Saturday, August 15, 2009

Earl Ofari Hutchinson Smears Concerned Citizens as 'Fist Shaking Town Hall Shock Troops'

The New York Times laments the impotence of the Obama cadres, who have failed to match the genuine citizen outrage against ObamaCare. See, "Health Debate Fails to Ignite Obama’s Grass Roots."

But check out Earl Ofari Hutchinson's piece at Huffington Post, "
Why the Right is Winning Its War Against Obama":
Obama's worst mistake has been to misread the election results. Much is made that he got more white votes than John Kerry or Al Gore, revved up young whites, and totally exorcised race from the campaign. Obama's win supposedly was final proof that America had finally kicked the racial syndrome. This is the stuff of media talk and wishful thinking. Despite a GOP racked by sex and corruption scandals, an anemic presidential opponent, a laughingstock vice presidential candidate, a collapsed economy and an outgoing GOP president with a rating worse than Herbert Hoover's, McCain still crushed Obama by a twelve point spread among white voters.

The route was not just among old, Deep South unreconstructed or latent bigoted white male voters, but in virtually every voter demographic among whites, including a dead heat with Obama among a majority of younger white voters. This doesn't tell the whole story of the sharp racial divide Obama faces. A sizeable percentage of whites were disgusted enough with Bush's policies to stay home on Election Day, but not disgusted enough with him and his policies to vote for Obama. The Henry Louis Gate's affair and the right's town hall rabble rousing have made more whites wary of Obama's policies. Polls after the Gates outburst showed that a majority of whites condemned Obama for backing Gates and even more ominous expressed grave doubts about his policies. A painful reality is that the crushing majority of whites who oppose Obama or disavow his policies for racial, party, or ideological reasons or personal prejudices, are fast forming the backbone of the radical right's counter insurgency against him.

The radical right has gotten its way in the media with its fist shaking town hall shock troops. But the White House has given the counterinsurgency a generous boost with its fits and starts, and conciliation on health care, and waffling on a total rollback of Bush policies. Obama hasn't lost the war yet, but without a huge battlefield counterattack, defeat may not be far off.
Hutchinson provides more evidence that the left has ignited a "race war" to try to win the healthcare debate. See Matt Welch, "More Scenes From the Health Care Debate Race War."

More at
Memeorandum.

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