First David Hilliard, now Cynthia McKinney
Race and political alliances in Alabama

Alexander Cockburn -- if you didn't already know this -- is a complete moron. Oh, and an anti-Semite -- you probably knew that too.

Now, on top of worshipping Cynthia McKinney, he shows a particular cluelessness in the case of the Alabama 7th Congressional race. First, he doesn't even know the first name of either contestant in the runoff. Earl Hilliard was defeated by Artur Davis. Furthermore, he ignores the fact that Hilliard had just as much money as Davis, and raised more from out of state. He probably knows this, but it doesn't fit his Jewbashing worldview, which mostly involves claiming that the Elders of Zion used their nefarious financial powers to oust these poor African-American lawmakers who only wanted to add a sense of "balance". He ignores that both Davis and McKinney's opponent are black. Again, that doesn't fit his worldview.

Davis didn't beat Hilliard because he outspent him. He didn't; they had about the same amount of money. He won because there was a lot more money in the race, which moved the campaign out of the meeting halls and back rooms and onto the TV screen. And Hilliard is just plain terrible on TV. I don't know if he is in fact an idiot, but he comes across that way on television. Davis, wellspoken and a lawyer (and of impeccable left-liberal credentials, though Cockburn either doesn't know that or doesn't want you to know) simply seemed more like what you'd want in a Congressman. Hilliard didn't help his cause by running an incompetent campaign that featured a number of anti-Semitic/anti-white attacks that simply didn't play. One of these was his "Davis and the Jews: Bad for the Black Belt" pamphlet. Cockburn probably wouldn't see anything wrong with it. Hell, he probably wrote it.