I wonder if this has something to do with the following: A central tenet to the argument against Obama was that he was this effete liberal who could only get the votes of blacks and the over-educated (Paul Begala's "African-Americans and Eggheads" assertion). Back then it was thought that Obama would have trouble with Jews, Latinos and white people who didn't go to Harvard. Whatever happens over the next few weeks, that claim now looks ridiculous. And so the fact of the matter is that these guys didn't just support the losing candidate, their argument is daily being exposed as hogwash. They weren't just wrong about the primary--they were incredibly wrong about the general."The proudest accomplishment I'll look back on is the seven-week campaign we ran for Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania," Rendell said. About half of the several hundred people at the outdoor rally applauded.
"I have never seen a seven-week campaign catch fire the way that campaign did," Rendell went on. A smaller number of people clapped.
"It was wonderful to see people who would tell me, 'I'm never voting for Hillary Clinton,' by the end of that seven weeks were avid Hillary Clinton supporters," Rendell continued. This time nobody applauded.
Rendell was not quite done. "In Washington, D.C., if we lose all of our supporters, all the people who look out for us, there will be one man left standing," he said, "but that man will be a woman, Hillary Rodham Clinton."Clinton tried to take over the microphone, uttering a "Whoa!" to admire the crowd -- but Rendell reclaimed the floor. "One last time!" he shouted, leading the crowd in a chant of "Hillary! Hillary!"
Hillary Clinton ran the most successful presidential campaign ever launched by a woman. But these guys need to believe something more. It's like the world is changing under their feet, and even if the change is good for liberals, they can't accept it. Take a look at Fivethirtyeight. I don't know if that will hold up, but who will these people be when the walls fall down? What will these people say if Obama actually gets more white voters than Kerry? If his win trumps Bill Clinton's? What will they say if their "hard-working white voters" chose a Hyde Park liberal? What will they call themselves?
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
What have you done with Ta-Nahisi?
also,
What will they say if they're "hard-working white voters" chose a Hyde Park liberal? What will they call themselves?
Over-chicked.
max
['.']
You misspelled his name. Oh the inory.
Whoa TNC. Slow down a little man. I know you have already copped to your penchant for typos but this post needs some serious proofreading. There is at least one error in almost every sentence. I ain't mad at ya but maybe you were just a little bit anxious to post this one. Easy does it.
Yes, sorry guys. I'm going back over it now. Sometimes I get jittery. I'm emotional! What can I say!
It's obvious that Bill Ayers wrote this post...
Oh come on. Give me a little credit...My eight year old wrote it. I only dictated.
absolutely not trying to equate rendell with racists here but my reaction to this is the same as your reaction to most racists: who cares? i see this stuff & i just think "hater". if & when Obama wins people like rendell will have no choice but to get or board or be left behind. i cant wait to see what happens lieberman, a true sellout if there ever was one. i mean Obama campaigned for this clown in CT.
yeah, he is still pissed. HRC promised him something more than Gov of PA and he couldn't deliver. No way Obama forgets that and gives Big Ed anything of value. It will be interesting to watch how Dean works with Obama to finally wrest the party from the Clintons and if they will except (sic) it.
rendell-- what can i say? He's my governor, and he's like one of your uncles that you really really like but who can't get free of some of his preconceived notions. With your uncle, you gotta say, well, he's my uncle, i can't change him. With Rendell, we get the choice to vote him out. However, Rendell's pretty popular here. Don't know how obama will deal with him after the election, but he probably will. He'll probably "ask" him to do one of those horrible jobs in politics that nobody wants to do, but which you foist off on people you hate. And Rendell will have to do it or he'll seem anti-obama.
After 2004, I told my blue friends that the reason that Bush won was that Kerry was so absolutely awful. A better candidate would have won, I pointed out again and again.
They told me that there was no way that I could possibly know that. I was building counterfactuals in my head and playing with alternate history. The American people were stupid, there was no other explanation. They were in love with war and in love with Bush and the 2008 elections were going to be cancelled.
My red friends were doing a little dance talking about how great it was that Bush won. I tried to tell them that Kerry was an awful, awful candidate. A better candidate would have beaten Bush. They told me that Kerry was a very strong candidate and Bush slugged it out against a very strong candidate and came out with a mandate.
2006 happened.
Now... 2008 is going to happen.
My advice is to not necessarily think that it's because your guy is great and because he has been given a mandate by the American People.
2010 is going to happen too.
Silky Johnson has to watch out, Ed Rendell is coming after his crown. I think your argument is dead on; the guy looks foolish in hindsight and is probably too arrogant to condede that he was wrong.
The primaries ended on June 3. The more we all remember that, the better off we'll be. That is all.
oh quite
eye miss pale shitt to.
yet it didn't break me from comprehending the post...
I'd go easy on Sex Ed. Rendell pledged to deliver PA for Hillary and did an excellent job. But in May (when HRC was mathematically out of it but kept running) he said something like "Hillary fought a good fight, but there's a time when you accept the inevitable and don't damage the nominee." I remember reading it and thinking 1) Ed knows which way the wind blows and 2) the Clintons are gonna be pissed.
So I think this story is just Rendell trying to do right by the party while also smoothing things over with the Clintons. In other words, he was being a politician.
Hey, as long as they're out there stumping for the Democratic ticket, I don't care what they really think.
I read this article and wasn't in the least surprised.
After Obama is elected, Hillary will be Lion(ess) of the Senate, following in Ted Kennedy's footsteps. Her political career is far from over.
After Obama is elected, Ed Rendell will be a footnote. His political career? Done. The behavior at the rally is because Rendell knows it.
Greg: noo
My biggest fear is that those folks will point to the economy as the only reason Obama is in the lead, that if the Economy wasn't tanking, then only Hillary could of won the general..and they won't LEARN anything.
My greatest joy..that the Republicans will blame the economy as the reason that Obama is winning..and in a fair (1. not my word 2.economy not an issue) election McCain would wins hands down and they won't LEARN anything.
Confusing your friends with your enemies, I think. There's no need to be upset or worried about Rendell. Rendell is a longtime supporter and friend of the Clintons. He supported Hillary, and is obviously going to say nice things about her. He's also trying his best to appeal to people who were ardent Hillary supporters. This is common sense.
I've seen him at a few Obama rallies in the past couple of weeks and he's been great and enthusiastic in his support of Obama. He's also one of the most important people in this election. I have no fear of McCain winning Pennsylvania, because Rendell is going to get the vote out- across Philly and across the state. If Rendell had endorsed Obama in the primaries, he would've won the state by 10 points.
Post of the day to brucds.
I first heard of Ed Rendell when he made his "I got an extra 5 points since I was running against a black guy, and some PA folk won't vote for one" remark. I thought PA would take him apart. Instead, reaction was "yeah, 5 points sounds about right."
But then he said that Obama would have no trouble winning PA when that was completely off-message, and I've blessed his talent for blunt truths since then. Obama's pretty much been ahead in PA since before the convention.
Ed's seemed like a reasonable surrogate until this. Maybe it was that Hillary was there, and he wanted to give her a good solid "Hurrah Hillary!"? Which seems to have failed. Or what hubcap says--this is mostly about the presence of Clintons. Not that that excuses the hyperbole wherein every Dem in Washington is lost except Hillary...that doesn't really seem to be an issue this year.
and my comment-
Far as I can tell, Ed was just remembering the good ol days. Little pride maybe in his very strange intro of Clinton at an Obama rally no less. We forget what Obama really did when he beat the Clinton's in March. (yeah yeah June was official, but it was always delegates that would get the nomination) Obama built a brand new and innovative funding network that enabled him to stick a major wedge in the democratic party power structure. These big cats like Rendell (that backed Clinton) may not be bishops or knights on Obama's board. Really a seismic shift of power. Okay by me in letting Eddy reminisce a little.
I would like to nominate Rendell for Secretary of Nothing.
I'm of the opinion the ends justify the means. As long as they vote for Obama on Nov. 4th does it matter why they voted for him or what Rendell thinks.
Yeah I have to say that I saw Rendell at the Springsteen Obama rally and was really skeptical due to his backing of Hillary--but man did he give an unbelievable, rousing, pro-Obama speech. And the PA crowd loooved him. And this was at a Bruce concert, so they could have just been like "shut up and bring out the boss."
I think (hope) he's just a good suck-up, whether it's Hillary, Bruce, or Barack he's cheering on.
I certainly don't deny that race may be a factor, but I think it's also generational - Obama represents the fading of the boomer ascendancy. I think a lot of these guys resent the upstart who's edging them out.
Another major issue with Rendell, Bill Clinton and a number of other established male politicians is an anxiety (not unjustified) that their own accomplishments will be eclipsed by Obama's. Everybody senses that his achievement could be epic and epochal.
Not only will he be the first African-American president, but he possesses the charisma, brilliance and steadiness to be the first truly great president in a very long while. And now that we're enduring a once-in-a-century crisis, the potential is even greater for Obama to excel.
Of course he could fail spectacularly; but he has a legitimate shot at joining the ranks of the great. Chances are better than even that, if elected, Obama's presidency makes Clinton the 20th century's Grover Cleveland.
I generally agree with Dan and Deborah. A couple other items to note: Fast Eddie has his own state to mind. As the primary showed, there are a lot of Clinton supporters in PA. Many of them will be voting in competitive congressional districts (as well as state General Assembly seats). While Obama's going to have some long coat-tails this year, it won't hurt to try to get some support from Hillary as well.
Plus, he's making nice to the Senator from a state that borders his own. Makes sense to me.
Rendell was just on one of the Sunday talk shows and did a superb job debating Tim Pawlenty, I believe. I wouldn't read too much into his comments - I think it's more praise for Hillary than a backhanded slap at Obama.
a whole lotta folks want Barack Obama to lose.
You want names?
Come on, you know the names.
A whole lotta folks hitched themselves to Hillpatine.
And, Obama, IF he actually makes it to the White House, will owe fewer favors to the 'usual suspects' than anyone in recent history.
That's terrifying to a lot of people. Period.
Obama's 4 million donor list terrifies a lot of folks.
He's done what people said couldn't be done. What some folks mocked at when he began his campaign.
Some folks Obama MUST return their phone calls. Rendell knows, after November, he's not one of them. And, he's not alone.
"A central tenet to the argument against Obama was that he was this effete liberal who could only get the votes of blacks and the over-educated (Paul Begala's "African-Americans and Eggheads" assertion). Back then it was thought that Obama would have trouble with Jews, Latinos and white people who didn't go to Harvard. Whatever happens over the next few weeks, that claim now looks ridiculous."
It looked ridiculous then. What about Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, Virginia, North Carolina?!?!
I saw no difference between Hillary's campaign tactics and the Republicans. They make what they think is their best argument. They dont necessarily believe it. They don't care if it makes much sense as long as you believe it and it gets you to vote for them.
totally agree with rikyrah.
your point about Obama's favors is so dead on.
that's what people like Brooks don't get. Brooks is all rambling about Obama not being able to stand up to liberal dems in congress. 1st of all Obama probably agrees with a lot of what they will want to do but more important is that Obama will be calling the shots. He doesn't really owe anyone anything not the Clintons & not anyone in congress. His campaign pretty much will have done it on their own if & when they do it.
TNC,
You asked what are these guys going to do when Obama gets more white votes than Kerry, but the more important question is what are you going to do?
I remember from your bloggingheads discussion with McWhorter you said you were surprised when Obama won white Iowa and still hadn't totally come to grips with it (correct me if I'm wrong with the paraphrase). Well, what do you think now that it looks like a black candidate might do better than previous white candidates did with white folk?
I hope you'll do a post on what you suspect you might feel when Obama wins, and then, after he does, one about how you actually feel.
Mike,
Your conflating Iowa with the rest of the election. I did not, indeed, think Obama could win largely white states before Iowa. But I was wrong, and have doubted the kid (on that point) since. With that in mind, I'm not sure what your question is. I addressed the Iowa thing very directly on the bloggingheads video.
"I hope you'll do a post on what you suspect you might feel when Obama wins,"
That is about 30 percent of this blog, sadly.
"and then, after he does, one about how you actually feel."
No, I think I'll just stop talking about it.
What I think they would say, and I think this is at least partially true, is that the economic collapse and to a lesser extent the Palin pick are behind Obama's success more than anything native to Obama himself. If Hillary was there it would be a different game but the economy would still be in the tank and Hillary might be winning by even more than Obama is. She was a really good candidate.
Keep in mind Obama would almost certainly be the second pick on the Hillary ticket so a lot of the energy and new voters and organization would still be around. It would be a different race, but the external factors, the economy, the Bush disaster, these would remain constant and the dems would still have everything working for them.
I've been skeptical about the motives of the Clintons and her surrogates, Rendell included, for quite awhile now. A few weeks ago I might have analyzed this statement: "I have never seen a seven-week campaign catch fire the way that campaign did," as a ploy to get everyone thinking about the possibility of another candidate doing something similar in the remaning three weeks...and letting the press take it from there. But that just doesn't make perfect sense.
I'm not sure Ta-Nehisi's analysis adds up neatly either. The truth is, I don't know what to think. My gut tells me something's up but I can't put my finger on it. That's what makes me so nervous. And I think that's why the people in the crowd at this rally remained silent. Something stinks but they don't where it's coming from.
no big deal. some people do in fact still really love the clintons the way some people now love obama. i think that it's a side effect of the primaries having gotten so very heated - it's hard for people to just let go of all those passions, they look fondly upon their hurrah-for-hillary feelings, which were tied to their no-to-the-republicans feelings as voters. as long as rendell is faithfully getting out the vote for BO in PA, i'm fine with it. i like the clintons and obama both.
also - what do people think of this continued talk of a president obama nominating hillary to the supreme court? are a lot of clintonites expecting that? is there good reason, other than the continued expectation of more appeasement from obama that some clintonites seem to want, to do this? i.e. would she make a good supreme court justice? i'm not even close to being a lawyer so i can't really say, but i imagine there will be a number of available and better-qualified candidates (although i don't doubt that she would bring great effort to the job).
As a Pa. resident and an Obama supporter, Rendell has, indeed, been often off-message & downright annoying at times. Same with my mayor, Michael Nutter. I have to say, I don't quite get it.
Rendell has, however, been doing the tour duty & making robocalls for Obama rallies, etc., etc., to help the cause. He's just... Rendell. More than anything, he probably just can't stop patting himself on the back for helping Hillary win Pa. in the primaries, I guess.
Rendell is acting like a forever-mentor, a special variety of white nonsense.
Forever-mentors are powerful people who have exerted big energy over many years to recognize talent and open doors for younger people from diverse backgrounds. They really have made some important things happen. They have helped real talent move much closer to its real potential.
Forever-mentors have understood all along that some of their proteges would someday hold top positions.
Someday.
That's the rub.
Forever-mentors have been expecting forever-gratitude.
They never imagined that they themselves would face a winning non-white challenger.
You can't spot a forever-mentor until the challenge comes, and then there's no mistaking their rage.
We've had more than one helping of their volcanic insanity this year, and I suspect we'll see a good bit more of it over the next few decades.
TNC, WTF are you doing? We're in the home stretch, Obama has one last BIG test with tomorrows debate with McCain, he's got momentum - and you want to rip Hillary and company once more and give a voice to all of the lefty fruit loops still hung up on Bill and Hill. Just fucking drop it. Bill and Hillary are out there campaigning, hard and effectively I might add. And - Don't fall for every dim-witted post on Andrew Sullivans blog - Hillary Clinton WILL NOT be on the supreme court. She's not qualified and she certainly doesn't want it. She'll be going after Harry Reid's job, not JP Stevens'. And one last time, if you voted for Nader in 2000, don't wear yourself out patting yourself on the back 'cause you wear an Obama pin - you still fucked this country and put Bush in office and you're still an idiot - and Cristopher Hitchins is still a douche-bag!. Go Obama! And go Clintons helping Obama get elected! Three more weeks, bitch!
I don't know what you're talking about. Ed (who by the way was a fine mayor of Philly and is a good governor) says some complimentary things about Hillary, and to you this is some sort of apostasy. And then you ramble on about race and the world changing under the old guard's feet, and what have you. Even if there were some implicit slight to Obama in his comments about Hillary, what does that have to do with some outmoded theory of racially polarized voting? Maybe he just personally likes Hillary and doesn't care for Obama. The Clintons did, you know, install him as chair of the DNC after his time as mayor was up.
Keystone State residents please correct me if I'm wrong but my perception is that there's a lot of local rivalry between the Caseys (father & son) and Rendell played out against the backdrop of national politics (Bill Clinton and now Sen. Obama). So some of Rendell's hype of HRC is also to let the local folks know that he's still the kingmaker at home even though Casey will probably be close to Obama's ear.
A little marking of territory in which HRC might have been splashed by the Gov Ed's stream.
You can add your Monty Python reference here.
I tip my hat to Ed Rendell. He is dead on accurate. Hillary Clinton was amazing and she kicked ass in the Pennsylvania Primary. I flew there from California to help out, and it was awe inspiring. Thank you Ed for acknowledging Hillary Clinton once again.SHE DESERVES THE RECOGNITION.
I don't care what Ed Rendell says as long as it helps bring his fellow bubba's along to vote for Obama. Maybe this is what they need to hear--to know that Hillary is a part of this hopefully big win. The Clinton's lost, end of story (at least for now)lets get busy and keep busy until Nov. 5.
The idea less-educated whites wouldn't vote for Obama seemed pretty reasonable and supported by the evidence. In facts whites with less than a college degree still favor McCain by a fair margin according by Gallup.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/108046/Candidate-Support-Education-Among-Whites.aspx
However I think some may not have adjusted to a changing situation. Whites, particularly white men, without a college education are a much less significant group than in times of yore. America is increasingly Hispanic, Asian, and/or college-educated. Obama seems set to do much better with Hispanics and college-educated whites than Kerry did. Possibly better with Asians too although polls on that are a little more uncertain due to sample size. Anyway that's probably going to be enough even if he ends up doing only slightly, or no, better than Kerry with whites who never graduated from college.
Even in 1996 I think the dynamic may have been somewhat different. And the Clinton people seem to be stuck in the Clinton-era to some degree.
JT --
There may be somewhat of a rivalry between Rendell & Casey, but I don't think it's anything significant/bitter/ugly. Rendell, after all, helped clear the path for Casey to run for Senate against Santorum (by persuading/arm-twisting a pro-choice candidate out of running in the Dem primary, to help ensure a Casey win -- Casey is pro-life). There's an east state - west state thing; Rendell is strong in the East (which, ironically, is more Obama territory); Casey strong in the West (which went more solidly for Hillary).
I've voted for Rendell every time I've had the opportunity -- I don't think he's a bad guy or a racist. He's a bit Biden-esque, in the sense that he doesn't have much of a filter on what he says. He just blurts it out. He owes the Clintons (DNC chair, et al.), but, for example, he strongly supported John Street, an African American, to replace him as Philly mayor.
Who knows. He annoyed me during the primary (as did Michael Nutter, the african american Philly mayor, who also supported Hillary) & has annoyed me some since -- but I don't think he's particularly "angry" now & I have no doubt he wants an Obama win.
Isn't Rendell sort of correct? McCain co-opted HRC's idea about HOLC, which she got from FDR. Obama co-opted HRC's idea about how to help banks by making the people holders of equity in them. So far, all the economic ideas embraced by the two men running for president are the ideas of a woman who was pushed aside. So, yeah, she'll be the one left standing in support of us. With Obama's Family, Faith and Values Tour opposing gay marriage, his statement that he supports the death penalty, his FISA vote, his support for kicking Black Cherokees out of the Cherokee Nation, I am not seeing a progressive candidate on the ticket. I don't care about Ayers, Wright, all that junk. But I do want someone who supports the rights of minorities and if you look at Obama, he's not the One.
@sv: Clinton on the bench seems to be a recurrent meme, but I'm not sure if it has any currency from those high up (e.g. Rendell) rather than internet folk casting about for a nice role for Clinton. Certainly she doesn't seem to have been musing on it--that is, I don't think this is being leaked out by McAulliffe et al.
For myself, I'd be very leery of appointing someone who has not been a judge and doesn't seem to have a record on Constitutional Law. But Clinton is smart and thorough and a demon for detail, so maybe it would work. It does seem, though, that she'd be a divisive appointee, so I'm not sure Obama would want to spend political capital getting her through, rather than economic plans and foreign policy redeployment.
I think, like Ted Kennedy, Clinton could reposition herself in a "the Senate is where I'll leave my legacy" mindframe and do good things.
As to the original topic, I'm convinced that Ed was trying to be nice to Clinton and perhaps misreading his voters, thinking they needed to be stepped through the catharsis and closure stuff again while they thought "Fool, we got over it in August." Nothing to see here...
i think this is called Rhetoric. Rhetoric is a persuasive tool. if what it takes to get some hillary primary voters to vote for obama is to hear how terrific hillary was, and therefore how tremendous they were for supporting hillary, then i say let's hear it, governor rendell. rendell is a very smart pol, who knows there are different ways of reaching different voters and that having your side win is the goal. let's try to keep that in mind. can we win first and then, when obama is president, those of us on the left blogs can go back to tearing our side apart.
Sporcupine,
Love the idea of forever mentors. Do you coin the term?
Deborah,
I agree. I think Rendell was in catharsis mode and the voters via Pain, have already moved to Obama.
Obama will owe The People & the public officials who came out early and took some risk and also Richardson and the DNC dude from Indiana. Oh and that black woman in York, PA who had never voted but registered over 1400 people with a full-time job.
He will not owe MOST members of Congress or MOST of the civil rights establishment. And as for Jesse's latest--let's just say that dude is a HATER on a higher level. He is literally, Ladies & Gentleman, literally trying to DESTROY Obama's prospects. What is wrong with him? & his son is often off message with that fake-assed preacherly cadence.
He owes the Clintons (DNC chair, et al.), but, for example, he strongly supported John Street, an African American, to replace him as Philly mayor.
Didn't do us Philadelphians any favors with that one. But hey, at least it gives him non-racist cred.
"Hilpatine" ???! Seriously? Wow, she's got in your head, hasn't she? I mean, you just can't stop thinking about her, so it seems.
I voted for her in the primary because her views on healthcare, gay marriage, and abortion fit my own better. And because I knew from her history that her commitment to these issues wasn't "politician speak". She meant it. I support Obama and I will vote for him, but I don't think I was wrong about that.
I also supported Hillary because I thought she would be better at taking Republican crap and making them eat it. Getting inside their heads and making it explode. I was wrong about that. Obama seems to be doing a fine job of it. Good for him.
Thanks Lynn. Like I said, I thought it was just marking territory.