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Trinity, Dem Divide and Rezko

By LisaB on June 15, 2008 at 8:10 PM in Appalachia, Barack Obama, Current Affairs, Democratic Party, Democrats, Electability, Father Michael Pfleger, General Election

Some items of note today:

1) Remember when BO threw TUCC under the bus? There’s a WP article out today about some of the fallout from that. Some Trinity members feel ill-used. I’d say they have a right.

The space under Obama’s bus is full enough now with Wright, Trinity, Pfleger, Rezko, Johnson, his white grandmother, and assorted others to require the outfitting of monster truck wheels.

2) A fascinating article in the Weekly Standard (I know, I know) suggests one way to look at the divide in the democratic party is by labeling the sides Academicians and Warriors.

read the rest ->

The divisions between these two classes tend to be deep. Academicians traffic in words and abstractions, and admire those who do likewise. Jacksonians prefer men of action, whose achievements are tangible. Academicians love nuance, Jacksonians clarity; academicians love fairness, Jacksonians justice; academicians dislike force and think it is vulgar; Jacksonians admire it, when justly applied. Each side tends to look down on the other, though academicians do it with much more intensity: Jacksonians think academicians are inconsequential, while academicians think that Jacksonians are beneath their contempt. The academicians’ theme songs are “Kumbaya” and “Imagine,” while Jacksonians prefer Toby Keith:

Well, a man come on the 6 o’clock news

Said somebody’s been shot, somebody’s been abused

Somebody blew up a building, 

Somebody stole a car, 

Somebody got away,
Somebody didn’t get too far, 

Yeah, they didn’t get too far 

Justice is the one thing you should always find. 

You got to saddle up your boys, 

You got to draw a hard line. 

When the gun smoke settles, we’ll sing a victory tune, 

We’ll all meet back at the local saloon. 

We’ll raise up our glasses against evil forces, 

Singing “Whiskey for my men, beer for my horses.”

Academicians don’t think “evil forces” exist, and if they did, they would want to talk to them. This, and not color, seems to be the divide.

Then the article switches to the race as it is now.

And he [Obama] is up against John McCain, a true Jacksonian if ever there was one. Of course, he dispatched another Jacksonian in Hillary Clinton, who, against all expectations, emerged as a lower-to-middle-class spokesman, and all-purpose warrior queen. As a feminist and graduate of Wellesley and Yale, she was an unlikely choice to appeal to Jacksonians, but she won them over by her grit and tenacity and her stubborn refusal to give in to pressure. Like McCain, she gave the impression that she would never stop fighting, while Obama, as Barone puts it, gave “the impression, through his demeanor and through his statements that he would never start.” Obama may be the first nonwhite with a serious chance of reaching the White House, but he is also the latest in a long line of anti-Jacksonians who have tried, and have failed, to win the office of president. The second obstacle may prove more formidable than the first.

The Appalachia explanation and white racist explanation do not fit nearly as well as this one. And it dovetails nicely with the PUMA like atmosphere found at this blog and others. Although I’d have to say Toby Keith isn’t the ONLY possible bannerman for warriors, Obama’s democratic detractors are definitely warrior-like. Booyah.

3) Rezkowatch has a very helpful discussion of the Obama home purchase issue. While Obama negotiated a nice, much-lower price for his house, Tony Rezko’s wife paid extra for the lot next door. Since both lot and house were sold by the same seller, it looks as if the seller roughly got his asking price but with the house going for below market while the lot went for above market. Later, Obama bought 1/6 of that lot for 1/6 of the price Rezko’s wife paid. The article notes: who would later want to buy 5/6 of a lot, particularly when it is not likely you’d get a building permit for it?

Looks like in addition to a nice discount on his house, Obama wanted to buy just enough of the empty lot next door to make it “unbuildable.” Unusual? Not really. Unsavory? Definitely. Perhaps this is an early application of the “new politics” of real estate.