Perhaps the most remarkable thing
about Democrat Sen. Mary Landrieu’s
mushrooming desperation over retaining a spot in the Senate is that when she inevitably
played the race card, she did not do so in its usual manner, off the bottom of
the deck. Rather, she displayed it openly and proudly, as if she thought this
was the thing polite people do, without any shame, lacking any self-awareness
how by doing so that confirmed she had about as much character as the pictorial
symbol of her political party – or that it shows complete surrender to a
strategy of that plays to the worst in people that likely will not work to
bring her electoral victory.
That when Landrieu
declared on national television that unfavorable feelings in Louisiana about
Pres. Barack
Obama – who had a white mother and black father but who identifies himself
as a black American – were as a result of “The South has not always been the
friendliest place for African-Americans …. [making it difficult] for the
president to present himself in a very positive light as a leader” did not come
accidentally at the time in the campaign that it did. With the last dozen polls
showing her behind Republican Rep. Bill
Cassidy heads-up, early voting not providing any helpful news for her
campaign, and just
having had the last candidate debate, where Cassidy committed no errors,
she really has to go for broke, and the standard (pun intended) Hail Mary play
in the Democrats’ playbook is to plead with voters, particularly their base, to
stop thinking and start emoting, juiced by scare tactics and attempted delegitimating
of those who disagree with you on the issues.
The strategy has the upside of
mobilizing that base. It’s a dog whistle to low information voters,
particularly blacks, that opposition to the likes of Democrats such as Landrieu
and Obama only can result from racist motives, and therefore implies that to
allow the opposition to her to win would create more racism in American
government. It’s intended to frighten the base enough to get it to the polls to
vote for Landrieu.
But it also carries considerable
risks, because it causes anger, exasperation, and befuddlement among the more
knowledgeable about politics who are not jaundiced by ideology. While they know
that there’s always going to be a small segment in any society that, as part of
its world view, will use prejudice as significant input into the political
affect it has of political objects and guide its behavior, they also know that
doesn’t typify the vast majority of people. More specifically, they understand
that in the main Louisianans reject Obama because his policies in the aggregate
are bad and wrong not just for Louisiana, but for the country – as confirmed by
the congruence
of their rejection of his policies with their dislike for his performance in
office.
So imagine the still-undecided
voter, disproportionately a no-party registrant or a registered Democrat who
often for national elections votes for Republican candidates, being told by
Landrieu that his qualms with Obama policies that Landrieu has supported,
leading to a dim view of the president, are not because he has considered the
issues, but because he’s a stupid person held back by racial feelings deep in
his psyche. If in response to your dilemma you knew you were going to vote but
didn’t know yet for whom, would you seriously consider the candidate who
insulted your intelligence? And if you had decided to resolve the dilemma by
not voting, would it not activate you to vote for anybody but her because you
do not want the embarrassment of having the holder of such anti-intellectual
attitudes representing you in the Senate?
In her flight from intellectual
argumentation to pandering to the visceral, Landrieu gambles that she can
activate more otherwise non-participant voters through riling emotions than she
will turn off intended voters and some that had no intention to vote. It is a
tactic that attempts no unification of people around a popular agenda based
upon ideas, but disunity to muscle into power your interests over theirs by
assuming human beings have no interests in common. Perhaps Gov. Bobby
Jindal, himself a dark-skinned American of a minority ethnic group, best summed
up the attitude behind the strategy when he noted, “Senator Landrieu's comments
are remarkably divisive. She appears to be living in a different century.”
Corollary to the strategic shift
by Landrieu to go all in on voter mobilization by scare tactics rather than by
persuasion of the public through intellectual argumentation is she places all
her eggs in the basket of winning next Tuesday. A December runoff
disproportionately would attract more knowledgeable voters more likely to
decide on the basis of ideas, not emotions, making this tactic far less useful
in that environment. She signals by this move that she has no confidence that
she can win such a contest.
(Somewhat lost in her remarks was
that she extended the illusory widespread cultural attitudes apparently still
regnant in the Louisiana public to sexual chauvinism as well, presumably
meaning feelings against her as female. Not only is her statement on that
account entirely illogical if not buffoonish – she has been elected statewide
five times, after all, against mostly male opponents – but the entire Democrat
meme that somehow the GOP is waging some kind of “war on women” long ago lost
credibility, in Louisiana not the least indicated by the fact in the latest UNO
Poll that in a runoff with Cassidy she loses 50-44 among women.)
A false indictment of racism
against her constituents serves only her naked political interests and not the
state, and relies upon an outdated model of Louisiana’s political culture. More
likely than not, fewer people will be frightened into voting for her as a
result of these remarks than will base their vote on the knowledge that the
anti-intellectualism she revealed displays her lack of seriousness as an
official committed to helping the state, and thereby disqualifies her from
continuing in that office.
4 comments:
Gee, what a surprise that this intellectually dishonest shill posing as an legitimate observer of politics choses to omit the entire context of the answer. Ignoring her first cited reason as oil and gas policy as the cause. Only then did she move to the fact -- hidden by the Republican meme of "race' card" that among some voters in the South and in all parts of the country there is a reluctance to embrace a mixed race or black President I have to wonder if the professor has told the lie that there is no racist element opposing Obama so many times he truly believes that fair tale.
@ anonymous,
The oil comments prior to the racism and gender comments was trivial and used only as a stepping stone for Landrieu to mouth the party mantra of war against "insert cause".
She knew she was going to say it. As the prof said, it was her hail Mary pass.
Who decides the first answer given is trivial, I guess you and your crystal ball. I see you also deny the presence of racist voters in Louisiana. No one said a majority, to claim so would be as ridiculous as you and the Professor claiming the fact that racism still exists is only a "party mantra." That is the standard answer from folks on both sides when the can't justify something wrong with their side -- "talking points", "race card" or in your case "party mantra." There is racism on both sides, politically and racially, no matter how much you want to deny to portray your "side" as pure.
Mary will have the "last laugh". She'll beat Cassidy by 1 to 2 percentage points in the December run-off.
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