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In reply to the discussion: The only reason Hillary lost in 2008 was Obama took away the Clinton's African American base [View all]Liberal_Stalwart71
(20,450 posts)squarely in her corner in the beginning. I hate to go down this road again because it's really painful for me and a lot of other black Americans who loved the Clintons, but it is the truth. When she and Bill Clinton started making unfortunate statements of a racial nature, they started to lose a lot of black Americans.
Let's make this clear:
Black Americans have ALWAYS supported white candidates over black candidates. We got behind Mondale over Jesse Jackson, supported Dukakis over Al Sharpton, supported Al Gore again for Jesse Jackson. In my own backyard here in Maryland, blacks supported Ben Cardin overwhelmingly for the Senate over Kwesi Mfume who was once the head of the NAACP. We supported Ben over Mike Steele as well. And yes, in the beginning, we supported Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama. Things shifted because Obama proved that he could win. He proved to be a better candidate than Hillary Clinton. All those other black candidates were not better than their white counterparts and so they lost. No Democratic Party candidate can win an election without the support of the black electorate. Period. That's just a fact. Therefore, all those years in which white Democratic candidates were winning elected offices, thank black folk who voted for them.
So contrary to a commonly held belief--and I believe a racist one--black people did not vote for Barack Obama because he is black. He proved to be the better candidate while Hillary struggled through her campaign. And Bill Clinton made things worse. Add to that their behavior and the behavior of their surrogates. It really did turn a lot of black Americans who would have ordinarily supported the Clintons, off.
So, let's be clear.
Hillary Clinton will need to work for her votes just as every other candidates has had to.
Nothing will be given to her. She is not entitled to anything.
The Democrats are not entitled to the black vote. They cannot and must not take the black electorate for granted.