The United
States might not be the birthplace of democracy—in point of fact, democracy was
born several centuries before Christopher Columbus set sail in his Voyage of
Discovery to discover the Americas. Yet, the US is the one country in the world
where democracy is celebrated the most. In fact, democracy has been turned into
a national festival of sorts in the US even though voter apathy is rampant
especially among the younger generations of Americans who would rather prefer a
GRAMMYS or the Super-Bowl to a Super Tuesday.
However, youth apathy would not stop the older generations of Americans who
control the levels power, from rolling out the drums to celebrate democracy.
With time the apathetic youths themselves will graduate into older generations,
and they too will carry the baton of democracy forward in their time to the next
generation. And just like their senior citizens, the so-called baby boomers,
they too will roll out the drums in the fullness of time in celebration of
democracy, the American way. And the beat goes on ad-infinitum to mesmerize and
entertain the world of democracy.
This is not the place to address the charges that American democracy is too
costly and therefore fundamentally exclusionary in that candidates must amass
war chests before they can be taken seriously as credible electoral contenders
whether it’s about congressional, gubernatorial, or presidential race. There is
some validity to those charges. The fact that senator McCain’s campaign, for
instance, was left for dead was because of his inability to match his opponents
in fundraising campaigns especially against millionaire Governor, Mitt Romney,
who threw everything in unabashedly blanketing Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan,
and every other state with ads.
That McCain and Huckabee are back in the game on shoestring budgets with the
super rich Mitt Romney forced out due to poor returns on his huge investments in
the primaries, speaks to something different happening in the American political
system that the pundits will ponder later on. It belies the conventional wisdom
that American elections it’s all about money to get the message out on costly
television ads. That conventional wisdom has been turned on its head with the
Republican field now left for the very poor candidates in the pack. Retail
politics made a world of difference in the candidates’ electoral fortunes, at
least before Super Tuesday.
Presently the United States’ political landscape is engulfed in the clouds of
party primaries and caucuses; from Iowa to New Hampshire; from New Hampshire to
Nevada and Michigan; and there from to South Carolina; South Carolina to
Florida, and there from to Super Tuesday that was predicted by political pundits
to be the graveyard of many a presidential aspirant. In the end, however, Super
Tuesday claimed only one victim—Mitt Romney, catapulting senator McCain whose
campaign had been left for dead only a month ago to the front runner status on
the Republican ticket—but leaving Barrack Obama and Hillary Clinton in virtual
dead heat—a tie.
Thus, Super Tuesday has helped in no small way in cementing the hitherto
fractious Republican ticket, which was torn apart by candidates with differing
ideological persuasions—the evangelicals led by Mike Huckabee; the so-called
Reaganites led by Mitt Romney, and the Bushies war hawks led by John McCain.
These differing ideological persuasions have left the Republican Party in a
state of disarray over the months and McCain’s front runner status has not, in
the least, attenuated this state of affairs in the Republican Party. With
McCain—a war hawk and liberal conservative, faced down with a hard charging core
evangelical conservative, Mike Huckabee, the race for the Republican nomination
gets even more interesting and unpredictable indeed. It’s the race to watch
going forward.
Meanwhile McCain has run away with a swathe of delegates on Super Tuesday. Mike
Huckabee has an uphill battle to close the gap and upstage him. However, I
wouldn’t say the Republican nomination is closed just yet. It’s not over until
it’s over. We are here talking about the Republican Party, the bastion of
conservatism in America, and McCain’s liberal bent on so many hot button social
issues like stem cell research, global warming, same sex marriage, immigration,
and abortion—all of which are supported by him, it’s too much of a bitter pill
for the Republican diehards to swallow, and that could, in and of itself, cost
him the presidential elections proper, if he eventually becomes the Party’s
nominee, by dampening voter turnouts on the Republican side.
Speaking as the presumptive Republican nominee, however, McCain promised to
bring the party together. While that may be smart politics, the gulf between
McCain and his party’s conservatives is rather too wide to be closed short of
him renouncing his position on those social issues, which is not going to happen
because he will be seen as waffling—a charge he can ill afford in this season.
There are just too many social conservatives out there especially in the deep
South who would rather sit at home on election day to voting McCain, which would
redound to the benefit of his Democratic opponent. Although McCain will do well,
as he has in fact done in the Midwest, North East, and the Western states, that
alone will not see him through to victory because these are states where the
Democratic Party is in a much stronger position than the Republican Party and
McCain will be swimming against the tide in those states against a Democratic
candidate. In the absence of strong support from the Deep South he stands no
chance against a Democratic rival in the election proper. For now, it’s all well
and good that he won in his party primaries and caucuses in those states when
competing against fellow Republican opponents but it will be a different ball
game in the election proper when he is squared up with a Democrat whether it’s
Obama or Hillary.
If McCain is to make any head way, therefore, he must use his party’s political
platform to assiduously court the Hispanic votes. In this regard his position on
the immigration issue would tend to help him. In fact the Hispanic vote is
responsible for his success so far in addition to the independents. However,
with candidate Obama lurking in the corner, he can forget about the votes of the
independents. Obama has a padlock on that vote. This is borne out by the recent
CNN Poll which places Obama ahead of McCain in head to head match up while the
same poll places McCain in a tie with Hillary.
This is because with Obama around McCain has no hope for the votes of the
independents but not so with Hillary. He can, therefore, only fast and pray for
a Hillary candidacy that would free up the votes of the independents for him and
proceed to mull her with their votes and damn the evangelicals of his party in
the presidential election. Obama is, thus, McCain’s worst nightmare. The bad
news for McCain though is that Obama is not about to go the Romney way any time
soon; in which case McCain worst fears could be realized in a matter of weeks
from now with Obama flying the Democratic Party Flag! Obama’s candicacy will
also accentuate the age difference between Obama and McCain. McCain is 70
already against Obama’s 46. At the moment age is not the issue with
Septuagenarians like Fred Thompson and former New York Mayor Gulliani in the
race until now. That will change overnight if the match up comes between Obama
and McCain.
Another looming issue that may torpedo McCain’s candidacy is the economy. McCain
has until now put all his egg in one basket of national security. He touts his
records on national security at every opportunity and openly confessed that the
economy “is not my strong suit.” Well the economy might not be his strong suit
but it could turn out to be his waterloo. He is quite vulnerable on that issue
at the moment and he is not even comfortable discussing the economy. However,
with the US economy sliding into recession and sending jitters down the spines
of American electorates, senator McCain might just wake up one day only to find
that the economy has pulled the rug from under his military feet!
On the Democratic side, there are three discernible dynamics at play—race,
gender, and change. The race card, which President Clinton attempted to play to
his regret in South Carolina is not at all dead and buried in this season
because it has always been present in American politics. Hillary won the votes
in both California and New York due largely to the huge presence of Hispanics.
The Hispanics vote is gravitating towards Hillary not because they hate Obama
but because African Americans have pissed off the Hispanic community by aligning
themselves with the Xenophobic whites to shut out so-called illegal immigrants,
which the Hispanic community sees as an attack on them. This is why the
Republican Party, as a whole, that wants to lock out immigrants from Mexico (a
Spanish speaking country) and punish employers who hire illegal immigrants, does
not have a chance with the Hispanic community in the next election except, as
hinted above, for McCain who stuck out his neck in support of the aborted
immigration bill killed by his fellow Republicans.
The nationally televised incidents in New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina
where fleeing blacks returned to New Orleans only to find that Mexican laborers
had invaded their city to take over construction jobs has fueled this black
antagonism towards Mexican illegals. African immigrants who are distant cousins
of African Americans have experienced similar hostilities in the hands of their
very own African Americans cousins in the United States. They complain that
African immigrants are taking their jobs and their women from them. What arrant
nonsense! This is the same attitude that has been extended to the Mexicans and
other immigrants of Spanish origins. It is now hurting Obama who voted for the
Immigration bill. Talk about the sins of the fathers being visited on their
sinless sons!
On a personal note, however, it is my candid opinion that African Americans have
no business teaming up with the whites to castigate immigrants under the pretext
that they are taking away their jobs. Mexican immigrants do odd jobs mainly in
the farms and in construction industries. The United States is a country that is
open to all comers and that’s why it sponsors the Lotto to attract foreign
workers. Is the African American community not aware of that? Don’t be surprised
that many in the African American community do not know about their country’s
Lotto program. I was shocked to find that many did not know of the program until
I explained it to them. A country that was founded by immigrants and vitalized
by immigrants has no business getting xenophobic.
If the blacks could work with the Hispanics and other immigrants they could
easily form a huge voting block big enough to dictate the pace of events in the
United States. They should learn not to regard themselves as citizens and others
as settlers or illegals. Anyone who has voluntarily chosen to live in the United
States legally or illegally is a human being with the same exact needs and
desires as the so-called citizens and therefore entitled to the same rights and
protection as human beings. Does God our creator distinguish between legal and
illegal immigrants, citizens and non-citizens? And we call ourselves Christians.
It’s such a shame the way we use artificial labels to victimize fellow human
beings rather than being our brothers and sisters keepers as instructed by
Christ whom we profess to follow as Christians. Therefore, rather than
antagonizing the Latino immigrants and Africans who come to their country
(whether invited through lotto or not) African Americans should be strategic
enough in their thinking to embrace members of these communities and indeed all
minorities and work with them in their fight for justice and racial equality in
the United States which has endeared them to all.
The gender card is being played by Hillary Clinton. She deployed it to
devastating effects in New Hampshire to turn the tables overnight against Obama.
She has actively courted female voters knowing they are more likely to vote for
her than for a male candidate. And the strategy has paid off handsomely for
Hillary with her comfortable lead everywhere in the female votes. Change for
Hillary means no more than change from a male president to a female president in
the Oval Office; not the kind of transcendent change Obama is talking about.
Unfortunately for her, the average white American male has not quite bought into
Hillary’s feminist gospel just yet. Denied of the Hispanic votes white males
have more than made up for Obama even in all white states, and they account for
Obama’s surprise showing in the primaries and caucuses thus far.
That Obama drubbed Hillary in 13 states as against Hillary’s 8 on Super Tuesday,
most of which have little or negligible African American presence speaks to the
disapproval of Hillary amongst white males. This should work to Obama’s
advantage in the coming days and weeks in the battle for the Democratic ticket.
Obama’s core constituencies can thus be located in upscale white male votes,
African Americans, and independents. These three constituents could deliver the
Democratic Party ticket to Obama barring any upsets. Hillary’s constituencies on
the other hand, consist of females (especially the over 40s), Hispanics across
the board, and the Democratic Party faithful, to whom Obama is but an outsider
and interloper who is out to upset the applecart. It’s their vote that still
gives Hillary the slight edge nationally. Hillary went into the primaries with
an aura of invincibility to be crowned Queen of the Democratic Party just as her
husband was crowned King; in other words, as the rightful successor to her
husband’s throne. Therefore, the primaries were to her and her husband, Bill,
mere formalities.
Unfortunately for Hillary, Obama is campaigning against Washington, which is
represented by the Clintons. And, to the extent that the average American voter
is disenchanted with Washington politicians, Hillary has her work cut out for
her. Obama will ride the wave of his message of change all the way to the White
House and into the Lincoln Bedroom!
Long Live Democracy!
Franklin Otorofani, Esquire (USA)
Contact: mudiagaone@yahoo.com
