Barack Obama’s overwhelming victory in South Carolina today was, of course, important. What does it mean?
I don’t often agree with Pat Buchanan, but he’s been making an interesting point lately that a lot of the Mainstream Media (MSM) are suppressing, even on the air to Buchanan’s face. (I saw him attempt to explain his thesis on air recently and the other panelists didn’t even give him a chance to explain– they just shouted him down, focusing exclusively on the magnitude of Obama’s win in South Carolina, and ignoring the consequences for subsequent primaries.)Â Buchanan’s thesis, IIRC, is that the Clintons knew they weren’t going to win in South Carolina, so they laid a trap for him there. Let him win in SC, with a lopsided Black vote, and paint him as The Black Candidate. Hillary, of course, has been painted as The Women’s Candidate. There are more women than Blacks. Therefore, if they can convince America that this an Identity Politics campaign, Hillary wins.
But Obama, of course, has been trying to run a post-identity politics campaign. Apart from his memorable MLK-day speech at Ebenezer Baptist church, he has not been running as a Black American, as Jesse Jackson (the last Black candidate who ran for president and actually won several primaries.) The Clintons are trying to pull him off-message.
I think the Clintons are trying to sell the media on the Identity Politics meme. If they can get the media talking about Obama as the Black Candidate, and Hillary as the Woman’s candidate, and Edwards as the White Male candidate, I think they figure that they can win. In so doing, of course, they’ll also paint Edwards into a corner.
Obama needs to stay on message as a post-Identity Politics candidate. But can he do it, against the framing of the Clintons and the MSM?
Bob