Obama v. Clinton

Democratic primary election results in Pennsylvania ought not to surprise anyone. First, it must be stated clearly that both Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton represent a neoliberal political philosophy. That philosophy allows the military and the business elite to get away with about as much mayhem as they wish globally, while shrinking the middle class in the U.S. and severely diminishing the ability of the working class to keep their collective proverbial heads above water vis-à-vis the economy. The neoliberal strain of thinking allows U.S. imperialism to continue around the globe with no real limits on the projection of U.S, power. Also, few real or effective limits are placed on the environment’s ability to recoup the environmental degradation of the past half century.

That said, there is a very real difference in the kinds of votes each of these candidates received, and probably will receive in upcoming primaries, and that difference involves racism in the U.S. An analysis of the voting patterns and demographics in Pennsylvania on April 21 showed that Obama did poorly everywhere in the state except the area in and around Philadelphia. In Philadelphia he literally swept to victory, while the rest of the state, quite conservative, strongly supported Clinton. There were no surprises in Pennsylvania, a state that has supported many reactionaries in the past! What is quite illustrative, however, is that Obama could do better in a Southern state such as South Carolina, where large numbers of Black Americans came out to support him.

There is no question that racism, whether of the personal or institutional variety will continue to haunt Obama’s campaign, while the Clintons, with a family history of supporting the bill that sped up the process of getting the condemned to the death chamber, and supported another bill that severely limited the ability of poor Americans to take advantage of what’s left of the social “safety net,” will remain as spoilers in his attempt to win the Democratic nomination for the presidency.