1 post tagged “divide”

If you watch, listen to, or read the commentaries on the primaries taking place every couple of weeks, the news has drifted into a public battle of race, age, and gender.  I have been struck by the amount of news that basically states that Senator Hillary Clinton is winning over middle class, whites (the exact words that the media seems to be comfortable using), older “white” voters and is campaigning to win over women.  The other side of the coin is that Senator Barack Obama is winning over African-American voters (in the media known as “black voters”) and new, young voters.

This race may not be what has split the party, but no matter how you think it got there, I think it is safe to say that, the party is split and it is being made obvious to the whole planet. 

The last few days of news has brought lots of stories and discussion about the possibility that events of this primary season are negatively affecting the party as a whole.  Some say that the events of the last few months are not negatively affecting the party.  Again, that may or may not be the case, but the party has a huge negative point at this minute:  The party is divided. 

I have been befuddled by how comfortable the media has been in reducing the campaigns to the group that seems to vote for the candidates.  Now we can all think of Sen. Clinton as the candidate of middleclass “white males” and “older white” voters while Sen. Obama as the candidate of African Americans and new voters.  But, in thinking about it, although these facts are uncomfortable, they are true and this is news.

The problem is not the reporting, the problem is that the Democrats are comfortable with this as a whole.  It does not matter if the party split yesterday, over this primary season, or ten years ago, it is still split and the gap between the different factions is growing. 

The problem has the potential to move from a large crack in the party to a completely broken party in the near future. 

If Sen. Obama wins, the middleclass white males will feel disenfranchised and may not be in as much of a hurry to vote for him simply because he is a Democrat.

If Sen. Clinton wins, by the overturning of the popular vote by superdelegates, or by getting the states that Sen. Obama did not campaign in to count, a large part of the African American community will feel cheated by the candidate that represents middleclass, “white” America.  Has the party not thought through how overriding the popular vote of the people or including the votes of states that the first African American candidate did not campaign in (in accordance with instructions from the party) would speak to the African American populous. 

In polls the voters have made it clear that if their respective candidate did not win, they may vote for a Republican, Independent, or at the least no longer affiliate themselves with the Democrats. 

Both middleclass “white” and the “black” voters are major demographics that have been the base of the party for the past few years.  One of these groups is likely to be alienated in the next few months.  Then what?  How about the young voters that are voting for the first time?  Alienate them and you have succeeded in alienating the future!

I suppose the party has counted on being to get the two candidates coming together after some sort of solution is reached and running together as presidential and vice-presidential candidates.  This would be the case normally, but this current unusually prolonged  primary season and the nature of the “firsts” represented in the candidates, has allowed more time for voters to get their heart set on their candidate and to foster more dislike for the opponent. 

The end of the party seems to be coming faster than the end of the primaries.  If I were a Democrat (and not a complete independent) I would think that this has to stop now, because this one presidency is not worth risking the destruction of the party.  As an independent that thinks the party system is broken, I think if the one party explodes in front of the entire planet it will force the government and the country as a whole to look at revamping the party system.