I think Obama’s totally justified in his criticism. Sure, he could have risen above it, but when people are printing abject lies about you you have to respond eventually. Can you really blame him for getting frustrated with that sort of thing? He never denigrated her status as a presidential candidate, he just questioned the fact that he seemingly has to defend himself against two people both accorded a similar weight of opinion - Hillary, the candidate, and Bill, the former president spouse whose words still carry a lot of weight with a lot of people. It seems perfectly valid.

Fair enough. But then, I didn’t interpret his comment like that. I interpreted it as “I’m being ganged up on.” I didn’t hear a nullification of Hillary, I heard an addition of Bill. It never occurred to me that Obama was saying that Hillary was just fronting for Bill.

He has every right to say whatever he wants. I have every right to criticize it.

However, I’m not criticizing his discussion of what you mentioned. I don’t mind that. I’m criticizing his decision to intimate that Hilary Clinton is her husband’s puppet.

Just now catching up? Well, let’s see - Southerners have been seeing themselves as a minority since the beginning of the Republic, with good numerical basis for calling themselves a minority, even if they happen to be white and male. Later the Irish took control of city governments based on their solidarity as a minority, even if they were white. Or are now. Or whatever. Black “block voting” was consciously used as a political tool beginning in the 60’s, although that could be “only now catching” up if you have a very, very long persective.

So the comment about Democrats pushing identity politics for decades is flat true. In fact of course it was Democrats that pushed the segregationist, white racist politics of identiy in the first place, and when they finally started dropping it, that was when that demographic finally jumped to the Republican Party they had been toxically hating for a hundred years.

The Democrats’ problem here is that they have been pushing identity politics for decades.

Funny you should mention this… It’s not as if the contemporary Republican party hasn’t been pushing white and male identity politics since it’s incarnation in the 50’s. If memory serves me right, what was the reason the majority of southern Democrats jumped ship to the Republican party? What sort of coded languages have folks been using to discuss the “illegal immigration” problem outside of “they’re going to end our culture and way of life”?

To be fair, the democrats have also been notorious for playing the white male race card a la Elizabeth Edwards “John is someone who looks like them”.

But let’s be honest, minorities have only now been catching up with the identity politics game that has largely been the domain of white men…

You think that Reagan Republicans disillusioned with Pres. Bush will line up for Obama? The Reagan Republicans that are disillusioned with Bush that I’ve talked to are upset with him because they thought he was a conservative. I’d like to see the analysis that says that Reagan Republicans are actually considering voting for Obama.

But it will weaken the party as it does so.

The Democrats’ problem here is that they have been pushing identity politics for decades. They weren’t ready to deal with two people that appeal to two different identity groups. And both of them want to win pretty badly and have a shot to win, so in the end they have little recourse but to go after each other. Since the basis of their campaign is identity politics, that’s the basis on which they compete. If they split the delegate vote on Super Tuesday it’s going to get real entertaining. The competing cries of racism and sexism will probably escalate; if not directly on the part of the candidates, certainly on the part of their supporters.

The basis of the Republican candidates’ campaigns are more policy-based, so when they go after each other they’re spending most of their time talking about policy differences instead of which one of them is being more racist or sexist. That kind of discourse is going to appeal to the non-party faithful and independents a lot more. Plus, there don’t seem to be any Whitewater/Rezcko deals in the background to slime them with.

I’d love to see a Democratic convention where Obama and Clinton each have about 45% of the delegates they need and Edwards holds the difference. The winner will have to jump left some to pick up his delegates. I’d love to see the Republicans take it down to the convention as well, but I don’t think Huckabee is going to have the delegate count to play the Edwards role. I could be wrong, though.

Sailorman: Again, my citing of voting demographics was relevant to Mary’s description of Obama’s coalition, a description I find erroneous and incomplete, particularly as borne out by the voting patterns. I didn’t bring up the composition of Obama’s support, but I responded to it with an argument backed by data analysis as provided by credible sources. That seems within bounds of the discussion, at least insofar as it has meandered.

And I agree, that even if a majority of women may support Obama, that has no bearing on the sexist or nonsexist nature of his comment. I think his comment was directed at the tag-team the Clintons have played and the increasingly large surrogate role President Clinton has played in Senator Clinton’s campaign - a role that even Michelle Obama cannot match, because she does not have the same command of either the airwaves or the Democratic Party machinery. As I said before, were the Clintons a gay couple, Obama’s comment would have been appropriate. Maybe a little snippy, but…eh.

neither do i, fwiw, and as I’m sure you can tell i’m at complete odds with mandolin regarding the post topic so i’m not just ganging up on you.

Here’s why: how many women have to vote for Obama to make his comments (if sexist) become nonsexist? how many women would have to fail to vote for Obama to make his comments (if nonsexist) become sexist?

There is no answer, it’s a trick question, which is why it’s irrelevant.

I apologize for making an error. It happens. I’m really not enchanted with your parting muckraking, though. It’s out of line, and out of tone with my initial comment.

Meanwhile, from this point forward, attacks on the viability of any candidate — including Obama — based on demographic analysis don’t really strike me as on topic. Let’s try to focus this on the specific incident, not a general free-for-all “I hate X, but love my candidate because…”

But, hey, if you don’t want an informed discussion, Mandolin, that’s fine by me.

As for your description of Obama’s base, what do you make of this turn-out in South Carolina, as reported by the NY Times:

Here in South Carolina, Mrs. Clinton was supported by about 3 in 10 women over all, the exit polls showed, hampering a candidacy that is depending on female support to win states. She received support from 4 in 10 white women and 2 in 10 black women. She had competed aggressively for their vote, particularly African-Americans to offset Mr. Obama’s advantages.

White voters under the age of 40 divided their support, with almost 40 percent for Mr. Obama, and about 3 in 10 each for Mr. Edwards and Mrs. Clinton. Almost 80 percent of blacks under the age of 40 voted for Mr. Obama.

Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Edwards divided white voters age 40 and older equally, with about 40 percent each, according to exit polls. Among older blacks, 80 percent supported Mr. Obama.

Obama has attracted voters of both sexes, all ages and many colors. I think that is a good thing. I also think it’s a good thing to attract independents (right or left leaning) and disaffected Republicans, because the next President is going to need political capital to break through the partisan gridlock. Granted, that begs the question “to what end?” but as a general statement about strategy, it bears keeping in mind. In the general election, Barack Obama has a much better chance than Hillary Clinton of beating John McCain, whose enormous appeal for independents should not be underestimated.

His strategy is, and has always been to win by putting together a coalition of Right-leaning independents and Reagan Republicans disillustioned with Bush, young voters with no adult memories of the the 90s and the Clinton administration, and men made uneasy by the idea of a female President — using Republican-type personal character slurs and talking points against Hillary and the former President and his administration, as well as coded sexism.

It may work. But it will weaken the party as it does so.

Hillary’s campaign has attacked Obama too much through surrogates, including Bill Shaheen and Bob Johnson insinuating that Obama was a drug dealer, and the constant attacks from Bill. This doesn’t even mention Hillary’s employment of the reincarnation of Lee Atwater than is Mark Penn…

^2. Hell, I wanted to.

As someone else pointed out above, if she wasn’t trying to pass off her years of being married to Bill as political experience, then perhaps it wouldn’t be fair game. But since Obama’s held more elected offices than Clinton, she has to introduce something else to count as “experience.”

Which is ridiculous because if we really wanted experience we’d all have voted for Bill Richardson. Really.

I am not responsible for defending my choice of topics to you.

Hear, hear!

This is classic trolling — the suggestion that I should not post about what I want to post about because I should instead post about what you prefer.

It’s also an oft-seen pattern that people try to both deflect criticism on topic “A” and label the poster by saying “Well, why are you ignoring ‘B’? That must mean you are trying to hide that you are in favor of ‘B! and are thus racist/sexist/whatever.”

Hell, the kids in my Scout Troop try it on me when I catch them out on something. “You were told not to use the axe on live trees.” “Charlie was using the axe outside the axe yard, why don’t you yell at him?!”

I guess that didn’t piss you enough to write about then…I wonder why?

Lloyd, try to raise the level of your discourse past an 11-year-old trying to get out of cleaning out the spaghetti pot.