“The problem with slashing and burning is you never know when you’ll need to cross certain bridges again.”- Haruki on DailyKos
Earlier today, Terry McAuliffe said that he expected that those who supported Barack Obama would end up voting for Hillary if she ends up getting the nomination for the Democratic Party. The more I think about it, the more I disagree. Whether you support him or not, it is hard to deny that Obama has done a good job of bringing people who were not previously in the political fold into (or back into) the process. This group includes students/youth and many disillusioned citizens. Among these groups, it does not seem likely for them to just jump in the saddle with Hillary considering that if they liked her or cared, they would have been “in the fold” in the first place. Furthermore, the nasty nature of this campaign is polarizing Hillary as a figure to an even larger degree than previous times, but what makes the present different is that there is a group of ardent Democrats who are more anti-Clinton, with each successive Bill or Hillary (or surrogate) attack making a Dem reconciliation less likely. The other gigantic group that holds relevance here is the African-American community- their reaction to a possible reality of the Clintons using dirty politics to gain the nomination could lead to a potent reaction which could draw some parallels to George HW Bush’s re-election bid after he promised “no new taxes” and then reneged. Continue reading
