Obama Should Step Down - Democratic Underground

TwilightGardener

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Wed Mar-05-08 12:00 PM
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Obama Should Step Down

Edited on Wed Mar-05-08 12:58 PM by wienerdoggie

Don't get mad at me, fellow Obamites. I say this with a heavy heart, a sick stomach, but clear vision. Last night's results show that the lowest common denominator will kill him in the crunch. He couldn't pull it out, not even after all the previous wins, after all the money raised and spent, after rallies and excitement unprecendented in modern politics, after speeches that inspired a demoralized nation, after very solid debate performances and with a well-run, well-organized campaign working for him--what does this say? It says he hit a wall, and that wall will be even higher in November.

Hillary has proven that even the flimsiest of charges, even the merest suggestion of dishonesty or corruption or laziness, even the slightest intimation that Obama might be a Muslim or has unpatriotic motives, will stick to him like glue and subvert his message. For all the Hillary supporters who want to crow that this proves that "he can't take a punch"--perhaps that's true. He is an honorable and decent man, his "dirt" is a bucket-full compared to the Clintons' dump truck of sleaze--and you know it in your gut, for all your jubilation over the essential nothingness of Rezko and NAFTA-Gate. But people expect sleaze from the Clintons, it's a comfortingly familiar feature of their political and personal lives, so they're inoculated from it--Obama, however, is ripe for the tarnishing. The Clinton team, and the GOP, will continue joyfully sliming him, and no amount of denial, deflection, or rapid response on his part will change the negative impact of that. He could run an absolutely flawless campaign from here on out, and do everything exactly right, but there's a sick and twisted impulse out there to watch him get taken down (and some "Democrats" on DU have even expressed their hope that the GOP tears him apart). He's been portrayed in the media as too good to be true, a "messiah", a cult leader, a saint, and now the American people are primed to be suspicious, to believe the worst and turn viciously on him, just as rapidly as they seemed willing to embrace him. And if Hillary's mud-slinging was clearly helped along by a complicit--even eager--media (it certainly was, especially in the last week), then that media complicity will only get worse when St. John McCain and the GOP ramps up its attacks.

Obama will not win Pennsylvania. I grew up there, my family still lives there, and the results will be similar to Ohio, no matter what the polls say. It's too elderly a population, too subtly racist, and too resistant to change. That's a Rust Belt reality. The next 7 weeks will be a waste of time and money, for Obama, for Hillary, and for the party, and then he'll lose. The superdelegates will drift away from him after that, and then the game is over. I hope I am wrong, but that's the way I see it playing out.

Better for him and for the party to end it soon, graciously, and on a high note. That pains me deeply to say, and yes, I know he leads in pledged delegates--but Hillary exposed his multiple weaknesses: his PERCEIVED lack of experience, his short time on the national stage, his race, the suspicion around his religious affiliation, and his suggested lack of patriotism will ultimately doom him. People certainly seem to like him as a public figure, they'll listen to him, they'll be inspired by him--but they will scurry to the old white guy who's been around forever and served in the military come November, no matter what the polls say, no matter how much voters say they want a change. Had the results been different last night, I would have been very optimistic that he would defeat McCain, but the kitchen sink strategy worked in crucial states. That proved to me that our most basic fears and instincts, our craving for familiarity and the status quo, will always defeat our better angels and higher ideals in the end.