Letters to the Editor
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Bigger picture versus micro-parsing the text
I would agree that trying to figure out if Hillary is racist or not is a waste of time. And I would agree that the way we view this race thingy is broken.
But I listened to Hillary speak today, and I've read the text. She's saying what many people say here. Her voting block is her's alone and Obama can never win it. It's not directly the race card, it's the fear of the race card: The white blue collar working class will never vote for the black dude. They're trying to marginalize Obama again, just like Jesse Jackson, that inspiring, but fringe candidate. That's been the strategy all alone to ghetto Obama and his supporters. Obama is just words, an empty suit, he can’t be CinC, dreams don't matter, no you can't. His supporters, if they are under 30 are young, stupid and naive. If over thirty they are a combination of effete and affluent and/or crazy leftist liberal. If you’re African American, your enthusiasm is tolerated, but you’re reminded your numbers are inadequate.
So it’s business as usual for a campaign that started out with all the advantages, but ended up scraping the bottom of the barrel with the fear card.
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Obama demographics
Hillary is wrong, completely wrong. If you look at the Obama demographics from Indiana and North Carolina Obama wins all age groups from 17 to 64.
Hillary wins:
The OLD voters
The RETIRED voters
And because women live longer than men
The old WOMEN voters.
This is the group that came of age before the civil rights movement. They are also the Hillary supporters who, if Obama is the nominee, will turn coat and vote for McCain. They are the McHales Navy re-run crowd that Matt Taibbi writes about.
And God Damn them to Hell if they tip this election to McCain over Obama in November.
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@lolcait
I actually do appreciate your point about the precision of her language, and I think you're right on that narrow point. In fact, I remember back in 1998 defending Bill Clinton's hairsplitting about the word "is" and so forth to a Clinton-hater, telling her that, contrary to being "such a liar," he was specifically trying NOT to lie, that his deliberateness signified his attempt to get away with something both true and not politically damaging. She never really got my point, and laughed harshly.
The larger disappointment for me is that Hillary brought up this political division to begin with. I have said perhaps too many times here on salon that I am discouraged by the entrenched message that Hillary is the champion of the working class whites (WCW). She demonstrates no such advantage for them on paper given that she and Obama advocate the same policies, and so it is a cynical exploitation of something that emerged organically, and I suppose by organically I mean manifested originally a little bit by rural racism and then hammered home by a narrative-driven media. I teach several Hispanic children who have told me that they are for Clinton b/c "Hispanics like Clinton," as if that self-sustaining mantra is any kind of substantial reason. The same seems true for many other demographics as well, as the media has focused on the horse-race aspect of this campaign almost from the beginning.
And so both campaigns have had to be political, of course, and both have had "war rooms" of some kind where they sort out the demographics and pore over statistics about class and race and consumer habits, but the sacred rule, I think, is that that kind of talk not be confused with the substance of the message. And I don't mean just to prevent political damage, either. I mean because as a candidate you lose your soul when the political game becomes more important than the substance. So, most of the time, the candidates try to ignore the elephant in the room, which is the media talking about ever-more-clearly-delineated groups supporting this candidate or that, shoving microphones in their faces and asking questions about that war-room stuff that's supposed to take a back seat.
I think Obama has shown more restraint, sticking to his messages of unity and problem-solving while Clinton has allowed that political framing to dominate her behavior and has even volunteered the memes in some discussions, doing the work of the media for them (all her "elitist" references, etc.). And I don't think it's a superficial distinction. I believe that for Clinton, the political really seems more important. For some of us, we recognized early on that she was positioning herself for a run for the President and felt the need to look tough (Iraq vote) and to pander to nationalists (flag-burning amendment) but when she talks crazy about obliterating Iran, we wonder if she has crossed over into something unrecognizable, someone genuinely war-mongering, someone maybe we got wrong to begin with. And when she subtly plays into the right-wing meme questioning Obama's patriotism, we can't believe we ever thought she had a soul.
Pardon the melodrama. It's late.
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Not a thing wrong with it
and the very fact that Clinton is even thinking in those terms is the point.
She isn't thinking in those terms, she is trying to describe an income demographic that she is winning and trying to do it without being dishonest or implying something that WOULD be racist.
The base of the Democratic party is working class, low income. There is nothing wrong with noting that she is winning that base in important swing states when asked about strategy.
She wants to get the point across that "I'm winning the working class" and "I'm winning low income" and I'm winning non-college" but she can't say that without including "white" because she isn't winning blacks of any demographic. She can't exclude "white" without implying blacks aren't part of the "working" class.
If you were attempting to describe that electoral advantage in those states without dishonestly claiming more support than you have or implying blacks are not a part of the "working class" demographic, how would you put it?
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The Irony, or is it The Shame @Uncle Fester
is that this
(Obama's) supporters, if they are under 30 are young, stupid and naive. If over thirty they are a combination of effete and affluent and/or crazy leftist liberal....So it’s business as usual for a campaign that started out with all the advantages, but ended up scraping the bottom of the barrel with the fear card.
sounds exactly, and I mean exactly like the campaign against both Al Gore and John Kerry by the right-wing Republicans. HOW do you Hillary supporters not see this? I'm really asking.