I Vow to Keep Posting Obama/Clinton Unity Threads Until They Form Their Ticket

McCamy Taylor

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Sun Apr-27-08 01:54 AM
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I Vow to Keep Posting Obama/Clinton Unity Threads Until They Form Their Ticket

I don�t care how many threads say �Recommend ME if you don�t want to think about unity�. They can rise all the way to heaven. I have crunched the numbers over and over, and my math (as opposed to Karl Rove�s) tells me that a Democratic ticket with Obama/Clinton will win this fall. It will not be easy, because the move will be gutsy, but the win will be all the more important, because it will be a hard fought battle.

I. The Math The prolonged primary season has been good for the Democrats in one way. It has encouraged record numbers of Democrats to register and participate in the primary process.

http://www.democrats.org/a/2008/02/democrats_shatt.php

People who bothered to come to the polls and vote for either Clinton or Obama are likely to do it again this fall if the candidate they support is on the general election ballot. Good turn out is good for the Democratic Party. There is only so much E-vote fraud that Republicans can use. In 2006, the Democrats were able to retake the Senate because the GOP election fraud system ran up against that pesky old margin of error and could not steal any more votes (the Democratic victory probably would have been larger without e-vote fraud). It is not going to be enough to have a squeaker. Dems need to play all their cards. If both Obama and Clinton have a sizable, devoted following within the Democratic Party, then get that party back to the polls this November. Do not take a chance that some voters will be disappointed that their candidate is not going all the way to the White House.

Obama and Clinton make a combo, because they compliment each other in terms of Democratic base. Obama has the youth vote, which is larger this year than it has been in a long time.

http://www.blackamericaweb.com/site.aspx/bawnews/movingamerica08/youngvoters331

He has the African-American vote which will likely turn out in record numbers in the general as in the primaries. He has the educated, higher income vote and a cross over vote that poaches from some traditional Republican and Independent voting blocks.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/106381/Obama-Education-Gap-Extends-General-Election.aspx

Obama makes up for his poorer performance among voters with the least formal education by doing well against McCain among college graduates -- particularly those with postgraduate education (who tend to vote Democratic) but also on a relative basis among those with a four-year college degree only, a reliable Republican group.

That is good. Obama has the potential to grab some economic Republicans who are fed up with the recession, the high price of gas and the war.

Clinton has an important Democratic base, too. It includes older voters, who are some of the most reliable at going to the polls. Hispanic voters, who have been alienated by the GOP�s racist-sounding anti-immigration rhetoric.

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/742/hispanic-vote-exit-poll-texas-primary

She also appeals to lower income, blue college Democrats with a high school education. See the gallup link above. The reason why this is important is because John McCain has the potential to poach these voters (who are sometimes pejoratively called �Reagan Dems� a term I abhor) away from Obama. They perceive him as a fighter, a war hero, one of them (even though he isn�t and even though he will not represent their economic interests). With Clinton on the Democratic ticket, they are more likely to retain their party loyalty.

II. History . This is the winning strategy of 1960, when JFK and LBJ, two very different politicians with different styles and different bases combined to defeat the Vice President of a popular president in a time of relative prosperity and contentment. That election was a close one. This election should not be so close, except that we know that Karl Rove will use his usual array of dirty tricks. These will include having media whores spread propaganda against the Democrats. Using the DOJ to prosecute Democratic politicians and hinder get out the vote drives. Having the Republicans in Congress stall voting reform legislation. E-vote fraud will be used. Nader will be supported by the GOP since this will allow them to shave extra points with E-vote fraud from the Democrats� vote totals above what would be allowed from the margin of error. Exit pollsters will be hindered. Public transportation may be stopped as it was in Fort Worth in 2006, when the Teamsters Union (supporters of Texas Republican Governor Rick Perry) called a sudden unnecessary strike of bus service in the city during the November election, a strike which ended abruptly a couple of days later with no concessions. There may be bogus terror warnings in urban centers. These tactics and more will serve to level the play field which should be extremely lop sided considering the recession, the war, the price of oil and John McCain�s obvious neurological problems.

Another dirty trick that we need to be prepared for is the Brokered Democratic Convention. Rush Limbaugh was not joking when he called for riots in Denver. The RNC will not be able to stage these if both Obama and Clinton are on the ticket. The Democrats will go to Denver unified. All the work that the RNC has spent trying to Divide and Conquer the party as it was divided and conquered in 1968 by the assassination of Bobby Kennedy and then in 1972 by CREEP will go down the toilet.

Another RNC plot will be wasted too. I refer to the ongoing plan to tar either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton as a dirty tricksters who stole the Democratic Primary. Everyone here knows how the Hillary is a dirty trickster media narrative will go. We are writing it everyday in DU.

Only six people at DU noticed when I wrote a journal about how the mainstream media has been working on a narrative for the RNC which I call Barack Obama is a dirty Chicago style politician . I am going to link it here and post some highlights from it, because I think that it is important to know that the same news guys who pretend to feel things tingle up their thighs when they hear him talk have been scheming against him behind his back for a solid year and a half, laying the ground work for the Republican�s general election attacks on him---attacks that will be meaningless if his primary opponent chooses to run as his VP.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x5277320

Here is Howard Fineman last December:

But consider these facts. His political roots were planted on the South Side of Chicago. The Daley Family backs him. His top advisor is the mustachioed David �The Ax� Axelrod, one of the toughest touts in the business. His campaign was reborn on Oct. 30 in Philadelphia, when he and John Edwards joined forces to label Hillary Clinton � in almost so many words � a corrupt liar. And in just the last few days, Obama has launched a tough direct-mail assault against her health care plan, also accusing Edwards of having done nothing in the Senate in the name of political reform.
So much for Mr. Nice Guy.

Here is Matthews from 2006:

MATTHEWS: Did he, well, welsh on the deal?
McCAIN: Say that again.
MATTHEWS: Did he welsh on the deal? Did he double-cross you by going partisan after promising to go bipartisan with you, senator?
McCAIN: You know, I'm sorry, it's garbled, Chris, you're going to have to try to repair it, because I'm, you're, you're garbled.

On Tucker, June 2007

FERGUSON: Well, I think they realize that once Obama stops Hillary, we're going to wish that Hillary will turn around and stop Obama, once we get to know him. You know, this thing -- and we are just getting to know him, that's part of the point of this Times story and why it's so interesting. And it shows why there hasn't really been a serious presidential candidate from Illinois since 1956, Adlai Stevenson. Illinois politics is uniquely corrupt, and anybody who succeeds in it is going to sooner or later wind up in bed with a man like this Rezko fellow. Pols in Illinois keep guys like him around to help with the real estate deal here, maybe to give their cousin a job, or fill up a board seat there. You know, this is -- you can't get away from this in Illinois politics, and nobody has, and sure enough, Barack Obama's one of them.

There is a lot more in the journal. I could never figure out why none of the Obama supporters on the board read it. If I were backing a candidate, I would want to know the GOP oppo so I could counter it.

As I showed with my recent journal on the �Race Memo�, the MSM, especially the guys at the GE empire were careful to leave a trail a mile wide of inflammatory news stories after that memo was published in the Huffington Post. Sure, GE/MSNBC may have helped Obama get a few extra votes in South Carolina, but what they really accomplished is they left an internet record with which the McCain camp---or more likely the RNC, since straight shooter McCain will not do his own oppo�will be able to �prove� that Obama forced the MSM to spread lies about the Clintons. They even quoted him saying twice that his campaign had nothing to do with any of the race stuff, something that Karl Rove could easily twist later into a lie. If the guys at GE/MSNBC are supposed to be Obama�s friends, why did they do that? In order to help the favorite son of the Pentagon (GE�s biggest contractor) in the fall election? McCain could point to that Memo at a later date and say to Hillary�s blue collar base�which Gallup says is already predisposed to like McCain---�Poor Hillary. She was robbed.�

One way to defuse this time bomb is to bring it out into the open now, deal with it, get it behind us and then select a winner. If Obama wins even after we have discussed it, then no one can say he won by a "dirty trick", because a dirty trick has to be secret.

The bomb becomes a dud if the Dems decide on the Unity ticket.

III. Reconciliation None of the divide and conquer shit that the news media has been pulling will amount to a hill of beans if the two candidates prove that fighting for the good of American people is all that they have really been fighting for. If Clinton can say �I don�t mind that Obama said x, y and z about me. It just proves he is dedicated to the cause.� And Obama says �That Hillary is some kind of spunky fighter� then the American Democrats will be happy. The press won�t like it. They will try to start wars. They will read weird meanings into every little word and gesture of Bill and Michelle. Screw the press.

Now, Clinton supporters are going to argue that she should be at the head of the ticket, because she has more experience. However, this is America, and I do not think that we are ready for the electorate to vote for a woman president. Woman as help-mate, sure. Also, Obama is more presidential. I know that sounds dumb, but since the advent of television in presidential campaigns in 1960, candidates have had to pass the photogenic test. Obama has what Bill Clinton had. He can get himself out of any kind of shit by giving a speech. Hillary can not do that. That ability will allow Obama to do what presidents have to do in their role as head cheerleader, build consensus, quiet worry, encourage hope. There will be plenty of public servant type stuff that Hillary can do.

In Duluth Gore Vidal had the idea of multiple presidents for each of the many tasks required of the president. It was a joke in that book, but we have seen a bit of it in real life. Nixon had Kissinger. Bush has Cheney. Clinton used both his wife and Gore. LBJ turned out to be a fortuitous choice for VP for JFK, since he was able to accomplish many of the things that JFL would have liked to have done if he had had more time. Obama and Clinton would be just like JFK and LBJ, two very different people with different strengths and different bases who do not see eye to eye but who can combine their forces to get the job done.

The main reason to create the Unity ticket is to heal the Party. This primary is not about either of the candidates or their aspirations. It is about voters who have been pissed on for years�centuries in the case of Blacks, Latino immigrants, women, gays. It is about economic justice. If we have a chance to invite a few people to the table or all the people to the table, it is better to invite all the people to the table. Particularly in a democracy, where all the people have a vote.

I do not want to hear �But Clinton is rich! Poor people should not vote for her! We need to teach them the error of their ways.� She is the hope of a whole bunch of working class, underemployed, undereducated, disadvantaged people right now, and who would we be to deprive them of their hope, especially if it leads them to vote for their economic advantage? Plus, it is false to think that only poverty can understand or empathize with poverty. She has found some kind of common ground�and no, it is not xenophobia. The GOP has a lot more of that to offer people who are looking for something to hate.

�Poverty dehumanizes rich and poor alike. In the first place, the poor ;poverty carries with it all kinds of needs; it destroys emotional life, one�s relationship with others; it continually places obstacles in the way of the essential vocation of human beings to develop themselves and expand their abilities beyond the survival instinct; it leads them to envy, hatred, violence against those responsible for their misery, and often against God, raising their fist against heaven

�It dehumanizes the rich because it leads them to consider the poor as inferior, outcasts of society, the dead weight of history. In those societies where there was slavery, there was a brutal dehumanization of the poor�.Both sides live full of fear; the poor because of the continuous threats against them and the rich because of the vindictive rebellion of the poor.�

�To live humanly means to feel the warmth of someone who says to us in spite of our physical and moral misery; �It is good that you exist, Brother. You are welcome. The sun is also yours, the air is everybody�s, and love can unite our hearts.�
Leonardo Boff Saint Francis: A Model For Human Liberation

Obama offers hope for the young and for African-Americans of all economic classes. Hillary offers hope to the economically disadvantaged and elderly. Hope is hope, wherever it is offered. If it gets Americans to the polls to take charge of their own destiny, then it the right thing.