Thoughts on The Hermanator
As a member in good standing of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, I got a chance to see Herman Cain a few weeks ago speak to a large-ish audience here in the Big Apple. He was great - alot more fluid and smooth than he is on TV - and never missed a beat. When he is rolling, Herman has a hard time softening the edges of that hard core black Georgia accent. I'm not saying he ought to soften it, he shouldn't - it's great, it's authentic - but he clearly attempts to do that on TV, so you don't get the full exposure. I came away with the impression that if the Hermantor gets on the Republican ticket (either as the POTUS candidate or the VPOTUS candidate), he's gonna steal a meaningful chunk of the black vote from the Lightworker. Certainly in the south, blacks are gonna see and hear Herman and conclude, 'this guy is like me - he talks like me, he says things that I hear all the time'. Barack Obama can't drop enough "g"s in ten lifetimes to come even close to affecting the authentic southern black Preacherman loquaciousness that Cain has by virtue of who he is. In 2008, all Lightworker had to do to was be more black than John McCain. This time around, if the psychology of the black vote comes down to "blackness" (which it shouldn't but often does simply because of human nature) and he has to be more black than the Hermanator, he's gonna lose that battle. Dear Leader will need to garner black support by virtue of his policies and Democratic Party loyalty.
Those were my impressions weeks ago. This week, I revisited those impressions talking to someone who I consider the archetypical smug New York City liberal sophisticate. Said person told me that they saw a clip of Cain speaking to a largely white audience in the south (in the "backwoods" was the verbatim reference, although it was very likely a small city) and that he had them quite fired up. Our NYC sophisticate concluded that if the Hermanator could appeal to "those type of people" he could be formidable. The statement was obviously suffused with the NYC bias that all the rubes in the hinterlands are so irredeemably racist that they shouldn't, if playing to type, respond so enthusiastically to Cain. There must be something to that Cain fellow, hypothesized our interlocutor, if he can appeal to such an audience - he might actually make inroads with white voters. (Shocker!) Not once though, did this person suggest that Cain might make inroads with black voters, because here on the insular island of Manhattan, blacks are presumed (taken for granted?) to vote for a Democrat, always and everywhere.
Of course such thoughts are unspeakable. As a whitey in a society where racial identity is all some people have and thus is fiercely protected, I dare not attempt suppose what a black person might think. So today, I am at least somewhat heartened to find my impressions confirmed almost exactly by the great, and black, Thomas Sowell. Unspeakable though it is in the public square, it happens to be true, and the Hermanator, if he finds his way onto the Republican ticket, may well pick off enough votes to send Obama to defeat - not because he is some sort of fig leaf for whites but because he is someone who blacks can viscerally, not superficially, identify with.
Those were my impressions weeks ago. This week, I revisited those impressions talking to someone who I consider the archetypical smug New York City liberal sophisticate. Said person told me that they saw a clip of Cain speaking to a largely white audience in the south (in the "backwoods" was the verbatim reference, although it was very likely a small city) and that he had them quite fired up. Our NYC sophisticate concluded that if the Hermanator could appeal to "those type of people" he could be formidable. The statement was obviously suffused with the NYC bias that all the rubes in the hinterlands are so irredeemably racist that they shouldn't, if playing to type, respond so enthusiastically to Cain. There must be something to that Cain fellow, hypothesized our interlocutor, if he can appeal to such an audience - he might actually make inroads with white voters. (Shocker!) Not once though, did this person suggest that Cain might make inroads with black voters, because here on the insular island of Manhattan, blacks are presumed (taken for granted?) to vote for a Democrat, always and everywhere.
Of course such thoughts are unspeakable. As a whitey in a society where racial identity is all some people have and thus is fiercely protected, I dare not attempt suppose what a black person might think. So today, I am at least somewhat heartened to find my impressions confirmed almost exactly by the great, and black, Thomas Sowell. Unspeakable though it is in the public square, it happens to be true, and the Hermanator, if he finds his way onto the Republican ticket, may well pick off enough votes to send Obama to defeat - not because he is some sort of fig leaf for whites but because he is someone who blacks can viscerally, not superficially, identify with.
posted by Donny Baseball at 9:53 AM
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