OBAMARAMA

On so many levels, FOX News pundit and political turncoat Dick Morris does not understand the dynamics of the Democratic presidential primary. Maybe he’s blinded by his fierce obsession with Sen. Hillary Clinton, or maybe he’s just spent too much time with Republicans. Whatever the reason, his analysis of the Democratic campaigns consistently leaves actual political observers scratching their heads and wondering if he’s watching the same race.

Take his latest column, “Blacks may doom Barack.” According to Morris, “Obama needs to carry the African-American vote overwhelmingly” if he’s going to win the primary, while other Democrats must maintain only minimal black support in order to “blunt the edge of Obama’s challenge.”

What Morris is actually saying here is that white people won’t vote for Sen. Obama in nearly the numbers they’ll vote for Sen. Clinton or John Edwards. This is an implicit assumption that some Americans may hold, but for a political columnist to espouse it in light of all the evidence to the contrary is just ignorant. After all, if Sen. Obama is running a strong second to Sen. Clinton already, and if he lacks black support as Morris claims, then what explains his current success?

The answer, of course, is a broad base of support among voters of all races. Sen. Obama is enormously popular among white Democrats, capturing just less of their support than Sen. Clinton does at this point, and substantially more than John Edwards. And as we noted here yesterday, polling shows Sen. Obama’s African American support has actually now eclipsed that of his fellow Democrats.

Yet Morris seems incapable of grasping this notion of appealing to more than one race at a time. He makes his failure of understanding even more clear with this telling line:

In moving to assuage the fears of whites, Obama may be distancing himself from his base.

His base? Since when is Sen. Obama running to be the president of the African American Party? Sen. Obama’s base is Democrats, and they are turning out in record numbers (and in various colors) to show their enthusiasm and support.

Leaving aside Morris’s unfounded claim that Sen. Obama is trying to “assuage the fears of whites,” it’s the second half of the sentence that shows how deeply he misunderstands this campaign. I expect that if Dick Morris were to actually talk to a black Democrat — though he may have to look beyond the set of FOX News to find one — he’d see that, just like white voters, they make their decisions based on issues, policy, and character.

Morris uses the rest of his column to encourage Sen. Obama to take the VP spot on a Clinton/Obama ticket. His argument: this would give Sen. Obama “extra experience,” while also giving “America four or eight years to get used to a black vice president,” something he apparently believes we need.

What really comes through in this column is Morris’s blind conviction that Sen. Clinton will win the Democratic primary no matter what, that it is an inevitability with which we must all come to terms. This is a conviction he has held for years. It may well be the result of his obsession with her — or, perhaps more likely, a simple act of self-preservation. After all, the moment it becomes clear that Sen. Clinton is not the nominee, Morris’s spiteful sensationalist commentary will instantly become irrelevant.

Which, come to think of it, is just one more reason to vote for Obama.