Kentucky: Another Protest Vote

Do these people really think that Senator Clinton can still be made the nominee? Or have the majority of Kentucky Democrats, like their counterparts in West Virginia, used their primary to issue a warning to Senator Obama? If so, what is the nature of the warning, and what, by voting for Clinton, are they advising Obama to do? The pundits are ready with answers. Most are eager to say that Obama must grovel before the "salt of the earth" so-called Middle Americans, as if they by default define the country in some way that Obama can't. Some say these figures feel ignored by Obama, or feel his implicit contempt, and are bitter about it. I heard one suggest that Obama could help himself simply by telling these people that he needs their help to win. But what if they don't want to help, or they don't think they need his help? What if hearing Rev. Wright has closed their minds for good? What if, without being able to tell any policy that Rev. Wright might support, they reject Obama to spite Wright? Without definitively endorsing Obama myself, I can say if that people reject Obama, especially in favor of McCain, only because of Wright or one sentence about bitterness, I would say, "God damn America," except that I don't believe in God. I can probably come up with some secular equivalent.

By the way, Rev. Wright doesn't take bigots off the hook. Anyone who assumes in spite of all his disclaimers that Obama must be dissembling and concealing a secret commitment to carry out an unspoken agenda dictated by Wright, who assumes that of course they think alike and will act alike, is a bigot, because thinking that way assumes that some inherent affinity between Wright and Obama will outweigh the words the senator has said. If you refuse to take someone at his word because you assume you know his nature, and he has not been proven a liar, then you're a bigot. Nobody who supports Obama should be afraid to call an opponent a bigot if he has nothing better to make his case with than Rev. Wright and "bittergate." For the moment, that goes double for Clintonites, because anyone who argues that Obama's electability falters on these so-called issues is simply soft on bigotry or, worse, is enabling it.