Make Him Know Who Brung Him

"She knows who brung her to this dance," they say in Texas. Payment of the customary kind is expected.

President McCain would know that it was the disgruntled Clinton-supporting white feminists, militantly non-English-speaking and pro-amnesty Hispanics, and socially ultraliberal, hawkish, more-or-less secular Jews who had brung him to the White House, by switching, even if only this once, from the Democrats. He would put out for them accordingly. Why, he might even have had Joe Lieberman as his running mate.

Well, two can play that game.

It is perfectly possible that Obama could just scrape in on the votes of those whites in South Carolina, where he will of course clean up among the large number of black voters, who vote the ticket that has on it Bob Conley, traditional Catholic (with all that that entails on life and family issues), Ron Paul activist (with all that that entails on trade, immigration and foreign policy), and Democratic candidate for United States Senator. For that matter, the black votes for that same ticket, because it has Obama on it, also make it Conley's ticket to Capitol Hill.

The black churches are key to getting out Obama's vote. Are Baptists and Pentecostals characteristically anti-life or anti-family? And the more organised lobby on these matters, of (often blue-collar, naturally and historically Democratic) Catholics and (mostly blue-collar, naturally and historically Democratic) white Evangelicals, needs to learn the lesson: the anti-life and anti-family forces are preparing to switch sides in order to indebt President McCain to them. You need to be preparing to switch sides (and thus, unlike them, to go home) in order to indebt President Obama to you.

This time next year, whoever is hosting any ball or reception at the White House, he must, and he will, know who brung him to that dance.