Rednecks: The Other White Meat

That was quite a resounding win Hillary Clinton achieved in the West Virginia primary yesterday. My understanding is that her margin of victory increased because her staff spread the rumor that Obama had fathered two black children. I once spent a week in Parkersburg, West Virginia and it was the longest decade of my life. It was akin to visiting a creepy Appalachian theme park where you can observe people ravaged by poverty in coal country in their natural habitat. Not to suggest that all West Virginians descend from generations of mining families that were forced to put hard work before education, there's just a bunch of them there. Which shouldn't diminish Hillary's huge win, or the need for the Obama campaign to recognize a problem with rural whites, but the troubling rhetoric that dominated the primary should concern all Democrats looking toward the general election.

Hillary entered West Virginia comparing herself to JFK and his 1960 upset win over Hubert Humphrey that helped him secure the Democratic nomination. Kennedy's major challenge in W.VA that year was the controversy surrounding his faith. In W.VA, in particular, it was speculated by his opponents that were Kennedy elected, he would owe his allegiance to the Pope in Rome, rather than the Constitution of the United States. Kennedy replied that if the allegiance he swore to the Constitution was false, he would never have come to West Virginia. After his nomination was secured, JFK said, "Contrary to common newspaper usage, I am not the Catholic candidate for president. I am the Democratic Party's candidate for president, who also happens to be a Catholic." Hillary, in turn, was in pure divide and conquer mode, playing up the fact that her lesser educated, white supporters are Obama's Achilles heel.

The 1960 battle in West Virginia, though a victory for Kennedy, was bitter and divisive to the extent that JFK was forced to make additional and extended comments regarding his religion. He said, "Whatever issue may come before me as president, on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling, or any other subject, I will make my decisions in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be the national interest." Kennedy added, "If the time should ever come...when my office would require me to either violate my conscience or violate the national interest, then I would resign the office; and I hope any conscientious public servant would do the same. In contrast, Hillary said, in a bizarre interview with USA Today last week, that support for Obama among "working..hard working Americans...white Americans..is weakening again," and how, "the whites in both states who have not completed college are supporting me." If this a valid point upon which to bolster a faltering campaign, then "Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy."

The educated women over sixty who have attached themselves, cult-like, to the old guard sisterhood, have not yet realized that the argument over Hillary Clinton is not one of gender, or race, or age, or experience. It's about principle. Is it comforting to be attached to a demographic of lesser educated, rural, white men? Would you vote for a man who co-sponsored an amendment to the Constitution to ban flag burning, but voted in favor of the war and enabled the rogue Bush regime to shred the Constitution? There are many things I do not understand, and this is one of them. Maybe I need to be educated by some kind woman as to why electing a female president is more important than JFK's stated "national interests."

We interrupt this post to announce that with current trends holding, the BAH can now project the next President of the United States will be Barack Obama, and the next American Idol will be David Archuleta, thus ending the George Bush/Taylor Hicks mentality that has infected our country like NASCAR. We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog.

I'm all for Hillary staying in the race as long as her money holds out. She will win more states before its over, but the mathematics are not kind to her. Her remaining hope is that the Obama campaign has a secret so dark that they will implode upon revelation. Wait a second, I have been getting email claiming that Obama is a secret Muslim with a grandiose plan to undermine our cherished U.S. of A., or else a closet Black Panther who has pledged allegiance to Africa. You say you've been getting them, too? What's more likely to happen in the next few weeks is that Hillary will continue her machete wielding campaign until either she, or Bubba, makes another unforgivable remark that further divides the party. It's either that, or the Clintons are hoping against hope that the Reverend Jeremiah Wright has an evil twin. Meanwhile, my new bumpersticker slogan is, "No More Drama, Vote Obama."