The Anti-Clinton Backlash

[Dr Ron]

http://liberalvaluesblog.com/?p=3234

The Anti-Clinton Backlash

May 4th, 2008 by Ron Chusid

Hillary Clinton has been trying to get the superdelegates to vote contrary to the majority of voters in Democratic primaries and caucuses by making a number of false claims. One of her recent tactics is to claim that there is a backlash against Obama which makes him unelectable. Hillary Clinton is right that there is a backlash but is wrong about the target. Writing in The New York Times, Charles Blow shows how there is an anti-Clinton backlash which might make it hard for her to beat John McCain.

Blow looks at the claims that Obama is losing support among white Democrats. He finds that Obama’s unfavorability rating is up five points among whites from last summer, but that his favorability rating is up by the same amount. On the other hand, Clinton’s favorability among black Democrats has fallen thirty-six percent during the same period. Blow writes:

If Hillary Clinton should defy the odds (and the current math) and secure the nomination, she would be hard-pressed to defeat John McCain without the enthusiastic support of black voters, stalwarts of the Democratic base.

Getting that support could now be tricky.

Many blacks are aghast that their extraordinary support of Bill Clinton in the past would be repaid by the Clintons with racial innuendo (in a Times/CBS News poll after the salacious 1998 Starr report was released, his unfavorable rating among whites climbed to 52 percent; among blacks it was only 10 percent). Some who stood by him then now apparently feel betrayed.