Last night in another thread, I commented again about how poorly Hillary Clinton has been served by her hired campaign guns. Of course, the senator has stuck her foot in her mouth on her own as well, but nothing compares to this. From a new USA Today interview, she manages to top any dog-whistle race-baiting that her husband put out on the campaign trail with this naked appeal.
Wow. Just. Wow. That didn’t blow by without comment, even in the article.“I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on,” she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, 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.”
“There’s a pattern emerging here,” she said.
Larry Sabato, head of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, said Clinton’s comment was a “poorly worded” variation on the way analysts have been “slicing and dicing the vote in racial terms.”Is that another variation on “misspoke”?
You see the problem and beauty of Senator Clinton’s statement is that it boldly embraces the undiscussed fear in this Reagan Democrat demographic, the people who do consider race a major factor — concern that white privilege is being threatened, that somehow Barack Obama as president would exact retribution against “hard working white Americans” for past or present institutionalized racism. You know, like this candid Kentucky voter:
I’ve talked to people-a woman who was chair of county elections last year, she said she wouldn’t vote for a black man.” Patrick said he wouldn’t vote for Obama either.The frame is specific — that’s why Clinton referred to hard working white Americans. What happened to “blue collar Americans?” Oh wait, there are a lot of hard working black and brown blue collar/working class Americans, and many of them they voted for Obama, so she had to slice that demo down to the bottom line. Dog whistles no more.Why not?
“Race. I really don’t want an African-American as President. Race.”
What about race?
“I thought about it. I think he would put too many minorities in positions over the white race. That’s my opinion.”
I want to believe that it wasn’t a purposeful slip of the tongue because it’s too painful to contemplate that the black vote is now perceived as a “problem” because it skews to Obama, and because there are more white voters who have a problem with him based on his race, we have to nail that demo.
Remember, the black vote has been the most reliable Democratic vote, not the Reagan Democrats. Black voters don’t turn out for Obama solely because he is black. I’ve blogged before about this bizarre train of thought — if the affinity vote is so powerful we would have seen a bum rush for Alan Keyes. What Clinton is saying is not inaccurate (polls slice and dice this way), but its use here is inappropriate and inflammatory. It’s because the last core demo left for her to appeal to is resistant to Obama for reasons that have little to do with policy differences, or 3 AM readiness. She’s brought the microtarget out into the light and it’s one many of us don’t want to face talking about, with a different name — scared white people.
She is naming her remaining trump card, and considering our country’s pitiful history of not frankly dealing with or discussing race — aside from painful, fumbling defensive fits and starts — we’re left to deal with the fallout of a “poorly worded” statement, lacking a sufficiently stocked toolbox to deal with the ramifications of courting a vote with implicit and explicit biases.
The question never explored is why are these people scared more about a black president (regardless of political viewpoint) than the prospect of a McCain presidency and four more years of failed economic policies that have left this very demographic high and dry? What do we want to do about this as Americans? Apparently nothing, that’s a third rail topic and there’s an election to win.
Naming it means acknowledging problems we haven’t dealt with, and exploding the myth of a post-racial America. Barack Obama may be the first post-racial candidate because of his personal heritage, but the United States of America is nowhere near “post-racial” when it comes to politics.
70 Responses to “White dog whistles no more”
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The longer the race goes on, the more overt it becomes. The pandering to racist whites will continue through Kentucky, and then she’ll back off the rhetoric about whites and start pandering to Hispanics as Puerto Rico approaches. Guarantee, she’ll say something that’s code for Hispanics won’t vote for a black guy.
People argue she’s not a racist because of X, Y or Z. Whatever. I don’t care. She’s worse than a racist. She’s a cynic who is willing to use race and the politics of division to further her personal ambitions. If having a racially polarized nation serves her needs, then so be it.
I want this to be over. I want the superdelegates to show some backbone.
She is running out of trick. Race baiting and pushing MI/FL are the only two left.
Time to cut Hillary’s money. (She relies on fewer and fewer blogs.)
I can kind of see an underlying “not-quite-so-racist” point, in that working-class white voters are essentially “in play” while the Democrats can usually depend on support from working-class black voters. (I think this kind of analysis unfortunately fuels the whole “black/female/other minority voters don’t really count as much” BS that underlies a lot of campaign coverage. Personally, I’d love to hear a candidate say something like, “Well, a lot of working class blacks are smart enough to realize that a) Republicans hate them and b) the GOP will screw the working class at every opportunity. On the other hand, a lot of working-class whites are also smart enough realize that Republicans hate blacks: they just think that’s more important than the GOP screwing the working class.”)
I wonder if she started to say something like “working class white voters” before she caught herself (cause we’re not allowed to talk about “class” in the US). Even still, this was painfully “poorly worded”, and it comes really close to Romney’s “well spoken and articulate” dog whistle.
This meme is such a big lie. He HAS won white working class voters–just not white working class voters that live in in Appalachia and a narrow band of the rust belt.
In the Atlantic South, in the Upper Midwest, in the Rocky Mountain West, hes very well liked among white working class voters.
With the right VP pick (namely, someone like Jim Webb) he can bring enough votes in in Appalachia and the rust belt, anyway.
Let me also add that if you only count white voters under 65, almost all of Clinton’s lead among white voters is wiped out.
If you only count white voters between 18 and 35, he wins them.
You said Phoebe Fay, it is time for the super delegates to show some backbone and get this over with! Actually it was time for that a couple of weeks ago but somehow this train wreck of campaign has been allowed to continue.
The Clintons are a disgrace to Democrats. The use of rightwing tactics like the above are just unacceptable. I use to think the Clintons were OK but after this campaign I despise them.
Opps i meant: You said it, Phoebe Fay…
The only thing that could have topped that as a naked appeal to the bigots would have been for Clinton to have David Duke standing next to her and a Klan banner in the background.
And IIRC, I believe it was Billmon, shortly before Whisky Bar vanished from the Net, who pointed out just after the 2006 election, that if whites only had been allowed to vote, the GOP would still control the House and Senate.
When you are fighting for a margin of victory, every margin counts of course. But I would greatly prefer a candidate who pulss the disparate swing voters together by positive means, rather than one who plays divide and rule by pandering to the worst characteristics of their chosen base.
And the former has much more chance than the latter of winning in November. And being a better Preident down the line.
No, no, no. Haven’t you heard? Hillary’s campaign is driven snow! Obama’s the only one running an “-ist” campaign.
It’s all over the blogs, I’m surprised you haven’t heard about it.
I’ve been all over the place online today, and the anger coming out over this is big. Even some Clinton supporters are shaking their heads over this one. I’m trying to give her the benefit of the doubt, trying to say that she simply didn’t think out the implications of what she said–Amy (my g/f) disagrees, and did a sharp rhetorical analysis of how Clinton got to where she is on this now. And I’m starting to be convinced.
Why is it okay for one side of the primary fight to question the opponent’s electability but not okay for the other side to raise the same question? Especially since “Hillary=unelectable because I said so” is short for woman-hating. Moot question, maybe, with HRC all but eliminated. But unless you’re sure that Obama’s candidacy is a beam of stirring light uncontaminated by the ambition of–eww! gross!–a politician, the hypocrisy sticks out.
I think you may be mixing up who’s rhetoricizing what, unree. I hear next to no argument that Hillary’s unelectable, although admittedly I haven’t heard everything. Meanwhile, sites like TalkLeft and Corrente seem to be convinced that Hillary’s campaign is being unfairly targeted as negative right smack in the face of unmitigated racism as Pam highlights.
There’s a lot of misogyny targeted at Hillary, and most Obama supporters (around these parts, anyway) recognize that. There’s blinders on, but they’re at least 50% on Hillary supporters.
Why is it okay for one side of the primary fight to question the opponent’s electability but not okay for the other side to raise the same question?
Nothing wrong with questioning Obama’s electability–it’s the use of the “poor white people won’t vote for a black man” part that’s insulting. It basically says to African-American voters that they’re less important to the party than racist whites, because black voters have nowhere else to go.
I tend to agree that the electability argument is a fair one for everyone, to a point– it sure was for Kucinich and Gravel, even though their positions (if not demeanor) were in sync with most left-leaning people of all backgrounds. I think Clinton’s unelectable because she’s Republican-lite, the same reason i didn’t care for Joe Biden or Edwards in 2004 or Lieberdem, once upon a time. I don’t think the *electability* argument against Obama is always racial, i think it’s usually a counterintuitive “too much like right” argument.
But this is NOT an electability argument coming out of Clinton’s mouth– it’s a racial argument. That’s all her campaign has left. And even with the ridiculousness of the other side, that’s all they’ll have left, too.
As Michael Kinsley said, a gaffe is when a politician says what he actually believes. Clinton wasn’t setting out to offend or stir white voters to her defense. It’s worse, it’s how she actually thinks- in terms of divisions of demographics. Blacks are reliable voters for the Democratic Party, therefore she doesn’t have to pay attention to them, because “Where are they going to go?” But she has to flatter and pander to court “working, hard-working Americans, white Americans,” and she’s so used to it by now that she’s just taking it to its unconscious logical extension. A relative of mine who works for the campaign said about my concern that black voters might just sit out this election if Hillary disgusts them too much, “No, they’ll vote for who their pastor tells them to.”
I’m so mad about this I put it on my LJ. I want all my friends to know.
I think that electability is an issue, even for African American voters, who supported Hillary by a clear majority until they realized that White Americans would accept Obama (in Iowa). Even then, Clinton’s support need not have collapsed as much as it did if Bill Clinton had not gone off the rails in SC.
The point, I think, is that Obama has always said that Clinton is electable and that she would beat McCain. He has never “touted” his strength with any particular voting block, certainly not in these terms. He has never said or implied that women are only voting for Clinton because she is a woman (my mother certainly is).
And FWIW, if you look at voting patterns, even in PA and NC, the real lurking variable for predicting white and female voting patterns is age, as was stated above by Ben D.
I think that Clinton’s problem from the get go has been to run as if the primary is the GE. It shows in her focus on the big states, but also, the use of triangulation — it only works well when the voters being marginalized, in this case African Americans, have no place to go. This year, they had Obama, so all of the dogwhistle tactics have turned out to be no better than a zero sum game. I really, really wish she would stop this because she really is better than this.
As much as people are spouting off about Barack “bleeding off” poor white voters, no one seems to be mentioning how much Hillary is “bleeding off” black voters.If nothing changes dramatically, Barack will have both the popular vote and the delegates. Even seating FL and MI doesn’t win it for Hillary.
If somehow the Clintons manage to maneuver superdelagates to give her the nom (again, supposing nothing radically changes between now and then) I think the party will crack.
Which is unbelievably stupid, since it shouldnt’ be that hard to win this election. But I think many black voters will be totally turned off by that kind of machination and they will feel it’s racial.
Who will they vote for? Maybe they’ll write in Barack anyway. They won’t vote for Hillary though.
Have you seen the shots of Hillary giving her victory speech in Indiana? Bill and Chelsea have these looks on their faces…utter defeat. They love her and will support her, but they know it’s over.
It seems to me that she starts out wanting to say “working class,” corrects that to “hard-working,” then realizes that Obama doesn’t have a problem reaching out to hard-working black Americans, and re-corrects it to “hard-working white Americans.” What comes out, as punctuated, can be taken as a suggestion that hard-working Americans are only white, and white Americans are the only hard workers.
(Reading back upstream, I think Dorothy came to the same conclusion before I happened by.)
Well, there was that whole thing — was it in Nevada? — when Obama said that he thought Hillary’s voters would back him, but his might not back her. I don’t recall it being a demographic argument, but it was an electability argument.
As I recall, FlipYrWhig, Obama caught some shit for that, too, and never repeated it. He learned.
nothing will change much guys…
look at the number
WV = 18 delegates from primary (Hillary can win by 20% margin, and she will only get 3-4 delegates)
OR and KY have the exact same number of delegates. so it’s a question of margin vs. margin. And I believe Obama is ahead by 5% or so. (eg. maybe he will get ahead by 1 delegates)
Then Puerto Rico = 36 delegates. If Hillary wins by 15%, she will get 6 or so.
by the end of this process. at most Hillary will be ahead by 10. This out of 150 delegates difference.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_(United_States)_presidential_primaries,_2008
——
so it all comes down to Super delegates and money.
All this despite the fact that the Clintonite blogosphere is currently AWASH with posts promising to stay home or vote Green if Obama’s the nomination.
I thought the right had the corner on the projection market, but my eyes are being opened.
Of course, someone has been telling you since last December that this was entirely about race, but y’all didn’t want to believe him.
Senator Obama won North Carolina by a big margin, but you need to look at the breakdown of votes; Mrs Clinton won a significant majority of the white voters, but it was Mr Obama’s 91% margin among black voters, with blacks being 33% of the primary voters, that made his margin.
And the undiscussed donkey in this room is: these are Democrats, voting in Democratic primaries. As much as I’m sure y’all want to blame Republicans, the Republicans — save for a few who switched party registration to vote in the Democratic primary — have been excluded from the process.
When you are discussing the people who won’t vote for Mr Obama because he’s black, please realize that you are talking about Democrats!
Barbara wrote:
What makes you think that? She is what she is, and acts like she is.
Meh. People say a lot of things when they’re pissed off. I remember DailyKos being collectively convulsed by a pro-John-Roberts post by a certain junior Illinois senator. And the Edwards campaign’s treatment of Amanda and Melissa was a devastating, deal-breaking affront… for a while. It comes in waves.
I am just trying to maintain in my mind the historic vision I have had of her, her associations in the first Clinton administration, my overall impression of her the single time I was in a room with her, and so on. I have always thought that she doesn’t deal well when she is seriously challenged (it’s actually what led to a lot of her misery during her husband’s time in office), but I guess even I underestimated the intensity of that part of her personality. I kind of think of her as someone going through a divorce and doing things that would have been — and will again be — unthinkable.
Which is why I always thought those poll numbers were getting way to much attention. We’re still 6 months away from the election–anything can happen. McCain could sprout a second head. Obama could decide he’s the next Dalai Lama. Who knows? Some people will stay home, some people will switch, and most will vote for the party guy as long as he doesn’t turn into the opposite of what he seems to have been along.
Barbara wrote:
In that case, I hope you never supported her for president!
Yeah, I do see the “pattern emerging” here - both HRC and the media seem to be not-so-subtly pointing out that a certain kind of voter is more important than other voters. Even if it’s true (which it isn’t) that HRC is winning the white working-class vote across the board, why should that vote be privileged over other demographics? I really hate the binaries that this logic is setting up - white vs. black, old vs. young, uneducated vs. educated - and the clear message as to whose voice and vote is more important.
Bad strategy all around by Hillary
WV and KY, yes she might be able to pull “white power” pandering.
but then
OR. way progressive state and will not tolerate that kind of talk. MO, SD. I don’t think they will bite that. And definitely will turn off Puerto Rico.
I just can’t see how Hillary can win with that type of talk. She might push 1-1.5% over, but she will PO a whole lot more voters. She simply doesn’t realize the overall party demographic at all. (She might get away doing center right national run, but definitely not primary. One only need to read the top blogs to notice this. It doesn’t take million dollar pollster to notice it.)
Squashed: when you have only one shot left, you take it or go home.
Right now, Hillary Clinton has One Shot Left: to convince the voters in the remaining primary states, and a bunch of super delegates, that A Negro Cannot Win. If she can’t do that, then she’d done.
Dick Morris postulated that Mrs Clinton is no longer running for the 2008 nomination, but for 2012. The only way she can run in 2012 is if John McCain beats Barack Obama.
Dana,
The other theory (which I lend more credence to) is that she knows that both Obama or her will crush McCain in the general… both are polling even with him, or better, in general election matchups while 15-25% of the Democratic party is threatening to stay home if the other wins. In 2016, she’ll be a 16-year Senator, nearing McCain-age. This is her last shot at the presidency. Who wouldn’t go all out for it?
That said, yeah, this comment definitely has some uncomfortable racial elements, even if it’s not out-and-out racist.
uh oh…Keith Olbermann
sounds juicy
www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/5/8/184623/5562/465/512097
My friend Rachel Maddow walked on to the set last night saying she’d just heard a prophesied “dog-whistle” tell-tale sign, earlier in the show (namely that Dianne Feinstein had just given anything less than a cheerleader-style answer to the prospect of the Clinton campaign continuing).
I replied I’d just heard a different whistle that the end was nigh, but I couldn’t say anything yet pending additional sourcing.
I can say it tonight and before the tv audience gets the full thing, I thought I’d offer up a little preview: At least one very prominent Clinton campaigner has just this week started shopping for a book deal.
Stupid details like this - renting a home in a different city, visiting a university to talk about a lecturing post, booking a vacation at a time when the world thinks you’re supposed to be at the busiest - are often the staples of source reporting on anything.
But politically, BDS (Book Deal Syndrome) is one of the top pieces of circumstantial evidence that the tent is being folded, whether the candidate knows it or not. And at least one of Senator Clinton’s big names is out there trying to get the proverbial big money for the proverbial big story.
The logic here is very simple. You do not do this if:
A) You believe your candidate (and thus you) are going to be otherwise employed until, say, the morning of January 20, 2017;
B) You believe your candidate (and thus you) are going to be fairly busy between now and, say, the early morning of November 5, 2008.
More over, you do not do this right now if:
C) You believe your candidate (and thus you) are going to be fairly busy after, say, May 20 or June 3 of this year.
Nothing wrong with questioning Obama’s electability–it’s the use of the “poor white people won’t vote for a black man” part that’s insulting. It basically says to African-American voters that they’re less important to the party than racist whites, because black voters have nowhere else to go.
I think it says that we all know black people are way too wise to the ways of the hegemonic power structure to vote for Republicans, no matter what. As contrasted to working-class whites, who have proven over and over that [we] are collectively too dumb to keep our eyes on the shell with the pea under it.
Let’s face it, the existence of a ‘Reagan Democrat’ shows that my people are, what’s the word, ignorant.
Yes, it’s insulting, but I think it’s insulting the intelligence of working-class whites not the integrity of black voters.
And on other news: OMGWTF wash your mind out with soap, I agree with Dana.
What we’re talking about here is exactly the racism of white Democrats, who skew blue-collar in general. The issue is not, Will this demographic refuse to vote for a black guy? because we know that the answer is a qualified ‘Yes’. The issue is, What are the numbers, in which states that are not Republican locks in November, of whites whose votes will be cast in response to racial arousal?
Of course, the problem that was created by locking John Edwards out of the money way back when is, What are the numbers of those sway-able white voters that would also vote against this particular woman or any woman on some pretext?
All that said, Chelsea needs to get the clue stick and go up in her mama’s grill with it. There was no right way to make the demographic argument in public, it’s a niche-strategy argument for the consumption of super-delegates.
Remember, the black vote has been the most reliable Democratic vote, not the Reagan Democrats. Black voters don’t turn out for Obama solely because he is black. I’ve blogged before about this bizarre train of thought — if the affinity vote is so powerful we would have seen a bum rush for Alan Keyes.
Pam, I agree with your broader point about the importance of Hillary having drug my crazy uncle into the conversation by specifically citing his demographic as the reason Obama can’t win.
Regardless of whether that’s playing to baser instincts, regardless of whether it’s conditionally correct, the fact that she drug that nasty, smelly family secret into the living room is so shocking that I’m pretty well dumbfounded. Haven’t blogged this one yet, I’m just stunned.
However: The useful point above is that Black Americans are the Dem’s most loyal affinity group because black people look at positions and party before race, NOT that the crazy-a** black folk who go over to the Dark Side (Republicans, what did you think I meant?) can’t win elections.
See Ohio’s last race for governor: Ken Blackwell, a crazy-a** Republican whackjob who happens to be black, was rejected by Ohio’s blackest counties in favor of a white preacher from Appalachia.
You don’t need to believe in exit polls, only in vote counts, to look at that outcome and say that black people in Ohio, at least, are wise to the game of racially-aroused campaigning at a level that if we could get white people there…well, that would be great.
We would live in an entirely different county if white voters were as hard to fool with skin color in any arena, not just electoral politics.
Remember, the black vote has been the most reliable Democratic vote, not the Reagan Democrats. Black voters don’t turn out for Obama solely because he is black. I’ve blogged before about this bizarre train of thought — if the affinity vote is so powerful we would have seen a bum rush for Alan Keyes.
Pam, I agree with your broader point about the importance of Hillary having drug my crazy uncle into the conversation by specifically citing his demographic as the reason Obama can’t win.
Regardless of whether that’s playing to baser instincts, regardless of whether it’s conditionally correct, the fact that she drug that nasty, smelly family secret into the living room is so shocking that I’m pretty well dumbfounded. Haven’t blogged this one yet, I’m just stunned.
However: The useful point above is that Black Americans are the Dem’s most loyal affinity group because black people look at positions and party before race, NOT that the crazy-a** black folk who go over to the Dark Side (Republicans, what did you think I meant?) can’t win elections.
See Ohio’s last race for governor: Ken Blackwell, a crazy-a** Republican whackjob who happens to be black, was rejected by Ohio’s blackest counties in favor of a white preacher from Appalachia.
You don’t need to believe in exit polls, only in vote counts, to look at that outcome and say that black people in Ohio, at least, are wise to the game of racially-aroused campaigning at a level that if we could get white people there…well, that would be great.
We would live in an entirely different county if white voters were as hard to fool with skin color in any arena, not just electoral politics.
The irony is, if she’d just said “Hard working Americans are voting for me.”, y’all would’ve been equally upset; “OMG! She said that hard=working Americans are voting for her, but since AA’s aren’t voting for her, that means she thinks AAs are lazy and UnAmerican!! RACIST! RACIST! RACIST!”
She was tired. If you watch the tape, you can see the wheels turning “Hard working Americans are voting for me. But wait, hard working AA’s are voting for Obama. Should I say that? No! I’ll be called “racist”and “condescending” for saying “Hard working AA’s are voting for Obama.” I’ll just say…uh….oh, hard-working white people are voting for me. Uh, yeah, then I can go home and sleep.”
Looking at this blog title, I could just as easily say “OMG! Pam called Hillary a white dog! Pam, you’re a BAD FEMINIST! BAD, BETRAYING FEMINIST!”
But I know that wasn’t what Pam meant, and we Dems will all come together in the fall to beat McCain. As ben Franklin said, “We must all hang together, or we will hang seperately.”
At what point did all working-class Americans suddenly become white? Shouldn’t that have been newsworthy?
Dick Morris postulated that Mrs Clinton is no longer running for the 2008 nomination, but for 2012. The only way she can run in 2012 is if John McCain beats Barack Obama.
Dick Morris is also a fucking moron who really loses his mind when the word “Clinton” enters it. He’s also correct about once every hundred years, so I wouldn’t bet on it being this time.
This really just fits in with all of the “but It’s MINE” attitude whining that has been emanating from this campaign since Super Tuesday.
I mean, really - isn’t “NO FAIR it is NO FAIR that that black guy is getting MY JOB” just the standard whining of the entitled white person who complains about affirmative action but, in reality, fears a meritocracy where their white privilege is no longer enough to keep them on top?
OR. way progressive state and will not tolerate that kind of talk. MO, SD. I don’t think they will bite that. And definitely will turn off Puerto Rico.
Now that I’ve cleaned my screen off …
Squashed, you ever been to Oregon? Really? My personal experience, growing up, was two guns on the rack, country music, and redneck wonderlands also known as trailer courts. Does Tanya Harding strike you as a progressive?
Oregon is progressive about land use, infrastructure, and tolerance of hippies and fundies and hippyfundies alike, and ballots by mail.
Oregon was a purple state in the last election.
Progressive isn’t the same as democratic. It is a very politically diverse place.
isn’t “NO FAIR it is NO FAIR that that black guy is getting MY JOB” just the standard whining of the entitled white person
You could also say that the more-qualified woman is getting passed over for a hipper, younger, untested man. That would also be an unfair and inflammatory analogy to workplace dynamics.
BTW, for every Hillary’s spinners out there, who wants to think the magic number is not 2025.
in this youtube clip, she said 2025! (It was only several weeks ago) Now her crew is trying to say…it is not 2025. hah.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OsYnegoV28
Hillary says “Michigan doesn’t matter”
(but redo is the only fair thing to do. haa haa…not anymore)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-deGy60y9fo
http://www.americablog.com/2008/03/michigan-re-vote-isnt-happening-as.html
You could also say that the more-qualified woman is getting passed over for a hipper, younger, untested man. That would also be an unfair and inflammatory analogy to workplace dynamics
No, it would not.
In the workplace, your clients don’t promote you, your boss does. Obama isn’t winning because the bosses think he’s hip and because he is male - he is winning because he has more votes. Very different.
The Clinton Machine is constantly complaining that the proles aren’t validating at the polls what they think the bosses would have decreed if they had that power. That, my friend, is entitlement whining.
So much for your workplace analogy. White entitlement whining transcends the workplace anyway - and Clinton is using it to appeal for votes from people who think they were also robbed of what they were entitled to by having to compete for it on a level playing field.
“No, they’ll vote for who their pastor tells them to.”
Really? Think about the congregants of those homophobic right-wing black pastors, most of whom STILL vote Democratic.
The “sheep” tag is one we usually get from Republicans…
I’m white and female. 47. If I weren’t voting for Obama already this latest gaffe from Hillary would have definitely sent me over the edge. The aura of entitlement she projects, her waffling out of both sides of her mouth, and now this “well, white people won’t vote for a black man”?
Like hell they won’t.
The Clinton Machine is constantly complaining that the proles aren’t validating at the polls what they think the bosses would have decreed if they had that power. That, my friend, is entitlement whining.
I honestly don’t know what you’re referring to. “Constantly complaining”?
I disagree with, but can see, the second half of your comment, where you suggest that Clinton may be tapping anti-affirmative-action resentment by making such an overt appeal to working-class white voters.
But I don’t think that’s “entitlement.”
If you look at the Indiana cross-tabs, I think he is nearly even among working whites (that would exclude seniors), and ahead if they’re under 40.
The real question: what about the whites that are hardly working? Sounds like somebody has a case of the Mondays!
She didn’t say “hard-working white Americans.” Watch it again.
From her comments it sounds like the considers “hard-working Americans” and “white Americans” the same thing.
Here is what I don’t get: a lot of Clinton supporters think giving the finger is sexist and that using the word “periodically” is horrible, but then they no-sell stuff like this.
I see a lot of racism and sexism floating around. I understand some people not seeing it. But what I really don’t get is people who only see one or the other.
I’m sorry, but if “periodically” is sexist then equating white people with hard-working people is pretty damn racist.
Well, I feel so dragged out by this primary campaign that I’m just going to work to register voters and be a poll worker. I can’t work up much enthusiasm for Obama, not because of him but because of his supporters. All that moral superiority, especially from old lefties and from media mavens, like the ghastly Keith Olbermann, really turns me off big time.
A little humility would be nice to see from those wonderful, wonderful bright and fantastic Obama people.
It’s wearying, that’s what it is.
reagan democrats? MY ACHING ASS. There aint no sucha thing! ANYONE who admired a goddamned THING about reagan is not worthy of calling themselves a Democrat.
Hattie May 9, 2008 at 12:21 am
A little humility would be nice to see from those wonderful, wonderful bright and fantastic Obama people.
In the age of Foxnews and rush Limbaugh? The hypercharged and opinion are shaped by decades of screaming against the media lies.
Everything is in your face crushing logic, take down. It’s designed against rightwing media machine and status quo.
And as anybody would notice, Hillary IS playing as status quo. She cannot claim moral superiority when one day she says 2025, then the next saying..no it’s 2209… That’s just one example, nevermind other type of lying like NAFTA (I was against it, in closed door meeting really.) Or warmongering then play stupid.
According to the Indiana Secretary of State, the official totals were:
Hillary Clinton: 637,814 50.4%
Barack Obama: 626,642 49.6%
The difference: 11,152 less than 1 %
This difference, was almost surely caused by Rush Limbaugh and operation Chaos (who at least according to ABC made up 7% of Clinton’s voting base.) So I think Obama’s claim that Rush won it for Hillary is accurate.
Blue Jean said:
Wouldn’t that be the time when it’s more likely that she’d say what she really means, rather than being careful to make sure she doesn’t say the wrong thing?
Squashed wrote:
I think that’s a stretch. I reregistered as a Democrat for the Pennsylvania primary — and yes, I’m back to being a registered Republican now — but it was to vote against Hillary Clinton. Just because there is a small percentage of Republicans voting in a democratic primary does not mean you can infer that they all voted the same way.
By the way, I prefer Operation KAOS, as in Maxwell Smart’s old opponent!
She cannot claim moral superiority when one day she says 2025, then the next saying..no it’s 2209…
So she didn’t pull the exactly right number out of her ass on the spot. Big Whoop.
The other items you cited, and the Bosnia under fire business, are far more troubling than not knowing a precise number.
Don’t get so obsessed with minutae that you can’t make a basic qualitative call that separates an obvious mistake from a whopper from an “adjusted” narrative account.
Ms Kate May 9, 2008 at 9:28 am
She cannot claim moral superiority when one day she says 2025, then the next saying..no it’s 2209…
So she didn’t pull the exactly right number out of her ass on the spot. Big Whoop. >/i>
no. this is big deal. This is not somebody forgetting, what’s my mechanics phone number. This is somebody going back on her own words.
2025 - without MI/FL, that means she agrees of the rules
2209 - several weeks later after she can’t get the number, she try to say…no no, it’s 2209, MI+FL gotta be in there.
——–
This is exactly the same as her team agreeing on party rules before primary starts (MI/FL) should be counted due to violating party primary schedule. Then after her number turns out to be bad, she starts licking her own words back.
She is a liar and should not be trusted on anything. She can’t count, she can’t plan ahead, and when loosing start whining about how unfair the rules are. (rules that she herself agrees in the beginning.)
You think any big country will trust her words now? (Everybody in the world will now assume she is a major liar, even bigger than Bush when it comes to treaty, negotiation, and war.)
Do you want to trust your money in her hand? (ahahahaaaaaa…….. )
Let’s see how this sticks with Hillz voter.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/JE10Dj05.html
Though few fully realized it, this represented a significant erosion of sovereign independence even before the price of a barrel of crude soared above $110. By now, we are transferring such staggering sums yearly to foreign oil producers, who are using it to gobble up valuable American assets, that, whether we know it or not, we have essentially abandoned our claim to superpowerdom.
According to the latest data from the US Department of Energy, the United States is importing 12-14 million barrels of oil per day. At a current price of about $115 per barrel, that’s $1.5 billion per day, or $548 billion per year. This represents the single largest contribution to America’s balance-of-payments deficit, and is a leading cause for the dollar’s ongoing drop in value. If oil prices rise any higher - in response, perhaps, to a new crisis in the Middle East (as might be occasioned by US air strikes on Iran) - our annual import bill could quickly approach three-quarters of a trillion dollars or more per year.
This is a truly unhallowed combination:
George Wallace’s racism, targeted with Mark Penn’s micr-trending (of racists in this case), and then covered up with a thin veil of Nixon’s plausible deniability.
“if she’d just said “Hard working Americans are voting for me.”, y’all would’ve been equally upset”
This would be hard for Clinton to say since she dose not win the majority of people under the age of 65.
Again, I think pepole are trying to make this about race when the real dividing factor seems to be age.
Or maybe a combination of race and age, with age being a good indicator of probable racism?
I don’t know why the media hasn’t told us very much about the age angle to this. Young people like Obama, the old folks like Hillary.
Thanks for people pointing out that Seniors are retired and therefore NOT “working class” since they are no longer working. Something else the MSM has missed the bus on.
The really toxic part is the throw-in “hard-working.” What’s the opposite of “working, hard-working Americans, white Americans,” among whom Obama’s support is allegedly weak? Mirror image: “not working, not-so-hard-working Americans, black Americans.” Welfare queens, anyone?
What’s really toxic is the throw-in “hard-working.” What’s the opposite of “working, hard-working Americans, white Americans,” among whom Obama’s support is allegedly weak? Mirror image: “not working, not-so-hard-working Americans, black Americans.” Welfare queens, anyone?
This is not a new language problem. Look at these phrases:
“Hard-working, white Americans.”
“Tall, red-haired men.”
Two adjectives applied to the same noun. In neither case does the grammar of the sentence make one adjective necessarily imply the other.
When it does, it usually means that the association is in the mind of the listener. This can be intentional or unintentional.
For example, I would at first blush guess that someone using the phrase “normal, straight people” thinks the two adjectives are the same. But maybe it’s part of a four-group set, normal/straight, weird/straight, normal/queer, weird/queer. Without context it’s hard to be sure.
Even “radical feminists” implies to many people that all feminists are radical, instead of that the feminists being referred to are the radical kind. This kind of phrase annoys some of us, even some of us who associate “radical” with “to the root” rather than “offensively crazy,” because we know most people, especially anti-feminists, don’t make that distinction.
But then there are those of us who use “extreme right-wing religious people” and are baffled when religious people who aren’t extreme right-wingers get upset, saying “you’re calling all us religious people extreme right-wingers.” What was supposed to be a fine-tuning of a phrase became an equivalence of the adjectives.
So. What is the context? I would assume Hillary’s been talking demographics with her team for yonks. So I think it’s more likely that she meant it as “the subset of working class people who are also white” rather than “working class people, who are invariably white.” The Venn diagram is an intersection, not one circle with two labels.
But I don’t know her, so I don’t know.
One question for people who think it was simply poor phrasing because Hillary was tired: why hasn’t she corrected her statement? Why has she not rephrased it - either admitted she put it badly, or at least claimed she was misinterpreted and restate the way she thinks it should really be parsed? Because she likes it parsed just the way it is as something that appeals to racists.
More on this:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/5/9/141019/4319/894/512709
Clinton is over, it’s a question how badly.
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There is no way you can say in the same sentence, “hard-working Americans, white Americans,” without diminishing black Americans as lazy.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/05/10/clintons_diminishing_of_black_voters/
He can’t win! Don’t you understand? He’s black! He’s black!
The Clintons have been trying to embed that gruesomely destructive message in the brains of white voters and superdelegates for the longest time. It’s a grotesque insult to African-Americans, who have given so much support to both Bill and Hillary over the years.
(Representative Charles Rangel of New York, who is black and has been an absolutely unwavering supporter of Senator Clinton’s White House quest, told The Daily News: “I can’t believe Senator Clinton would say anything that dumb.”)
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/10/opinion/10herbert.html?ref=opinion
Clinton advisor’s say that attacks on Obama are no longer enough to change the momentum or the outcome of the nomination race. Continued attacks on him, at this point, would probably inflict more long-term harm on Clinton than Obama, her advisor’s said.
http://www.mercurynews.com/nationworld/ci_9216250