The Nappy Diatribe

Was Obama ever going to get the Archie Bunker vote?

Posted 05/14/2008 at 4:41 PM  |  Comment?

Early this morning, mere hours after Barack Obama's blowout defeat in West Virginia, I uncharacteristically sat in front of my overpriced television set with a bowl of "Total" cereal and watched the movie "Juno" for the first time. Usually I wouldn't get within a square mile of a tasteless cereal with the sex appeal of a forceful kick to the groin, but being that I suddenly have a desire to see my penis once again, and my girlfriend words "every inch counts honey" haunting my every thought - I've found myself giving up late-night snacking in the name of a thinner waistline and people no longer asking me if I have a thyroid problem. As for "Juno", a lighthearted 2007 comedic romp about teen pregnancy(only Hollywood could glamorize such topics), I solely decided to force myself to watch that movie to see what all the fuss was about - solely to avoid the morning news shows with nonsensical coverage where Hillary Clinton talking points about her West Virginia win would get clumsily get regurgitated ad nauseum. After seeing of all the anecdotal evidence coming out of West Virginia suggesting that the good people of that state put their kids to sleep at night to the soothing sounds of "Mississippi Burning", I just wanted to avoid hearing some pundit asking, "Why is Barack Obama having such a hard time with working class whites?" Which forces me to ask, In terms of West Virginia, when exactly was Obama ever going to get the Archie Bunker vote anyway?

With all the talk of "low information voters"(see gleefully ignorant) and the white working class refusing to buy into Obama's message of "Change" and "Hope" - when it comes to the reasoning behind it, why has good old fashioned racism all of a sudden been taken off the table? I'm in no way suggesting that a vote for someone other than Barack Obama means that you co-sign misguided endeavors such as cross burnings or attending a Micheal Richards stand-up routine - but when you see people cling to easily debunkable smears like him being a Muslim, or being born in another country no less like in the video above, you know exactly what in the fuck is going on here.

That also goes for all those malcontent-ed Hillary Clinton supporters as well, the ones who breathlessly claim that they will vote for John McCain in November if Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee(you've seen the polls). For one thing, I have to ask, what in the fuck are they so mad at? Obama's staunch opposition to the war being dismissed as a "fairy tale", being compared to Jesse Jackson after his South Carolina win, the rules about Michigan and Florida not counting being petulantly ignored, Hillary claiming that John McCain is better equipped for the White House than Obama is, her "working class whites" quip - if anyone should be mad, its Obama supporters. Hands down. That being said, when you look at lifelong Democrats willing to vote for John McCain in November if Obama is the Democratic Nominee, a man that has claimed he is going to continue the occupation in Iraq and possibly get us involved in even more wars, who openly admits that he is the Barney Fife of economics and plans to extend the Bush tax cuts, a man who I once characterized as "The Sex Guru" based on the numerous positions he's taken on any given subject over the years.. If those "Democrats" are willing to vote against Obama knowing all that, it has nothing to do with anything his campaign has done or anything the Senator has said - its the Archie Bunker factor, this time not coming from the toothless rubes of West Virginia but people who call themselves progressives. Both sets of voters were never going to vote for Obama anyway.

P.S Oh, "Juno" is alright.

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