Hillary Clinton jumps the fucking shark.

[rivka]

Apparently we aren't even bothering to use codewords for race anymore:

Clinton cited an Associated Press article "that 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."

"Working, hard-working Americans, white Americans." As opposed, apparently, to the shiftless welfare queens of color who support Barack Obama. That's as naked a play of the race card as anyone ever pinned on Al Sharpton. Hillary Clinton, supposedly a Democrat, is pinning the last desperate hopes of her campaign on white racists.

This is not her pastor speaking. This is not a guy in her neighborhood who did bad things forty years ago. This is not a random white guy she's tenuously connected to. This is Hillary Clinton herself taking a page out of the John Birch Society's playbook: "working, hard-working Americans, white Americans."

I've never been a Hillary Clinton fan, but at the beginning of this campaign I admired her historic candidacy and was delighted to be able to say that I'd be happy to throw my full support behind whichever Democratic candidate won the nomination. That was before Clinton refused to say, when asked, that Barack Obama was not a Muslim. That was before she justified her ridiculous bread-and-circuses pandering about a gas tax repeal by sneering that "I'm not going to put my lot in with economists," and "We've got to get out of this mind-set where somehow elite opinion is always on the side of doing things that really disadvantage the vast majority of Americans."

"Elite opinion" is a Newt Gingrich phrase. It's part of the frame that the Republicans have successfully used to marginalize Democrats for the past 14 years. It's all one piece with the race-baiting attempts to position "hard-working Americans" and African-Americans on opposite sides: both are strategies that could've come right out of the hard right wing playbook. Hillary Clinton is deliberately making use of these strategies. There is no question - none - that she doesn't know what she's doing. And by doing so, she is reinforcing themes and frames which benefit the hard right wing and hurt the Democratic Party.

Obviously no matter what happens I'm not going to vote for McCain. But if Hillary Clinton somehow manages to come out of this disgusting, ugly mess with the nomination, I won't be donating one penny to her campaign, making one phone call, or handing out one campaign flyer.

I am so. Utterly. Disgusted.

Via Atrios.

Comments

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough, I just saw this in the NY Times online and was going to post about it when I saw your post. My first thought was that she's reminding me of George Wallace.

[browse.livejournal.com]

You are not alone in your disgust. Sheesh.

[telerib.livejournal.com]

If it wasn't for that first "working," and/or if she threw an "and" in there, I'd tend to want to say she was referring to two groups: blue collar workers and whites. I believe I've heard on the radio that she does better in those demographics than Obama. He does better with the young, the college-educated, and the black communities (or so I recall hearing).

But "working, hard-working Americans, white Americans" does kind of sound like she's running the two concepts together.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

An "and" would've made a huge difference, wouldn't it? The sentence still would've carried racist implications, but they wouldn't be nearly so overt if there had been an "and."

I wish I could think its absence was accidental.

[kate_nepveu]

The rest of the sentence, "whites in both states who had not completed college", also argues for rivka's reading.

[avram]

How so? It makes me think she meant to talk about working-class whites, and fumbled it.

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

I can't believe she said that. Well, I can, but I am saddened. Making racist comments is unacceptable anyway. When your only opponent is a person of colour it is beyond despicable.

I so want her to lose the primary just so I can give even the slightest amount of a damn about the election in November.

That was before Clinton refused to say, when asked, that Barack Obama was not a Muslim.

When was this?

[fairoriana.livejournal.com]

She actually lost me with the economists statement. I've had enough of government run by opinion untrammelled by evidence.

[supergee.livejournal.com]

There was a shark beyond the gas tax shark for her to jump.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

in March. (http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=/Culture/archive/200803/CUL20080303a.html) She waffled on the question and gave a weak denial - he's not a Muslim "...as far as I know."

[kate_nepveu]

Mmph. To me it sounds like an equation: both parts of the sentence talking about the same thing (he doesn't get support from X, while I do get support from X), the second part explicitly limited to white people, thus equating the "working, hard-working" with ditto.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Also good to know: if you are overwhelmingly opposed by blacks, but liked by whites, your coalition is "broader" than if you get mixed support among whites and overwhelming support from blacks.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I'm picturing an endless row of sharks lined up from here to the convention.

...If we're lucky. I suppose she could continue campaigning against Obama right up to the general election.

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

A point came up in an office discussion that I hadn't considered before. Everyone said earlier that it would hurt the Ds not to have a candidate as soon as the Rs. But perhaps keeping the primaries interesting has kept the D candidates in the public eye-- especially if one of them is constantly sniping and the other one (who eventually wins) is largely not.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

As I just commented in wcg's entry on the subject, I'm sorely tempted to whip up a "Hard-working White Woman for Obama" sign to put in my car window. Except that would just spur the divisiveness that's one of the reasons I'm campaigning for Obama.

I keep telling people I'll be perfectly happy to vote for Clinton if she's the nominee, but I'm feeling it less and less. In my charitable moments I think she's getting bad campaign advice from people who are too enmired in the Bad Old Ways of doing this stuff. But those moments come less and less often; instead, I'm beginning to believe those who think she's personally committed to an "anything to win" strategy.

And I've had enough of anything-to-win presidents for one lifetime, thanksverymuch.

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

If that's the case, I'm even less impressed. Lots of "working class" people have gone to college. I've been one of them from time to time. Now I'm in an office. A year and a half ago, I was a service, guide, and cleanup person in a semi public park.

Defective Yeti

[(Anonymous)]

You'll get grammar nitpicking plus a "Hillary keeps campaigning" joke in his newest post:

http://www.defectiveyeti.com/archives/002500.html

-Sumana H.

[post-ecdysis.livejournal.com]

My concern is that that attitude is the sort of dead-end thought used by us whites who finished college. I mean, didn't we also say that the nation would see through the lies that "Al Gore didn't create the Internet" and "John Kerry is a traitor" were relevant to the campaign? Obama claims that he's willing to fight back when it's a Republican for him to denounce, and I believe him, but it is unclear whether just showing up to the mudslinging fight is good enough.

What is worse, despite the Clintonista mantra that Hillary is strengthening Obama by proving that he can walk through fire, McCain is able to remain dignified by having these claims in the brainspace without having to make them. He is on his knees this morning in gratitude that he doesn't have to find a way to say "America isn't ready for a black President", because Clinton has opened that can of worms for him.

I am starting to wonder how long it will be before a party seriously considers another woman candidate. Is nobly conceding a lost cause a sign of "meekness" or "ladylike" behavior that would be understandably burned out of a woman strong enough to stand in the national spotlight? Or is this kamikaze run just Hillary Clinton?

[ailbhe]

Yeurch. Is all I have to say.

[crouchback.livejournal.com]

There are still a lot more whites than blacks in this country (and a lot more white voters than black ones: IIRC, there are about 7 registered white voters for every black one), so I could see how that assertion could be defended.

I still think Hillary Clinton is playing the race card, but I don't necessarily think a claim that someone's support base is broader because they are backed by more whites is playing the race card..though in this case, I think it's part of the broader context of her campaign, which hasn't hesitated to play the race card whenever possible.

[aloha-moira.livejournal.com]

I haven't been a huge fan of Obama's (and I'm still not getting those warm fuzzy feelings that most of his supporters seem to have... and I AM still a little sketched out by the Rev. Wright thing for a few reasons) but... I really can't support Hills in good conscience any more. I'd been giving her the benefit of the doubt re: the race card previously, but this is pretty egregious.

And the gas tax thing is almost equally unforgiveable.

[vito-excalibur.livejournal.com]

WHAT THE HELL. I fucking don't believe Hillary Clinton just managed to convince me not to support the first serious female candidate for the president of the U.S. I am so angry right now.

[tchemgrrl.livejournal.com]

There was a quote from someone on the radio yesterday morning that seemed to amount to the same thing, which had to do with success in Indiana indicating broader support than North Carolina. This made no sense to me at the time, knowing what little I know of the two places, but it clicks into place if what they were saying was that Indianans are regular people in a way that less-white North Carolinans aren't.

Her I'm-a-regular-person rhetoric was starting to niggle at me since that was exactly GWB's rhetoric, but with the added racial bit, she just officially sent me off the fence. (I hadn't had to make that choice yet; I was doing an interstate move in February that managed to disqualify me for both states' primaries.)

[rivka.livejournal.com]

If Clinton had the same support among whites as Obama does among blacks, that would be a fair and obvious point. But in the most recent primaries, Obama took 40% of the white vote while Clinton took virtually none of the black vote. Obama is pulling in many, many, many white voters. Clinton is pulling in very few black voters. So his coalition is whites + blacks, and hers is... whites. Less broad.

Or, to look at it another way: Obama took Vermont, Wisconsin, Utah, Connecticut, Delaware, Nebraska, Kansas, North Dakota, Iowa, Idaho, Alaska, and Wyoming, among his other victories. None of those states are really known for being African-American powerhouses. If he couldn't win with white voters, he wouldn't have won the states he has.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

She could, you know. She could decide she's going to have an independent candidacy, like Ralph Nader. Maybe she could get Joe Lieberman to be her running mate.