I'm sorry -- when your a party whose entire history is tied to the exploitation of race and racism as wedge issues, it is no surprise that your voters might hesitate to be color blind when they go to the polls.

It is the question that has hung over Senator Barack ObamaÂ’s presidential campaign, and it loomed large on Tuesday night after his loss to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in Pennsylvania: Why has he been unable to win over enough working-class and white voters to wrap up the Democratic nomination?

Lurking behind that question is another: Is the Democratic Party hesitating about race as it moves to the brink of nominating an African-American to be president?

No one, of course, is willing to note that the Deocrats have made identity politics their stock-in-trade for decades. And after appealing to blacks as blacks, Hispanics as Hispanics, gays as gays, and women as women, is it any surprise that white Democrats might decide that similar ethnic solidarity is a legitimate thing for them to embrace? After all, no one is daring to suggest hat there is anything wrong with a 92% black turnout for Barack Obama, is there?

And let's not forget that the Democrats have never managed to unite their party around a set of fundamentals that are universally embraced After all, it embraces race-baiting charlatans like Al Sharpton and Kluxers like Robert Byrd. It embraces the radical feminists and their pro-abortion agenda, but still has a sizable pro-life vote among Catholics. And as polls have shown time after time, a great many white voters reject affirmative action -- whether in college admissions, employment, or the nomination of under-qualified presidential candidates like Barack Obama.

Posted by: Greg at 10:11 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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