What's Left

Romney dropped out today. With him went the hopes of the Eastern elite Wall-Street-and-banking wing of the Republican Party. Huckabee represents the religious-right wing of the party. (Why do those words go together? Jesus mocked the rich and exalted the poor.) McCain represents the military-jingoist small town narrow-mindedness-as-ideology, laughably called conservatism, the broad mainstream of the party. Ironically he is having trouble with the party faithful for not being conservative enough.

Judging by the California results, Obama represents a bizarre coalition of Black people and wine-and-cheese suburban liberals (some of whose Best Friends Are Black, i.e. the cleaning lady). He carried inflated-real-estate counties like Marin, San Francisco, and San Luis Obispo. Clinton represents a more reasonable coalition of Hispanics and working people generally. She carried counties like Fresno and Los Angeles. Butte County narrowly went for Clinton. Without Orland it was probably an Obama county. In terms of real estate values, living in an Obama county is a sign of having Arrived. Need I mention that proletarian Contra Costa is Clinton country?

Clinton represents Hispanics and people with jobs. Obama represents Blacks and people with careers.

The lumpenpunditariat have been dancing around the apparent dislike of Hispanics for Obama, and making up doofus explanations citing Clinton's "deep ties to the Latino community". By which we are supposed to believe that the vote of a Los Angeles gardener named Martinez is driven by whether Bill Clinton had lunch with Bill Richardson in 1996 or not. I don't think it is.

My guess is that Hispanics are voting against Obama for the converse of the reasons the suburban liberals are voting for him. Prosperous whites do not feel Blacks are any economic competition to them. Hispanics do. Prosperous whites feel guilty about their heritage of slavery and racism. Hispanics drop out of high school before getting that far in their US history textbooks, and anyway it was all a century before they swam the Rio Grande. So they don't feel guilty.

Prosperous whites like affirmative action because it reinforces their sense of superiority in having gotten to the top of the heap without it. Hispanics are conscious that when Blacks get special attention from the government it is affirmative action. When Hispanics get special attention from the government it is deportation. Hispanics like affirmative action for themselves because it compensates them for having to go to school in a foreign language, English. Hispanics hate affirmative action for Blacks because Blacks go to school in their native language, Ebonics. Prosperous whites live far away from Black muggings, break-ins, and assaults. Hispanics do not. Hispanics know that crime should be committed not just by any moron with a shiv, but by joining the street gang of your choice.