The Race Card

If there was any doubt she was playing it since South Carolina, it should now be dispelled.  This woman is made rabid by her obsession with power:

In a jaw-dropping interview in USA Today on Thursday, she said, "I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on." As evidence she cited an Associated Press report that, she said, "found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."

White Americans? Hard-working white Americans? "Even Richard Nixon didn't say white," an Obama supporter said, "even with the Southern strategy."

If John McCain said, "I got the white vote, baby!" his candidacy would be over. And rising in highest indignation against him would be the old Democratic Party.

To play the race card as Mrs. Clinton has, to highlight and encourage a sense that we are crudely divided as a nation, to make your argument a brute and cynical "the black guy can't win but the white girl can" is -- well, so vulgar, so cynical, so cold, that once again a Clinton is making us turn off the television in case the children walk by.

"She has unleashed the gates of hell," a longtime party leader told me. "She's saying, 'He's not one of us.'"

Any thought of putting her on the ticket in a nightmare team should be dispelled forever.  She no longer deserves even that. Democrats who still think this woman has any basic decency or that even a square inch of her soul isn't given over to political calculation are as clueless as those Republicans who thought George Bush was a strong, decisive leader.

Preferring Clinton is not the same as rejecting Obama.  To suggest that these white voters will not vote for Obama in the general is about as blatant a play on race as you can get.  Is race a factor for some of these voters?  Sure. But to think that this is the only consideration is insulting to them, to Obama, and to the superdelegate whom she hopes to sway with such a perverse argument.

This excerpt above is from a column by Peggy Noonan of all people.  In it she points out that the only faction within the Democratic Party that can politically euthanize Hillary is the women.  But Feinstein backed off and Mikulski says she's  still behind her. Maybe if we all just ignore her she'll just go away. This whole thing is going to work itself out.  And we should all be grateful that we will not have to live with this sad, self-absorbed, robotically calculating woman as our president for another four or eight years.  I don't know if this little film was made with her in mind, but it sure resonates after the last several weeks:

Comments

[c cobb]

I think that African Americans can politically euthanize Hillary if they want to. A simple back room conversation with some senior members of congress like Clyburn and her shot at the ticket would be OVER.

The other thing that might do it is some backroom dealmaking by Pelosi.

I don't think either will happen, but still...

But in the end I think it won't happen because of Obama himself. Once he's able to step back from the primary and clear his head a bit, I suspect he'll do what he's always done -- read the political moment correctly and pick someone who will help him meet it.

I suspect that means he'll double down on whatever it is that makes him such an exciting candidate, choosing someone that injects energy and life and enthusiasm into the process. And someone that pulls the media in his direction for the last few months of the campaign.

[Jason]

The lack of backbone in the remaining uncommitted superdelegates is getting to be infuriating. It's clear who the nominee is, there's no reason to fear reprisal from the Clintons or voters.

Yet they stay on the sidelines, tacitly hedging their bets. Enough. They were given their positions for their purported "wisdom." Use it. And shut this travesty down.

[Matt Zemek]

Amen, Jason.

Pardon my French, but what the f--- can these moronic uncommitted superdelegates possibly be waiting for?

They're not nearly as bad as the folks in Myanmar, but they're exhibiting the same kind of indifference... just on a much smaller and less costly scale. It's really breathtaking.

[Jack Whelan]

One thing I'd like to add to my original post is that I dodn't think that the Clintons' using the race card is driven by some unconscious racism; rather it's driven by a self-absorbed powerlust. They are not racists, but they know others are, and they are using that in their desperation to raise doubts about Obama's electability.

There are lots of people who believe that America is not ready to elect a black man to the presidency. I doubt the Clintons are among them. Their raising fears about his electability as a black man is as cynical as the Bush administration's using the fear of terrorism to get what it wants. It's precisely that kind of politics that we need to be done with--or at least a respite from.

[Brian]

I really, really hope I'm wrong, but...

I'm becoming increasingly resigned to the prospect of a President McCain in '09.

[Matt Zemek]

Brian,

I know what you mean.

If you asked me today who would win Ohio and PA, I'd say McCain.

I hope I'm loud wrong, too.