Obama, Super Delegates and Affirmative Action*

I've thought a long time about whether or not to post this. I am a Hillary supporter. I do not believe that I am a racist. But I could be deluding myself.

Nevertheless, here goes.

The uncommitted Super Delegates have a real problem that is not being addressed amidst all the arguments about pledged delegates, caucuses, primaries, Florida, Michigan, etc. It is very simple. They will decide who the Democratic nominee will be. Their votes will be public. If Hillary wins because of Super Delegate votes, there will be an unholy chorus of objections from the MSM and the liberal blogosphere. The Supers will inevitably be accused of being racists and/or being bought off or threatened by the Clintons (although Obama's contributions to the campaigns of Supers far exceed that of Hillary Clinton). Hillary's campaign against McCain would be blighted.

But what if the Supers vote for Obama? Will they be accused of having being bought off? Of being sexist or misogynists? No. Hillary's supporters will be furious, but we lack the media megaphone that Obama has. Our objections will be treated as a footnote, as irrelvant. We will be patted on the head and told to "get over it". Obama's campaign will not be dogged by charges of illegitimacy because he owns the MSM and the A-List blogosphere.

So, it won't come down to whether the Supers believe Obama has a better chance of beating McCain than Hillary. Some of them may vote for him believing in their hearts that he will lose but concluding that losing the GE will be less painful than being individually targeted as racists. (Can you imagine the pressure if, in the worst of all possible worlds, it comes down to the vote of a single Super Delegate?)

Perhaps this is the elephant in the closet, the reason so many pundits are so sure that Obama will be the Democratic nominee. They know the Democratic leadership (Obama, Pelosi, Brazile, etc.) have made this calculation, too. They have two choices: nominate a woman and be accused of racism, and quite possibly lose the African American vote. Or nominate Obama and pray that he can beat McCain. Losing would hurt, but they would not bear the responsiblity.

I'm pretty sure Obama has made this calculation, too. In short, Barack Obama may turn out to be our first Affirmative Action Democratic candidate for President - and, possibly, our first Affirmative Action President.

*UPDATE: I'm using the Conservative definition here: hiring an unqualified or under-qualified person solely because of that person's gender, ethnicity, race or religion.

The Experience Argument - I'm Confused

One of the constant tropes of Obama's campaign against Hillary is that she has no experience other than being First Lady. Nothing she has done in her entire working life, including her 7 years as a Senator, counts as experience.

But, and this is what gets me, if Democrats are supposed to vote against Hillary because she is unprepared and inexperienced, how on earth do Obama's supporters argue that he has the experience? Work as a community organizer? An undistinguished career in the Illinois legislature (at least until there was a Democratic majority) with some 100 "present" votes (not all of which were part of an organized Democratic strategy), and 2 years in the Senate, after one year of which he started running for President?

The Obama supporters say he has judgment. He was against the war in Iraq. As has been pointed out many times by many people, he made an anti-war statement as an unimportant legislator in a liberal district but never did anything to oppose the war other than make that one statement (as far as I can tell). And he has recently indicated that his financial dealings with Rezko were "bone-headed". So, he doesn't have perfect judgment either.

What are we to make of this? Should we start touting up examples of judgment on both sides to see how often Hillary and Obama have been right, or wrong?

But getting back to the experience issue. I just don't get how Obama and his supporters can argue with a straight face that Obama is the better candidate because Hillary hasn't got the experience.

Isn't the logical conclusion that if experience doesn't matter, then it doesn't matter if Hillary has experience or not?

So why does this particular argument against Hillary and for Obama continue to have legs, to be repeated - in one way or another - day after day after day?