Letters to the Editor
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@chhabili
Your argument on the injection of race is a fallacy!
In what ways did the Clinton's inject race into this contest? Why in God's green earth would the Clinton's inject race? Realy, think about it. To what good would they gain from doing so? To alienate a constituency that they have supported and has historically supported them in kind!!??
The media and Obama's surrogates injected race into the contest because it was in THEIR interest to do so. It is not in the interest of the Clinton's to do so. To drive a wedge between the black vote and the Clinton's serves no one but Obama.
Now if you live and die by Republican talking points and just gobble up everything that the MSM throws your way regarding the Clintons, sure, I can see that, but come on!
Obama, his campaign, its surrogates and the media have played up the race issue and you lapped right up.
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Sigh.
This makes no sense at all. What kind of strategy would dictate that you publicly denigrate blacks - some of your very strongest supporters, thus almost instantly mobilizing them for your black opponent? C'mon, the Clintons might be a lot of things, but they are hardly dim.
The obvious reality that African-Americans are a minority in this country, and in the Democratic party, and that many African-Americans might be intrigued by an Obama candidacy regardless. If Obama ends up being perceived as the exclusively "black" candidate, it hurts him with the white/latino/asian population at large. Please, if you're from the south as you say, try not to be so willfully obtuse. It's just not plausible.
If you don't take my word for it, ask Dick Morris. Yes, he's an unsavory character and no mistake. But he's also an unsavory character whom the Clintons ran all their politicking by for over a decade: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/01/in_contrast_to_obama_hillary_p.html
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Some impartial opinions.
""By the time the campaigns got to New Hampshire, the Clinton team was panicking...It was clearly her side that first stoked the race and gender issue." -- NYT editorial, 1/17/08
"We seem to be at the point where there are now two credible possibilities. One is that the Clinton campaign is intentionally pursuing a strategy of using surrogates to hit Obama with racially-charged language or with charges that while not directly tied to race nonetheless play to stereotypes about black men. The other possibility is that the Clinton campaign is extraordinarily unlucky and continually finds its surrogates stumbling on to racially-charged or denigrating language when discussing Obama." -- TPM's Josh Marshall, 1/13/08
"I think that the Clintons' anti-Obama strategy is more subtle than commentators are realizing. It is in the nature of a 'provokatsiia', as the Russians say...Such comments are a provocation, waving a red cloak in front of the Obama people. When they respond angrily with charges of racism, suddenly they look like Jesse Jackson redux...just the kind of angry, militant black folks who scare white people...The whole point was to get the Obama people to respond angrily, which they did. Clintons win." -- TPM, 1/13/08
"Is it possible that accusing Obama and his campaign of playing the race card might create doubt in the minds of the moderate, independent white voters who now seem so enamored of the young, black senator? Might that be the idea?" -- WP's Eugene Robinson, 1/14/08
"While it isn't clear from whose sleeve the card was pulled, it is likely it wasn't from the person with the most to lose. If Hillary Clinton's campaign had taken only one shot at Obama, it might have been blown off as a mistake. But four shots constitutes a pattern." -- Margaret Carlson, 1/17/08
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Its the Repubs, Stupid
I work with a number of repubs of the "Christian" persuasion. To a person, they will stay home on voting day if the race is Obama v. McCain. They hate McCain. However, they will hold their collective nose and vote for McCain if Clinton runs against him.
If Clinton is the nominee, I predict that about half of dems will sit it out. The Monster v. the Psyco is no choice at all. This will ensure a Psyco "victory."
Repubs have been voting for Clinton in the primaries because they want to run against her in the fall.
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@KateTex
The clips that your "video" are taken from are from Obama's response to the idea of a Clinton/Obama "dream ticket." If you actually watch the original video and not a pro-Hillary series of clips that show Obama dancing and comparing him to Denzel Washington in a Spike Lee movie, you'll see that he makes no mention of race. In fact he legitimately dismisses the idea of a Clinton/Obama ticket, based on facts and actual election results.
He is being sarcastic, just like Hillary was being sarcastic when she did that whole thing about "the heavens will open, and choirs of angels, etc . . ."
You can see the real video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6Sbz8XzsWs
I have not lived in NOLA so I guess I don't know as much as you do about speaking in code, or about how white people do it . But I do know that there is no such thing as a black code and I know that Obama wasn't using one.
I don't know anyone who thinks the Clintons are racists. The Clintons still enjoy enormous support in the black community. Hillary's campaign manager and long time friend is black. Many of Hillary's most prominent supporters are black. I have a lot of respect for her and for them. I do think that Hillary has used some pretty divisive language in her campaign so far. I think Bill's comments in SC are one example, the fact that Harold Ickes echoed his comments a month later is another example. And the fact that Geraldine Ferraro has been going on radio and TV shows for the last 3 weeks saying that Obama's lucky that he's a black man, or we wouldn't be talking about him, is pretty startling as well.
I, for one, completely agree with you that it makes no sense for Hillary to alienate black voters. Which is why it's astonishing and disappointing that the evidence would indicate that she's done just that.