Mike Murray essay -- Collateral Damage

27 May 2008

Collateral Damage

--by Mike Murray

Although I am not a Clinton supporter, I felt sorry for the woman on the television screen. She seemed so sincere. And she was so very sad. Clutching a “Hillary” campaign sign, she responded to a reporter this way: “There’s still a chance that she can win.”

The network opted not to reveal the interviewer’s question to its audience. But it clearly hurt the feelings of the woman to whom it was posed. Given her reply, you can guess its nature. It no doubt went something like, “Since Barack Obama’s got the Democratic nomination wrapped up, why are you bothering to campaign for Clinton?”

The reporter’s obvious bias aside (his question was posed in mid-April, when Obama had nothing wrapped up – he still doesn’t, for that matter), the inquiry was tasteless. And a little mean. Why should anyone have to apologize for following her heart? It is unlikely that the woman’s decision to support Hillary was based solely on the probability of success – excellent though it was only a few months ago.

There are worse things than supporting a losing candidate. Lots of things. Selling out is at the very top of that list. The notion that any person owes her allegiance to the candidate anointed by party honchos (or the mainstream media) is ludicrous.

Moreover, if there truly exists an obligation on the part of the Democratic party’s rank-and-file membership to support the leading candidate, then bigwigs should have demanded that Obama enthusiasts – many of them African American – support Hillary while she was flying high. You know, when she seemed “inevitable.”

They didn’t insist that blacks owed Hillary their support back then. So they’ve go no business arguing that women owe Barack anything now.

Speaking of African Americans, I recently observed a black man in my neighborhood mowing his front-yard lawn. He was riding tall in the saddle of his tractor-mower, an Obama poster proudly jutting up from the emerald blades of spring grass.

Surely, this is the only time in his life that he has had the opportunity to vote for a black person who possesses a real chance of winning. The same is true, no doubt, for the Hillary supporter on television. From both women and blacks in 2008, I hear the same thing: It sure is nice to be able to vote for someone “who looks like me.”

That is understandable. Demographic identification is legitimate, to a degree. But something dangerous happens when that concept is carried too far. And one Democrat blogger – a white female, judging by what she revealed about herself – did just that on the eve of the Pennsylvania primary.

Speaking of white males voting in the Democratic race, she said that they would have to choose between competing biases. If they were more misogynistic than racist, they’d give their vote to Obama. On the other hand, if they hated blacks more than they hated women, they’d mark their ballot for Hillary. Either way, she implied, they’d be holding their noses and voting for “the lesser of two evils.” Either way, they’d be revealing something awful about themselves.

She went on to say that women like her know – by virtue of having dated them for years – that white men are all angry and hateful. The question is, she continued, do they most despise women or blacks?

In that delusional person’s mind, white men are hopelessly wicked. In her judgment, they could do nothing to redeem themselves. Regardless of how they voted in the Pennsylvania primary, they – to her way of thinking – demonstrated bigotry.

Forget politics. That poor soul needs professional help; she should make a beeline for the nearest psychiatrist’s office. (She should also sign up for an anger-management class.)

But irrational thinking isn’t limited to the blogosphere. A senior Obama campaign official recently stated, indirectly, that racial bigots favor Republican John McCain for president. When asked how Barack hopes to win over white voters who consider race a factor (judging by survey results), the Obama spokesman made the outrageous claim that those who “would never vote for an African American” are already in McCain’s corner.

It was a ridiculous charge. Moreover, if those inclined to vote for people who “look like” themselves are improperly biased, then black men are guiltier than are their white counterparts. Because fully 97% of African-American men in Pennsylvania voted for Barack Obama. Ninety-seven percent!

It is a certainty that John McCain will not take anywhere near that percentage of the white vote (male or female) come November – regardless of whether his opponent is Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. But the converse is clearly true: Obama would surely receive an overwhelming majority of the black vote in a head-to-head contest with McCain. McCain’s race would not benefit him to anywhere near the degree that Obama’s would boost him.

Similarly, Hillary stands to benefit more from her gender than McCain does from his – in the unlikely event that they face each other in the general election. In such a match-up, a much higher percentage of women would vote for Clinton than would men for McCain.

The difficulty for Obama is that there are far fewer black voters in America than there are white ones. McCain need not achieve nearly as great a majority among whites as Obama would among blacks to secure a general-election victory. Even if a very high percentage of blacks “voted their race,” the math would still be problematic for Obama.

Women, on the other hand, comprise an absolute majority. They make up more than half of the entire electorate. That reality – and its impact on Democratic prospects come November – seems to be falling on mostly deaf superdelegate ears. (Though it could influence the veep sweepstakes.)

In any case, general-election results will confirm that race and gender preferences are much greater considerations for Democrat voters than they are for Republican ones. And that women and blacks are more likely than are white males to vote for someone who “looks like” them. Bet the farm on it.

Nevertheless, white males find themselves in the position of the husband who is commanded on the witness stand to answer – yes or no – “have you stopped beating your wife?” If the man answers “yes,” he implies that he was previously a beater; if he answers “no,” the jury can infer than he has yet to stop. As the question is framed (and the answer constrained), the husband cannot win.

Such is the case for white males in this election cycle. The ones who vote for McCain in November will be slandered as bigots. (And a lover of old codgers, too. But that’s a topic for another day.) Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean is already spewing venom on the subject, sowing seeds of racial discord.

Dean is trying to paint Republicans – all Republicans – as racists. What else would you expect from the man who once said, “I hate the other party and everything it stands for.” ? Not very open-minded. And not at all in tune with Obama’s stump message: “The enemy is not the other party; it’s cynicism.” It’s no wonder that Democrats decided that Dean was entirely too crazy to represent them in 2004.

Many in the media are also playing the race card. The lowest of the low – at least among broadcast and cable outlets – currently take up space in the studios of MSNBC. Recently, talking heads there have been exploring what they call the “bubba factor.”

“Bubbas,” in MSNBC’s estimation, are blue-collar whites that Obama has had little luck winning over. No doubt, they include the “bitter” small-town residents that Barack said “cling” to religion, guns, and have “antipathy” toward immigrants and those “who don’t look like them.”

Get it? They’re bigots. They must be, if they don’t support the African-American candidate in the race. MSNBC has shamelessly joined the Obama campaign in pushing that absurd notion, and in employing demagogic code language. Plainly and simply, this is their message: If you’re a white person and you oppose presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama – or if you have the temerity to criticize him in any way – you’re racist. Oh yeah: and you’re also uneducated, unsophisticated, and unprofessional. (And you probably live in a “fly over” state, too.)

Despicable. But that’s the shameless low to which many have sunk during this election cycle. And it only looks to get worse, judging by the ads that 527 “advocacy groups” are already beginning to air.

Voters would have been in for much of the same had Clinton emerged as the likely Democratic standard bearer. One Cleveland columnist went so far (a few months back) to suggest that “we hurt our daughters” when we criticize Hillary. She was attempting to insulate Clinton from scrutiny, by labeling anyone who dares take issue with Hillary’s policies or her behavior as not only a hater of women – but of young girls, too. Horrors.

This so-called “journalist” is a nitwit. But so is the on-air “personality” who posed his absurd question to the Hillary supporter. Both are polluters in this filthy election season.

What political partisans in the media and in the blogosphere have trouble grasping (or at least acknowledging) is that reasonable people can disagree. Whites can support McCain or Clinton – just as blacks can support Obama – without being racists. Men can back Obama or McCain without being misogynists; women can prefer Clinton without being men haters.

People like Howard Dean, who are employing scorched-earth tactics during this brutal election season, will leave many innocent victims in their wake. Scoundrels such as they will char the landscape and leave it littered with the bodies of wounded supporters – true believers who fell prey to the ambitions of ruthless politicos.

The victims will include people such as the woman carrying the “Hillary” sign – a person who truly believes Clinton to be the most qualified to be our nation’s next president. Another possible victim is the proud black man on his riding mower, who sincerely feels Obama’s background and experiences make him the best person for the job. And then there are those who – for similarly legitimate reasons – think McCain the best choice to lead America through trying times.

Only one person can win the Oval Office. His or her supporters will be ecstatic. But candidates who lose have ardent supporters, too. And despite what political hacks and many among the media suggest, they are mostly decent folks. It is unconscionable to demean them.

Any person who smears them (or who permits surrogates to do so on his or her behalf) doesn’t deserve the presidency. Any politician who belittles voters whose hearts and minds lead them to a competing candidate doesn’t deserve to hold elected office – of any kind.

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