Clinton Loses Another Black Voter

A reader writes:

I suspect that if Hillary wins this thing the way she’s trying to win it — by race-baiting — black folk will indeed abandon her. Your reader makes the added mistake of underestimating Huckabee’s potential appeal to blacks: he won 40 percent of the black vote in Arkansas. This black voter will certainly give him a closer look if Hillary wins. She’s lost my vote. And she was my first choice until quite recently.

Uncommitted For President

Mark Kleiman gives his endorsement for today’s Democratic Michigan primary. But he has a soft spot for Romney:

Demonstrably, he has an IQ statistically significantly different from zero, isn’t demonstrably bonkers aside from his narcissism, and doesn’t actually believe in anything. That’s a big improvement over much of his opposition.

The Church Of Obama

A perceptive essay by Jonathan Raban on what Obama learned from Jeremiah Wright:

People want The Sermon, not Obama’s well-turned thoughts on foreign or economic policy. What the crowds crave from this scrupulous agnostic is his proven capacity to deliver the ecstatic consolation of old-time religion—a vision of America that transcends differences of race, class, and party, and restores harmony to a land riven under the oppressive rule of a government alien to its founding principles.

The Chimera Of Energy Independence

I wish this brief primer by Robert Bryce weren’t so convincing. One thing worth remembering:

Fans of energy independence argue that if the United States stops buying foreign energy, it will deny funds to petro-states such as Iran, Saudi Arabia and Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela. But the world marketplace doesn’t work like that. Oil is a global commodity. Its price is set globally, not locally. Oil buyers are always seeking the lowest-cost supplier. So any Saudi crude being loaded at the Red Sea port of Yanbu that doesn’t get purchased by a refinery in Corpus Christi or Houston will instead wind up in Singapore or Shanghai.

The Black Establishment And Obama

A reader writes:

Why should anyone be surprised that the "leading figures" in the Black establishment are at best cool to Obama’s candidacy, and at worst, are openly hostile to it. For years there has been an iron triangle of racial politics in the Democratic party.  The largely white party establishment has banked on the loyal support of black voters (easily its most reliable source of voters since the mid-1960’s), which is turned out and kept loyal by a clique of "black leaders."  These black leaders have used this power to produce votes to promote agendas which they have felt benefitted their constituents, but they have also used this power to obtain a great deal of personal wealth and status (probably more important than the money). 

Obama breaks this triangle.

He appeals directly to the average black voter.  His appeal is so obvious and great that he potentially renders the "black leadership" irrelevant and unnecessary.  When this happens, where is the incentive for "grassroots campaign building" contributions and "get out the vote" contributions, or as they are referred to among Democratic party pros, "gift offerings"?   There is none.

As badly as the Clintons may want to beat Obama, the black establishment MUST beat him.  It promises to get nastier before it gets better.

As a postscript, you can substitute the above names with "GOP," "evangelical voters," and "evangelical leaders" in a discussion of why the Republican establishment is so hostile to Mike Huckabee as well.  And I say this as someone who is not a supporter of Huckabee.