It’s hard to believe, but the presidential primaries are starting to look a little bit like democracy. Ol’ Moneybags Mitt finally managed to win a state, even if it involved riding his dead father’s coattails. Unable to face the reality of a bloated, inept, demoralized auto industry that has been toast for some time and refuses to acknowledge it, Romney came in and swore that if he becomes president, the other forty-nine states be damned, he will do absolutely nothing but work on reviving Michigan’s economy even if it means giving every newborn in this country a federally subsidized Ford Explorer. Headstrong fool that he is, John McCain had told Michiganders the truth—many of those lost jobs in the auto industry ain’t coming back—but the sovereign voters were having none of it, of course. Now it’s on to South Carolina, where the Bible-thumping snake handlers are likely to make Huckabee the front-runner again, for a few days at least. Rudy Giuliani’s “If you want to see me, come to Coral Gables” strategy is not looking quite so foolish now as the Florida primary approaches rapidly with no real evidence of GOP coalescence behind a single candidate. On the other hand, if Rudy G. doesn’t kick major booty in Florida, which is, let’s face it, essentially New York with the thermostat on high, then he might just as well shake the 911 dust from his lapels and get on with the rest of his life.
On the Democratic side, conservative pundits and demagogues have been struggling to maintain bladder control as they giddily prophesy Democratic disintegration over the issue of whether blacks or women have the strongest claim to victimization. Speaking of coattails, Hillary has been riding Bill’s with black voters, but methinks ol’ Bubba may be overestimating his cachet on that side of the color line. His dismissive, almost contemptuous remarks about Obama hit a nerve even with some of the old-line black leaders who have endorsed his wife. Ditto her suggestion—not well phrased, but certainly not incorrect-- that some of the credit for Rev. Martin Luther King’s accomplishments should go to LBJ. Arrogant little turd that he is, Tucker Carlson made an excellent point yesterday while interviewing Rev. Al Sharpton. Sharpton, who has my vote for self-aggrandizing phony of the eon, could only splutter when Tucker observed that there appeared to be a passing of the torch among black leaders, as the old establishment types who essentially jumped aboard what they thought was the Hillary steamroller were learning to their frustration and dismay that younger African Americans preferred to make their own choice and most have chosen Barack Obama. There was a similar generational shift during the civil rights movement when the younger activists, many of whom—John Lewis, for example-- are represented in today’s old guard pro-Hillary contingent, seized the mantle of leadership from the NAACP with its more legalistic, less confrontational approach to securing black rights.
In the face of challenges to the establishment in both parties, the establishment mouthpieces are predictably prophesying disaster. Rush “Anybody seen my pills?” Limbaugh has already warned that a Huckaby or McCain nomination will utterly “destroy the Republican party.” Unless the pollsters are still smoking from the same stash they had in New Hampshire, Obama will win on the Demo side in South Carolina. If he does, look for the Clintonistas to invoke the 1972 McGovern debacle as a warning about what can happen when a political party starts taking democracy a little too seriously.
