Those of us who despise the race and sex baiting methods of politicking the Democrats have fine tuned over the last half century are now enjoying a collectively smug smile.

The Democrats are in quite the pickle. One of those sacred cows is going to have to be slaughtered, and no one seems to be able to agree on which one. Both sides are slicing and dicing the other, the terms of the debate being who has been disadvantaged the most and the longest, the irony being that the mantle of the “best” victim can only be won by unbridled competition. Ovaries or melanin – there can be only one. Black female Democrats are in the peculiarly interesting spot of perhaps being the deciding factor.

Bob Krumm sums it up this way

Consider the contest on the Democratic side: The candidates–at least the top two–are indistinguishable from each other. Don’t take my word for it; so says the DLC and even one of Obama’s netizens who says that “The goals that Barack Obama has do not have to be different.” It is Democratic distinction without a difference except for DNA. Pick the black guy or the white girl. That’s your choice. (Oh, and the white guy, who actually does have different ideas—albeit the wrong ones—but few seem to be listening to him anyway, apparently since, as a white male in the party of identity politics, he finds himself surrounded by few DNA identicals.)

The demographic breakdown between Obama and Hillary’s levels of support is classic identity politics, and the wife of the first “black” president pales in comparison to what many Democrats believe could actually be the first real black president. Both the Hillary and Obama factions are slowly learning what it feels like to have every statement one makes twisted and misinterpreted into some sort of racial or sexually tinged attack. It’s a growth experience – they are learning what it feels like to be a conservative Republican.

David Brooks has an on-point opinion piece in The New York Times

today

The problem is that both the feminist movement Clinton rides and the civil rights rhetoric Obama uses were constructed at a time when the enemy was the reactionary white male establishment. Today, they are not facing the white male establishment. They are facing each other.All the rhetorical devices that have been a staple of identity politics are now being exploited by the Clinton and Obama campaigns against each other. They are competing to play the victim. They are both accusing each other of insensitivity. They are both deliberately misinterpreting each other’s comments in order to somehow imply that the other is morally retrograde.

I suppose the ultimate question is which candidate will have the most cross-over appeal, as in, which subset of victims is most likely to be motivated to cross the picket line. I’m not terribly well-read on group victim motivation, especially when we’re talking about the “victims” of 2008, whose condition is more psychosomatic than real.* As far as I can tell, whatever happens, the Obama supporters are going to charge the Hillary supporters with rigging the vote (wow, they really are going to know what it feels like to be a Republican!).

The civil war is raging, with regard for nothing but the immutable characteristics bequeathed upon them at birth. The Democrats’ struggle is now between two groups who have always been told that they were the only one. It’s as if the wife just found out about the mistress. It’s going to get ugly.

*yeah, yeah – I know – some of you believe that the “struggles” of today remotely compare to getting beat, gassed, blasted with fire hoses, using separate water fountains, going to separate schools, not being allowed to own real property, not being allowed to vote, paying poll taxes, and receiving less pay for equal work.