[BRIGADE] PJB: The Hillary Democrats
Published: Tue, 05/13/08
by Patrick J. Buchanan
Friday, May 09, 2008
"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on" than
Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton has told USA TODAY.
She cited an Associated Press article "that found how Sen. Obama's
support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is
weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not
completed college were supporting me."
"There's a pattern emerging here," said Hillary. "These are the
people you have to win if you're a Democrat in sufficient numbers
to actually win the election. Everybody knows that."
The Democratic Party can't win with just "eggheads and
African-Americans," Paul Begala added helpfully.
What Hillary and Begala are saying is politically incorrect, but it
is also patently true. Hillary was describing what may now fairly
be called the Hillary Democrats -- a.k.a. the ex-Reagan Democrats
who did not vote for Obama and may defect to John McCain.
If Obama can win over these voters who gave Hillary big victories
in Ohio and Pennsylvania, he is the 44th president. If McCain does
not win a goodly slice of these Democrats, he will lose.
Who, exactly, are the Hillocrats, half of whom said in the exit
polls from North Carolina and Indiana that, if she loses the
nomination, they will stay home or vote for McCain?
They are white, working- and middle-class, Catholic, small-town,
rural, unionized, middle-age and seniors, and surviving on less
than $50,000 a year. They are the people most belittled by the
condescending commentary of Barack behind closed doors out at Sodom
on the Bay.
"You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, (where) the
jobs have been gone now for 25 years. ... And it's not surprising
then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy
to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or
anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."
In 40 years, two Democrats have won the presidency, Jimmy Carter
and Bill Clinton, and both did so only after connecting with these
folks.
People forget. In 1976, Carter ran as a Naval Academy grad and
nuclear engineer, a born-again Baptist and peanut farmer from
Plains, Ga., who, in Philadelphia, talked about preserving the
"ethnic purity" of the neighborhoods. Clinton first ran as a
death-penalty Democrat.
It was Ronald Reagan who cemented the GOP hold of these Nixon-Agnew
New Majority Democrats, who are now headed back home.
And it was George H.W. Bush and Lee Atwater who turned a 17-point
deficit as of Aug. 1, 1988, into an eight-point lead Bush never
lost on Labor Day -- by eviscerating Michael Dukakis on the social
and cultural issues: Dukakis' veto of a
Pledge-of-Allegiance-to-the-Flag bill, his opposition to capital
punishment, his pride in being "a card-carrying member of the
ACLU," his weekend furloughs for convicted criminals and killers
like Willy Horton.
Bush lost the presidency in 1992 when, under fire, he retreated
from the social and cultural issues and sought to win on foreign
policy, and on the economy, where his approval rating was 16 percent.
In 1992, cultural, social and moral issues could have derailed
Clinton, which is why James Carville told the War Room to stay
laser-focused. "It's the economy, stupid!" Bush and James Baker
deemed social and cultural issues unworthy of a president. And so
it was that George H.W. Bush ceased to be president.
His son did not make that mistake. In the primaries and general
election in 2000, Bush embraced the Christian conservatives and
their agenda.
Since Pennsylvania, Barack has recognized this deficiency and
sought to portray himself as a reflexive patriot who enjoys a
bottle of Bud just like the next guy, a kid raised in poverty by a
single mom, who turned his back on Wall Street offers to fight for
steelworkers laid off when their mills closed in South Chicago and
moved to China.
McCain, a war hero and POW, is a natural for Middle Pennsylvania
and Middle Ohio. His problems, however, are these:
He is failing to energize the Republican base, one-fourth of which
is still voting against him in primaries. On the great populist
issues of 2008 -- outsourcing of American jobs to Mexico, Asia and
China, and the illegal alien invasion -- he stands foursquare with
K Street -- for amnesty and NAFTA -- and against Main Street.
And like Gerald Ford and Bob Dole, McCain recoils from cultural and
social issues. He berated Tarheel Republicans for linking Barack,
the Rev. Wright and local Democrats, and denounced a conservative
talk show host who introduced him for mocking Barack's middle name.
This may solidify McCain's standing with his core constituency, the
liberal commentariat. But these folks will depart in the fall. And
the Republican base and the Hillary Democrats had better be there,
or McCain will do what moderate Republicans nominees do best. Lose
gracefully.
Keep an eye on West Virginia. The votes Hillary gets, and the way
she gets them, may provide a road map for how the GOP can hold the
White House this fall, if they are not too squeamish to follow it.
SOURCE: http://buchanan.org/blog/?p=988
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