More on Clinton's Race Strategy (Updates 1 & 2)

This is a follow-up to my post on this issue on Friday. Here's how it works.  The Clintons make these subtle, racially charged remarks, and then people like Joe Klein and corporate blacks like Robert L. Johnson start accusing Obama of making race an issue if he or his campaign complain about it. Judicious and unbiased pundits like Joe Klein weigh in to warn Obama to back off.  Here's the nub Joe Klein's Swampland post warning Obama that trying to pin a racial motive on the Clintons is a losing strategy:

As for the Al Sharptons of the world: If race becomes an afterthought in American politics, they become powerless. That's why some of them raised the loathsome question of whether Obama is "black enough." Now, however, they are rallying--a bit too enthusiastically--to Obama's cause after several thoughtless remarks from the Clintons in the waning hours of the New Hampshire primary.

Two thoughts:

First, any attempt to paint the Clintons as racists is idiotic. . . .

Note that Klein dismisses the Clintons' remarks as merely thoughtless.  But that's precisely the issue in question. Were they thoughtless or were they part of a deliberate pattern of innuendo?  The strategy is not to undermine Obama's appeal to blacks but to undermine his trans-racial appeal to whites.  If he fights back, all Clinton has to say is that her staff's comments were taken out of context, and he will be branded as an oversensitive black man playing the race card.  And that's the Clinton objective--to undermine his appeal to those whites who are attracted to him precisely because of his trans-racial appeal. Clinton can win playing the gender card, but Obama can't win by playing the race card.  The numbers are obvious:  women compose more than half the voting Democratic electorate; African Americans far less. That's why he would never play the race card, and that's why the Clintons want to prod him or his supporers into doing so.

The following commenter to Klein's post illustrates the narratiave the Clintons hope will establish itself as the dominant way of interpreting this conflict:

Finally, a Joe Klein post I can agree with.

Obama is playing the race card like a Vegas card sharp, apparently in the hope of generating an anti-Clinton backlash. He's generating a backlash, all right. I'm Black, and all his campaign is doing is making me angry. This is a man who, after the Katrina debacle, declared that the people of New Orleans were not abandoned to their fate because of the administration's racism. He has preached a post-racial gospel that his supporters have eagerly swallowed and regurgitated to all who will hear. Yet here he is, deploying his surrogates to engage in the most shameful brand of racial politics I have ever seen.

It's obvious from the past few days that this is a coordinated strategy, one that Obama himself has authorized. After his loss in New Hampshire, he and his backers appear to have become desperate about their chances in other states. Perhaps he thinks he got caught in the Bradley effect, and needs to counter it with open assertions of racism. Or perhaps his staffers took in the media reports about Clinton's "sympathy bounce" and decided that they wanted a bit of that action. Despite his post-racial pandering, Obama knows damned well that accusations of racism are still the nuclear weapon of American politics; only charges of antisemitism have more power. This is the only way they could trump and disarm the uproar over the sexist treatment Clinton has received from the press, so they had to take the risk.

This is exactly the response the Clintons are hoping for. If this narrative gets established in the public imagination, It immunizes the Clinton campaign from making subtle smears of the type that have been noted in the past week. Obama can't defend himself against such attacks because the wife of the "first black president" would never stoop to such a low race-baiting ploy--right? The Clintons don't have to defend their record when it comes to the black community--right?  The judicious Joe Klein says so. If Obama complains, he will be made to appear as overreacting or to be using race in the way that the commenter above suggests.

Very deft.  So it will be interesting to see how Obama deals with it. I've already made up my my mind about Clinton, so this doesn't make me feel any more negatively toward her.  But I'm interested to see if Obama can find a way of confronting this kind of attack that is equally deft.

P.S. While I'm at it, will somebody please tell me why Clinton gets a pass on 35 years of experience "making" change.  I'm sure she's had some accomplishments, but if she's trying to make herself look like Lyndon Johnson who can get things done as opposed the idealistic but ineffectual dreamer, just remember how she botched the healthcare initiative in her husband's first term.  She's a visionless wonk at best, and she has not proven she can get things done any more than Obama has.  She will be a lightning rod for right wing contempt and obstruction.  It will be hard enough for Obama, and my expectations of his getting anything done are not high, but he has a far better chance of breaking the impasse than Hillary does. 

Obama will get a honeymoon; Clinton will not.  It may not be her fault that she is so reviled, but she is.  And if her husband, someone far more politically talented than she, could get hardly anything done, there's little chance that she will. My argument for Obama, to repeat it, is not that I think he is ushering in the political parousia, but that because he has this x-factor, he has far greater upside potential.  Clinton will accomplish little, and she will continue the divisiveness.

UPDATE 1:  Check especially the comments following this article about Bill listing the 80 attacks on Hillary by Obama.  This is how the food fight begins.  Is there a way for Obama to transcend it? I doubt he'll be able to win it if he engages it on the same level it's being brought to him.

UPDATE 2: A good start from Obama in trying to put a stop to the food fight.

Comments

[Matt Zemek]

Jack,

Let's put it this way: if the remarks were merely thoughtless and not intentional, which is still a legitimate reading of the situation as it currently stands, the ONLY acceptable response is for the Clintons to loudly tell their surrogates and friends to shut up in no uncertain terms.

But we're seeing Hillary and Bill defend Robert Johnson's remarks, which simply cannot be defended under honest scrutiny. Johnson clearly hinted at Obama's drug use from his early years, but then outwardly claimed that he was only referencing Obama's past as a community organizer. No way, no how, no sir. Last time I checked, Barack Obama has no connections to the political playbooks of Mark Penn or Dick Morris.

It's up to you, Hillary: you can defend these very subtle and clever subterranean attacks meant to subconsciously affect the electorate and poison the well of public opinion, or you can thunderously tell your personal friends and political allies to zip up and not make these shaded (and shady) hints at racial tensions.

PS, Jack: Are you noticing this story about a lawsuit in Nevada filed by Clinton-friendly teacher unions, just days after the big culinary union endorsed Obama?

Talkingpointsmemo.com is all over the story, and as the saying goes, "I smell politics and it stinks."

The fingerprints of gutter-level Clinton hardball tactics are all over this campaign now. Will voters fall for it or not? Stay tuned.

[guest]

Bringing up drug use is somehow meant to invoke racist feelings? That's funny, seeing that marijuana use was charged against Clinton when he was running for president and cocaine use against Bush 43. Why on earth would Robert Johnson want to stir passion against a black person because of his blackness, when Johnson started the very successful BET programming in an effort to bring the black culture into the mainstream? Why isn't past drug use an issue, especially when you're thinking about the character of a person? If Hillary Clinton had an abortion, then surely that would get covered.

Also, we should rightfully expect Obama's attendance to a church with a black separatist minister (someone who openly associates with Louis Farrakhan) should get covered in the MSM. His free pass should expire soon.

[Matt Zemek]

Guest,

When Obama openly and candidly talked about his drug use in his own book, the dredging up of the issue becomes that much more odious.

Furthermore, this comes on the heels of the Clinton campaign's attempt to discredit Obama for things done as early as kindergarten/first grade. The amount of persistent and vile chatter from the Clinton camp has been astounding in both its consistency and stupidity. Again, if you want to make a legit criticism of Obama (or several), they are waiting to be made. But these aren't legit criticisms of a candidate's credentials. These are slimeball tactics out of the Dick Morris school that the Clintons adopted wholesale after the Gingrich Revolution in 1994.

This is about the Clintons, not Obama, as long as these not-so-whispery whispers keep emerging without a strong statement of condemnation from Hillary and/or Bill.

[Guy Fawkes]

Either "guest" is knowingly propagating a falsehood about Obama's church or he doesn't bother to check facts:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/church.asp

With each passing day it's becoming more and more clear why the Clintons and the Bushes are "friends." When it comes to campaigning they drink from the same trough.

If America falls for Clinton & Clinton's puppet show it deserves what it gets.

[realpc]

There was nothing racist in Hillary's comment. She was giving Johnson, a Democratic president, some credit for civil rights. She did not say anything against King, and she did not minimize his work. She didn't say Johnson accomplished more because he's white. She probably wasn't even thinking about Johnson's race.

And how in the world could her comment be taken as insulting Obama? The message was probably exactly the opposite -- Obama, if he is elected, will be in the best possible position to help American blacks.

Anyone who wants to be a thin-skinned victim can find insults everywhere.

[guest]

"The Clintons don't have to defend their record when it comes to the black community--right?"

Why do we incessantly classify Americans on the basis of race. I suppose you're pointing to welfare reform in this statement. Clinton doesn't owe anything in particular to the black community anymore than he owes to the brown or white communities. More people left poverty under Clinton than under either Reagan or Bush.

Hillary, if you remember, was the driving force behind the SCHIP program that covers the thousands of children (perhaps millions) who would otherwise go without health insurance.

[Jack Whelan]

realpc--

Do you or do you not see that there is an advantage for Clinton in forcing Obama or his campaign to react to this pattern of racial innunendo? Or is it that you just don't you see the pattern? Do you think that Obama is stupid enough after all he has striven to establish himself as transracial that he would play the race card? Who has the most to gain from this food fight? Certainly not Obama.

The Clintons have given up any hopes of maintaining their hold on the black vote, so their strategy now is to ghettoize Obama by making him look like Al Sharpton. "You want the black vote?" the Clintons are saying. "Fine you can have it, but we're taking away all the moderates that thought you were the transracial candidate."

That's their only hope, and too many white people, it would appear, are credulous enough to buy into this Clinton strategy. As I said earlier, very deft.

[guest]

realpc understands that things said against Obama aren't racist. Perhaps this is just the MSM's attempt to inject race into the discussion with the first serious black presidential candidate. Everyone knew that the race angle was going to get covered at some point; perhaps the MSM saw Hillary's comments as the opportunity to go off on that tangent. This is just a gimmick to fill the 24-hr news-cycle and perhaps get some rating points.

[guest]

"Who has the most to gain from this food fight? Certainly not Obama."

If Hillary is making non-racially based attacks against Obama, then of course Obama isn't going to benefit. In fact, since the Democratic electorate relies significantly on the 'black' vote, it would be foolish to even give the hint at alienating a black candidate for his being black.

[guest]

By the way, Hillary did a tremendous job on 'Meet the Press' yesterday. She gave a great message and hammered away at the emerging Obama narrative: just give speeches, but when the lights turn off and the media go away, Mr. Barack Hussein Obama is nowhere to be found.

[guest]

If Obama really believes that comments against aren't legitimate, then he should fight against it even if it turns off certain segments of the electorate (moderates and Reagan democrats). If he doesn't, then we will know either of two things about him. (1) He realizes that Hillary's comments are legitimate, or (2) he's a political opportunist who cares more about winning elections than fighting against injustice (provided he believes its an injustice).

[forestwalker]

The stupid-level on the blog is increasing rapidly. Don't feed the trolls.

[realpc]

Jack,

You are just reading strategies into an ambiguous comment. You do not know what Hillary thinking, if anything, in making that comment.

We NEVER know what people are really thinking, but we like to imagine we know. You have constructed a big sinister strategy out of a brief comment.

People with a political agenda have an increased tendency to imagine sinister motives in their opponents. I guess that's how the game works.

But you could at least try to notice when your imagination is running wild.

And even if it were a strategy, so what? I'm sure Obama has the brains to think up a clever response.

[guest]

"The stupid-level on the blog is increasing rapidly. Don't feed the trolls."

I suppose that's why you rarely, if ever, write anything in the comments. Wouldn't want your stupidness to increase the stupidness on the blog, eh?

[Matt Zemek]

Forestwalker (and Jack):

I think we just had our "by their fruits you shall know them" moment.

Thanks for the reminder; when only a few comments are posted, it's much harder to engage in that kind of discernment process. I think we just turned the corner, with your timely intervention, followed by the revealing response.

[Jack Whelan]

Here are some suggestions for the future: First, engage the argument. The idea is to take the blogger's post and either support it with supplementary information or ideas or refute it by presenting information or ideas that undermine its argument.

What I see coming from some of the people who disagree with me is that they sometimes isolate a piece of the argument and focus on that rather than the argument as a whole.

So for instance in my posts about the Clinton race and gender strategies, the argument hinges on whether or not there is a pattern of racial innuendo coming from the Clinton camp. At first I wasn't sure, but as the week progressed it became clearer that there was.

So if you're going to refute the argument, you just can't take one of the pieces, you have to look at them all, and connect the dots. And you have to be pretty forgiving of the Clinton camp not to see any pattern there but just a bunch of coincidences. To take one of the pieces and say, "no big deal," is precisely the response the Clinton camp hopes for. Any one piece in isolation is ambiguous enough to cause doubt, and the strategy assumes people are not paying enough attention or don't have enough of a memory span to connect the dots.

The second piece of the argument is supported or refuted on the question of who benefits most from making race an issue. It seems clear to me that Clinton does--it might cause her to lose some of the southern states, but it works to her advantage in the long run.

Both those pillars to the argument taken together make a pretty strong case for those of us who take Obama's side on this one. There might be counterarguments to undermine these pillars, I haven't heard anything from commenters here that does so--it's mostly been the assertion of unsubstantiated opinion. Maybe that's what Forestwalker is pointing to. But I don't think that Guest, anon, or realpc are trolls. I don't think this site is big enough or important enough to attract trolls. My assumption is that people who comment here are sincerely interested in the issues addressed here and want to engage in a dialog. But I do think they can do a better job of engaging the argument on the terms presented.

[guest]

Let's consider a few things. I agree with your statement that unsubstantiated opinions should be left at the door when considering controversial positions. You then suggest that my comments have been unsubstantiated while presumably implying that yours have been. So let's examine our approaches.

You claim that all these racial innuendos perpetrated by the Clinton campaign have been deliberate and intentional. But the ultimate reason you use to 'substantiate' your opinion in the end comes down to: 'can't you just see the pattern.' What RealPc and I see when we see looking at the same facts of the matter is that there really isn't much to the charge of racist politicking on behalf of Hillary's campaign. Some appeal to 'can't you just see the pattern' isn't going to do it. The reason I have been refuting each particular charge is because if you refute each particular charge, then the general 'pattern' erases away. This seems to be a very legitimate method to refute the allegations of race-baiting, if like me, you think these charges against Hillary Clinton are ultimately unsubstantiated.

Moreover, another note on argumentative strategy. If, as you claim, your argument rests on two 'pillars,' then I don't understand why you can't attack one pillar and not seriously damage your 'argument taken together.' This is informal argument we're talking about, not formal argument. If one of the primary reasons you have for believing for what you do is taken away, then it's fairly obvious that although this doesn't mean the 'complete' argument is struck down it does mean the argument is seriously weakened.

With this in mind, I'll take the liberty of attacking your second pillar. You say that Clinton's race-baiting strategy might cause her to lose some of the southern states. First, the country has moved far in the way of race relations. Do you honestly think that the majority of Americans won't vote for Obama because he's black (because that's what your position ultimately comes down to)? Especially in the Democratic party (the party of 'progress' that elected Howard Dean to the DNC), are the majority of them racist enough to not want to vote for Obama because of what Hillary has allegedly stirred? If anything, most people in the Democratic party suffer to some degree with white guilt; have thus embraced Obama with open arms; and will seriously rebuke even the hint of race-baiting by Clinton--even the charge of race-baiting will hurt her in the Democratic party. Second, how can this supposedly race-baiting strategy hurt Hillary in the southern states when it has always been the south that has suffered from racial tensions? It seems like you have your analysis completely backwards in this regard. Finally, if it hurts Hillary in the south, then why wouldn't it hurt her in the northern and coastal states were there is supposedly better racial relations?

One last word. ForestWalker made an insulting comment earlier and with your last post you seem to be sympathetic to it. Yet isn't his comment just an ad hominem attack that is itself an 'unsubstantiated opinion?'

[guest]

Inductive Argument:

Conclusion: All ravens are black.

Reason: Observation of one raven that is black, observation of another raven that is black, observation of another raven that is black, etc.

Refutation: Each particular observation was mistaken. Most, if not all, the ravens observed actually weren't black.

Therefore, the conclusion that 'all ravens are black' isn't justified.

The same thing applies to this case.

[guest]

What you have to show is that each PARTICULAR instance of race-baiting by Clinton is actually race-baiting.

If you accept that each instance of race-baiting can be explained away as not being so, then you will have a hard time establishing your conclusion that Clinton's campaign is race-baiting. You could do either of two things: (1) drop your conclusion or (2) support your conclusion by establishing that each particular instance is a contribution to the conclusion. Otherwise, you will just beg the question, assuming what you need to prove (fuzzy logic at its worst).

[guest]

Jackkie, I expected more from you.

[guest]

Here's another point (I really should get to doing my homework), Hillary's strategy is to identify herself as the candidate of experience who understands how to work within Washington D.C. in order to change Washington D.C. She is familiar with the internal politicking of the place to know that charm and speeches alone aren't going to pass substantive laws--because that's really all that matters, creating and changing laws and policies. Another part of her strategy is to pose Obama as a naive idealist who can give great speeches but who hasn't shown any indication of a willingness to grind and slog through legislation (his uninspiring record in the Illinois legislature and and record in the Senate). So she was probably thinking that LBJ and civil rights was a great symbol of the need to grind through legislation through Congress, implying that only through this tough and grueling process can anything like civil rights become reality in this country. It's unfortunate that MLK got caught up in this, but Hillary's point is valid nonetheless--speeches (what Obama has been doing) are insufficient to get anything substantively done in this country.

I think we can all agree that Hillary is fairly intelligent, so the content above would seem to be a reasonable analysis of what happened.

However, if that wasn't her point and instead her point was that she is LBJ and Obama is MLK for the purpose of ghettoizing Obama (as I write this, the idea of how weak your opinion becomes only stronger) is fruitless. How can comparisons to MLK ever be a bad thing? How would such a comparison help Hillary? The reason this isn't the central attention-grabber is because Hillary was merely pointing out that experience and grind through the legislative process is what produces long-lasting change--she was hardly demeaning MLK in any way. How does this ghettoize Obama?

On the cocaine use, are you telling me that if Bush openly admitted to using cocaine that he wouldn't be scrutinized for it? Give me a break. Now that really would be "the biggest fairy tale I've ever seen."

[Jack Whelan]

Guest--

Please try to limit your comments so we can deal with one thing at a time. It's legitimate to attack either of the pillars, but I don't think you have done it effectively. So regarding whether there's a pattern of racial innuendo, if I have time later in the week I'll go through each of the "innuendos" to evaluate whether they were just innocent remarks or meant as subtle smears. Even so each has to be seen in the context of the others. That all these remarks were made in the week after N.H can be thought a coincidence is silly. But for now, anyway, let's just take one: Robert Johnson's remark about Obama's activities in "the neighborhood".

You don't actually accept the ridiculous explanation that he was talking about his community organizing rather than his drug use, do you? It's a perfect example of how such "ambiguity" still achieves its smearing objective--the person can back off the smear meaning claiming that he has been misinterpreted, and still the smear objective is achieved--everyone is talking about Obama's drug use. If you really believe that was an innocent remark with no smear intended, there's a bridge in Brooklyn I think you might be interested in buying--cheap.

Do you see any plausibility at all in the argument that the Clintons stand to benefit if they can undermine Obama's transracial appeal? Can you think of a better way to do that than to provoke him or people in his camp to cry foul a la Al Sharpton? Isn't that exactly what happened, and haven't lots of people reacted with outrage to Obama's "playing the race card, when that's the last thing he wants to do? Do you really believe Americans have so transcended race that Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and Obama are all perceived as equally plausible candidates because they just don't see color?

If you really believe that, I don't have the time or the energy to convince you otherwise. It's like trying to convince the swiftboaters that John Kerry really deserved his medals. I could marshal the relevant evidence to support my argument, but in the end, people believe what they want to believe.

[guest]

Just because my grandfather has a huge trust in my name and has just been murdered, it doesn't mean I killed him, even if I stand to benefit from his death. Therefore, just because someone stands to benefit from an action doesn't mean that person was responsible for that action.

SO let's take the Johnson example. Even if Johnson was referring to drug use, that doesn't mean Obama's cocaine use is not a legitimate point to make. Again, if Bush were known to have done cocaine, surely that would have been brought up against him. There are those who wouldn't care, but there also those who do care about what that person has done in determining the character of the person their electing to office. In fact, the Gore campaign brought up alcoholism against Bush in 2000. Now if you see everything through the racial lens you'll see this as race-baiting on the part of Johnson, but if you don't then you'll see that Johnson was merely bringing up drug use, which to me is a completely legitimate point.

(Has Obama played the race card and have people been outraged by it? I'm not sure that's factually correct.)

[guest]

I sincerely believe that 'because' Obama is black, he got his start, has received much more praise from the MSM than probably deserved (think of MSNBC and NBC in particular), and has gotten a relatively free pass ever since. I hope you agree that the MSM has hyped this guy up more than he deserved, given what he has accomplished.