The Democratic Presidential Nomination: True Change Playing Against a Stacked Deck – Between the Lines

In the meantime, Obama beats four of the five top Republican candidates and is even with the fifth. An American public that wants change can’t lose sight of the end game by getting twisted in the primary mix. And we can’t afford a Democratic Party without a message. Only one candidate in either major party had a resonating message going into the Iowa caucus. That message was “Change” and the messenger was Obama.

The first marked card in the deck is this “tag-team” act being pulled off by the Clintons. Hilary Clinton is a sharp candidate, but she is not a change candidate. She is an extension of her husband’s legacy, which has some good and bad aspects to it. Bill Clinton was a very popular President despite his checkered administration. She is not Bill, and has much higher negatives than her positives. She is considered the most polarizing political figure of all the candidates running. When people started to see through her “experience” play, she attacked “hope” and “change” (this is the controversial “King needed a President” comment), cried when her message wasn’t getting any traction (calling it “a game” that some people are playing) then rolled Bill out to bang on Obama’s plan for an exit out of Iraq (with his “fairy tale” comment). While Clinton built the best economy of the 20th Century, he was one of the weakest foreign policy Presidents we ever had (he slept while massacres occurred in Kosovo, Rwanda and Dakfur), but suddenly he’s gotten smarter as an ex-President. That’s how she pulled out New Hampshire. Then she busted the Union endorsement in Nevada, while having Bill spin Obama as “the establishment candidate.” The Clinton’s have run the Democratic Party for 16 years and Hilary has raised more corporate, lobbyist and special interest money than anybody in the race (from both parties). She’s as “establishment” as it gets and the Clinton’s are gaming the party at the expense of the party’s unity. Hilary bangs on Barack at the debate tables and Bill bangs on him as an “election observer” but he’s always constantly saying “we.” They intend to divide the party if it can’t be twisted for Hilary. The division factor will play large, come convention time, as the Democrats seek not to shoot themselves in both feet. They have a tendency to do that, you know. It happened in 2000 and 2004.

Consider three things that have occurred since Iowa:

The third marked card in the deck is this move to make Obama “a black candidate.” The question as to whether Barack is black enough has been asked and answered. His crossover appeal is unprecedented as his message resonates with all races and classes. The media is trying to say that the Clintons have more appeal with lower (economic) class Blacks and will split the black vote along class lines. African Americans have never been a monolith, but we cannot let the media (nor the Clintons) play us against each other. Then there are older Blacks, who remember what America was (and in some instances, still is), refuse to believe that a black President is even a remote reality and don’t want to “waste” their vote. As remote as it might be, it’s even more remote when the people who would benefit the most – believe the least. How many years have Blacks wasted their vote on a Democratic Party that took us for granted? Now is not the time to run scared or be frivolous in our political views. America will never change if we, Black America, don’t change it. Don’t let the pessimism card kill the greatest opportunity Black America has ever seen.