Why blacks would go along with the nomination of Hillary

An endlessly repeated tape loop of conventional wisdom in the Democratic contest has been that the super delegates could never, ever vote for Hillary, as that would alienate blacks who had expected Obama to win and thus doom the party to defeat in November.

This has always struck me as one of those truisms—such as “The religious fanatic Osama bin Laden would never, ever have the slightest contact with the secular regime of Saddam Hussein,” that ain’t necessarily so.

Now consider this, from the UPI:

Isaac Onah, a political science professor at the University of North Carolina, told the Boston Globe that black voters … understand why Obama had to repudiate his longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright…

Since blacks are politically mature enough calmly to accept Obama’s throwing his black pastor under a bus in order to have a chance of winning the Democratic nomination, they should also be politically mature enough calmly to accept the Democratic party’s throwingObama under a bus in order for the Democratic party to have a chance of winning the presidency.

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Adela G. writes:

You write: “Since blacks are politically mature enough calmly to accept Obama’s throwing his black pastor under a bus in order to have a chance of winning the Democratic nomination, they should also be politically mature enough calmly to accept the Democratic party’s throwing Obama under a bus in order for the Democratic party to have a chance of winning the presidency.”

Yes, but—! Obama throwing Wright under a bus is just an instance of a black dissing another black. Happens all the time. You can’t really characterize the black response to that as “politically mature”; it’s more fatalistic than anything.

But while Democrats may be the political party for blacks, it’s not really a party of blacks. Like the GOP, it’s essentially run by rich white people. I don’t think blacks would be politically mature enough to accept a bunch of white folks throwing the first ever viable black candidate under the bus so some white woman could get the nomination. And any prominent blacks recommending such a course would merely be labeled an “Uncle Tom”.

In short, I don’t think logic really enters into it.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 03, 2008 01:50 AM | Send