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Harper's Index
A Perfect Calm For John McCain
What John McCain Told Me, And What It Says About How Far He’s Fallen
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Nobody Loves You Like Mama Does
Apology Denied
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Sore Dems Want Out of Proportion Primaries
Vote For Justice
Breeding Sorrow
U.S. Must Stay In Iraq Till Day Is Done And Victory Won
Barack Obama's Bitter Half
Hillary And The Golden Handshake
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New Orleans Advances -- Slowly
Mrs. And Mr. President
Petronomics 101
Obama: Flawed or Fantastic?
Pursuing The Elusive White Voter
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Michael Moore, Frank Rich, Jeremiah Wright And John Hagee
The Caniddate And The Pastor
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The Other Obama
Congressional Districts Deny Democracy
Hillary’s Role: Exit Stage Left
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Battle of The Hawks
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Letter To African-Americans
Yankee Fan Go Home
Playing Out The String



A Perfect Calm For John McCain
Froma Harrop 5/8/2008
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John McCain has used these weeks of Republican calm to dive into the Democratic lunch pail. This strategy clearly assumes a Barack Obama candidacy. If demographics are destiny — as the political sages keep telling us — Democratic demographics may offer some choice cuts to the presumed Republican nominee. By dumb luck, Republicans have chosen their one candidate who projects a moderate image, hasn't alienated Latinos and offers an appealing life story to boot.

The core problem for Democrats is that Obama's backers are reliable Democrats, whereas Hillary Clinton's are unreliable Democrats. Less than half of the Clinton voters in Indiana said they would support Obama in a general election, which is a very bad sign. Add these largely blue-collar and rural whites to some swinging independents and you have a potential Big Mac Value Meal for McCain.

As the Democratic rivals continued their Deathmatch, McCain was rippling his compassion muscles before some of the wavering groups. His tour of the civil-rights battlefields and devastated New Orleans neighborhoods had zero to do with courting the black vote, which, with Obama running, would be totally out of play. The visits with poor rural blacks were choreographed to impress comfortable white suburbanites, who demand sensitivity on matters of race.

McCain's planned
July address before the National Council of La Raza must be helping Mylanta sales near Democratic headquarters. Latinos have been a Clinton constituency, but as George W. Bush proved, they are amenable to voting for a friendly Republican. As co-author of the failed grand compromise on immigration — widely scorned as weak on enforcement — McCain can expect a warm reception by La Raza.

In making such overtures, though, McCain risks losing the tenderloin of Clinton's support — working-class whites.

Obama has done terribly with this group. And it's not just the old people. Pollsters at ABC News found Clinton leading Obama by 19 percentage points even among 30- to 40-year-old white voters who didn't go to college.

Obama will not doubt toil to close that gap, but his challenge is considerable. More problematic than his preference of pastor is his penchant for waxing sociological about rural whites. His comments at a fundraiser in San Francisco were regrettable for dismissing working whites' affection for religion and guns as an outgrowth of bitterness over their declining economic prospects. And still more damaging was the audience to which he was confiding — the money masters who lay American workers off, or order the companies they invest in to do so, or neatly send their programming work to Romania.
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Saw Long Primaries -color
By Frederick Deligne  - Nice-Matin, France  * Posted 05/01/2008
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Saw Long Primaries -color
© Copyright 2008   Frederick Deligne  - All Rights Reserved.
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