Dick Morris is pure slime, but his latest gut slash at the Clintons is most sickening in that it is being proven true by the Clinton team itself. On January 23, before the South Carolina primary, Dick Morris wrote:
If Hillary loses South Carolina and the defeat serves to demonstrate Obama's ability to attract a bloc vote among black Democrats, the message will go out loud and clear to white voters that this is a racial fight. It's one thing for polls to show, as they now do, that Obama beats Hillary among African-Americans by better than 4-to-1 and Hillary carries whites by almost 2-to-1. But most people don't read the fine print on the polls. But if blacks deliver South Carolina to Obama, everybody will know that they are bloc-voting. That will trigger a massive white backlash against Obama and will drive white voters to Hillary Clinton.
The question now arises: will Democratic racism give Hillary the nomination?
Apparently, the Clintons are still listening to Dick Morris, because their campaign has been pushing hard to have Obama labeled "the Black candidate", and Bill himself seems to be racing towards the gutter.
Bill Clinton's comments equating Obama to Jesse Jackson - while another, unnamed "Clinton advisor" was saying this victory makes Obama "the black candidate" - is as overt a pitch to racial stereotyping as any Democrat has made in many years. Of all the South Carolina primary winners in the last forty years, why pick Jackson? Why not John Edwards, who won in 2004? Why not George Wallace, who won in 1976?Why not Bill Clinton, whose 1992 victory in South Carolina led to his nomination and election? Cooler heads than mine, like Glenn Greenwald, have drawn the only reasonable conclusion: This was a race-based pitch, and a shameful one. Imagine if the Obama campaign had responded to the New Hampshire results by saying that Hillary is merely "the woman candidate." I would have slammed him. So why aren't we seeing a backlash from Clinton backers?
Amongst liberals and progressives, the backlash is overwhelming:
Something strange happened the other day. All these different people -- friends, co-workers, relatives, people on a liberal e-mail list I read -- kept saying the same thing: They've suddenly developed a disdain for Bill and Hillary Clinton. Maybe this is just a coincidence, but I think we've reached an irrevocable turning point in liberal opinion of the Clintons.The sentiment seems to be concentrated among Barack Obama supporters. Going into the campaign, most of us liked Hillary Clinton just fine, but the fact that tens of millions of Americans are seized with irrational loathing for her suggested that she might not be a good Democratic nominee. But now that loathing seems a lot less irrational. We're not frothing Clinton haters like ... well, name pretty much any conservative. We just really wish they'd go away.
The Clintons are clearly counting on White and hispanic voters to see Obama as merely a Black candidate and thus abandon him in favor of Hillary. This appears to be a test of the core decency of Democrats nationwide, because while liberals are clearly appalled, less-educated, lower income voters, and women may still hand the nomination to Hillary.
With his South Carolina win, Obama has massive momentum, and Bill's role as "America's First Black President" is gone for good. A broad coalition that transcends race, gender, age, and party now stands with one voice calling for change. The real question now is whether the Clintons' Rovian tactics will win the day. The broad national polling hasn't changed yet, but I have to have faith that Democrats, on the whole, are better than this.
Kid Oakland's fantastic Barack Obama is building the Winning Democratic Coalition for more.
The Clintons must be stopped, now. They are not just insulting black voters. They are also insulting white voters, by expecting them to vote based on their race and gender and little else.
Hey, Hillary, it's not 1952 anymore, or even 1972. We're Democrats. Even if you don't stand for basic principles, we do. And we're not going to put up with this.
Them is a lot of people .... and my guess is you could give the nomination to McCain.... even Romney.
I think Super Tuesday is coming a week too soon and that favors the Clintons.
I HOPE NOT!!
We are emerging as a movement. We are already a large (very very large) herd of buffalo on the plain and we are coming. We are the movement for change, led by Barack Obama.
America get ready.
Fired Up. Ready To Go.
They knew Obama would get serious momentum out of S.C. (why they are now focusing on Florida).
And after Kerry endorsed Obama they must have had a good idea that Teddy was soon to follow. Plus now that Obama is doing so well among African Americans win or lose he is going to rack of some serious delegates in the majority African American districts, not to mention his other voters.
Look the Clintons messed up because they tried to go negative on a candidate that people fundamentally like and trust (you know they wanted to take him off of his pedestal).
You can not do this when people some how just like a person, its why Kilgore's negative ads blew up in his face. When you try to destroy a person who inspires people they are going to turn on the destroyer not the target.
I think that Democratic voters of all stripes were inspired by Obama, but I think that a fair number of them were fence sitters, not sure that it was quite Obama's time yet and open to the Clinton's experience argument. She did truly find her voice in New Hampshire . . . but then they went nutty, and people could not stand to see their former President trying to use his position and the nasty tactics.
Anyway, thats my take . . . can Hillary find her voice again (reel Bill back in) or can machine politics win this for her, now that the machine is starting to splinter?
Whatever happens I think that these candidates are destined to be on the same ticket together. Its the only way to "heal the wounds", so to speak.
Which two candidates do you really mean, and why ? What I'm really hoping for is an Obama-Edwards or Edwards-Obama ticket. That to me would be the ideal meaning of "these candidates are destined to be on the same ticket". Each would complement the other's strengths and neither would bring any negative baggage to the ticket, which I believe would then be absolutely unbeatable. Of course, any Dem. Pres.-VP ticket would be unbeatable considering the sorry choices Republican voters have, but I'm not sure about "absolutely" unbeatable only because I don't know if a different VP running mate would be more vulnerable to Rovian style attacks (lies).
As most of you know, IVO what I think is a fact that neither Clinton nor Obama is likely to have a majority of pledged delegates to win the nomination on the 1st ballot I still believe that Edwards still has a chance of winning on the 2nd or 3rd ballot, partly because I think the majority of Clinton's delegates will move to Edwards. The important wildcard is the super delegates, many of whom might consider Edwards to be the "compromise" candidate who, with Obama also on the ticket, would be a powerfully uniting force for both the party and the country.
Just wondering about the intended meaning of your comment.
T.C.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/polit...
Remember Toni Morison called big dawg the first black president . . . but not only this, she was used by the Clinton campaign on TV IN S.C. to try to counter Oprah.
Now she's flipped.
Is this a wave?
But revulsion against what? What is being violated, ruptured, defiled? The bedroom? The Oval Office? The voting booth? The fourth grade? Marriage vows? The flag? Whatever answer is given, underneath the national embarrassment churns a disquiet turned to dread and now anger.African-American men seemed to understand it right away. Years ago, in the middle of the Whitewater investigation, one heard the first murmurs: white skin notwithstanding, this is our first black President. Blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children's lifetime. After all, Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas. And when virtually all the African-American Clinton appointees began, one by one, to disappear, when the President's body, his privacy, his unpoliced sexuality became the focus of the persecution, when he was metaphorically seized and bodysearched, who could gainsay these black men who knew whereof they spoke? The message was clear "No matter how smart you are, how hard you work, how much coin you earn for us, we will put you in your place or put you out of the place you have somehow, albeit with our permission, achieved. You will be fired from your job, sent away in disgrace, and--who knows?--maybe sentenced and jailed to boot. In short, unless you do as we say (i.e., assimilate at once), your expletives belong to us."
Whats going on?
Don't get me wrong -- I do believe that he did many good things as president -- that was, in fact, why I was so angry with him that night in August 1998. He was betraying all of us who cared about the ideals of our Democratic Party and all of the good he could and had done for our country. How could he have been so heartless, so self-centered,so deceitful and so stupid? To this day, I think the impeachment was a political play by Republicans that was totally uncalled for but any reasonable person has to admit that Bill Clinton handed himself to his political enemies on a silver platter.
When Hillary was pillored for not leaving Bill it made me angry. I do not think their marriage is anyone's business. When she ran for Senate I was excited for her and the prospects for her ideas and ideals in the Senate.
I have been a supporter of John Edwards for President in 2008 because the ideals that I believe as a Democrat are embodied in his candidacy. Namely, Edwards is fighting for the less fortunate and those that have no voice. He is the first presidential candidate in decades to talk about the fact that too many American children go to sleep hungry, that older Americans fail to take necessary medication because they cannot afford it because of greedy pharmaceutical companies that have lined the pockets of our political leaders on the backs of the poor and the elderly. Having worked for many years for social justice, John Edwards is the candidate who puts the puzzle pieces together when it comes to doing what is right for America.
Now, I find myself torn between Edwards and Obama. Why? Because Bill and Hillary Clinton have made me take a serious look at Obama. President Clinton's strategy to make Obama look like the "Black Candidate" sicken and disgust me. His remarks about Jesse Jackson this past Saturday were anathema to the Democratic Party. I have become so increasingly angry with him and Hillary -- but not shocked. The anger I am feeling is deja vu -- the same anger I had back in 1998. Bill Clinton has betrayed our Democratic Party and the Office of the Presidency again. Should I really be surprised? Or was I just stupid to have let go of my anger over his actions and naive to believe that his betrayal while in the White House was simply an aberration?
I will keep most of my opinions about Hillary to myself but, needless to say, her candidacy as the first woman candidate for President no longer inspires me. In the best possible light she has allowed her husband to overshadow her candidacy and diminish her as a woman AND to bring race into the primary elections. At worst, this type of politics is exactly what she believes in too and she will stop at nothing to get the nomination. What does that tell us about a possible Hillary Clinton Administration?
America and the Democratic Party deserve better.
BUT, IF there is a racial divide developing with whites resenting the overwhelming black support Obama got in South Carolina, then I think if Edwards picks up more white support than Clinton, we will have a convention where Edwards can be an important factor in bridging that divide.
I still think Edwards is the best bet to beat McCain who I think will be the republican nominee, and I still think the single most important issue in the 2008 election is:
THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT
Everything else pales by comparison.
The problem with being a good pit fighter like Hillary, really the best debater of the three, is the temptation to toss out the big picture in favor of nit-picking hits on particular points. She has lost her sense of what she's really supposed to be there for - her theory of the case - to put it in legal terms.
I listened to all three candidates on Saturday night. Obama spoke in grand and sweeping terms of his vision of unity of all types of people, including Republicans, in effectuating change. Edwards spoke again of his affinity for the poor and the middle class and of the need for their concerns to be addressed, and Hillary spoke quite specifically of her positions on a number of different issues and took a lot of questions afterwards, handling them extremely well for the most part. There is plenty of room in this race for all three positions, for all three candidates' strengths. Instead of attacking Obama personally Hillary should be putting Bill on a slow boat to Antarctica and just speaking of her vision of what needs to be done to effectuate the change that all three candidates say should happen. Instead, she has caused the focus to be placed on the disunity of the party and forced the public to consider who is the one most likely to bring the disparate elements of the party together. She has a lot of really good policy points. There is a lot which is attractive about her candidacy, but the venality, the small-mindedness, the sheer nastiness of her campaign will lose this election for her.
Obama won a substantial majority of white voters under the age of 30. And a big chunk of white voters above that age. If you look at his win in Iowa, he had huge support from the record turnout of young voters there as well. Obama also received around 60% of votes from women overall.
Hillary Clinton got the majority of votes cast by older white voters. That her base.
If there's a backlash against Barack Obama for having the audacity to run for President with black skin, it would appear to be limited to old, white men. Old, white men are a distinct minority in the United States. Obama has the under 35 crowd plus women and blacks of all ages behind him. And the more that we hear the Clintons bashing him over race, the more we see Hillary Clinton stooping to new lows, the more impassioned we are and the more energy we are devoting to breaking Hillary Clinton and securing Barack Obama a victory.
Take a step back and look at just the headlines and snippets of things that non-political junkies saw following South Carolina and you get this: 'Obama defeats Clinton in SC in landslide.' Read another paragraph down most of the articles and you see that Obama had a winning majority even if you shrank the number of black voters to that of NY or most other states.