Jeff, I got a question for you as we head into Texas and this campaign hits its final lap, have we learned anything new about what is a hip hop voter and what are their central issues? 

The other day you cited Clinton's comments about the Prison Industrial Complex and the NYT article on the issue has been getting a lot of circulation on the web.  At the same time though, people are also starting to discuss the Dream Reborn conference taking place in Memphis next month.  The conference and this news release reveals how complex issues impacting people of color are, and each brings up the stakes in making these issues relevant to hip hop voters. 

Obama's initial success in mobilizing young voters and Clinton's recent attempts at making inroads among this voting bloc reveals how deafening their inability to coherently articulate a vision statement for working with young voters or addressing social justice issues has been.  A similar principle applies for McCain and young republicans, but unlike Clinton and Obama McCain has not has not been able to bring these voters into booths.  

It would appear that as these campaigns move forward and more students are from school for the summer, success on either side will depend on whether they can enlist these students en masse to work for their campaigns.  Defining who or what is a hip voter will in the end reveal itself as a tertiary concern, however. to borrow your phrase, if either candidate wants to prove that they can't be stopped and that they won't be stopped, then they must figure out how to generate new sources of energy.  "Hip hop voters" may in the end prove to not be a hip hop fan, but rather an insurgent band of voters that becomes a windmill powering this campaign, or rather debates in this campaign, into new stratospheres.

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Jeff is back at 'em and he writes:

Judging by Bill Cunningham's performance the other day, we'll be getting lots more of this on right-wing radio this summer and fall if Obama is the nominee. Those fools are all too eager to refight the culture wars even if Obama is running like Gnarls Barkley from that era in his life.

I've made this point before: he should just put them to rest--embrace his activist days and talk about how the nation and world are all the better because students fought against apartheid and for diversity.

Jeff, you're right, Obama needs to make better use of his activist days.  He has to be confident in the fact that the anti-apartheid struggle was a just cause, and that he was on the right side of this struggle.  One way to do this is to invoke Mandela so that he can make sure that people have a clear sense of where his moral barometer rests when he brings up his days as an activist.  Clearly, liberals should not apologize for things that the conservatives are not willing to seek absolution for in their own pasts.  I haven't heard anyone on the right taking back their actions during the Gingrich revolution, and we know how much they revere Reagan.  

The Farrakhan debate only showed that Obama is not only skilled at defusing troubling situations, but also that he's incredibly impatient when he feels that he's being forced to engage a trivial issue.  Russert clearly lit his fuse in that exchange.  As I suggested before I'm surprised that Clinton was able to interject herself into that exchange without saying the name Arafat because that's who she was alluding to. 

Straight up, I don't even know what to think about the economic situation in this country/debate.  Fortune had a cheeky piece the other day suggesting that Bernanke should consider a negative interest rate.  

What if Obama suddenly starts preaching the gospel of "green jobs?"

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Jeff, what's the word with your site?

 Last night's debate was fairly collegial and was essentially a draw.  Obama is playing keep away these days and will not engage in anything unless it's going to deliver the knockout punch to Clinton.  Clinton, at least during the exchange on the question about Farrakhan appears ready to concede. She injected herself into that question in a peculiar way by rehashing how she was attacked by republicans in New York for allegedly supporting Palestine.  There were a number of ways she could have entered that dialogue with the intent of harming Obama, but she did not and I think this represents a new tone in their debates. 

They both actually seemed tired of these debates and it is becoming more evident that this process is wearing on both of them.  Afterwards the pundits discussed the moderators' inability to elicit any new answers from either candidates, but why would either Obama or Clinton say something substantial?  It's been incredibly frustrating paying close attention to these events because they require too much inference, and forming one's assumptions about each person's intended meanings. 

 One last point for now, is it me, or has health-care become a democratic proxy for the economy?  It's amazing actually how much time Clinton and Obama spend referring to their health-care proposals, when in effect neither proposal can be launched if the economy is not somehow revived.  Think about it this way, our current health care system all but means you need a job in order to have health coverage.  If somewhere between 10 - 17,000 people a month are losing their jobs, fewer people are obviously going to have health coverage and the economy is not going to be able to afford to pay for them to be covered.  Regardless of how much money we shift from spending on Iraq or how quickly we bring the troops back, neither plan will work under our current economic conditions. 

It's borderline blasphemous how they continue referring to more jobs without giving any insight into how or where these jobs will come from.  If there was ever a time to talk about the economy and innovative solutions, this stint through Ohio and Texas represented two of the best opportunities, and they both are expiring. 

Does anyone think that either of the three remaining candidates can oversee a economic renaissance?

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