Sean Wilentz has written an article called Race Man -- How Barack Obama played the race card and blamed Hillary Clinton.
A review of what actually happened shows that the charges that the Clintons played the "race card" were not simply false; they were deliberately manufactured by the Obama camp and trumpeted by a credulous and/or compliant press corps in order to strip away her once formidable majority among black voters and to outrage affluent, college-educated white liberals as well as college students.Watching Obama national co-chair Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. following the New Hampshire primary, it seem clear to me that HE was certainly playing the race card. It kind of makes you wonder why no one called him on it.
Couple this with the MSM (and many progressive blogs) acting like cheerleaders for Obama, and it's not surprising the most qualified candidate for president is in a virtual tie with a lesser qualified candidate for the nomination.
3 comments:
Again, if these charges have merit, then they must be placed in the larger context.
Hillary has consistently tried to play the victim card and had it work to her advantage (New Hampshire) and recently it has backfired.
I advocate no cards being played and if the Obama campaign somehow manipulated the race card in underhanded fashion, it needs to own up to it.
That being said, people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
I'm not sure you can rank who played dirtier when you get right down to it. It's who wins that matters.
And as I pointed out today, Clinton benefited greatly from media adulation that George H.W. Bush never pointed out at the time, or only hinted at weakly. He dismissed Bill as slippery and slick which were ineffectual attacks at best which did not do a thing to blunt his momentum. The press overlooked a series of sex scandals, not just one, and a series of accusations that later proved to be highly credible in light of Monica Lewinsky.
I'm not going to nail Bill for fooling around (though it certainly doesn't speak highly of his morality), but many many women have never forgiven her for taking him back in and you would be hard pressed to find a hard-core literal feminist who would be so easy for forgive her for taking him back.
This is particularly true here in Red State America. A dynamic that gets forgotten is how women in conservative regions view adultery and a man who cheats, lies, gets caught, and gets away with it. It's not very favorable, let's just say it that way.
When she took him back, she effectively lost the votes of many moderate and conservative Democratic female voters forever. She has not been forgiven.
perhaps there's a reason that so many 'progressive' blogs stump for obama. both candidates are fairly evenly matched. people realize that whichever democratic candidate gets nominated- neither has a snowball's chance in hell of fixing every mess created by the current regime. what they are looking for isn't experience- it's change. for clinton to play the experience card translates into- status quo- especially since she has spent most of the last almost 20 years in washington dc- in the white house and in congress. i think people at this point- just want something different. it matters less what these folk claim to be able to do- and more about inspiring hope. obama has clinton on that one. i am sure you won't agree- but check around on the 'progressive' blogs and see for yourself.
CK - baloney ... which is the cleaned up version of my usual response!
betmo - I think it's more about the sexism that is pervasive on many of the big blogs ... like Daily Kos! Take a quick look at the comments section of DK, and you'll see who DK is catering to.
BAC
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