Black Man, White House: An Oral History of the Obama Years by D. L. Hughley

Author:D. L. Hughley [Hughley, D. L.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2016-06-07T04:00:00+00:00

10

THE SHELLACKING, FEBRUARY–NOVEMBER 2010

MICHELLE OBAMA: Two thousand eight had been a huge year for the Democratic Party. But what was unprecedented was the fact that Barack kept on defeating Republicans after he had been inaugurated, all the way into 2010!

RAHM EMANUEL: Bob Bennett of Utah was the first. Senator for twenty years, superconservative guy. Utah conservative, and that’s the reddest state there is. Yet he couldn’t get through his own state convention to get renominated.

ROBERT BENNETT: I came in third. There were thirty-five hundred delegates who voted on the party nominee, and because I had supported President Bush’s bailout—a Republican president—I somehow wasn’t conservative enough anymore. In two years that’s how far the party had moved to the right. Less than two years, actually.

EMANUEL: Then came Pennsylvania.

MITCH McCONNELL: The late senator Arlen Specter had been a very loyal Republican for many, many years. He’s the one, mind you, who shepherded Clarence Thomas through his confirmation hearings and onto the Supreme Court. But Arlen was a moderate. He had been a Democrat as a young man, and then he became a Republican when he grew up and got some sense.

MICHELLE: I didn’t roll out the welcome mat when Senator Specter switched to the Democratic side in 2009. Not after what he did to Anita Hill. Sadly, we will never really know what transpired between them.

CLARENCE THOMAS: I still don’t know who put pubic hair on my Coke.

EMANUEL: Wow, he can talk!

MICHELLE: When Senator Specter lost the primary to Joe Sestak—an actual Democrat—I didn’t think it really meant anything.

McCONNELL: I started to get a little nervous. I of course wanted my caucus to be as conservative as possible. But I wanted candidates who could actually get elected. As primary season went on, we were getting conservative nominees who weren’t exactly ready for prime time.

EMANUEL: They weren’t even ready for Saturday morning.

HARRY REID: I knew that I personally was in for it. Nevada is a classic swing state, and I would be the Republicans’ biggest target.

EMANUEL: Well, other than fairness, kindness, and decency. So the fourth-biggest.

REID: To take out a sitting Senate majority leader would certainly give them a lot to crow about. The potential Republican nominee that we were most worried about was Susan Lowden. She was bright and had been chairwoman of the Nevada Republican Party. She had a great Rolodex and could raise a lot of money.

McCONNELL: She would have been a great candidate.

REID: Then there was Sharron Angle, whose views on some issues were a little . . . extreme.

SHARRON ANGLE: I’m such a Republican that I added a second R to my name.

REID: She was my choice for the nominee.

ANGLE: I’m a hard-core, true-blue conservative who loves my country and hates what Barack Obama and the Democratic Party are doing to it. That’s why I support the Second Amendment: so we can defend ourselves if things go too far.

REID: One minute she was musing about overthrowing the government, and the next she was worried about Sharia law taking root in America.

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