[Tex]

Originally Posted by Tex

You reap what you sow, Maxine.

I didn't see this before I posted originally, but James Taranto adopts this same line of thought in today's online WSJ:

In truth, it's quite obvious why Obama is "not in any black community": He takes the black vote for granted. Upward of 85% of blacks have voted for the Democratic presidential nominee in every presidential election of the past half-century. We're on record as predicting that will change eventually, but with the first black president seeking re-election, 2012 is certain not to be the year it happens.

As long as Republicans are unable to compete for the black vote, Democrats have no need to do so--except in primary elections, in which blacks make up a disproportionate share of the Democratic electorate. Almost everyone, including your humble columnist, has assumed that Obama, despite his growing adversity, is immune from a primary challenge because that would risk a rupture between the Democratic Party's two main constituencies (to both of which Obama belongs): the "progressive" elite and blacks. If black politicians are openly expressing disaffection with Obama, however, perhaps that analysis has been overtaken by events.

The assumption has long been that if there were a primary challenge to Obama, it would come from a prog like Sen. Bernie Sanders or ex-Sen. Russ Feingold (although Sanders is technically not a Democrat). What if instead (or in addition) a member of the CBC were to mount a challenge?

It probably won't happen, even if it is no longer out of the question. But here is what will happen: Obama's supporters will step up the accusations that his non-Democratic detractors are racist. The myth of widespread racism is the glue that binds blacks and progs, via the former's fears and the latter's moral vanity.

Moral vanity indeed.