Letters to the Editor
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@Anon
Kitt: No, the first anon you responded to was mine and my response is this: So, we've gone from a defense of Glenn's claims, or at least I assumed that's why you were adding your voice, to now basically a charge of "disingenuous" on the part of Bill Clinton?
--Anonymous
I didn't add my voice to defend Glenn's claims. I "added my voice" because that's what we do here. And adding that Clinton's use of the past races in Carolina as comparisons to the outcomes of the Obama and the Jackson races are indeed disingenuous. Based on the available evidence - evidence that I have pointed out a couple of times now - that is not a charge against Bill Clinton that could be reasonably argued with.
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The reason for the polling error
Is this.
Obama won 68% of the vote of people under age 30 in South Carolina. That's black AND white. And Obama won 50% of the vote of white people under age 30. And many, many young people only have cell phones, not land lines. And the polls are conducted over land lines. Personal anecdote: I'm 31 and my sister is 28. Her boyfriend is 36. My good friend is 43. I'm friends with a young couple in their 20s. None of us have land lines, and all six of us will vote for Obama.
Furthermore the polls are conducted among "likely voters." And the list of "likely voters" is culled from people who voted in the last election. And Obama draws new people into the political process. I didn't vote for president in 2000 or 2004, but I would WALK to the poll, in the snow, to vote for Obama.
The results of Super Tuesday are going to surprise you.
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Two things
Let me be clear about two things:
1) If you claim that Bill Clinton was not trying to marginalize Obama by bringing up Jesse Jackson, you are lying, either to yourself or to everyone who hears you.
It would have been one thing if the question referenced or referred to Jackson in some way, and President Clinton was answering in kind, but that is not even close to what happened. To pull in and refer to a campaign from twenty years ago with no connection to anything today is a blatant attempt to pigeon hole Obama as 'just a black candidate', and imply he is inferior to his wife, a white candidate.
I'm sorry to say this, but the Clintons and their campaign is really coming off like passive racists recently with stuff like this. Whether they really are the 'we have a lot of black friends' kind of racists in real life or not is not the point. They are using that kind of language.
2) 24% of the white vote in a really diverse state is not a horrible showing for any candidate in a three way race, no matter what ethnicity the candidate is. I bet you can find plenty of white candidates that have gotten even less of the white vote and still won their elections.
And why is everyone seeming to assume that the whites who voted for Edwards or Clinton did so because Obama was black? Fine, a very small number of them probably did, but all of them? Really? That is assuming a helluva lot.
I bet if Edwards wasn't in the race, at least half of his white vote would have gone to Obama, if not more, which would have given him 45% of the white vote. And he won young white voters resoundingly even with the two other candidates existing.
So yeah, he won overwhelmingly the black vote. And that is a bad thing how? That on top of the white democrat vote will be huge in November. And it doesn't make him the 'black candidate', any more than the fact that the only two demographics that Hillary could win was whites over sixty and white women means she is just the 'old white woman candidate'.
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@WT, Kitt
WT -thanks for that post.
Kitt, you nailed it, at least in part. Because that's what w do here... I don't know about you, but my $0.02 isn't all that welcome in too many other places.
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@-- Ché
What is the problem here? It's politics. It's a campaign.
If you are as sanguine if/when McCain pulls these tactics in the general, then no problem.
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RE: Fournier as source for "Black Candidate" comment from unnamed Clinton aide
Mr. Ash asks what evidence exists it is untrue that an anonymous Clinton aide said their strategy was to make Obama, "The Black Candidate". Well, impeachment by prior false statement is generally accepted in American jurisprudence. Again, see:
"AP's Fournier falsely reported 'Democratic interest group' aired "television ad" comparing Bush to Hitler"
http://mediamatters.org/items/200410180004?f=s_search
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Ché Pasa
I'm no Clintonista, believe me, but this horror -- gasp -- that Bill and Hillary are playing politics in an effort to win a nomination and ultimately an election is, to say the least, absurd.
Bill Clinton runs his mouth about this and that, Obama and so on, and half the lefty blogosphere has a collective pearl-clutch, and it would be funny if it weren't so sad. What is the problem here? It's politics. It's a campaign.
Given that the complaint is about a specific strain of comments, and not the mere fact that the Clintons are "playing politics," why do you bother to defend the latter as though it's the point?
So by your reasoning -- hey, all is fair in politics -- do you defend the Swift Boat attacks and the Willie Horton ads and the McCain baby slurs and the Obama-is-a-Muslim emails?
Hey - all just politics to get elected. What's the big deal?
Strangely, Candidate Obama isn't too exercised over it.
Maybe you should listen to what he said last night in his speech.
And right now, that status quo is fighting back with everything it's got; with the same old tactics that divide and distract us from solving the problems people face, whether those problems are health care they can't afford or a mortgage they cannot pay. . . .
It's the politics that uses religion as a wedge, and patriotism as a bludgeon. A politics that tells us that we have to think, act, and even vote within the confines of the categories that supposedly define us. The assumption that young people are apathetic. The assumption that Republicans won't cross over. The assumption that the wealthy care nothing for the poor, and that the poor don't vote. The assumption that African-Americans can't support the white candidate; whites can't support the African-American candidate; blacks and Latinos can't come together. . . .
But we are here tonight to say that this is not the America we believe in. I did not travel around this state over the last year and see a white South Carolina or a black South Carolina. I saw South Carolina. I saw crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children. . . .
The choice in this election is not between regions or religions or genders. It's not about rich versus poor; young versus old; and it is not about black versus white.
It's about the past versus the future.
It's about whether we settle for the same divisions and distractions and drama that passes for politics today, or whether we reach for a politics of common sense, and innovation - a shared sacrifice and shared prosperity.
I suppose if you want, you can pretend that none of that is in response to -- and in opposition to -- racially divisive tactics. But it sure would take a lot of effort.