Right after the New Hampshire Primary, I wrote a piece speculating that Sen. Hillary Clinton’s “surprise” victory (at least a surprise given the pre-polling) was the result of a solid front amongst white women — women who had told pollsters they were voting for Sen. Barack Obama, yet voted otherwise in the privacy of the voting booth. Of course, I got a lot of “you don’t know what you’re talking about” responses from — white women.
So, it was delightful to have my analysis confirmed by CBS talking heads Katie Couric, Bob Schieffer and Jeff Greenfield when the same phenomenon was at play in Super Fat Tuesday’s Primaries. Schieffer struggled to spit it out, but he pointed out that “Race” was a proven factor in the voting; to which Greenfield added, “Gender.” Katie Couric even went so far to call it a “gender war” in her interview with consultant Joe Trippi.
Trippi went on to note that while Clinton has usually enjoyed a 20%+ gap over Obama among women, it has lowered to 6% in some states. But since women make up 57% of the Democrat Party electorate and vote in larger numbers than men, even 6% is insurmountable.
Another point of my earlier article was that when people vote in the open as in the caucus model, it is much harder to vote along gender and racial lines with your friends and neighbors watching. So again – verification: Obama has won all six caucus states; sweeping North Dakota, Minnesota, Kansas, Idaho and Colorado Tuesday to add to his win in Iowa.
New Hampshire redux
California becomes the latest state where pre-polling widely did not match the end result. Even exit polling was trumped. Obama had a large lead in polls conducted the day before the Primary vote, yet lost again–déjà vu New Hampshire. Of course, also déjà vu NH was a series of voting machine malfunctions and even late arrivals of machines at LA Precincts.
California, the state with over 20% of the total Democrat delegates needed for nomination, had Obama leading the polls 49% to 36% with a margin of error of 3.3% according to Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby before the voting. Yet, just as in NH, the tallied vote was the exact opposite. That’s one too many “coincidences” to pass without major investigation.
Race played a major part in California, as well. While Obama got a reported 78% of the Black vote, Clinton picked up 65% of Hispanics. In the 2000 Dem Primary, 16% of the voters were Hispanic and 8% Black. Obama actually won White voters 49% to 44% —White voters making up 53% of the CA Dem voters.
The New South?
Amazingly, Obama swept the White, male vote throughout the South. Of course, what’s a white guy to do? Vote for Hillary and be seen as a racist? Or vote for Obama and be seen as a sexist? No wonder women are voting this time at rates far higher than men.
The Anti-Democracy Democrats
At the close of Super Fat Tuesday, the delegate tally – as inscrutable as it is–shows HRC with 900 delegates to Obama’s 824, with withdrawn candidate John Edwards holding 36. Obama has earned through the ballot almost as many delegates as the “unpledged” 796 “super-delegates”–842 if Florida and Michigan delegates get reinstated.
Just who and what are “super-delegates?” 1972 nominee Sen. George McGovern was crushed in the election by Richard Nixon. In response, the Democratic Party establishment created the super-delegates as a means to assure there would never again be a grassroots liberal upstart nominated. It has worked as advertised ever since, even assuring the Reagan rout of establishment candidate Walter Mondale in 1984 by sidelining substantial Primary challenges by Jesse Jackson and Gary Hart.
As set forth by the Democratic Party, the “super-delegates” who make up 40% of the 2025 total needed for nomination are:
1. The individuals recognized as members of the DNC (as set forth in Article Three, Sections 2 and 3 of the Charter of the Democratic Party of the United States); and,
2. The Democratic President and the Democratic Vice President of the United States, if applicable; and,
3. All Democratic members of the United States House of Representatives and all Democratic members of the United States Senate; and,
4. The Democratic Governor, if applicable; and,
5. All former Democratic Presidents, all former Democratic Vice Presidents, all former Democratic Leaders of the U.S. Senate, all former Democratic Speakers of the U.S. House of Representatives and Democratic Minority Leaders, as applicable, and all former Chairs of the Democratic National Committee.
The list includes Democratic governors and members of Congress; former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter; former vice president Al Gore; retired congressional leaders; and all Democratic National Committee members, themselves appointed, not elected, to their positions.
Reports are that Chelsea “Michael Corleone” Clinton is actively working the undeclared delegates as is the Don himself – Bill Clinton. So far, Hillary Clinton has a 211 to 128 lead among super-delegates who have declared for a candidate.
So, ultimately, the Democratic Party nomination will boil down to the unelected, anti-democracy selection of these delegates. And, it will be Hillary Clinton, as she is clearly the top choice of the party establishment.
Bob Dole redux?
Meanwhile, the GOP has their candidate, Sen. John McCain (604 delegates). McCain, aptly dubbed “Bob Dole without the sense of humor” by CounterPunch’s Jeffrey St. Clair, roared to victory despite the tens of millions of his own money that Mitt Headroom (244 delegates) dumped into his fading third place campaign. And, despite the lady doth protest too much anti-McCain rants of uber-reactionary Ann Coulter. No surprise that Baptist minister Mike Huckabee (187 delegates)swept through the South’s primaries–possibly a harbinger of a vice-presidential slot with McCain.
Romney’s delegates may not even be the most expensive on the GOP side. No, that would be Rep. Ron Paul’s 14 delegates, despite the many millions he has raised an spent on a campaign highlighting the one issue I have yet to address and all the candidates not named Ron Paul and the media continue to ignore–There’s a War On, ferchrissakes, and it has nothing to with gender!
MICHAEL DONNELLY will be voting for whoever runs an independent, anti-war campaign. Period. He can be reached at pahtoo@aol.com
