Can he close the deal?
That was my first reaction after hearing Barack Obama had lost the Pennsylvania Primary to Hillary Clinton by a sizable margin. Everyone else seems to be asking this, too. I would imagine that Barack and buddies were bemoaning their circumstances behind closed doors and musing about the same thing as well.
Therefore, in the tradition of Ronald Reagan being labeled the Teflon President because nothing ever seemed to stick to him, like criticism from his opponents, I must dub Barack, the Cotton Candidate. He can not stand up on his own. There is no starch in his shirt. He simply is not getting the job done in places where he could have buried Hillary Clinton for good.
His serious big-state misfortunes first began March 4th in Texas and Ohio. With a super Super Tuesday showing, and his apparent ability to do well when he had the time and resources to spread his message, he appeared to have ample time – and certainly the momentum -- to do some serious damage to Hillary’s chances in these states. He failed. Well, I thought, maybe he just did not have enough time after all.
Pennsylvania had been penciled in the win column of the ledger for Hillary for months. She was the odds-on favorite, to be sure. She had a 20-percentage-point lead immediately after the Texas and Ohio contests. But now, Obama had seven weeks, an unprecedented amount of time to spread his money and message liberally (pun intended) throughout the Keystone State. Up to this point, his track record had been impeccable. Plus, with the new reports about Clinton’s combat duty in Bosnia surfacing, it looked as though the Democratic faithful and Obama had a sporting chance to not so gently put Hillary in her coffin and hammer in the nails firmly and forever.
But now we ask, is there a crack in Barack’s body armor? He had the good fortune of being able to outspend Clinton three-to-one in Pennsylvania; he was endorsed by the State’s popular pro-life junior Senator (Robert Casey); and news accounts reported recently that most people in this country perceived Hillary Clinton as a persistent prevaricator. The very real prospect of an upset of enormous proportions loomed large.
But now we ask, if he more fluff than stuff?
Or was it his “bitter” remarks in San Francisco to the wine-and-brie crowd? Maybe it was those interminable elegant speeches about hope without also identifying the highways we must take to reach our destination?
Or is it his race? There, I said it. For months the talk of America not being willing to elect a female or black has grown mostly silent. And Pennsylvania polls showed Obama in a much tighter race – i.e., election – than the final margin of some 10 percentage points.
Ed Rendell uttered this unutterable a few weeks ago when he suggested that Barack’s being black will cost him 5 to 10 percentage points in Pennsylvania. Although this is not what many of us want to hear about ourselves, perchance he spoke the truth. Reports of exit polling for Obama overstating his vote counts recall thoughts about the so-called Bradley effect, named after Tom Bradley, Mayor of Los Angeles, when he ran unsuccessfully for Governor of California. Many voters leaving the polls said that they voted for Tom, but the actual ballots cast and counted in the voting booths did not match those promises to pollsters. Assuming the U. S. is not a corrupt third-world country where ballot-tampering is a national pastime, folks apparently felt that they had to say they voted for a black man lest they appear racially prejudice. Thus, the Bradley effect.
Are voters saying that they voted for a black man, but really did not? Is this racism or is this just being culturally polite? Are people concerned with Barack – the half-black man – or simply concerned with Barack, the person?
The same question, of course, applies to Mrs. Clinton regardless of the outcome of this campaign. I may not be averse to voting for a woman, but I may be averse to voting for ‘that’ woman. Is that personal or is that prejudice? You can answer for yourself, but does that answer apply to others?
If the unimaginable happens, which I think it will, and John McCain is elected president, people and pundits will pontificate ceaselessly to answer this question. And if that happens, our country will remain stuck for another four – or 40 -- years in an ideological desert that will desiccate our destiny.
Fred W. Apelquist, III, M.Ed.
© April 24, 2008
Approximately 755 words.
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