Obama or Clinton? - Page 348

herekitty · #**1736** 05-02-2008, 11:24 AM

forgive me if this article has already been posted. it's a bit old and I haven't been keeping up with this thread very well.
and yes, I know it's long, I just want it to be here in case the link goes bad before someone who wants to read the whole thing gets a chance to.

ON DEADLINE: Bill Clinton is no brother - Yahoo! News

Quote:

By SONYA ROSS, Associated Press Writer Fri Apr 25, 3:24 AM ET

WASHINGTON - Imagine, for just a minute, the pain of America's first black president.

Not Barack Obama — Bill Clinton.

That's about the only explanation for Clinton's lack of brotherly behavior lately: He's in pain.

He is a figurative black man watching an actual black man soak in all the love that black voters used to save for him.

Suddenly, he looks oh so white.

The former president's love affair with black America hasn't soured to the point that he'll be chased out of his office in Harlem. But black people might revoke Clinton's honorary brother card if, out of his pain, he keeps hating on Obama. He's treating the Illinois senator like an unworthy heir to his racial legacy.

At first, Clinton's slips of the lip about black voting habits and the like could be chalked up to election-year politics. Why wouldn't an ex-president try to cajole his party's most loyal voters into supporting his candidate of choice? Especially when that candidate is his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The problem is, nobody bothered to tell Clinton that honorary blackness is also temporary. No matter how much he's done on the subject of race, his brother privileges are always up for renewal.

Clinton learned this the hard way — by watching black people throw support to Obama en masse while kicking aside Hillary Clinton's complaints about the man. If anybody knows what Obama is doing to seduce black voters, it is Bill Clinton. After all, Clinton pushed the very same buttons to claim the black vote for himself when he first ran for the presidency 16 years ago.

"I think that they played the race card on me. We now know, from memos from the (Obama) campaign, that they planned it all along," Clinton groused to the aptly named radio station WHYY on the day before the Pennsylvania primary.

He did not produce the memos or any evidence that they exist, and the Obama campaign denies the accusation.

Still, Clinton accused the Illinois senator of putting an unfair spin on his comparison of Obama's South Carolina primary victory to Jesse Jackson's caucus wins there two decades earlier. Black leaders, black voters and most impartial observers in the media saw Clinton's remarks for what they were — a brazen attempt to marginalize Obama as a "black candidate."

What gets to Clinton, more than anything, is the fact that even black voters who question the Illinois senator's "blackness" still shield Obama against a slap from somebody outside the family — in this case, Clinton himself.

In a game of race cards, Obama wins.

"These were words that came out of his mouth," Obama said of Clinton, "not words that came out of mine."

Situations like this give blacks a firm impression that the Clintons "are committed to doing everything they possibly can to damage Obama to the point that he could never win," Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., told The New York Times.

"When he was going through his impeachment problems, it was the black community that bellied up to the bar," Clyburn said. "I think black folks feel strongly that this is a strange way for President Clinton to show his appreciation."

Just days before the Pennsylvania primary, Obama dipped into the Clinton racial playbook of old when he blunted Hillary Clinton's attacks with a simple brush of his hand on his shoulder, mimicking rapper Jay-Z in his music video, "Dirt Off Your Shoulder." The gesture — clearly deliberate because Obama did it twice then grinned all big — spoke to black voters just like Clinton did in 1992 by playing a saxophone on "The Arsenio Hall Show" from behind a pair of dark sunglasses.

The message then, and now, was, "I'm the one to vote for, black people, because I'm cool like that."

Clinton remembers a time when he could do no wrong in black people's eyes. Up until the day he left office seven years ago, most blacks agreed with author Toni Morrison's observation that Clinton was the nation's first black president because it would be hard to find anybody who could be blacker than Clinton and occupy the White House at the same time.

Along came Obama — who, ironically, is of mixed race — and immediately, Clinton lost his black street cred.

Even Morrison thought so. She clarified the first-black-president title she'd bestowed on Clinton, and embraced Obama.

While Clinton bellyaches about Obama's good fortunes with black people, Obama basks in the support of powerful blacks like billionaire Oprah Winfrey, who dared anybody to suggest her choice of candidates was purely a black thing.

"Don't play me small," she said.

It's Clinton who looks small. He continues to whine about the trouble he's caused himself.

"You got to really go some to play the race card with me," Clinton spewed on WHYY. "My office is in Harlem. And Harlem voted for Hillary, by the way."

Off mike, Clinton asked: "I don't think I have to take any (expletive) from anybody on that. Do you?"

Actually, sir, you do. But black people feel your pain.

___

EDITOR'S NOTE — Sonya Ross, a news editor in the AP's Washington bureau, was one of the few black White House reporters during the Clinton years.

Sophia_ · #**1737** 05-02-2008, 10:24 PM

Let the force be with you!

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BARACK

JFL · #**1738** 05-03-2008, 12:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zoanthropy

The ESTABLISHMENT will never allow a woman

or a black man

to win the presidency...

You will all see how they work....

There is much truth here...

ThePrude · #**1739** 05-04-2008, 10:08 AM

Even though I've gone from slightly preferring Hillary over Obama to the other way around, I'm starting to think that there could be a possibility that she's more electable. (I'm just thinking there is a good likelihood that the Republicans will 'uncover' something new and damaging about him that would cost the Democrats the election). The general election is months away, and anything can happen, and the Republicans will do anything to keep the White House.

I'm not going to delude myself that Hillary's and Bill's shit-talking re Obama was not mostly self-serving, but they also are beating the Republicans to the punch. By the time they (the Republicans) rehash this stuff in the fall, it will be exactly that, REHASHED old news.

I really hope they don't figure out a way to "swift boat" him after the August convention...

herekitty · #**1740** 05-04-2008, 12:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ThePrude

Is it such a terrible thing that Hillary is hanging in?

yes. I can't say I blame her and she does have a chance, but this infighting will probably result in Mccain being elected.

Quote:

Some Democrats Worry Race Is Getting Too Rough; Clintons Aren't Among Them
By JAKE TAPPER

March 27, 2008 —

The bitter fight in the Democratic presidential race is taking its toll and the news may be particularly bad for New York Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Clinton's personal approval rating has dipped significantly according to the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC poll, with 48 percent of Americans holding a negative view of her compared to the 37 percent who hold a positive view. For Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., the ratings are better: 49 percent positive, 32 percent negative.

But while some Democrats are worried it's getting too rough out there, the Clintons aren't among them.

At a low-dollar fundraiser Wednesday night in Washington, Clinton said, "This has been a spirited contest and you know what? It should be. That is how America works best."

On the trail in West Virginia, former president Clinton also downplayed any hand-wringing about the fighting, saying "I don't give a rip about all this name-calling that's going on. They've been going on ever since Iowa. I've heard them say all these things about her."

"The Big Dog" said all the barking and biting is par for the course.

"The only thing that matters is, what happens to you?" he said. "That's all that matters. If a politician doesn't wanna get beat up, he shouldn't run for office. If a football player doesn't want to get tackled or want the risk of an occasional clip he shouldn't put the pads on."

But voters seem to care about the name-calling and the tackles. In a recent Gallup poll, almost 30 percent of Clinton supporters say they'd go for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., over Obama if Clinton loses the nomination; 19 percent of Obama supporters say the same.

Back from vacation, Obama acknowledged the politics can be tough but said sometimes attacks can go too far.

"A line can be crossed when you stop focusing on the American people's business, and it becomes just sport. It all becomes about winning as opposed to getting stuff done," he said.

Even once-silent Chelsea Clinton seems ready to roll up her sleeves and dive into the family battle, for the first time introducing her mother at the event Wednesday night in Washington.

"She is the candidate who is the most progressive, the most prepared to deliver on the issues that are so important to each of you and your families. And so that we can have the president that we need not only for us and our generation but for our children and grandchildren that I know my mother wants to have," the 28-year-old said.

But with much of the campaign tone and tenor not as positive as Chelsea's comments, Democratic Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen, who has not backed either Clinton or Obama, said the risks for the party could be great.

"The nastiness is only going to get worse, and what these candidates are going to have to do over the summer is persuade superdelegates that the other person is not capable of being president," Bredesen told ABC News.

"And then you'll turn around at the end of August and explain why that person should be president."

For those Democrats hoping the party will save itself from a nasty August convention fight, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid recently told a reporter from the Las Vegas Review Journal that it will be "easy" to resolve the race and "things are being done" to handle it.

He didn't elaborate.

Copyright © 2008 ABC News Internet Ventures