Race-Baiting
There has clearly been a lot of talk about race during this campaign - and, unfortunately a lot of talk about race-baiting. The common meme is that the Clinton campaign has started going negative and is using race to do so. But is that the case? Have the Clintons been playing the race card?
There have been many charges against Sen. Clinton, her husband, and members of her campaign. Several members of Clinton’s campaign staff have resigned due to (purportedly) race-based controversies and the issue has become so central to the Democratic primary campaign that, when a charge of “racism” was leveled at the Obama campaign (through his association with Rev. Jeremiah Wright), Sen. Obama canceled his TV news appearances to prep for a hasty address on “race and unity”.
I’ll tackle these two questions together, following a “scorecard” method we can assess at the end. I’ve come up with a baker’s dozen of “race-baiting” stories and will try to determine what was actually said, how the story was spun, and who did the spinning. I’m allotting each story two or four points (which can be divvied up), depending on the impact of the story. As I type this, I’m not sure what the scorecard may look like at the end - and I may disprove my own assumptions. Then again, I’ve been monitoring the coverage of the “race-baiting” fairly closely all along, so I’m doubting that I’ll surprise myself much…
For the sake of brevity (ha!), I’m leaving out the various memes relating to Obama’s Muslim background (the numerous references to Barack “Osama”, Bob Kerrey’s backhanded defense of Obama’s heritage, Bob Cunningham’s Barack “Hussein” Obama remarks, Hillary Clinton’s “as far as I know” response, etc.). For the purpose of my assessment, I’m including as “Clinton campaign” and “Obama campaign” not only people directly involved in one campaign or another, but also those who have endorsed one candidate or another and those who have demonstrated a clear bias for one candidate or another: in short, clear advocates for one candidate or another. I’m attempting to look at the stories more or less chronologically, though there’s often a bit of overlap and it’s sometimes hard to tell when a story started - or when it’s “racial” spin started. I’m also trying to look at them as objectively as possible.
Okay, then:
The story: On December 12, 2007, Bill Shaheen (co-chair of Clinton’s campaign in New Hampshire) told the Washington Post that he had doubts about the electability of Edwards and Obama. Among other things, he suggested that Obama’s background was so relatively unknown that the GOP would do their best to unearth negative aspects of it or concoct mistruths about it. As an example, he said, “The Republicans are not going to give up without a fight … and one of the things they’re certainly going to jump on is his drug use. … There are so many openings for Republican dirty tricks.” When criticized for the remarks (especially by the Edwards campaign), he apologized and resigned from the campaign. Clinton representatives told the press that Shaheen had not been speaking on behalf of the campaign in the interview and that they had disowned his statement (and accepted his resignation).Two days later, on Hardball with Chris Matthews, Clinton campaign adviser Mark Penn was discussing the campaign with Edwards and Obama advisers Joe Trippi and David Axelrod. Matthews asked if “going after his youthful drug use” was “an appropriate shot” or whether it was “below the belt”. Penn replied, “I think we’ve made clear that the issue related to cocaine use is not something that the campaign was in any way raising, and I think that’s been made clear.” Trippi interrupted, “He did it again - he said it again! … He just said ‘cocaine’ - again!” Axelrod added that Penn had complained about Obama asserting Clinton was “disingenuous on some points. I think that’s a lot different than saying someone’s a drug dealer.”The spin: None of the flurry of coverage mentioned race or the comments about drug use being racially charged (and the story virtually disappeared following the Iowa primary) - until the Obama campaign began distributing a memo two weeks before the South Carolina primary (immediately following the New Hampshire primary) detailing five instances of “racial insensitivity” on the part of the Clinton campaign, known as the South Carolina Memo. Even the memo, though, didn’t specifically construe the Shaheen/Penn remarks as race-baiting - that was left to an op-ed piece by Frank Rich, an unabashed advocate for Obama, a few weeks later: “In an effort to scare off white voters, Mr. Obama was ghettoized as a cocaine user (by the chief Clinton strategist, Mark Penn, among others).”My assessment: As I mentioned earlier, none of the coverage for the first two months described the remarks as being racially charged. Nor do I personally think they were. A month before Rich’s op-ed, Michael Medved wrote a column in January entitled “Obama’s Cocaine Confessional Won’t ‘Blow’ His Chances” and there have been numerous references to “cocaine” in the press - including three op-ed pieces in Rich’s own paper, the first by Gail Collins on December 15 (the day after Penn’s appearance on Hardball) stating that “Barack Obama is the first serious presidential candidate ever to acknowledge using cocaine.” No one has yet accused Medved or the Times editorial board of “ghettoizing” Obama for using the c-word, least of all Frank Rich.
Further, allegations of cocaine use were leveled against George W. Bush in 2000 and no one claimed he was being “ghettoized” as “the black candidate”. And, while cocaine may have some associations with the jazz culture of the 1930s when Frank Rich was a lad, hasn’t it been considered more of a yuppie drug over the past few decades? This should have been a non-issue from the outset - and certainly not a racial issue - but it got the buzz going.
My verdict: Obama campaign - 2
The story: Hillary Clinton won the New Hampshire primary.The spin: The next day, Washington Post columnist and Obama advocate Eugene Robinson attributed Clinton’s victory to “The Bradley Effect” on Countdown with Keith Olberman. The phenomenon is based on the 1982 gubernatorial race in California where polls consistently indicated a double-digit lead for black candidate Tom Bradley over his white opponent, George Deukmejian - yet Bradley lost. This - and several similar instances (David Dinkins, Douglas Wilder, Harvey Gantt) - has been attributed to white voters telling pollsters they were going to vote for the African-American candidate, but once in the voting booth, opted for the white guy. Robinson semi-retracted his statement in an op-ed piece the next day saying that it was “not possible to conclude that racism played any role” in the primary, but that “[w]hen you try to think of precedents, you keep coming back to races such as, well, Tom Bradley’s and Doug Wilder’s.”My assessment: While I agree that “The Bradley Effect” may well play a role in the general election if Obama’s the candidate (and possibly a big one), there’s little evidence to suggest that it had a major impact in New Hampshire - in fact, in terms of “identity voting” it was more likely gender that swung the vote in New Hampshire. Bill Schneider, senior political analyst for CNN, indicated, immediately after the primary, that there is no empirical support for “The Bradley Effect” in the voting. He pointed out that the pre-vote polls gave Obama an average of 37% of the Democratic vote and Clinton 30% - fairly consistently for more than two weeks leading up to the primary. Obama actually came away with 36.4% of the vote, almost exactly as predicted. A “Bradley Effect” could only possibly be mooted if there was a sharp drop in Obama’s numbers. There wasn’t. The change was that Hillary moved from 30% to 39%.This is a fairly minor card, perhaps, but it did officially introduce race into the campaign, along with the suggestion that Clinton was attracting the votes of shallow liberals who lied to pollsters out of “white guilt”. Robinson’s comments were picked up on by numerous others - including John Nichols at The Nation (which has endorsed Obama) and weblogs such as Liberal values and The Discerning Texan. The race-based “Bradley Effect” was brought into the coverage spuriously - by Obama advocates.
My verdict: Obama campaign - 2
The story: The day after the New Hampshire primary, Jesse Jackson, Jr., co-chair of the Obama campaign, appeared on MSNBC, attributing Clinton’s win to her emotional moment in the Yale Child Study Center. He went on: “But those tears also have to be analyzed, they have to be looked at very, very carefully in light of Katrina, in light of other things that Mrs. Clinton did not cry for, particularly as we head to South Carolina where 45 percent of African-Americans will participate in the Democratic contest … we saw tears in response to her appearance, so that her appearance brought her to tears, but not Hurricane Katrina, not other issues.”The spin: The story is the spin.My assessment: If not exactly playing a race card, this was, at the very least, pandering to black voters by portraying Clinton as uncaring about the plight of poor blacks on the gulf coast. This one’s pretty clear - and, as of January 27, 2008, race officially becomes an issue.My verdict: Obama campaign - 2
The story: The same day Jackson was appearing on MSNBC, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, a staunch Clinton advocate, was speaking on talk radio about the campaign. During the interview, he said, “It’s not a TV-crazed race. You can’t buy your way into it. You can’t shuck and jive at a press conference. All those moves you can make with the press don’t work when you’re in someone’s living room.”The spin: Not much spin required here: Andrew Cuomo used a fairly derogatory (in this context) slang expression associated with the African-American community to describe an African-American candidate. Politically incorrect, to say the least - and obviously intended as a swipe, regardless of the vocabulary. Not that it matters, but his comment doesn’t even make sense.My assessment: The Obama campaign may have exploited Cuomo’s remark (it made the race cards in the South Carolina Memo a royal flush), but he said it - and it was “racially insensitive”.My verdict: Clinton campaign - 2
The story: On January 7, Hillary Clinton, in an interview with Major Garrett of Fox News, was asked about Obama’s reaction to her claim that he offers “false hope”.
Major Garrett: You mentioned Sen. Obama, let me read you a quote from a speech he gave today, saying, “False hopes? Dr. King standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, looking out over the magnificent crowd, the Reflecting Pool of the Washington Monument. “Sorry guys, false hope. The dream will die. It can’t be done.” False hope? We don’t need leaders to tell us what we can’t do, we need leaders to tell us what can be done, and inspire us to do.” Would you react to that?
Hillary Clinton: I would, and I would point to the fact that Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when Pres. Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. When he was able to get through Congress something that Pres. Kennedy was hopeful to do, that the president before had not even tried, but it took a president to get it done. That dream became a reality, the power of that dream became real in people’s lives because we had a president who said, “We’re going to do it,” and actually got it accomplished.
The spin: The quote, which was immediately truncated by the New York Times as “Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when Pres. Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 … it took a president to get it done.” This was the only version that appeared anywhere for days - was seized upon by bloggers and op-ed artistes as another example of “the soft bigotry of low expectations”, claiming that Clinton dismissed King’s work and implied that a white person must finish what a black can only start. Following critical op-ed pieces by Obama advocates Bob Herbert, Maureen Dowd, and Frank Rich, the Times printed an editorial saying that “it was hard to escape the distasteful implication that a black man needed the help of a white man to effect change.”
The Obama campaign ran with this interpretation, including it as another of their bullet points of racial insensitivity in the South Carolina Memo. Sen. Obama himself participated in the “denigration of Dr. King” spin in an interview with the Times. “Sen. Clinton made an unfortunate remark, an ill-advised remark, about King and Lyndon Johnson. I didn’t make the statement. I haven’t remarked on it,” he remarked. “And she, I think, offended some folks who felt that [her remark] somehow diminished King’s role in bringing about the Civil Rights Act.”
My assessment: First, many people have pointed out (and most agree) that Sen. Clinton’s statement was factually correct. Bill Moyers, for example, said, “There was nothing in that quote about race. It was an historical fact, an affirmation of the obvious. But critics pounced.” So the question centers entirely on what she meant by her response. To me, it looked like she was sticking with her “rhetoric vs. reality” meme, that a skilled manager can accomplish what a visionary can only dream. Clinton’s original comment, Obama’s response, and her follow-up all had to do with making speeches as opposed to effecting change. It was Obama who brought Dr. King into the debate - and, to my mind, Clinton’s response was in no way intended to demean King’s vision or his activism (as she clarified several times within days of the original statement) - or his race. Now, to me, it wasn’t that great a response - Obama-as-president could theoretically “get it accomplished” as readily as Clinton-as-president - but she was clearly trying to play the “experience card”, not the “race card”.
Sen. Obama himself said, in the Cleveland debate, “You know, I would not be sitting here were it not for a whole host of Jewish Americans, who supported the civil rights movement and helped to ensure that justice was served in the South.” Was he “somehow diminish[ing] King’s role in bringing about the Civil Rights Act”? Or was he, too, simply referring to the historical record to make a political point?
I have to agree with Jesse Jackson (Sr.) who commented on the spin in Essence:
The reality is that that was not an insult to Dr. King. Dr. King campaigned for Lyndon Johnson. Because if Goldwater had won, we wouldn’t have had the Voting Rights Act of ’65. You need a combination of litigation, people like Thurgood Marshall, and demonstrations, [people like] Dr. King. And legislation, [people like] Lyndon Johnson. You need that combination. That was gotcha politics.
My verdict: Obama campaign - 4
The story: Addressing a crowd at Dartmouth College on January 7, Pres. Bill Clinton was asked about Sen. Obama’s judgment. Clinton claimed Obama describes himself as “the only one who had the judgment to oppose this war from the beginning”:
First, it is factually not true that everybody that supported that resolution supported Bush attacking Iraq before the UN inspectors were through. Chuck Hagel was one of the co-authors of that resolution. The only Republican Sen. that always opposed the war. Every day from the get-go. He authored the resolution to say that Bush could go to war only if they didn’t co-operate with the inspectors and he was assured personally by Condi Rice as many of the other senators were. So, first the case is wrong that way.
Second, it is wrong that Sen. Obama got to go through fifteen debates trumpeting his superior judgment and how he had been against the war in every year, enumerating the years, and never got asked one time, not once, ‘Well, how could you say, that when you said in 2004 you didn’t know how you would have voted on the resolution? You said in 2004 there was no difference between you and George Bush on the war and you took that speech you’re now running on off your website in 2004 and there’s no difference in your voting record and Hillary’s ever since?’ Give me a break. This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen.
The spin: The media leapt on one sentence from that response - the last one quoted above - and spun it out of all proportion:
“Pres. Clinton …described Mr .Obama’s campaign narrative as a fairy tale.” - New York Times
“Bill Clinton [was] dismissing Sen. Barack Obama’s image in the media as a ‘fairy tale’.” - Politico
“Bill churlishly dismissed the Obama phenom as ‘the biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen’.” - Maureen Dowd, New York Times
“So there was the former president chastising the press for the way it was covering the Obama campaign and saying of Mr. Obama’s effort, ‘The whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen’.” - Tim Russert, Meet the Press
“To call that dream a fairy tale, which Bill Clinton seemed to be doing, could very well be insulting to some of us.” - Rep. James Clyburn, New York Times
But it wasn’t until Donna Brazile was interviewed by Wolf Blitzer that race entered the spin cycle:
“For him to go after Obama, using a fairy tale, calling him a kid, as he did last week. It’s an insult. And I will tell you, as an African-American, I find his tone and his words to be very depressing.” - Donna Brazile on CNN
Brazile’s oft-repeated sound-bite was subsequently added to the South Carolina Memo as yet another instance of “racial insensitivity” thus:
Donna Brazile Lashed Into Bill Clinton For Comparing Obama To A “Fairy Tale”
And Said “It’s An Insult… As An African-American” And That His Tone And
Words Are “Very Depressing.”
My assessment: Pres. Clinton said Obama’s claim of consistent opposition to the invasion of Iraq was a “fairy tale”. That’s debatable. He did not say that Obama’s “campaign narrative” or his “image in the media” or or his “effort” or his “dream” - or even “the Obama phenom” - was a fairy tale. He said his “superior judgment” in relation to “the war” was a fairy tale. That’s it. And I don’t see how arguing that a candidate’s record is exaggerated is a racial slur - or how it paints the candidate as “a kid”. It’s better, I suppose, than claiming Pres. Clinton was calling Obama gay for using the word “fairy” - but not by much.
The media removed the context, the Obama campaign ran with the “racial” spin.
My verdict: Media - 2; Obama campaign - 2
The story: Being interviewed on the street in Columbia, South Carolina, on their primary day, Pres. Clinton was asked what it said about Sen. Obama that it takes two Clintons to beat him. Bill Clinton replied, “That’s just a bait, too. Jesse Jackson won in South Carolina twice in ‘84 and ‘88 and he ran a good campaign. And Sen. Obama’s run a good campaign. He’s run a good campaign everywhere. He’s a good candidate with a good organization.”The spin: Numerous bloggers, broadcasters, and journalists claimed the statement was intended to inject race into the debate and dismiss Obama’s presumed win as “a black thing”.My assessment: Given the charged atmosphere of the campaign at this stage, it was probably a blunder for Pres. Clinton to draw the comparison, but I don’t think he was trying to marginalize Obama or dismiss him - or to remind the blind that Obama looks black. I think Clinton was making a reference to the demographics, but not for the purpose of belittling - any more than saying that “Sen. Obama’s run a good campaign” was supposed to be an insult. This is probably one of the most debatable race cards, particularly since it has gained such currency and has pretty much come to be accepted as a given. But I must again agree with Jesse Jackson (Sr.) in the Essence interview:
Essence.com: Did you hear President Clinton’s comment yesterday, “Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in ‘84 and ‘88. Jackson ran a good campaign. And Obama ran a good campaign here.” Many people are taking that as President Clinton’s attempt to tie Obama to you or to inject race back into the discussion.
J.J: We are tied together. Barack is the result of all the struggles, from Selma to South Carolina. They are factors in his ascendancy, which is accurate. Again, I think it’s some more gotcha politics. I did win in ‘84 and ‘88, and because we ran in ‘84, the Democrats regained the Senate in ‘86. I just think that we’ve got to be very sensitive to what I call gotcha politics and not take the attention away from [the issues.] … Let’s get back to our agenda. Let’s get back to what really matters.
Amen. I don’t think Pres. Clinton was race baiting. He was making an observation about the primary and its likely outcome, based on his assessment of all the factors, including the results of internal polls - and he proved to be right. Jackson was a good barometer for South Carolina: when the returns came in, the similarity between Obama’s ‘08 percentages and Jackson’s ‘88 were striking - both in terms of the overall vote and the black vote.
Numerous Obama advocates have, of course, run with this story in a big way - though they can’t be blamed for originating it per se. Race had become such a prevalent issue by this point - including in all of the media’s forecasting surrounding the South Carolina primary - that the blogosphere and punditocracy pounced on the mere mention of Jesse Jackson’s name.
My verdict: Media - 4
The story: In mid-February, it was reported that Obama’s co-chair, Jesse Jackson, Jr., had put pressure on Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri, who had endorsed Sen. Clinton and was acting as co-chair of her Missouri campaign:
He said Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. of Illinois had recently asked him “if it comes down to the last day and you’re the only superdelegate, do you want to go down in history as the one to prevent a black from winning the White House?”"I told him I’d think about it,” Cleaver concluded.
Jackson confirmed the conversation and said the dilemma may pose a career risk for some black politicians. “Many of these guys have offered their support to Mrs. Clinton, but Obama has won their districts. So you wake up without the carpet under your feet. You might find some young primary challenger placing you in a difficult position” in the future, he added.
The spin: This is another story that doesn’t require much spin. There were reports in the blogosphere that the Obama campaign was similarly strong-arming other black PLEO delegates, but none with primary sources.
My assessment: While this story didn’t arouse nearly as much publicity as any of the Clinton “transgressions”, this seems to be a clear instance of using race to affect the campaign - from the top.
My verdict: Obama campaign - 2
The story: Also in mid-February, the New York Times reported that Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, a civil rights veteran and prominent Clinton supporter, had changed his mind and “planned to cast his vote as a superdelegate for Senator Barack Obama”. According to the article Lewis had said, “Something is happening in America, and people are prepared and ready to make that great leap.” The story was debunked in the Atlanta Journal Constitution the next day, in which Lewis’s spokespeople described the report that Lewis would back Obama as “inaccurate” and that he had not made any decision about his vote.The spin: Despite the denial from Lewis’s office (which was also carried by the Washington Post and several other major papers - except the Times), according to the Chicago Sun-Times, the Obama campaign continued to circulate copies of the article to campaigners and constituents as evidence of a turning tide among black politicians.My assessment: It’s hard to tell what led to the publication of the original Times story (the reporter has stood by his report), the Obama campaign used it as part of their campaign despite its dubious provenance.My verdict: Media - 1; Obama campaign - 1
The story: During the Ohio debate on February 26, Tim Russert asked Sen. Obama about his endorsement from Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and whether he accepted his support:
Obama: You know, I have been very clear in my denunciation of Minister Farrakhan’s anti-Semitic comments. I think they are unacceptable and reprehensible. I did not solicit this support. He expressed pride in an African-American who seems to be bringing the country together. I obviously can’t censor him, but it is not support that I sought. And we’re not doing anything, I assure you, formally or informally with Minister Farrakhan.Russert: Do you reject his support?
Obama: Well, Tim, I can’t say to somebody that he can’t say that he thinks I’m a good guy.
Sen. Clinton interjected that she had been endorsed by a splinter party during her first senate run “that was under the control of people who were anti-Semitic, anti-Israel. And I made it very clear that I did not want their support. I rejected it. … And there’s a difference between denouncing and rejecting.” Obama replied, “I have to say I don’t see a difference between denouncing and rejecting. But if the word ‘reject’ Sen. Clinton feels is stronger than the word ‘denounce,’ then I’m happy to concede the point, and I would reject and denounce.”
The spin: The Clinton campaign - and the senator herself - tried to get some mileage out of Obama’s “weak” denunciation, without much success. I think this was more of a “holier than thou” card than a race card, but the coverage tended to focus of Farrakhan and the NOI.
My assessment: There is a difference between “denunciation of Minister Farrakhan’s anti-Semitic comments” and rejecting his endorsement, but to my mind this is almost as spurious as Clinton’s “as far as I know” in her rejection of the Obama Muslim meme. Obama didn’t solicit Farrakhan’s endorsement - as far as I know ^_^ - and shouldn’t be held accountable for his positions. Maybe he should have rejected the endorsement outright, but he did denounce the anti-Zionist rhetoric.
My verdict: Clinton campaign - 2
The story: According to a diaries by jthomascronin and Troutnut at DailyKos, a Clinton campaign ad from early March depicted Sen. Obama as “blacker” because “as most of us know, one of the ways in which to demonize a person of color is to make them appear darker than they are”. The next day, Markos Moulitsas (”Kos” himself) picked up the story, publishing two articles about it.The spin: DailyKos has been rabidly pro-Obama and so virulently anti-Clinton that a number of their contributors went “on strike” and thousands of participants have moved to MyDD. Troutnut’s diary was introduced as “yet another reason to despise Hillary Clinton and her vermin strategists” and said that, “I’m not accusing Hillary of technically being a racist. But she is cynically exploiting racism to further her personal ambition, and it’s part of a pattern.” There were numerous comments debunking the the darkening theory by the time Moulitsas weighed in, yet he posted that the ad also made Obama look “more Muslim” and his second piece, entitled “Obama ‘blacker’ ad no accident”, concluded that “There was a concerted effort by Clinton’s ad people to make Obama look darker, more sinister, and with a wider nose. The evidence is indisputable.”My assessment: As it turns out the “evidence” was highly disputable - but no matter. This story was only pursued to add fuel to race-baiting fire. From the outset, the assertion was dubious and was thoroughly discredited - in another DailyKos diary and by FactCheck.org - on the same day Moulitsas added his articles. There has been no retraction by DailyKos nor any of the columnists, bloggers, or newspaper reports that continued to give the story currency even after it had been debunked.The next day, IAMO contended that the Obama campaign had been doctoring images of Hillary to make her look blonder, implying that her hair color makes her “too damn stupid to be president.” At least one campaign has a sense of humor.
My verdict: Obama campaign - 2
The story: On March 7, Geraldine Ferraro was interviewed by the Los Angeles Daily Breeze, during the course of which, she said:
I think what America feels about a woman becoming president takes a very secondary place to Obama’s campaign - to a kind of campaign that it would be hard for anyone to run against. For one thing, you have the press, which has been uniquely hard on her. It’s been a very sexist media. Some just don’t like her. The others have gotten caught up in the Obama campaign.If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman of any color, he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.
There was an instant furore and within the week, Ferraro resigned her honorary post on Clinton’s finance committee.
The spin: While Ferraro insists that she meant that people, herself included, were “excited” about Obama’s candidacy, in part, “because he’s black” and that her remarks had been “twisted”, but her words don’t look that celebratory on paper. She obviously confront the race issue head-on and, with “racial insensitivity” central to the current spin zone, the media needed little prompting to escalate the language. Within hours, everyone from CNN to the Boston Globe was making reference to Ferraro’s “racist remarks” and her “ugly, bigoted comment”, suggesting it was part of an ongoing campaign within the Clinton campaign: “Still, are her statements the uncensored ravings of a bigot - or yet another example of the Clinton campaign playing the race card and then saying, who, me?”
The Obama campaign immediately called the remarks “offensive and outrageous”. Obama’s foreign policy adviser Susan Rice insisted that Clinton repudiate the remarks (which she has) and claimed they were “far worse” than Samantha Power calling Sen. Clinton “a monster”. Obama’s chief campaign consultant David Axelrod called the comments part of an “insidious, growing and disturbing pattern” from the Clinton campaign. Sen. Obama himself finally entered the the game and called Ferraro’s remarks “divisive” and “patently absurd”.
My assessment: Ferraro was clearly making a case for race playing a role in Obama’s success. What she said certainly had grains of truth, but for anyone in the Clinton camp to talk about race at all at this point in the campaign is political suicide, never mind saying things that might speak ill of the electorate. And to do so in the midst of this campaign was colossally stupid - and inflammatory. And we can’t blame the frenzied media for having a field day with it - not after there was finally someone in the Clinton campaign making blatantly race-oriented comments.
The Obama campaign was very quick to ramp up the rhetoric regarding Ferraro and characterize it as evidence of an “insidious, growing, and disturbing pattern”, claiming that “a pattern of ‘accidental’ racial slurs has persisted throughout the campaign”. Well, there’s certainly been a pattern…
But Ferraro is not the only one to have made similar observations. An article that appeared in the Los Angeles Times, reprinted on Obama’s senatorial web site, discusses the senator’s position on a number of race issues:
Obama acknowledges, with no small irony, that he benefits from his race.If he were white, he once bluntly noted, he would simply be one of nine freshmen senators, almost certainly without a multi-million-dollar book deal or a shred of celebrity. Or would he have been elected at all?
The fact that Obama himself acknowledges that if he were a white man, he would not be in his position makes his campaign’s exploitation of Ferraro’s similar remarks more than a tad hypocritical. Were his remarks “offensive and outrageous”? Is his campaign demanding that Obama repudiate his own words? Is he describing himself as “divisive” and “patently absurd”? Oh, my God - are his remarks the “uncensored ravings of a bigot”? If the argument is that it’s okay for a black man to make such an observation, but not a white woman, who’s really playing the race card on this one?
My verdict: Clinton campaign - 2; Obama campaign - 2
The story: On March 13, Brian Ross did a story on footage of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s pastor for twenty years and a member of his African-American Religious Leadership Committee, preaching to his Trinity United Church of Christ congregation. His report included footage of Wright that had been circulating on YouTube for a couple of months. Quotes from the video clips included “The government gives [black Americans] the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law, and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America’. No, no, no - God damn America! That’s in the Bible - for killing innocent people.” and “We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost.” and “Hillary ain’t never been called a nigger.”Clips had previously been shown on Fox News, but were not really picked up on by the mainstream media. Rev. Wright has since stepped down from his position on the campaign team and Sen. Obama was prompted to give a major speech on race to deflect the issue.The spin: Most of the strongest criticism this time seems to be coming from the right-wing media, conservative commentators and personalities, and GOP advocates who argue that many of the excerpts are racially inflammatory and have applied guilt by association to Sen. Obama. Indeed, Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly are currently fueding over who raised Rev. Wright first on Fox News (both, apparently, having scooped Brian Ross without their coverage having caught fire).My assessment: The story was “broken” by the relatively non-partisan Ross and there’s no evidence that any of the political campaigns were involved. But it was seized upon immediately by sources like NewsMax, Fox News, talk radio, and the conservative blogosphere - and they’ve been thriving on it ever since. As it first appeared as a news item, I’ll principally attribute the controversy to the media.
For devoting so many hours to the story, though, with so many commentators emphasizing the racial divisiveness of the Wright excerpts, the GOP and McCain advocates deserve a bit of credit for making the story ubiquitous and playing the first reverse race card.
That said, Rev. Wright is an intimate of Sen. Obama and an official member of his campaign team. We don’t need to strain for “guilt by association” - the sermons were delivered by a member of Sen. Obama’s African-American Religious Leadership Committee who was using the pulpit to promote his candidate, often witnessing not for Jesus Christ, but Barack Obama. And Wright has been playing race cards for years - as Se. Obama well knew when he made him part of the team. Rev. Wright is, after all, a far closer associate of Obama than Andrew Cuomo or Geraldine Ferraro are of Clinton.
My verdict: Media - 1; Obama campaign - 3; GOP - 1
So this is how my scorecard looks:
Clinton campaign - 6
Obama campaign - 21
Media - 9
GOP - 1
By my reckoning, that places the deck pretty firmly on the Obama side of the table, with the media trying to look over their shoulder - and playing pretty much all of the real headline-grabbing cards (with the obvious exception of the Rev. Wright controversy). The GOP hasn’t even joined the game yet.
Obviously, some (most?) of my verdicts are open to debate. I’m open to being swayed, but it would take a lot of swaying to get me to accept that “the Clintonistas” have been the prime movers behind the race-oriented controversies that have been raised so far.
Why do you think they would engage in race-baiting?
The media would do it to generate sensational stories and boost their sales/ratings or because of partisan bias (anti-Clinton, pro-Obama, anti-Obama, or anti-Democrat, depending on the source).
The GOP might do it to keep reminding their less tolerant (and slower) constituents that Obama remains black (with all the attendant fear and loathig that goes with it) or, more likely (and in typical Rovian fashion), to turn one of Clinton’s strengths - her traditional support by the black community - into a weakness, thereby losing her the primary.
The Obama campaign might do it to co-opt some of Clinton’s key constituencies. By characterizing the Clinton campaign and the Clintons themselves as racially insensitive (to say the least), they could easily shift many black voters into their camp (or, as Michelle Obama put it, helping the black community to “get it”). They might also gain a lot of younger voters, especially college students, and more than a few affluent Democrats. Indeed, were most of the charges true, I wouldn’t blame anyone for switching candidates.
The first card was played in mid-December, before any of the primaries - when Clinton was leading Obama in the polls (and was ahead of him among black voters by double digits), but there were few serious race-related stories until after Clinton’s unexpected “comeback” in the New Hampshire primary. By playing the race-baiting card, starting in South Carolina in earnest, the Obama campaign could potentially secure large black majorities and energize his activist white base, especially on university campuses and among limousine liberals - which, as it happens, is exactly what has occurred.
The Clinton campaign might do it in order to offend liberal whites, drive most of Clinton’s black supporters to another candidate, shatter her cross-cultural coalition of support, derail their own campaign, alienate a lot of the media, undermine one of Clinton’s key concerns (”It is abundantly clear that race and racism are defining challenges not only in the United States but around the world. And for anyone to assert that race is not a problem in America is to deny the reality in front of our very eyes.”), and guarantee Barack Obama the nomination.
I’ve heard some argue that Clinton campaign wanted to attract more Hispanics and southern whites in the primaries, but that makes no sense. Clinton has always been popular among Hispanics and working class, female, and older white Democrats wherever they live. I have yet to see a compelling argument for why the Clinton camp might racialize the campaign that wouldn’t be outweighed by patently obvious self-destruction.