If you're going to play the race card, why not just do it openly and get it over with? This proxy stuff is for cowards. [ Parent ]
Feel free to differ.
This is like the "gotcha" crap Obama faced after the "bitter" comment. He said something true, if he worded it poorly, and everybody tried to turn it into some vast generalization that proved he's an elitist. Now Clinton points out that she's doing better in a demographic Democrats badly need and suddenly she's a race baiting Klan-member.
I will retract my statement if you can find Clinton saying that white working class people will only vote for a white person. As she's already admitted that she thinks Obama could beat McCain (Pennsylvania debate), I think you'll have a hard time finding your smoking gun.[ Parent ]
I don't think it's doing any injustice to her words. I don't think that's taking them out of context. I don't think that is playing `gotcha.' In context, the plain sense of her words is that she thinks that Obama is weak at winning the votes of white folk. This is the same line that's been coming from Ickes, Feraro, Clinton's spouse and other Clinton surrogates.
Further, I think this is different in kind than the commercial you quoted from which speaks to being a long standing supporter of a given community.
Is the same as saying . . .
"Only candidate Clinton can get votes from white folks."
Because the wording looks pretty different to me. The first, when she said it, was true. The second, when I wrote it, was something I had to make up because nobody has ever said it.
Further, you're fooling yourself if you can't see that the reference to Obama's race is implicit in the contrast between "politicians who call themselves our friends" and somebody who has a "heart that beats for our community." That's not a reference of support; that's a reference of membership.
If Clinton said she could deliver the female vote, you'd poop kittens over her naked sexism. Obama tells the Associated Press that "I guarantee you African-American turnout, if I'm the nominee, goes up 30 percent around the country - minimum" (1/20/08) and you don't bat an eye.
I should add that this isn't some random surrogate who said these things either. The ad, as all of Obama's ads are, is capped with a helpful reminder that he, Obama, supports this message. The ad comes from his camp and he signed off on it. The quote about delivering the black vote is from the man himself.
I look forward to your denunciation of Obama's naked racist campaign tactics.[ Parent ]
you: you're deluded at best, deceiving at worst.
I think it clear which of us is deluding himself.
The last time you attacked Clinton, you demanded proof that Obama misrepresented her plan. I gave you an ad Obama approved that took criticism of McCain's plan and passed it off as valid criticism of Clinton's plan.
You failed to respond.
Now you claim Clinton is disgusting in her appeals to identity politics.
I've presented you with two appeals by Obama to the sort of identity politics that you find so objectionable when Clinton does them.
You've denied that the first instance is an example (though you seem to be alone on this), but you don't mention Obama's explicit claim to be able to deliver the black vote for Dems.
Again, you've failed to show why Obama's behavior is acceptable, but Clinton's is beyond the pale.
Reasonable people can disagree. But that's not what's happening here. You're ignoring facts, spinning Clinton's comments, and whitewashing - if you'll forgive the unintentional pun - Obama's own campaign behavior.
What, exactly, is reasonable about your position?[ Parent ]
Right, and I've responded as to why I see a difference between the appeals are being made. You don't see those differences. That's fine. I'm not attacking you for not seeing the same thing I do.
That ad is race baiting, sure, but nationally Obama has had to kiss a lot of white ass, especially in the wake of "pastor gate." With most of the country being white and the default voting style being "from the gut" he doesn't have much choice.
When I'm imprisoned as an enemy combatant, will you blog about it?[ Parent ]
I disagree, though, that this is new phase for Obama. He was promising Dems to bring in the black vote as early as January of this year, well before having explain the irrelevant rantings of Wright to the scandal hungry media.
I'm just trying to point to what I feel is a double standard. When Clinton calls a group of female voters the backbone of her campaign (and they are, women have strongly supported her campaign throughout), she's playing slimy identity politics. When Obama overtly appeals to the race of black voters, he's "got no choice."
I don't see the difference.[ Parent ]
Curiously, when asked during the same period, Americans of both political persuasions thought they noticed Obama got overwhelmingly more press, a vast majority of it positive. I don't know what to make of that. Suggests an interesting split between what the media coverage & spin and the public opinion it supposedly shapes.[ Parent ]
