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2 Clinton's upset not black and
white By Julian Delasantellis
Outrage stalks the glistening halls of the
American punditocracy, victim of a sneak attack
far more brazen than Pearl Harbor or September 11,
2001. The American public, or at least the
miniscule section of the American public composed
of the people who cast Democratic Party ballots in
Tuesday's New Hampshire presidential primary, has
risen in open revolt, in that it did not do what
the punditocracy said it was going to do.
This cannot be allowed; what's the point
of having an elite pundit class if the public is
going to get uppity and ignore what it says
it's
supposed to do? What's next then for the pundits -
customer service trainee jobs at Target or
something?
In the immortal words of
Governor William J Le Petomane ( Mel Brooks) in
his 1974 comedy classic Blazing Saddles,
"We've gotta protect our phoney baloney jobs,
gentlemen!"
And so, like cavalry soldiers
of old, the punditocracy saddles up and rides out
to the sounds of the guns. If the pre-election
polls that predicted a Senator Barack Obama of
Illinois landslide over Senator Hillary Clinton of
New York proved to be different to how the actual
voting went, then the only explanation must be
that electorate was wrong. The polls cannot be
wrong; in the same way the British Empire used its
navy to control the seas, the pundit class uses
public opinion polls to control public debate in
America.
America's premiere cable
television political pundit, Chris Matthews of
MSNBC, a man who nightly drinks more hyperbole
than British statesman Winston Churchill did
scotch, led the charge. The public betrayed the
pundits, and their ongoing televised coronation of
African American Obama, because the public was
racist and evil. When asked about race prejudice
outside the US South, where the violent experience
of the civil rights movement left the region with
an international reputation for bigotry, like any
good pundit, Matthews was ready with a withering
verbiage barrage.
"Boston? Boston?" ( an
obvious reference to the fierce white resistance
to school racial integration in Boston in the
mid-1970s) "... There's different kinds of
prejudice in the North and in the South, but it
exists ... it might be, 'I don't want to live next
door to you.' There's different kinds of prejudice
in this world ... He's [Obama] gotta just look at
the polls, and take about 10 points off each
time."
Even from the high parapet of the
editorial pages of The New York Times, the pundits
were still firing their broadsides. Andrew Kohut,
president of the Pew Research Center, attributed
the pundit's failure to the same reason, albeit in
a bit less overcaffeinated manner than Matthews.
"Poorer, less well-educated white people
refuse surveys more often than affluent,
better-educated whites. Polls generally adjust
their samples for this tendency. But here's the
problem: these whites who do not respond to
surveys tend to have more unfavorable views of
blacks than respondents who do the interviews ...
Why didn't this problem come up in Iowa? My guess
is that Mr Obama may have posed less of a threat
to white voters in Iowa because he wasn't yet the
front-runner."
Not only are they bigots,
but they're less educated and poorer as well.
Let's call them names - that'll teach them not to
rebel from pundit rule!
In that I have no
real idea why the polls were wrong in New
Hampshire, I thus qualify as a pundit in good
standing . But rather than run over the peasants,
in the style of the Marquis St Evermonde from A
Tale of Two Cities, with my pundit coach, I am
willing to entertain another possible reason for
the polling perfidy of New Hampshire.
In
the words of James Carville, 1992 presidential
candidate Bill Clinton's chief electoral
strategist, "It's the economy, stupid".
One thing that the pundit class has not
yet realized, unless they are having something
other than just perfunctory conversations with
their plumbers and gardeners, is just how weak the
US economy has opened 2008. In contrast to many
observers (including yours truly, see Shopping 'zombies' offer US
hope, Asia Times Online, January 3,
2008) who hoped that the economy's late-2007
strength might continue into the New Year, 2008
has dawned with the US economy looking far weaker
than it was just a few happy weeks ago.
In
just the five trading days from the 2008 start of
trading to the New Hampshire primary on January 8,
the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 760 points,
5.7% of its value, certainly an ominous augury for
those who believe that a year's stock trading
trend is determined in its first few days. The
tech stock heavy Nasdaq stock index fared even
worse, losing just under 8% of its value in that
period, probably dashing the hopes of those who
were hoping that continuing strength in the US
tech sector might offset the subprime mortgage
crisis weakness in US financials and real estate
(Widgets and wrecks, Asia
Times Online, November 13, 2007).
As bad
as the general market indices have performed in
2008, a look deeper within the markets presents an
even gloomier picture. Is the US consumer finally
breaking from the strain of high energy prices,
the subprime mortgage crisis, and, perhaps most
important, the poor employment data released on
January 4?
In the first five trading days
of the year, the RTH retail stock index lost
almost 7% of its value. Like all indices and
averages, the overall figures mask some truly
breathtakingly bad individual stock prices and
reports.
The retail selloff just nicked
retail behemoth Wal-Mart (which reported a 2.4%
gain in December same store sales), whose stock
was down 3.5% in the period - Americans are,
thankfully for those guys working in state tourist
bureaus trying to attract European tourists with
the lure of the weak US$, still apparently buying
lots of deodorant and toilet tissue. But once you
get past the, ahem, necessities to more
discretionary purchases, the picture darkens
considerably.
Macy's, the biggest of the
old line national department store chains, lost
14% in stock value the period; it reported a 7.9%
decline in December sales, and also lowered its
sales forecasts for January.
JC Penny's
stock was down a whopping 21% in the period; its
December same store sales fell 7.5%. Kohl's stock
was down 13.5% on an 11.4% decline in December
sales. Nordstrom's lost 14%, on a sales decline of
4%.
Worse and worser Moving up
to the more rarified (and thus more easily
postponed in hard economic times) the situation
looks even worse.
Women's upscale clothing
retailer Talbot's stock lost a quarter of its
value in five days. Saks Fifth Avenue lost 16.4%;
apparently, many of the Ladies Who Do Lunch who
are its primary customer base are doing a lot more
of it at McDonald's these days.
Teen
retailers Zumiez and Hott Topic's stocks lost 32%
and 22% of their respective values. Even
recreational boating supplier West Marine's stock
took a 20% dunking; apparently, most people will
let the yacht get repossessed before the house.
Expanding the focus of the analysis makes
it look even worse. Most of these stocks' 2008
losses build upon similar losses of 30-60% in the
second half of 2007. Retail analyst Howard
Davidowitz calls the situation a developing retail
Armageddon, with the worst, including the closing
of up to 1,000 retail outlets nationwide, still
yet to come.
So how did this help Clinton
in New Hampshire? We in the pundit class didn't
really learn about the deteriorating employment
situation until the January 4 December employment
report, but, way down there at the peasant level,
it must have been known, been felt, as it was
happening.
Prior to her assassination,
most Americans probably thought that former
Pakistani premier Benazir Bhutto was a menthol
cigarette, but if a local plant closes, or if folk
see more and more homes foreclosed and boarded up
in their local neighborhood, eventually the
message gets through, and the spending cutbacks
commence.
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