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May 5, 2008
Will Obama deliver the knockout blow to Clinton in the forthcoming primaries in North Carolina and Indiana? Obama is expected to take North Carolina. If he can pick off Indiana - and its precious white working-class vote - then he could finally land Clinton a mortal blow.
Can he do so in the context of the media love affair with him being over, the fallout from pastor Jeremiah Wright in the media and the race tinged edge of the contest.
Moir
What will probably happen is that the US mainstream media will continue its degradation of the political discourse with personality smears, trash talk spun to them by political operatives and gossipy chatter about non-issues (eg., John Edward's haircut).
Clinton is engaging in China bashing- blaming China for the loss of manufacturing and blue collar industry jobs--- to shore up her conservative white working class (Reagan Democrats?) support in North Carolina and Indiana. The economic context isn America is the recessed economy with the consumer overstretched by falling real wages, job losses and plunging house prices.
Clinton stands for protecting working class jobs in dying industries in a globalised world, even though the Clinton administration passed NAFTA, accelerated trade with China and India, focused on knocking down various protectionist barriers, etc. It is the fear card being played, as Clinton blames China for taking away manufacturing jobs from the American workers and manipulating the US currency. America needs to get tough on China etc etc.
The reality is that manufacturing is in a transition between its past glory as the provider of good, upwardly mobile, blue-collar jobs that formed the backbone of a vibrant middle class, and its future as a smaller, high-skills, high-tech industry.
Andrew Sullivan in the Sunday Times says that the only way Hillary can now win is by tearing down the Obama candidacy even further — a candidacy that has brought more new voters, more money and more enthusiasm into Democratic ranks than at any time since 1992. If she were somehow to persuade the superdelegates to pick her over the obvious favourite of primary voters, she would provoke an implosion in the party, brutal payback from young, black and independent Obama fans, and a real crisis at the Democratic convention. He asks:
So what is she up to and what is Obama to do about it? There are three main theories behind Clinton's refusal to acquiesce to mathematics: she simply cannot tolerate losing a nomination she believes she has a dynastic right to; she is trying to ensure that Obama loses in 2008 in order to run again herself in 2012; or she wants to be offered the vice-presidential spot on an Obama-led ticket. I'm beginning to suspect the last option is the most plausible, and it gives Obama a potential opening: why not give her what she wants? An Obama-Clinton ticket would certainly give the Democrats a massive sigh of relief — and perhaps some euphoria.
Is this feasible in a deeply divided Democrat Party? Perhaps, though unlikely.
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Gary,
Like Australia America has lost much of its manufacturing base, and it will continue to lose more.
Manufacturing will never again serve as a broad industry providing huge numbers of entry-level jobs and an easy path upward.
Old style modern manufacturing has an image as a grimy, blue-collar, low-skill industry and as a dying sector. Will it be able to morph into a high-skills industry more akin to architecture or engineering?