Today's Frank

Per Frank Rich of the NYT (a couple grafts):

On how the Hill campaign has sort of abandoned black voters thinking that when she sews up the nomination she will get them back: "In October, seven months after the two candidates’ dueling church perorations in Selma, USA Today found Hillary Clinton leading Mr. Obama among African-American Democrats by a margin of 62 percent to 34 percent. But once black voters met Mr. Obama and started to gravitate toward him, Bill Clinton and the campaign’s other surrogates stopped caring about what African-Americans thought. In an effort to scare off white voters, Mr. Obama was ghettoized as a cocaine user (by the chief Clinton strategist, Mark Penn, among others), “the black candidate” (as Clinton strategists told the Associated Press) and Jesse Jackson redux (by Mr. Clinton himself)." Recently, Obama has been winning the black voters basically 80-20%.

On how the Clinton's may be using the race card to pit Latino's against blacks: "Mrs. Clinton did pile up her expected large margin among Latino voters in California. But her tight grip on that electorate is loosening. Mr. Obama, who captured only 26 percent of Hispanic voters in Nevada last month, did better than that in every state on Tuesday, reaching 41 percent in Arizona and 53 percent in Connecticut." I would say that if this trend continues...it could mean the end of the Hill campaign. However, while I like the stats, I'd be interested to see the age breakdown of those. Perhaps more younger Hispanics voted in the Arizona and Connecticut races, thus with Obama getting the younger vote, this may be expected.

I don't doubt Frank's assertions here and his op-ed today refers to the cut-throatedness of Hill's campaign, a willingness to do anything to win. As a Dem, this is what I want. I want someone to fight dirty because we already know the right will. And while the old adage "the truth will set you free," it may do that...but, it won't be as sexy or fun for the media to cover and thus it would be drowned out by the nasty innuendos. Ask John Kerry...fuck...ask Max Cleland about being Swift Boated. Those accusations against Cleland were so preposterous, so false, but the electorate never heard it because that wasn't fun or sexy for the media to cover. Until the media cleans up their act, you have to fight like a dirty dog.

Finally, I think while slightly shady for Bill to do so, he was making a factually accurate point when referencing Jackson. Also, I think it was prudent for Clinton to begin to pseudo-ignore black America voters when Obama got going. People tend to vote for people like them, and they tend to live where people have the same views as them...familiarity is comforting. That's why I moved from a red state where I grew up to a blue, liberal New England state. There's virtually NO argument Hill could make to stop black America for voting for Obama. He's most like them in the most instinctive way...color. Thus, she had to court the vote of another group to offset the large percentage of voters Obama was sure to get.

As for the Hallmark channel thing, a colossal waste of money, which causes me to judge Hill's thinking of spending such money on that kind of gambit. I doubt anyone with a brain watched that beyond those who HAD to for their job.