Hillary has cynically turned to the one argument she has left: Race

[babylonsister]

http://www.hillaryproject.com/index.php?/en/story-details/hillary_has_cynically_turned_to_the_one_argument_she_has_left_race/

Hillary has cynically turned to the one argument she has left: Race


By Gary Younge, The Guardian

snip//

Being foreign, Muslim or unpatriotic should not be treated as slurs. But in a post 9/11 framework, the Clintons know full well how these allusions will be understood and what the consequences might be. When asked whether Obama was a Muslim, Hillary said that he wasn't: "There is nothing to base that on - as far as I know."

Three days after Obama made his landmark speech on race, Bill Clinton said of a potential match-up between Hillary Clinton and McCain: "I think it would be a great thing if we had an election year where you had two people who loved this country and were devoted to the interest of this country. And people could actually ask themselves who is right on these issues, instead of all this other stuff that always seems to intrude itself on our politics." The implication was that Obama doesn't love his country and all this "racial" stuff is just getting in the way.

All this does have an effect. By February, 80% of Americans had heard rumours that Obama was Muslim. Even after the furore over the Rev Wright, one in 10 Democrats still believed this. A recent Pew poll showed that the only character trait on which Obama loses to Clinton is patriotism. Exit polls in Pennsylvania revealed that 18% of Democrats said that race mattered to them in this contest - and just 63% of them said that they would support Obama in a general election.

Unable to beat Obama on delegates and still unlikely to beat him in the popular vote, Hillary Clinton has just one strategy left - to persuade superdelegates that Obama is unelectable. She has tried branding him as inexperienced and slick-tongued, and neither of those have worked. At this stage she has just one argument left: his race. For several months now, her aides have been whispering to whoever would listen that America would never elect a black candidate. In desperation, some are now raising their voices.

But their accusations are not only cynical - by most accounts they also seem to be wrong. It seems they have underestimated the potential of the American electorate. Polls show that in the states won with less than a five-point margin in 2004 Obama does far better than Clinton against McCain.

The problem is not that Hillary Clinton is still in the race. She has every right to be. It is that she is running the kind of race that she is. Having failed to convince voters of the viability of her own candidacy, she is now committed to proving the unviability of his.

Hillary once said it takes a village to raise a child. Now she seems determined to destroy the village in order to save it.

Source: The Guardian

[bowens43]

1. Of course she has.

We all knew that it would come to this. Hillary has absolutely no integrity.

[madrchsod]

2. i read the same arguements every day in gd:p.

gd:p is full of posts saying obama can not win because he is black and he will ensure a republican victory in november. the last few days it`s been "shut up the uppity black preacher" because he`s making people upset and they won`t vote for obama but they will vote for hillary ,obama will lose the general election,or some other paranoid rant.

[Windy]

3. She will lose the African American vote (and thinking white vote) over this nonsense.

Then the party can just hand McCain the keys to the Whitehouse personally!!!

[Apollo11]

4. This column got a whole bunch of responses on The Guardian website

You can read them here:

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/28/hillaryclinton.usa