The New Republic

I'm sorry, but this is such utter crap.  

Clinton did not say, or suggest, that only white people are hard working.  She clearly was saying that working-class white voters are supporting her.  (More accurately, working class voters who are not black DO support her.  The better question is why don't any working class voters, other than blacks, support Obama.)  She appears to have tripped over her words a bit, but these were live remarks during an interview, not the Talmud.  Why the overanalysis?

Even worse, this type of uberanalysis of any comment that has to do with race is going to have a terrible effect on Obama.  I really doubt voters want to deal with this type of insinuation and accusation that comes with any comment like this.  To put it another way, white people may not have any problem or issue with a black candidate, but they almost definitely don't want to deal with this constant insinuations of racism that come with him (albeit by the media).

- bigm

May 8, 2008 at 2:35pm

Jonathan Chait is correct here, Hillary is walking a fine line and she is more than smart enough to know it. She is under the gimlet eye and we shall see how many more statements she makes of this nature.

- liberal reformer

May 8, 2008 at 2:56pm

Well said Jonathan. I think the suggestion that non-whites are a bunch of lazy punks is obvious; it may not have been intentional, but the suggestion is present it the words she spoke. The question is wether it belies a subconscious racism poking through her politically correct veneer, or intentional stoking of the fires in order to play a dangerous game of chicken with the race issue. If it is a game of chicken, it raises even more questions.

I am pretty sure she is playing chicken, but I'm of the opinion it is an effort to gently force the race issue into the forefront in order to either garner the nomination or innoculate Obama against the issue in the fall at some moderate personal cost.

She is, after all,  the wife of "America's first African-American" president, so I have to assume she is well aware of what she is doing, and that really just leaves the question of "why?"

- GSpinks

May 8, 2008 at 2:56pm

I don't mind other guys voting for my girl

That's fine, I know them pretty well

But I know sometimes she must get in the limelight

Better keep her quiet about the kids, they're all white

The kids are all white ...

- ratnerstar

May 8, 2008 at 2:57pm

But bigm, Obama's "bitter" comment, The Worst Thing Ever Said, Ever, was uberanalyzed to within an inch of its life and then uberanalyzed some more. Can I go back in the archives and find your angry denunciation of the media- and Clinton-created firestorm around that one?

The hypocrisy is striking! Why does every one of Obama's comments get slipped under the microscope lens while HRC can run around spouting off with impunity whatever loose talk she thinks will help her lost cause?

- WoodyBombay

May 8, 2008 at 3:01pm

Chait,

If you have to do the racial analysis, the analysis is not "white" vs. "nonwhite."  It's "black" vs. "nonblack."

Non-white primary voters are divided on economic lines.  High-income tend to prefer Obama, low-income tend to prefer Hillary.  The aggregate numbers favor Hillary, but only somewhat.  This is true for whites, Hispanics, and Asians.

The only place where there is a clear racial bias across all economic lines is among black voters.  They are backing Obama something like 10-to-1, or more.  

Given the history of this country's treatment of black Americans, it's perfectly legitimate (in my view) for blacks to vote in those numbers for the most plausible black candidate for President to date.  But when one racial group is voting 10-to-1 for one candidate, and all other racial groups are divided by economics and only marginally prefer the other candidate, why is the story about the "white vote" and Hillary?  

- DMehlhorn

May 8, 2008 at 3:09pm

bigm said:

"The better question is why don't any working class voters, other than blacks, support Obama"

That is a disingenously false statement! Of course working class whites also support Obama; Clinton just happens to have more of that white working class support than Obama. And the idea that Black support for Obama is purely racial has no merit since a known black candidate like Al Sharpton got little black support support when he ran for president. Is it so hard to believe that blacks just happen to think Obama's values and poitics best represents what they are looking for in a president?

"I really doubt voters want to deal with this type of insinuation and accusation that comes with any comment like this.  To put it another way, white people may not have any problem or issue with a black candidate, but they almost definitely don't want to deal with this constant insinuations of racism that come with him (albeit by the media)."

Let's be practical here... There are going to be some people who vote based on race, be they black, white, hispanic or other. To put it another way, just as SOME white people may not have any problem or issue with a black candidate, some may. Same is true for voters of other races (not to mention gender).  I think those who do have a problem with someone's race better get used to the constant insinuations of racism because its there whether we want to acknowledge it or not.

- wkwami

May 8, 2008 at 3:13pm

bigm

Lots of working class voters other than blacks support Obama.  That is a crock.  Do you really think that in the Demcoratic party there are more blacks and professionals than there are working class people?  If what you said were true, then he would have been swamped.  Hillary gets more votes in certain demographics.  Big deal.  Overall, she gets less.

Therefore, allow me to insinuate racism to Hillary Clinton.  She is detestable.  She is a candidate for public office, not a sociologist.  Different rules apply.

What Clinton said to anyone listening is that she expects the vote to be racially polarized, hence the Democratic party should nominate a white women so that they don't have to worry about racism in the campaign.  Race-baiting pure and simple.  We don't need the Republican race-card strategy in the Democratic party.  Hillary should just go join the Republican party. It is where she belongs, and I don't want the Republican party joining me in the person of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Is it sexist to take note of Hillary Clinton's physique, making comments about her height, weight, girth or ankels, is it still sexist if all of the comments made about her are objectively true?  Of course it bloody well is.  Truth is neither the only purpose for speech nor the only measure of its acceptability.  What may be appropriate in a sociology discussion, or as a discussion amongst pundits, is not necessarily appropriate for the campaign stump.

Let her appeal for racist votes.  She is ready for the junk heap of history where she belongs.

- roidubouloi

May 8, 2008 at 3:17pm

Oh Gawd.  JC, it's no wonder you weren't among the first to chime in on this, because it must have taken a while to think that one up.  I opined that she could have made the same point without explicitly mentioning race and given SC etc., she probably should have.  But to twist into this that she's calling non-whites lazy is so dumb that it reeks of invention.  What does that possibly gain her -- sacrificing the Latino vote (her strongest ethnic constituency) and cementing African-American antithapy for the rest of her political life?  

I do appreciate a good Who parody though -- two points rat!

- Lymon1

May 8, 2008 at 3:22pm

Or.. She meant hardworking white working class types who punch in and do tough jobs that go for her 60-40  versus the creative class less hard working white upper class going for Obama 70-30.

I mean seriously, this is just beyond parody. Look, she lost, why don't you celebrate by running another misogynistic cover and/or photoshop  another Hillary is toast picture?

Or go spoon Arianna Huffington.

You guys talk about the pathology of the Clintons. Man, that is ironic.

- peter1943

May 8, 2008 at 3:27pm

Peter, you sound pretty bitter.

- WoodyBombay

May 8, 2008 at 3:35pm

I apologize that I wrote "why don't any working class voters, other than blacks, support Obama."  I meant to say why doesn't Obama get the majority of these votes.  Based on your comments, I'm sure you all really believed that I thought that NOT ONE SINGLE working class non-black voter supports Obama.  Oh yes.  That's really what I think.

Thank you for underscoring my point about the hyperanalysis by Obama supporters.  And its unattactiveness.

- bigm

May 8, 2008 at 3:39pm

You know what. It's just occurred to me that this is exactly what Clinton wants. It's the same sort of plausibly deniable bank shot that was used against Harold Ford in Tennessee ...Do something you can call innocent with a straight face but that's likely to spur the media to cry racism on a minority candidates behalf thereby prompting the sympathy [read votes] of working class whites with a profound distaste for such conversations.

- arsonplus

May 8, 2008 at 3:46pm

I think something that warrents mentioning is the one demographic that Hillary continues to win over Obama is one that doesn't actually work at all, at least in terms of age.  Hillary wins the non-working vote (e.g. retirees), and Obama wins the working vote (everyone else).  The overwhelmingly non-working over-65 group votes overwhelmingly for Hillary, especially women, (who, because of past workplace sexism) didn't work outside the home.

- bigfish

May 8, 2008 at 3:53pm

Can we please talk about the war or the economy or energy or something else that actually matters?

Give Hillary the benefit of the doubt and move on.

Ongoing discussions about race and gender will f$ck is in the fall, just as gay marriage did in 2004. We need this election to be about real issues, not this crap.

- ralphnelle

May 8, 2008 at 3:53pm

Oh for god's sake, give me a break. Don't you see that Hillary is looking for a repeat of her Ferraro moment?  throwing the race bait out there, waiting for someone to catch it on Obama's side and then come out and say: What, me? I was only saying that... bla bla... you are playing the race card and putting words into my mouth, etc. etc. etc.

It's a bait. One of you guy said it very well in a previous post.

It's also a show for WV and KY's benefit.

- Idefix

May 8, 2008 at 4:02pm

I'm waiting for the TNR item lamenting that Christopher Nolan didn't cast Hillary as the bad guy in the new Batman movie.

- peter1943

May 8, 2008 at 4:05pm

WoodyBombay: Give it a rest, already. Obama was the recipient of a largely uncritical press and now when he is being treated like an ordinary candidate, you Obomamaniacs go crazy. We all know how Machiavellian Hillary is, now it is time to explore the complexities and contradictions of St. Obama. Oh, I forgot, he is now acknowledging that he is not perfect, something he did again this last Tuesday during his victory speech. It is a start. He still talks as though he is going to bring about the change that all other candidates in past years couldn't accomplish. This is the talk of a greenhorn. His rhetoric to me is Carteresqe, though even more so than Jimmy and in different ways. He is a far better orator than Carter ever was and worrisome precisely to that extent. Once again, I must say that when Obama first appeared on the national scene, I had a very favorable impression of him. I told people about him that hadn't heard of him and told them that he was running for the US Senate. Already by the summer of 2004, disillusionment was setting in. I thought that his convention speech was much overpraised. When there was talk of him running for president, I thought, well, he won't, not yet. He will realize that he doesn't have the requisite experience. But he decided to anyway and I was heartened, like Leon Wieseltier and many others were, that here is an African - American, the first African - American that has a real shot at the presidency. As this campaign has wore on though, I find myself being more put off by Obama than ever. This reminds me a lot of 1976. Watergate then, the failed Bush presidency now.  Stagflation then, an economy in the doldrums (and probably in recession) now. A world weariness then - the OPEC oil embargo of 1973 - 1974, the Iraq war now. A hunger for change then, that Jimmy Carter exploited ("I will never tell you a lie"); a desire for change now, that Obama is riding the crest of. Back then, we likely would have been better served by a President Henry Jackson and now, an Al Gore. But we got what we got then and now we shall recieve who knows what?

- liberal reformer

May 8, 2008 at 4:09pm

Ralph: totally agree.

Peter: Been there, done that - you missed the post.  

My only quibble with your comment: "cast" implies Hillary would have to act; this would be more of a reality show for her.

But perhaps the villain in a Pink Panther movie would be more appropriate:

www.time.com/.../0,8599,1738331,00.html

Karen Tumulty in Time Magazine: read and weep.  This is what we have suffered for eight years, and this is what Mrs. Clinton proposed to bring to the White House:

"Clinton picked people for her team primarily for their loyalty to her, instead of their mastery of the game. That became abundantly clear in a strategy session last year, according to two people who were there. As aides looked over the campaign calendar, chief strategist Mark Penn confidently predicted that an early win in California would put her over the top because she would pick up all the state's 370 delegates. It sounded smart, but as every high school civics student now knows, Penn was wrong: Democrats, unlike the Republicans, apportion their delegates according to vote totals, rather than allowing any state to award them winner-take-all. Sitting nearby, veteran Democratic insider Harold M. Ickes, who had helped write those rules, was horrified — and let Penn know it. "How can it possibly be," Ickes asked, "that the much vaunted chief strategist doesn't understand proportional allocation?" And yet the strategy remained the same, with the campaign making its bet on big-state victories. Even now, it can seem as if they don't get it. Both Bill and Hillary have noted plaintively that if Democrats had the same winner-take-all rules as Republicans, she'd be the nominee."

Replace Hillary with W and Penn with Feith/Wolfowitz and you have the Iraq policy, right there, in a nutshell.

- icarusr

May 8, 2008 at 4:18pm

Kennedy's inaugural speech, as rewritten by LR:

"We shall bear any burden, as long as it is not too heavy, pay any price, as long as it is reasonable, support any friend - well, if it is practical - oppose any foe (that is not too strong), in order to assure - well, not quite assure assure because no one has done that in the past -  the survival and the success of liberty. This much we pledge - and less, if impractical. ...

To those peoples in the huts and villages across the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge whatever change we have left in our pockets, because to pledge more would be realistic - any way, you've always been poor, and we know you will always be poor, so don't complain and don't expect any change.

Let us never negotiate out of fear. Let us never negotiate, period - what did negotiation ever get us?  We have been negotiating for generations in the Middle East, no point in continuing with the charade.

All this will not be finished in the first 100 days. Nor will it be finished in the first 1,000 days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. So let us not bother.

And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you; it can't do anything - we've tried and got nowhere already.  Just ask not and give up. ..."

- icarusr

May 8, 2008 at 4:28pm

Icarusr: Your parody is as amusing as it is not apropos. I do not oppose grand rhetoric, indeed, I am something of a Churchillian on the rhetorical front. But I want action to match the eloquence. It is interesting that you choose the Kennedy speech to parody me because just last night I was telling my friend MIke G., who I have known since college and who suggested that parallels exist between JFK and Obama, that JFK's words did not rise above the earth untethered the way Obama's often do. As for JFK, we were willing to pay any price in Southeast Asia and we wound up doing so. The keepers of the flame of Camelot have tried to snow us into thinking that it was all LBJ's fault and that Kennedy was about to pull out of Vietnam at the time of his death, based on little empirical evidence other than a throwaway remark here or there. Indeed, he signed an executive order deeping our involvement in Vietnam the day before he died. So icarusr, I assume you supported the Vietnam War. Was that the price of rhetoric? How about this for soaring rhetoric (in 2010): "The mad mullahs of Iran are mightily striving for nuclear weapons capacity. This will not stand. Our allies have abandoned us, it is once again up to us to be to true to our Wilsonian tradition, to meet evil with steel and stay the course of decency in favor of life and liberty everywhere on this glorious planet. We will bomb them on the fields of Nantaz, we will level the infrastructure of Tehran, we will destroy their uranium hexaflouride facilities, we will oppose theocracy with democracy, we will choke off the sea lanes of the Persian Gulf to their shipping, we shall emerge victorious in this seemingly dark hour." Over to you, icarusr.

- liberal reformer

May 8, 2008 at 5:15pm

LR,

Your analysis of Obama is both touching and informative, and your comparison of current times to the immediate post-Watergate era is as insightful as any number of political blog posts. But neither addresses the rather narrow scope of my original statement, which is that Obama's "bitter" comment was parsed to the ends of the earth and was said to reveal Something Very Important About Him while this equally insulting, if not more so, comment of Hillary's gets brushed off with "oh, we all know she's like that."

You don't seem to have a problem with the double standard because, uh ... because we already know Hillary is Machiavellian and Scoop Jackson didn't win the '76 nomination, apparently. Whatever your reason, that's fine. Go with God.

- WoodyBombay

May 8, 2008 at 6:01pm

WoodyBomaby: Thank you for your extremely generous comments. I wish Barack Obama well and I certainly hope that I turn out to be wrong about him if he becomes our 44th President. But I still retain my grave apprehensions. I don't quite understand your comments about a double standard, though. I have been blogging my brains out these last few days, scoring Hillary for her thuggish tactics; I always try to adhere to a single standard.  I am really torn -some days I'm thinking "can we have Al Gore back as a candidate"?

BTW, I enjoyed your comments on the Stones the other day. As a non - believer, I shall say "may the cosmos be kind to you".

- liberal reformer

May 8, 2008 at 6:24pm

LR, yeah but I am glad you do recognize that it was amusing. Good job icarusr

- blackton

May 8, 2008 at 6:26pm

LR: Kissinger considers Kennedy's speech - especially the "bear any price" bit - quite dangerous as policy.  But of course, it was not policy, it was rhetoric.  Kennedy's role in the unfolding of Vietnam was not because he really thought that he was implementing his inaugral address, but rather, under the circumstances, he (mistakenly) considered that it was the best policy to pursue.

The address, however, still moves fifty years later; it shaped a generation; it underlined the effort to send the man to the moon (so that you could end up with microwave ovens and velcro).   The point I was trying to make is that it's easy to deride "rhetoric", especially of the uplifting kind, when we have had W's incomprehensible monkeytalk for seven years and a painful "I feel your pain" blather from Clinton for eight before that. We don't even know what to do with it.  But just because a speech is good, and the speaker intelligent, it does not mean - contrary to the last seven years - that the policy is bad or the speaker has no policy.  If you want policy, check Obama's website.  If you don't find what you are looking for there, then complain.  But, please, don't dump on the man because he speaks well.

As for your soaring rhetoric: context is all.  If the United States was facing an existential crisis because of an overwhelming superiority of arms on the part of an Iran that had surrounded the US entirely and defeated all of its allies, then yes, your "soaring rhetoric" might be apt.  In the absence of such exigencies, the rhetoric is warmongering and inappropriate.

You and Tep want Biden as President, but Biden can't get elected, no matter intelligent he is.  You want Gore?  We all remember Florida, but forget that the reason Florida was important was that he couldn't carry his own state, or Clinton's, because he was and is a lousy politician.  Kerry might well have been a good president, but he, too, was a lousy politician.

You have in Obama - whatever his failings, and at long last, as you say, he has admitted to them, not that Hillary has admitted to hers - someone who inspires people, and while inexperienced in the ways of Washington, appears to know how to hire and manage people who know systems.  He is not as much of a wonk as Gore or Clinton, but is that such a bad thing?  He may not have specific answers to every question that is thrown at him, but then the question is surely the extent to which he can work with Congress to implement the policies he has - and he already has quite a few - and whether he can respond to challenges that will, no doubt, be coming up that will muck up all of his plans any way.  And he is a great politician.  Not bad, this.  Not perfect, but not bad.

- icarusr

May 8, 2008 at 6:35pm

Blackie - thanks.

- icarusr

May 8, 2008 at 6:38pm

Icarusr: I never said anything about supporting Biden for president. In your dreams maybe. I initially thought Mark Warner would be a good choice, then I gravitated to John Edwards; when his campaign was sputtering out I clambered aboard the Hillwagon. God, do I have dyspepsia now. As for Kennedy, I think that there was definite causal relationship between JFK's rhetoric and his course of action in Vietnam. And the technocrats he picked to implement his policies were terrible - McNamara, Bundy, Rostow and the rest.

- liberal reformer

May 8, 2008 at 7:03pm

icarus,

Very well said.  I have never thought to respond directly to the "kool-aid, messiah" blather because I find it contemptible and there is no reason to think the people who engage in that sort of thing would be persuaded in any degree.  But you have made the sensible, rational case for Obams very willl.  Thanks.

- roidubouloi

May 8, 2008 at 7:07pm

Roid: thanks.

LR: Tep is for Biden, you are for Gore, and no, I do not dream of a Biden presidency, or of you supporting him.

As a matter of logic - rhetoric does not cause action.  You could argue that rhetoric reflects a frame of mind that can explain consistent action, but that is not a causal relationship.  We know Kennedy's frame of mind in the course of the Bay of Pigs fiasco.  He was not, as a matter of recorded history, prepared to bear any burden and pay any price for the cause of liberty.  So we know, at least, that he had a realistic streak.  In referring to Vietnam, you mentioned the technocrats who failed.  You're right.  The technocrats failed and they failed miserably, not because they were swayed by ou Kennedy's rhetoric as such, but because of psychological conditions that Barbara Tuchman and John Raulston Saul have explained quite cogently.

You don't like rhetoric, fine; you don't like Obama's rhetoric, fine; don't condemn the man because he speaks well and he inspires, and don't condemn him because he is capable of thinking big thought about difficult issues.

He says he'll try to deal with race relations?  It is a cynic who says, "right, you and who?"  Even a hard-core realist would ask, "are you qualified, what in your background demonstrates you can do that, and how do you do it?"  Again, if you are not satisfied with his answers on these scores, it is one thing.  But don't condemn the man for trying, for crying out loud, just because others might have tried and failed ...

- icarusr

May 8, 2008 at 9:40pm

Icarusr: I don't condemn Obama because he is eloquent. How many times must I repeat myself? I love eloquence, I just don't like it when rhetoric outraces reality and the more florid the speech, the more likely that is to happen. That I have to elucidate this point multiple times indicates to me that some Obama supporters don't even see the danger.

- liberal reformer

May 8, 2008 at 11:18pm

You: "I just don't like it when rhetoric outraces reality and the more florid the speech, the more likely that is to happen."

Me: " But don't condemn the man for trying, for crying out loud, just because others might have tried and failed ...".

Different perspectives; and your answer does not "elucidate" so much as it simply reiterates the point that you don't think certain problems are solveable.  Obama supporters see the danger - have seen it, and see it daily, in the way the United States is run and how things are done for power.  They are hoping for something better.

- icarusr

May 8, 2008 at 11:50pm

Icarusr: Hermeneutic skills are in short supply these days. I did not, repeat did not say that some problems are not solveable. How could you even derive that from what I was saying? Oh my. Once again, I have said that I think that Obama is thin on experience and he talks as if problems can be solved easier than maybe they can be. Secondly, I actually happen to believe some problems are unsolvable but I nowhere wrote that on this blog. Some are merely intractable. Some are solvable but it takes time. None of this primer will be of interest to the average - note I said average - Obama supporter.

- liberal reformer

May 9, 2008 at 1:38am

I heard it exactly the way Chait heard it.

Had she left it at "working Americans, white Americans" I wouldn't have blinked. She's said in so many ways a million times that white proles won't vote for the black guy - it's the entire rationale for her staying in the race now - "electability!  I'm female, but at least I'm white!"

No. It was the fact that she felt the need to - and you can hear her insert this deliberately, this clarification - "working Americans... HARD working Americans" - wtf? She felt the need to go beyond simple working Americans - she doesn't mean just them, it's the ... you know, the hard working Americans, the white Americans. Not the ones who quota their way into Harvard and Princeton.

- psantillana

May 9, 2008 at 1:43am

So I see that this quote from Hillary Clinton is now making the blog rounds: "I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article "that found how

- Anonymous

May 9, 2008 at 8:57am

LR: hate to say it, but right now, you are in "plausible deniability" territory.  It is not necessary to say something expressly; you can hint and suggest and imply - but the outcome is the same.  "Hermeneutics", if I remember my Crit Lit studies, is not the art of reading text expressly set out.  Given that you do believe that some problems are unsolveable, and that others are intractable, I fail to see the point of your protestations.  Biden, my mistake.  On Obama's promise, you are trying to rely on an express wording of your posts that is, frankly, not supported either by your own expressed beliefs or the context and content of your posts.  You think he's over-promising on those problems that are unsolveable - at least, this is what comes across in your critiques of him.  Fine.  I do too.  It does not mean that we do nothing; it means you look at the candidate and determine whether he or she has the mettle to at least try.  You mention experience; that is certainly one measure - and it would disqualify Obama in the Senate (relative to Hillary) only by one term, hardly catastrophic.  And W had two terms in the Texas statehouse and look where his executive experience got us.

- icarusr

May 9, 2008 at 9:06am

liberal,

You are the Paul Krugman of the TNR blogs.  This is a campaign.  A successful candidate employs successful campaign rhetoric, the better the rhetoric, the stronger the candidate.  Campaign rhetoric is not now, nor has it ever been, a policy prescription for governance.  The ONLY basis for critiquing Obama's rhetoric a this point is whether or not it is successful.  To take it as a guide to Obama's views about what can be achieved in governance and how that can be achieved is just, plain silly.  You make the same sort of category error as Krugman, who should stick to economics and get out of political punditry where he seems to know just about nothing.

Beyond that, one ought to recognize that the ability to move people is also very important to the ability to govern successfully.  In 1908, the government, once elected, was left largely alone to work or not.  Public opinion had an impact but one heavily mediated by the limitations of distance an communications.  In our age, public opinion impinges on government daily.  The political campaign never ends.  Thus, Obama's rhetorical skills are an invaluable tool with which to govern in the modern, internet era.  You should see them for what they are:  an incredible gift to the Democratic party, as Reagan's rhetorical skills (backed up by a far less intelligent and informed mind than Obama's) were a gift to the Republican party, a gift that goes on giving even now.

- roidubouloi

May 9, 2008 at 9:11am

I'm curious about how it's come to be that, if a single white working class person casts their vote for McCain in the fall, then that's a specific failing of Obama's, and proof that Hillary should be the nominee.  This the rawest nonsense.  The closeness of the vote in Indiana is a major blow to HRC's theory of the world, and suggests that time will permit Obama to connect with the constituencies he hasn't had on his side until now.

The coalition necessary to secure a victory in November isn't engraved in stone, it's fluid to some extent (especially as regards Independents) but to suggest that Clinton has a better chance of putting one together is to bury your head in the sand.  The Republicans have been tweaking the Dem primaries where they have been able to, and essentially doing their damnedest to make sure that it's Clinton they have to face and not Obama.  If Obama is the nominee, the years of strategy and planning that have gone into setting up the game for the GE -- to bring up the decades-long hatred of the Clintons buried in the Republican vault, and streamroller her with it -- will just dissolve, and all bets are off.

Whether or not Clinton was poisoning the well with this "Hard-Working White Folks" crap is ultimately irrelevant.  She is far less electable than Obama, and to believe that she could be is to believe what the Republicans want us to believe.

Ultimately the accusation isn't "you're racist!", it's "you don't see what's going down!"

- ironyroad

May 9, 2008 at 12:17pm