What Is Goin’ On?

Melissa Harris Lacewell is an Associate Professor of Politics and African American Studies at Princeton University. I wanted to discuss the significance of the 2008 Presidential Race in the context of electing or failing to elect the first woman or the first African American as president. Melissa gives her views on this issue and a lot of others.

Melissa doesn’t think that women are particularly focused on electing a woman as much as they are concerned about a candidate’s stand on specific issues, such as peace over war. While men are overwhelmingly Republican, women are fairly equally split between the Democracts and Republicans.

Melissa has some strong opinions about the Democratic ticket. Her Dream Team: Obama/Edwards, although she thinks Edwards/Obama is more likely to win. She’s a little put out with those people who think that Obama isn’t black enough or that Obama and Edwards don’t have the international experience necessary to be president. She points out that when people voted for a change in 2000 they weren’t voting for a George Bush that they felt capable of fighting terrorists or starting two wars. They were voting for someone that they thought would continue the relatively good times economically. The point: You never know what issues and decisions a candidate will face after election, so you best focus on overall qualifications for integrity and competence.

Melissa says that according to the polls, Hillary can’t win. Hillary is the conservative force (she was once a Republican) behind the contemporary Democratic party, as opposed to a proponent of the populist Democratic Party. Everyone believes a Democrat is going to win in 2008, no matter who it is. Melissa says this is correct according to the polls, except for one thing: Hillary always loses.

It is for this reason that all the top Republicans are branding Hillary as the next president, kind of like reverse psychology. If they can get the Democrats to nominate the one person who can’t win, they win–again. All I can say is, if the Democrats nominate Hillary and she doesn’t win, I am definitely going to join the Unity Party.

We also discussed Drew Westin’s book “The Political Brain” in the context of the Democratic candidates’ recent cop-out in responding to the question of whether or not they could commit to having all American troops out of Iraq by the end of their first term. Melissa says that, unfortunately, they are just being Democrats.

On Congress’ low approval rating, Melissa sees the 2006 mid-term elections as a referendum on Bush. The message: We can’t vote Bush out so we will vote his supporters out of office. She points out that people in general hate/blame Congress, but love their own Congressman. Thus, the low approval rating may not mean much in predicting the outcome of the 2008 elections.

Melissa believes the idea that the Democrats will ever be able to win without Dixie is wrong, that the future of the Democratic Party lies with its ability to win back the South.

She does think that as a result of the Katrina fiasco the Republicans have lost much of whatever Black support they had. The recent snubbing of the PBS/Tavis Smiley debate certainly hasn’t helped.