What now, for Edwards/Obama flip-floppers?

[mojowork_n]

I'll admit it. I was deeply disappointed to see John drop out of the race today.

It seems like a "victory" for all the big-money, corporate-business-as-usual, bought and paid for Big Media voices that worked to keep him from being heard, in the first place. (Whoever it was that decided that coverage of John's campaign for the presidency should be minimized, whenever and wherever possible, and relegated to "also-running" status, with a fraction of the coverage given to the Big Two.)

At the same time, I also have to confess that I've really been "feelin'" Barack. A black man whose grandmother is still living in rural Kenya. His diploma from Harvard is hanging in her house:

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/05/31/040531fa_fact1


As an immigrant who began learning his first words of English the day I first walked into the door of an American public school, that diploma hanging on that wall really resonates with me. There's a global chord I can't begin to talk about, right now.

I've been rooting for Barack, too, hoping for the best from him, and for him.

So when I went to one of my favorite internet news/commentary sources, today, I was looking for some voice that could help me make sense of what's happened today, and what I might be hoping for.

Here's an excerpt:

"...Looking at Super Tuesday, on February 5, it's hard to see how Obama can overcome the Clintons' back-alley political methods and their institutional advantage in holding the party levers. The day of the Florida primary Hillary won the endorsement of the black Los Angeles congresswoman Maxine Waters, to whom the Clintons should be anathema on drug policy, on mandatory sentencing, on welfare.

Obama also faces formidable obstacles in trying to win over Hispanic voters, whose loyalty to Hillary certainly cost him the Nevada caucuses. As Sergio Bendixen, a pollster working for Hillary, put it in the New Yorker, "The Hispanic voters ­- and I want to say this very carefully --have not shown a lot of willingness or affinity to support black candidates." So much for the Rainbow Coalition.

There is a way Obama could make an impact on these millions of Hispanics he has thus far failed to set on fire. It would ratchet up the animus between the Obama and Clinton campaigns, but he needs to do this.

Across the next crucial days he could declare bluntly that while Mrs Clinton may profess profound sympathy for the concerns of Hispanics, the substantive record of the Clinton presidency was terrible.

The Free Trade bill ratified by Bill Clinton in 1994 sent hundreds of thousands of Mexicans north across the border out of Mexico's reeling economy, there to be met by criminal sanctions - aimed at the poor generally - harsher on Clinton's watch than on Bush's. It was Senator Obama, not Senator Clinton, who was a co-sponsor of the Immigrant Reform Bill, a major issue of 2007 for the Latino population.

To stay in the game with the Clintons Obama has to play it rougher. He has very little time to escape from the box into which Hillary and Bill have been trying to trap him as the black candidate Hispanics should not trust...

Complete text here:



I'm posting it here because I'd like to know what others are thinking, what our alternatives might be looking like.

Is it time to play hard ball?

Please, discuss!

[mojowork_n]

1. PS -- what about the media issue? Did John get shut out? n/t