Mickey Kaus says that Obama has been effectively ghettoized by the Clinton forces. Let's see if this meme has legs. Essentially, it will become a self-fulfilling prophesy if Obama wins South Carolina, as far as the Clintonistas like Dick Morris are concerned and depending on how many of us in the 'sphere echo it, it can grow like cancer. Look at how Kaus sidles up to the conclusions by quoting around:
How Obama Can Escape from the Ghetto: I thought Margaret Carlson was out on a very shaky limb a few years ago last Thursday when she wrote that Obama had
lost the essence of his candidacy as the first black man to run as himself. Once the race card is on the table, no matter who puts it there, it's impossible to put it back up anyone's sleeve. Obama may look back on the first two weeks of 2008 as the time when he lost the nomination to Clinton.
Now the idea that Obama has been "ghettoized" as the "black" candidate has become the accepted template for the campaign--even the point that a win in hotly contested South Carolina on Saturday is seen as actually hurting Obama because (in Dick Morris' analysis)
[w]atching blacks block vote for Obama will trigger a white backlash that will help Hillary win Florida and to prevail the week after.
Here we thought we were getting the Mondale/Hart campaign of 1984--without Mondale's pleasantness or Hart's weirdness--and instead we get the Dukakis campaign of 1988, in which a slightly tedious, marginally likeable elite liberal established his mainstream (white) bona fides by running around the country thumping Jesse Jackson.
There is only one way out for Obama which is to do an Eminem.
In the film 'Eight Mile', Eminem, "the best white rapper, ever" has to prove his skills in the black ghettoes and 'hoods of Detroit. On top of all the ordinary stress of the underground rap game and the in-your-face confrontations he has with his own trailer trash family, Eminem's character 'Rabbit' has to face some racial hateration. In one of the climactic scenes of the movie, he executes a verbal rope a dope, copping to all of the insults, calling himself every racial epithet he can think of, dissing himself so low into the ground, and with such style, that all his competitor can do is say 'yeah and you're white too'.
This is, in my humble opinion, the path that Barack Obama is going to have to go, if and when Kaus' ghettoization meme takes hold. He's going to have to do something he hasn't been able to do well, given the 45 minute interview I just saw of him. And that is he is going to have to talk about all of his weaknesses in foreign policy and in military affairs and in executive ability and put it all on the table. He's going to have to come clean about what he doesn't know, about his lack of experience, about his shortcomings, fears and self-doubts. He's going to have to bomb himself into submission.
By executing this maneuver, which needs to be perfectly timed, Obama gives all of his critics an opportunity to say everything they always wanted to say, and then he'll be able to say 'Still I Rise'. Basically, Americans will still love him, he'll still be the candidate for 'change' and his message doesn't have to change one iota. That is how he gets a teflon coat. It has to be forged in fire. He has to go there.
What he is starting to realize and starting to publicize is that he has a better chance getting Republican votes than Hillary or Edwards. If he's smart, he's going to start triangulating and giving a bit more rhetorical space to ex-Thompson supporters. If Giuliani washes out... that's the ticket.
Others, like HolyCoast are following Dick Morris' nasty prediction.
I suppose I should make a small bit of noise about this being the new Southern Strategy, or more specifically Clinton's South Carolina Strategy. Let's see if it backfires.
Dick Morris was one of President Clinton’s most trusted advisors and able spinsters. He has just written an op-ed piece confirming what I have previously said about how the Clintons were using Obama’s race and latent racial slights to Obama’s detriment. It is all just too disgusting, especially considering that all of the Clintons’ repulsive techniques appear to be bearing fruit. Is there any hope for this country if playing the game is what wins an election?
Last night on Jim Braude's NECN TV show, I stunned the host by saying that winning South Carolina was going to kill Barack Obama's presidential bid.
"Maybe he should lose instead, that would really fool 'em!" Braude quipped--a pretty good line. But it misses the point.
Dick Morris (full disclosure: I've done TV shows with him, and I think he's one of the most vile human beings in American politics) gets it. He should. This is, after all, gutter politics right out of his playbook.
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