John B. Judis, a senior editor at The New Republic, seems to be the only pundit who realizes that while Obama is still being carried by African American and young Democratic voters, he is losing support among essential segments like moderates and conservatives, voters who prioritize the economy above the war and so-called “values” voters.
This result is not unexpected because it’s the essential conundrum of Presidential primaries: the candidate has to risk the general in order to win the base.
While a slight majority of the Democratic party seems to have lost its collective mind, the country as a whole would have to be in pretty sorry shape to put a glib Chicago pol and his what’ll-she-say-next wife in the White House instead of a bona fide war hero with over two decades of high-profile federal government experience.
Anywhere else in the world, this scenario would be a joke. That it has devolved to this, in the most powerful country in the world, is unfortunately not a joke; rather, it’s alarming and sobering.
As the creeping (and creepy) male chauvinism in unexpected places (Russert, Kerry, Olbermann, McGovern, Moore, Carter, etc.) will probably stifle another female candidacy for the Presidency at least 50 if not 100 years, the inevitable Obama defeat in November will put back the cause of a truly viable Black candidate for at least that length of time.
What a hideous, heartbreaking spectacle, and it could all have been avoided if the anti-female element in the Democratic party had simply kept their mouths shut and waited until 2012 to promote their golden child’s political bandwagon.