In selecting Barack Obama as their standard bearer, the Democrats are making a very unusual move. As Kenneth Blackwell explains in this New York Sun piece, the Democrats' choice is going to be "a nominee who has been routed repeatedly in crucial swing states by an opponent with the highest negative approval ratings ever to run for an open seat presidency."
It is strange.
Obama lost to Hillary Clinton by huge margins in Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania. These are crucial states for the Democrats. Indeed, the white working class voters who make up the largest share of Democrat voters in these states are representative of the national bloc most desperately needed for a Democrat victory in November.
Writes Blackwell, "Democrats should look back to 1972 and 1988. Like Mr. Obama, George McGovern and Michael Dukakis carried the enthusiastic majority of liberals, college students, and African-Americans. They also conceded white working-class voters to the Republicans."
With everything going for them this year, why would the Democrats endanger their otherwise easy victory by once again lurching to the far left? For Barack Obama, though popular, charismatic and fawned over by the MSM, is still rated as the most liberal member of the Senate. And that record (as well as character issues raised by Jeremiah Wright, the flag pin, the numerous distortions and even Michelle Obama) will certainly become even more fully known in the general election.
Blackwell concludes, "A year that was supposed to hold enormous promise for the Democrat nominee now seems like a flashback to past defeats of them. And Mr. Obama, who touts himself as a new type of political leader, now seems like a practitioner of old and failed political strategies. Oh, how history repeats itself."
