The Brothers and Sisters War
All politics is local, said the late House Speaker "Tip" O'Neill.
Tip was wrong. All politics is tribal—as we just rediscovered in the New Hampshire primary.
With Obama surging and Hillary reeling after a third-place finish in Iowa, it seemed all the dreams of a Clinton restoration would come crashing down on the eighth of January.
All the pollsters predicted it. All the pundits agreed. And all the anti-Clintonites, sensing this was the kill, came streaming out of their closets to mock Hillary and hail Barack, as they once hailed Bill.
"The Hun is always at your feet or at your throat," said Winston Churchill.
Anticipating a blowout, the chattering class found confirmation Monday morning in an emotional moment when Hillary choked up and began to tear up. All day, all night, all the next day, they rebroadcast the breaking of Hillary. The gloating and glee were pandemic.
Others, however, saw it, too. Undecided Democratic voters and independents, especially women, saw the bullies taunting the girl in the schoolyard, pulling her pigtails, making her cry. The maternal instinct kicked in, hard. Women poured out to pick Hillary up, dust her off, and put her back on her feet, back into the race and back into the lead.
Hillary's victory became a stunning upset because no one had predicted it and no one had expected it after Iowa and all those polls showing Obama pulling away.
What happened in New Hampshire was a backlash against press, pollsters, pundits and piling on. When Bill Clinton suggested the press was in the tank for Barack, he understated his case. In the first days after Iowa, you would have thought Obama had been born in Bethlehem.
He is the greatest orator since Dr. King, we were told. He has the passion of Bobby Kennedy and the cerebral cool of JFK. He will lead us out of the desert of division into the sunny uplands of racial harmony. The caucuses of Iowa were the Lexington and Concord of a new American Revolution. Providence has sent us this great gift.
Then New Hampshire rejected him. Worse, New Hampshire left the pollsters and pundits with egg all over their faces. Instantly, there arose the need to explain why everyone had been wrong. And instantly came the answer: It was racism.
"The Bradley Effect" defeated Barack, the pundits suggested.
The Bradley Effect is named for Tom Bradley, the popular black Los Angeles mayor who was running well ahead of his GOP opponent for governor in the polls, only to see his lead vanish on Election Day. The Bradley Effect—voters lying to pollsters about how they intend to vote for a black candidate, then going into the booth to pull the lever for the white opponent—this closet racism defeated Obama.
Why was there no Bradley Effect in Iowa? Because in Iowa they have to vote in public, while in New Hampshire they have the privacy, the secrecy, of the voting booth.
But this explanation has about it an aura of spin and sour grapes. How can the Bradley Effect explain why John Edwards, the hedge fund populist, collapsed? How does the Bradley Effect explain why women surged to Hillary, 57 percent of them, while men stayed with Barack?
The real divide in the Democratic Party is the clash between the McGovern wing—the highly educated and the college young—against the Humphrey-Mondale wing. And while African-Americans are moving to Obama because he is one of them, women, a majority in the party, are moving to Hillary because she is one of them. Blacks and women are dividing in the Democratic Party over the issue of: Do we want the first black president or the first woman president? And in the first major battle of the Brothers & Sisters War, the sisters won.
This could get ugly. As Hillary's victory in New Hampshire is being attributed to the Bradley Effect—i.e, white racism—any Barack victory in South Carolina will now be attributed to the black vote, what in the Old South they used to call "the bloc vote."
Obama could cease to be a crossover candidate and rapidly be relegated to the Jesse Jackson role—the African-American perennial runner-up who is ceded the black and liberal vote—and bought off with a prime-time speech at the convention and a campaign plane in the fall.
Racism was not responsible for Obama's defeat in the Granite State. Indeed, race is the reason for his rise from nowhere. Race is the reason the liberals are kneeling in adoration. And gender is not Hillary's problem. Gender is Hillary's biggest asset in a party mired since the 1960s in ethnic, gender and race politics.
In the last New Hampshire debate, Hillary was asked about her likability, why so many folks seemed to like Obama more. She gave the sweet answer of the schoolgirl: "Well, that hurts my feelings. ... He's very likable. I agree with that," referring to Obama. "I don't think I'm that bad."
"You're likable enough, Hillary," Obama sneered.
In that moment, the "fairy tale" may have just gone poof.
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Archangels March – 1915
At the end of Nineteen-fourteenth the intruder sank. Caesar’ Army melts on the boggy road. Cast of the boots set far away: the spiked grenadier took over the slot. They maimed more than a hundred thousand.
Guardians, many got ill. A million lost to the peril of the Great War. Many fell to the Moloch’s step. Misery had just set – a queer hat.
Heaven, ... Cry, ... Help, ... and they raced from the known world. Many a lady, husband and wife, daughter, sister and a kin - gracious as they were: seven hundred of them. They shared the risk with the needy. They lay across their hand.
Under the threes, near to the lilac, stand a stone, ... a candle, and a wreath. “To those that rest in quiet”, at the godly shore - the church bell tolls, Amen.
Tread by tread, who live must depart. To the river-spring, to the hills-peak, ... and again, ... and again, ... through the blizzard they charted a pat to the merciful sea. For every yard they payed a fee to the vulture - an ignorant creature hiding in the dusk - behind the bush, to slam at the back.
Mother, oh mother, ... who to hear the farewell pray? Yet, they ought to carry on - mark of ages, tag on the Sorb’ head. In spite of odds, with heaven’s help to the briny and yonder, they orderly march: flock of the Sixty Thousand, Amen.
PDJGBP
New theme song for the campaign:
"stand by your mom..."
_______________________
Why do I feel like I'm watching Clinton re-runs, what with the writers' strike and all?
But they seem to do better writing their own material. The ululating of a profoundly disappointed albeit unbelievably idealistic [king] hillary... Headline - Miracles Never Cease: Hillary Ululates
i'm coming mommy, i'll save Ya!
I don't think race or gender are the major issues. Ethnic folkways are.
Iowa, NH, and SC have little in common, contrary to the Lincoln myth of "one nation". Ferdinand Braudel got it right: One ought to consider how a culture and its folkways don'tchange. New England hasn't changed since 1641, nor SC since 1717, nor Iowa since 1848 -- all with very different histories and, accordingly, very different folkways. 2/3 of NH is Puritan (and they're the Dimmykrats). So one should expect Nurse Ratched to win with the folks who gave us Salem MA, and for her to lose in Iowa with the Middle Europeans who couldn't weather the Revolution of 1848 or the potato famine.
Watch SC. Check out McCain's ancestry at his grandfather's write up on the Wikipedia: q.v. "John S. McCain, Sr". McCain's roots are Borderer Backcountry ("Scots Irish") from North Carolina, and the Borderers have been warriors for 1000 years. McCain is a Borderer thane. Expect the SC Borderer Backcounty (the majority in the state, and certainly the majority in the Republicans) to support him, as they supported those thanes Patrick Henry, Daniel Shays, Andrew Jackson, and Polk. Why did he get a plurality in NH? because 1/3 of the state is Backcountry (and they're the Republicans). I'm not saying that he'll win, mind you. Nor am I supporting him, however attractive his middle name might be.
See David Hackett Fischer about folkways.
Politics is indeed tribal. In Britain, we have seen electoral fraud on a massive scale. In most cases, the frauds involve Pakistani "community" leaders, i.e. tribal leaders. They collect postal ballot papers, for each family member, from the head of each household and filled in "appropriately". The cities of Birmingham and Bradford are classic examples with past and on-going court cases. Pakistani politicians (representing Labour, Liberals and Conservatives) have all been charged.
Irony, race and gender - the perverse themes to which our public discourse has been reduced, as if they more more important than honesty, integrity, kindness, forthrightness, life, liberty and property - his blacks and her girls, as a dichotomy in the Democratic Party are now the forces in play in the primaries. I hope that the Democratic snake eats itself beginning at the tail. Now if we could just find a similar meaningless dichotomy to get the Republican snake to eat itself starting at the tail.
Sidebar pursuant to "tribe": I assert, and I am sure that it is not original with me whether a valid assertion or not, that the problems in the Arab world, in the Middle East, are not with Islam per se but with the tribal and clannish nature of social and political interactions, with marriage being the anchor thereof.
It is my opinion that the black communities are fundamentally interested in the federal patronage that generally comes with the Democratic Party and which the Clintons understand and in which they have proved themselves by delivering the federal monies in the forms of welfare, grants, loans, etc. One of the successful conduits of this payola (It is payola because there is an understood quid pro quo - money for support and power, i.e. the parties are mutually on a wink-wink bases invested in the deal.) is the 501C(3), particularly, for example, in the federally funded public housing which flows through a not-for-profit. Therefore, although drawn to Obama because of the race which he has chosen to represent himself to be, blacks will be careful, perhaps so careful as to voice "Obama" and secretly vote "Hillary." as they assess who can deliver the goods.
As to gender, girls will be girls. I am all out of profundity.
I'm a lay monastic so it just boggles my mind how you all get into the details of this world. cudos to ya'all - sid, r.m. peters - ya'all. especially mr. peters. we're herein for the duration. it ain't so bad usually. the worst is always yet to come. sometimes along the way even the better. keep your toes crossed as they say.
Br. Fairdinkum,
"The worst is always yet to come, sometimes along the way even the better."
Yes, the very real potential when one, upon rising, asks the Christ, "Domine, quo vadimus?" There is no telling where the Shepherd may take His sheep. There are the green pastures and the still waters, and then there are the valleys echoing with the terrifying roar of lions and the numbing howls of wolves.
A sidebar: Have you ever read A Canticle for Leibowitz?
No. I hear you - but like to chicks my advice is to not let the boys 'in'.
I'm too simple even for our mother Church whom i revere, under God.
that's why i'm a lay monastic.
i don't recommend it - i'm weird, sadly & happily.
nothing at the center of the Universe except what we create UNDER God. wuv'ya... and it gets complicated for most before simple again.
are you really cool... or one of the wise shills? i don't know. ?
Obama is an unreconstructed leftist on every issue.The "new politics".Nonsense.He is an inexperienced ultra-liberal who doesn't depart from chic idiocy on every issue.If he was a white guy no one would pay attention to him.The media swoons over Hussein-I find him repellent.The swaggering clown even wants to give driver's licenses to illegal aliens.
What tears? I saw none, although her voice cracked. Which is easy to fake and necessary in this case since Hilary has all the warmth of a robot or the woman Dorothy's house landed on n Oz.
I kid. humor: the only thing better than an intellectual is a pseduo-intellectual; and the only thing that trumps that is a non-intellectual.
Why-?- pray tell? - those with high enough i.q. know the answer - those without such brains... will never be ready in this lifetime to know. so next lifetime, ok? or go to heaven instead if possible. there there's no i.q.'s in my opinion.
__________
What trumps a non-intellectual is someone who makes no sense.
Thank you PcH ... i'll take some. no you're right. the world when it's ready one day will stop 'making sense' ... funny... PcH i hear you - as if the world Could (make sense)? HA-HA-HA. are you really there PcH ... or is it an additive - pCh ... if so and it's non-adictive - can I have some? ... if it's not illegal.
i wouldn't pay it any mind it's just a shadow that we're seeing that He's chasing... funny.
ok.
if we saw God at birth and then at death ... that's the type thing - if you see what i'm saying - it Would then [oh gosh suddenly make sense] ... w/G-d it's alway in time ... or out of it... too... like you & me bud. Funny... odds against... we'll just DIE ok no problem.
I have not verified it myself, but I have read that districts with hand-counted ballots had vote totals as the polls predicted, while districts with machine-counted ballots reversed the expected wins for Mr. Obama and went for Ms. Clinton.
That's exactly the pattern we saw in 2004, with hand-counted vote totals coming out as expected and machine-counted districts flipping from Kerry to "der heilige Dubya." (I'm no fan of Kerry, but let's face it: even he would have been a slight improvement.)
Given that (1) the voting machines are controlled by Diebold (a.k.a. Premier Election Systems), (2) Diebold most likely helped fix the 2004 election results for Dubya, and (3) neoconservative Republicans are practically salivating at the thought of having Hillary Clinton to chew on in 2008, it seems possible that Diebold flipped the primary results from Mr. Obama to Ms. Clinton.
I don't know if that happened or not. It would be great if we had independent news media to investigate. Don't hold your breath.
As the Russians used to say, "Pravda nyeh Izvestia, Izvestia nyeh Pravada" ("The truth isn't news and the news isn't truth").
yeah like they can't manipulate the votes in [electronic] voting booths? ... stop sending your tax dollars to OZ ... now they're going to follow you via your driver's license to "protect" you from them/i.e. "the terrorists" ... you pieces of sh-t - bithches... questions? you sc-m. tear it Down - bithches. look in the f--king mirror who-es.
without your love i'd be nowhere at all... so i care about You!!!
To Robert M. Peters: I also hope the Democratic and Republican parties destroy themselves. I have been waiting for years to hear a mainstream black leader have the balls to say that the destruction of the black American family is due to the Democratic Party ideology since the late 1960's. I'm pretty sure that "opening your mind" through narcotics and "free love" were not preached to blacks by the Republicans or traditional black Churches. In the same way, the current Presidential administrations revered idea of Globalization was gradually embedded into white, Western societies since Nixon's historic trip to China. Logic would say that that both parties involved are there forth hostile to the original demographic groups of the North American continent. (Even the native Americans may one day very soon be forced to concede their control on newly begotten enterprises to "more profitable" corporations.) Unfortunately, its seems the American population becomes more ignorant every passing year. That's my opinion. P.S. Sorry to startle you all but I am a chronic night owl.
Jon at 17,
If one is an owl, one had best be out at night; for owls, daytime hunting is not very good! Most owls whom I know rest or sleep during the day. Are you a horned owl or a screech owl? If you live in Yankee climes, perhaps you are a great snowy owl!
Funnin'!
Seriously, I loathe political factions. The two political parties, actually, the Janus head of the same elites, have so ensconced themselves into the minds of Americans that most Americans seem to believe that they are mentioned in and supported by the Constitution, particularly since they have indeed statutized (I do not know if that is a word, but I like it!) themselves into state law.
"It doesn't matter who votes. What matters is who counts the votes."....Josef Stalin
The Diebold fraud is becoming more obvious to the whole world.
When Hilary & Obama are elected Pres and VP, we the People will have the needed reason to revolt: Diebold.
I can here the slogan now: Die free or Diebold.
Coined on ChronicleMagazine.org, 2008.1.14.
Woops. I should have written "elected" in quotation marks.
LIVE FREE OR DIEBOLD Has already been coined elsewhere. I like it.
From the header article Re: "...Hillary choked up and began to tear up...Women poured in to pick Hillary up, dust her off etc..."
Bruno [to borrow RET's nickname] can tear up and weep pretty
good, and Bruno can play the female card pretty good, but Bruno
can't shake Wild Bill off her trail no matter what she says or does.
Wild Bill is like a turd that won't flush. And Wild Bill will sink Bruno's national election campaign, if there is one, because
America knows that if Bruno is elected POTUS that Wild Bill, after he says "Good night" to Bimbo, will be sneaking into the White House every night to tell Bruno what to do.
And America has had enough of Bill Clinton. They are not going to put Lover Boy back in the Big House for a third term.
Also, Bruno has left a paper and video trail behind her over the years that is large enough to shut down You Tube's servers.
And it's mostly liberal-socialist stuff. The GOP's long knives are going to search out every utterance that Bruno has spoken on film in her long and disgusting political career, and they're going to put it on the nightly news and every TV spot they can buy with
their huge "war chests", as they like to call it, and they're going to sink Bruno in the national election if she is the nominee. And that's in addition to linking her with Lover Boy.
Good-by Bruno, go back to New York and keep pulling Bloomberg's chain. Rattle his cage now and then, too.
The last honest election in the U.S. was 1860. And let's not let our hatred of the Clintons make us forget that the Republicans are just as bad---if not worse. How could anyone be worse than Little Bush?
Bravo Leon!
Another almost perfect piece, Mr. Buchanan.
You (and Speaker O'Neil) both got one thing wrong though. Politics are neither local nor tribal. All politics are personal.
I would thoroughly enjoy a campaign based upon realism. Every political candidate paints himself as the only salvation for the country. These goons and their supporters really believe that the only way for the US to survive is if their candidate or party wins the election. Every campaign for the White House is a moral crusade. I want to hear them say that the reason they want to be elected is because of the power, the perks and the positions they can hand out to their cronies to help keep them in power. Let's have more of the kind of campaign that was offered by that college student who (humorously) ran for Congress last time. His ad had him promising a huge pizza party for his supporters if he won. In the ad he says: "People ask me why I am running for Congress. Are you kidding??? Do you know how much money those people make!!" Loved it.