The Democratic Coalition

There’s been some interesting chatter over Hillary Clinton’s interview with USA Today, namely her appeal to “working, hard-working Americans, white Americans.” Jonathan Chait takes issue with the implicitly racist appeal of her words, whereas Andrew asks if she’s intentionally trying to tear apart the decades-old Democratic coalition. Chait’s point is an intriguing one–imagine the media outcry had McCain said the same thing–but I think Andrew’s a little off base (at least in that post). She’s not trying to tear the Democratic coalition apart because she believes the African American vote is going nowhere. Rep. Wasserman-Schultz is, I think, 100% right: “Senator Obama does well in areas and demographic groups that the Democratic nominee will win anyway.” It’s hard to tear a voting bloc asunder when a key component refuses to leave despite being slapped in the face.

But if we can step away from heated racial rhetoric for a second, we should probably ask ourselves a question: What if she’s right? It’s true that no Democrat can win the presidency without getting a large portion of the black vote…but a large portion of the black vote isn’t enough. (See: Al Gore and John Kerry.) And since she’s going to win the black vote anyway (unless Andrew and Jonathan really think they’ll head to the GOP or sit out in larger numbers than usual), isn’t it important to point out that white antipathy towards Obama cost him votes in Ohio, Texas, and Florida (even though there was no campaigning in FLA yadda yadda yadda)? And, though primary voting doesn’t correlate to general election voting necessarily, if the same thing were to happen in the general that it would be a disaster for the Democrats?

Strategically speaking, there’s nothing left for her to do: she can either quietly give up or carpet bomb the Obama campaign with accusations of unelectability and racial polarization. Can’t say the route she chose was terribly surprising; no one’s ever accused the Clintons of a surfeit of class.