IX: Obama’s Triumph of the Will: The 2008 Primaries 321OBAMA CAMPAIGN: WE NEED MORE WHITE PEOPLE
Obama’s campaign was relentlessly obsessed with race, in a number of directions. The following
account from Gateway Pundit deals with a campaign event at Carnegie Mellon University near
Pittsburgh on April 2, 2008. Michelle Obama’s handlers noticed that the television framing of the
speakers’ platform was going to show too many non-white faces. They therefore proceeded in a
blatant and ham-handed way to expel an Asian woman from the shot, while moving in a white face.
‘So just as Teresa Heinz Kerry, the woman who supports the lifestyle of the man whole sold the
Democrats down the river four years ago, was about to introduce the woman who took more than 40
years to be “proud of America,” suddenly....... gasp!... suddenly.......somebody noticed
something: While the crowd was indeed diverse, some students at the event questioned the practices
of Mrs. Obama’s event coordinators, who handpicked the crowd sitting behind Mrs. Obama. The
Tartan’s correspondents observed one event coordinator say to another, “Get me more white
people, we need more white people.” To an Asian girl sitting in the back row, one coordinator said,
“We’re moving you, sorry. It’s going to look so pretty, though.” “I didn’t know they would say,
‘We need a white person here,’” said attendee and senior psychology major Shayna Watson, who
sat in the crowd behind Mrs. Obama. “I understood they would want a show of diversity, but to pick
up people and to reseat them, I didn’t know it would be so outright.”’ (Gateway Pundit, “Giving
Hope a Comeback,” April 2, 2008) It looked rather like the old politics.
OBAMA WEAKENED IN THE COURSE OF THE PRIMARIES
In the wake of the Texas-Ohio-Rhode Island results, the Clinton campaign began to argue more
in detail that the public’s honeymoon with Obama had now passed its apex, and that his campaign
was beginning to ebb. Their statistics were based on the inherently unreliable exit polls, but might
still have indicated the beginnings of a sea-change. Clinton’s people claimed that “...just a few
weeks ago, Barack Obama won 68% of men in Virginia, 67% in Wisconsin and 62% in Maryland.
He won 60% of Virginia women and 55% of Maryland women. He won 62% of independents in
Maryland, 64% in Wisconsin and 69% in Virginia. Obama won 59% of Democrats in Maryland,
53% in Wisconsin and 62% in Virginia. And among Republicans, Obama won 72% in both Virginia
and Wisconsin. But now Obama’s support has dropped among all these groups. In Mississippi, he
won only 25% of Republicans and barely half of independents. In Ohio, he won only 48% of men,
41% of women and 42% of Democrats. In Texas, he won only 49% of independents and 46% of
Democrats. And in Rhode Island, Obama won just 33% of women and 37% of Democrats. Why are
so many voters turning away from Barack Obama in state after state? In the last few weeks,
questions have arisen about Obama’s readiness to be president. In Virginia, 56% of Democratic
primary voters said Obama was most qualified to be commander-in-chief. That number fell to 37%
in Ohio, 35% in Rhode Island and 39% in Texas. So the late deciders - those making up their minds
in the last days before the election - have been shifting to Hillary Clinton. Among those who made
their decision in the last three days, Obama won 55% in Virginia and 53% in Wisconsin, but only
43% in Mississippi, 40% in Ohio, 39% in Texas and 37% in Rhode Island.” (Clinton Campaign,
“Keystone Test: Obama Losing Ground,” March 12, 2008)
WAS OBAMA’S CAUCUS SUPERIORITY BASED ON HOOLIGAN DISRUPTION?
For weeks it had been assumed that Obama’s superiority and caucus states had been based on the
obvious advantage he held among rich elitists, affluent suburbanites, left liberal ideologues, and
Obama groupies, fanatics, and personality cultists — namely that all these groups were much more