count every white vote

Is the Clinton team predictable, or is the Clinton team predictable?  On Monday I suggested (satirically, I thought) that their next tactic would be to suggest that the Democrats hold "whites-only primaries" from here on in.   Greg Sargent reports Clinton's chief  strategist, Geoff Garin, is now saying essentially the same thing:

Geoff Garin made the case for her electability in some of the most explicitly race-based terms I've heard yet.

Garin argued that the North Carolina contest, which Obama won by 14 points, represented "progress" for Hillary because she did better among white voters there than she did in Virginia.

As Sargent puts it, Garin's argument is "an explicit, and unabashed, linking of her claim of electability to her success among whites."  Atrios adds: 

"There's nothing wrong with acknowledging the reality of race and politics, and there's nothing wrong with politicians targeting their campaigns and messaging towards various subgroups ... (but) what the Clinton campaign is doing is saying that Obama has electability problems, and using their support from white voters as evidence of that. That's a wee bit problematic, and not just because it doesn't follow logically any more than (their) other electability arguments ..."

Guess who never won more than 43% of the white vote in either of his Presidential runs?  Bill Clinton.  Granted, that was a three-party race.  Bush I didn't win a majority of those votes either, but  he beat Clinton among whites both times and still lost.

This doesn't just undercut the last remaining Clinton electability argument.  It also speaks to the commonly-accepted spin that Clintons have more inherent appeal to the Bubba vote than other politicians.  If good ol' boy Bill couldn't whip patrician George Sr. with these voters, how can Hillary claim she'll conquer war hero McCain in the same demographic?  Are they going to be more impressed with her time at Wellesley than with his in the Hanoi Hilton?

And all this begs the question:  Why even bother counting other votes if you're going to use this kind of logic?

Comments

[Peter Kohan]

It's worse than saying Obama has electability problems. Garin's argument is that white votes matter more and have more inherent value, and the only way to win white votes is with a white candidate. Garin's argument certainly won't hold much weight in 20 or 30 years, when white people will be the minority population in this country. And as the GOP uses every trick in the book to prop up the fortunes of white folks everywhere - how come we don't regard those policies as "welfare for white folks?"

It also makes the assumption - which the Clinton campaign has been trying to make with no evidence of this actually playing out in November - that because Clinton won these voters over during the primary season that they won't vote for Obama in the general election... as if she was going to run as a third party candidate of the "Inevitability Party" and split Democratic voters in two come Election Day, 2008. It ain't gonna happen. The economy isn't going to improve by much, if any measure. Gas prices aren't going to come down because we want them to. Banks aren't going to not foreclose on people's homes when the loans aren't paid. The environment for a Democratic victory in November is, therefore, not going to get worse, unless there is a candidate gaffe of enormous proportion.

[daniel]

Instead of counting as only
half the Florida and Michigan delegates,
why not count every non-white vote as half
a vote. That would clearly make HC the
rightful heiress to the throne.

[tressie]

If there is a bright side to this circus act it is hearing, for once, the kind of talk once reserved for "non-mixed" audiences getting some press. This isn't new. White politicians have always played on the inherent bias and fear of, mostly, uneducated white people to win. But not since King got shot have we seen it so blatently discussed in public. This is a good thing. Let the light shine, even if it is on the almighty Clintons.

Now, can we finally talk about Hillary's problem with the African-American vote...or are we still emotionally-driven animals with no opposable thumbs or critical thinking skills?

[Thomas Mc]

daniel said: "…why not count every non-white vote as half
a vote."

Um, don't you mean 3/5ths?

(Article 1, Section 2, Paragraph 3 of the United States Constitution)
;)