Why Hillary's Men Troubles Explain Her Race to the Bottom

[ProSense]

Why Hillary's Men Troubles Explain Her Race to the Bottom

Posted January 15, 2008 | 02:51 PM (EST)

There's only one thing that makes sense of the Clinton campaign's clumsy and classless injection of race into her primary battle with Barack Obama. And that is that her victory in New Hampshire -- impressive though it was -- threatened to transform her into a special-interest candidate.

Hillary would not have won that battle without exaggerated support from women. Despite having campaigned vigorously as a candidate who just-so-happened to be a woman, her lifeline came from affinity voters.

How then to compete against Obama, who has -- as Al Sharpton recently complained -- run a race-neutral campaign? A man standing as a general-interest candidate despite his historic racial qualifications.

The answer, it seems, has been to inject race into the campaign by any means necessary. The effort has run the gamut from old-school racism -- Andrew Cuomo's execrable "shuck-and-jive" comment -- to tired racial paradigms -- a Clinton pollster's assertion that Hispanics don't vote for black people -- to anti-racism-as-racism -- the bizarre suggestion by a Clinton surrogate that Obama had been adopted by white America as its "imaginary hip black friend."

As distasteful as this campaign has been, it has worked. The media have segued neatly from Clinton's tears and her outpouring of support among women in the granite state to Obama's standing as a "black candidate" -- now awkwardly forced to defend the legacy of Dr. King from slights by the Clinton machine.

So much for the post-racial transcendence to which he has aspired; Obama has now even been yoked -- however tenuously -- to the discredited politics of Louis Farrakahn, thanks to Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen's smear job this morning.

(A note to anyone covering that piece: Since when is it reasonable to hold a political candidate responsible for everything that's ever been published in his church's fucking newsletter?!? What horseshit.)

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[Proud2BAmurkin]

1. The race card helped Clinton with men. Look at all the male MSM talking heads who

ripped Obama over it. Olberman, that guy after him and even Tweety

[Essene]

42. Screaming at the jive'n black brother who cant provide... pretending he's playing the race card

IN spite of all evidence to the contrary.

Indeed, Hillary played the "gender card" but nobody talked about it because it was combined with a massive scale smear campaign which included slick race baiting. The aim was to build support among white women, while also fracturing the black vote going into SC.

More importantly, indeed, it stirs up a nasty racialized debate which would hurt Obama more than it hurts her. She has enough black leaders in her pocket to recover, symbolically (even if blacks turn on her at the polls, many more just wont vote).

She can sit back and watch the GOP and media chew on him over the race issue, since the media is so reactionary. They'll be doing 2 hour specials about how blacks "feel" which will just further turn off voters by making it a "black" thing.

[Perry Logan]

2. It's like "Dispatches from Bizarro World"

[Tempest]

3. The author does himself no favors

By claiming Clinton's appeal is only to women voters.

He comes across as sexist.

[The Magistrate]

4. The Author, Ma'am, Seems To Suffer From The Same Disease As Chris Matthews

Women are not a 'special interest': women are the majority of the country. The closest thing to a 'special interest' referenced in this piece is the group of males he celebrates, and doubtless belongs among, who cannot bear the specter of powerful women in position to tell them what to do....

[ProSense]

6. Opinions:

here and here

[incapsulated]

18. Nice

Pounded that nail, Mag.

:)

[Bread and Circus]

5. nice catch..he put his thumb on it well...

"And that is that her victory in New Hampshire -- impressive though it was -- threatened to transform her into a special-interest candidate."

[suston96]

7. Race to the bottom? What bottom?

The only trouble Hillary will have with men will be with those who fear powerful, intelligent women in high office.

"Exaggerated support from women"? Gotta clue? No shit? Women supporting a woman candidate for president? How disgustingly sexist of them.

Thankfully for all of us, blacks will not be providing "exaggerated support" for Obama.

[ProSense]

9. What about the trouble she has

with women: Is that because they "fear powerful, intelligent women in high office" or is it something else?

[suston96]

30. Trouble with women...? Not really. or maybe not significant.

Most of her support is like this:

[Orangepeel]

37. well, if she has trouble with both men and women...

I guess her opponents don't have to stay up late figuring out how to run against her.

[rinsd]

8. OMG Obama may have to actually deal with an unfair media before the GE

"And so, while Obama is being forced to clarify that he is not, indeed, a Nation-of-Islam sympathizing closet anti-Semite, no one is looking much at Clinton's very real troubles winning over the hearts and minds of male voters."

Yes the media has been nothing but sweetness and light with the Clinton campaign :eyes:

[ProSense]

14. Never mind that the article being discussed is despicable, do you believe

that only Clinton surrogates like Gloria Steinem and Bill Clinton have a right to complain, in some cases whine?

[The Magistrate]

20. Who Is Denying Anyone the Right To Complain, Ma'am, Even To Whine?

That was in one of the early drafts of the Declaration of Independence, if recollection serves: it is certainly at the very heart of our political system....

[ProSense]

26. I don't know that

little eyes roll thing threw me off!

[Cameron27]

35. ROFL

:toast:

[ProSense]

36. Kick! n/t

[Essene]

43. This is nothing compared to the GOP attacks in a GE. "Google" his church...

If he cannot survive race baiting from the Clinton campaign, imagine what happens when the smears about his Church start.

Frankly, he cannot get caught up in ANY of it... even to defend himself.

If he does, he invites a reactionary buzz about race, religion and such... which will invariably harm his message by distracting people from the issues themselves. ANY defense will cause him to sink in the mud. Sad, but true.

He must stick to his unifying, race-neutral message no matter what.

Let surrogates and others defend or clarify.

And frankly... his church is his #1 problem for electability. That church is not easily explained to mainstream america.

[BenDavid]

10. you obama folks wanna know why there was no disrepect

to obama and dr king? james clyburn who is a powerful representative from s.c. took a look at it and made his comments last week and he has not spoken nor given his endorsement to obama....but another powerful representative, charlie rangel spoke out loud and harsh late yesterday against obama and I believe this was the turning point that forced obama's camp to issue some response to stop this before it gets out of hand.....

[ellacott]

19. Nope, Obama had already given his conference before Rangels words were publicized

They were very disappointing words also. They didn't represent what has been going on. He was not honest in his statements and that was very disappointing.

[Cha]

11. I thought the writer from Rolling Stone

meant that hillary's "men troubles" were from the idiotic blatherings from certain surrogates in her life..like robert johnson from bet and charlie rangel's spewing that Obama is "absolutely stupid" and Obama must have wanted to sell a lot of books because he wrote about his using drugs..paraphrasing here.

mark penn's, bob kerrey's, billy shaheen's, bill clinton's big ugly mouths..men trouble.

[ProSense]

17. Of course,

but who wants to see the forest for the trees?

[Cha]

22. Not hillaryette's

[noamnety]

12. Funny reporting

"Hillary would not have won that battle without exaggerated support from women."

They don't write that Obama had "exaggerated support" from men. That's part of how sexism is made invisible. Women must have voted for her because she is female - that needs to be dissected at length.

That men vote for other men because they are male is not a thing to be examined.

The same could be said for much of the reporting around race. We don't talk about how McCain got "exaggerated support" from white voters.

I would love to know when are we going to stop examining oppressed groups like they are labrats and start putting the dominant groups under the same microscope - with the same sorts of language.

[The Magistrate]

13. Indeed, Ma'am

In New Hampshire, men seemed to have favored Sen. Obama over Sen. Clinton by twelve points, while women favored Sen. Clinton over Sen. Obama by fourteen points. The numbers are roughly comparable; what gave them bite towards Sen. Clinton was that women made up fifty-seven percent of the voters in the primary.

Appealing to women is simply classic smart politics; make the most of the largest group, and your strongest support.

[ProSense]

15. Nothing funny about it:

McAuliffe credits emotion for Clinton win

[The Magistrate]

21. Does Anyone Seriously Suppose, Ma'am, People In The Mass Are Moved By Sweet Reason?

[incapsulated]

24. No, unless they vote for your candidate

Then the righteous voice of The People has spoken.

[ProSense]

25. And yet

we have Bush as a president!

People employ political strategies, inject innuendo into the debate, and engage in smear tactics for a reason.

[robbedvoter]

27. Who would have thunk it? McAuliffe missed the point - yet again? Won't cick that trash.

Enough with the tears BS!!!!!

[flpoljunkie]

16. Richard Cohen has no credibility. Could be someone sent him some ugly oppo research.

[robbedvoter]

29. Word! "Colbert wasn't funny Cohen....

[robbedvoter]

23. Truce, Obama campaign memo - it never ends, does it? Article repeats campaign memo

More spreading campaign strategy in the form of an article
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/01/12/obama-camps-memo-on-clin_n_81205.html
I thought Obama asked them to stop!
When was this written?
And why don't you guys listen to your candidate?

[ProSense]

28. Here,

follow this link.

[robbedvoter]

31. Seen that. Doesn't contradict that the campaign designed a strategy of Sharptonizing

Hillary - i.e looking with a magnifying lens for anything that could be interpreted as racist - and they stretched it enough that they realized they needed to step back.
Obama's statement meant
1. He realized that this was destructive for his campaign as well, not just Hillary's
2. he never really believed that those "examples" were what they were presented to be

I respect him for his decision - I wish his supporters would do the same.

[ProSense]

32. Hillary issued a statement yesterday as Rangel attacks, now

Cohen writes this vile piece. That's hypocrisy! If you want to defend that, fine!

[Essene]

41. You're confused, but obviously a diehard Clintonite so no point arguing

She race baited. It worked.

Now you want to pretend an Obama camp list of her baiting is somehow relevant??

Get real.

[VotesForWomen]

33. wow, up is down. guess obama's got a white and woman problem, which explains his

whining about non-existent racism. that's another way to look at it, isn't it? sheesh, where's the truce when you're still posting that kind of crap?

[lumberjack_jeff]

34. The gender-aligned vote in NH is an aberration.

It was based on a ploy which can't be repeated.

Future elections will show the genders voting for (or against) her in similar ratios.

[ProSense]

38. Kick! n/t

[Sparkly]

39. If the race is about being "likeable," why slam her for a moment of being "likeable?"

IF this premise is true (and I'm not saying it is necessarily), she took some support from women based on subjective feelings about her. But isn't that true for Obama, as well? Isn't much of his appeal as a candidate based on feelings, rather than novel positions on issues?

But my main criticism here is that the post continues the new common wisdom that Clinton "injected race into the campaign." She didn't. The itching-for-a-fight media did that, twisting words out of context and mischaracterizing them.

[Essene]

40. "historic racial qualifications" - wha tthe hell does that mean?

I got to that line in this and wanted to puke.

I think the point being made about using the race baiting to basically play an affinity gender card is ACCURATE, but this phrase shows why i generally frown on the blogosphere.