerful motivation and cannot be underestimated.
I still don't think she'll win the nomination, unless she is willing to nuke the Party by overturning the will of the majority (and she's willing to nuke Iran, so perhaps she is) but she and the women who have had it with men, combined with the men and women who still hate and fear blacks, can destroy the Party's chances of winning in November by completely destroying Barack Obama and with him, perhaps, the future of the Democratic Party.
What it really comes down to is this: Will the older members of the Democratic Party, most notably the baby boomers, stuck in the past in their prejudices and bitterness, be able to deny a voice to the under forty voters who have moved beyond racism and sexism?
And will the Democratic Party allow this completely narcissistic and pathological couple to destroy what has long been its commitment to equality, justice, and fair play, and perhaps destroy itself in the process?
