If Jesse Jackson was white he would have still run for the Presidency. I mean it is Jesse Jackson!!

That and Ferraro is a racist!

Guess there's no point in trying to re-educate her now. That stuff's ingrained.

would Hillary REALLY still be in the race if she wasn't a woman?

Jesse Jackson said some other shit about new york too.

@3 more accurately, would Hillary still be in the race if she had not been married to Bill Clinton? Of course, the same could be said in regards to Shrub being the son of HW... but no matter... in each case the answer is a resounding NO.

Ferraro was correct about Jackson. She's not correct about Obama. Not being able to see the difference between the two men, and the two candidates, IS her problem.

Bringing up Jesse Jackson is a bad, bad, bad, idea, for a whole lot of reasons. Same with Sharpton. Obama needs to keep them far, far away.

@5. touche and agreed

@5 & 3...would hillary even be a senator from NY if she wasn't married to bill clinton

@8: A, that would be no, nope, nada, no way in hell, never and not ever.

Yep, it's only the people in the north that hate those damned jigaboos. Everybody knows that. Why, just look at the history!

Would Ferraro have been VP nom. if she was male? I seriously doubt it, 6 years in the House that is both fewer years in elected office, and in the less prestigious chamber than Obama.

P.S. Ferraro was far superior to Mondale, and would have been better as a pres. candidate in '84 than VP.

5280, what a nonsense point.

white people can be racist anywhere they live.

Nonsense? I think not, my dear BA. Who helped the southern blacks trying to escape slavery in the south? Northern whites. Who fought the civil war to earn blacks their freedom? Northern whites. I can go on if you really want.

Who was the party of freeing the slaves? republicans!
What religion were the people who fought to free the slaves?
Christian!

see why it is nonsense?

5280, I hear what you're saying (@13), and your points are valid. However, BA has a point in that racists are everywhere. Trust me, I'm black, & I've lived in a lot of areas of this country, and have visited even more.

Obama may need to steer clear of being associated w/ Jackson, but he so needs to co-opt that line that some folks are making hysteria while he's making history.

Fits the Clinton campaign to a T.

and the whole "freed the slaves" shit is tiresome too. they werent fighting the south out of altruistic tendencies, they were doing it because insurrectionist bitches need to be slapped around*

*and lincoln was drafting white boys to do it.

Ms. Ferraro--now that's a comment you can Xerox and use later!

Hilary has ALWAYS been smart, driven by ambition, and drawn to politics.

WHY do the imbeciles who now haunt SLOG think her whole life in somehow an extension of Bill? You are so full of shit. And sexism in spades.

HILARY is the one who supported him and the brains behind his career. Fuck, I thought that was common knowledge.

Who are the know nothing posters? Sorry to be blunt, but, get a clue.

And a lot of you sound like an old recording of the Ken Starr crap. So stale, so old, so arch conservative Republican. Remember Bill took out Senior Bush, and they hated him for that.

I wish Hilary was the Senator from Washington State, the tanker deal would be Boeings for sure. ( I do like Murray, but, she is no Hilary)

Adam, if she was the brains behind his career, she fucking failed the country.

Read "Stupid Black Men" by Larry Elder.

@21: ecce homo? Larry Elder is full of self-hatred. YOU are the racist here. The GOP welcomes you!

#17. No shit, people actually believe that Northerners weren't racist? Crazy. Even some abolitionists were racist by today's standards. Moreover, free northern labor feared, hated and resented blacks who came north as they were perceived as unwanted labor competition. Racism is inherent in the slave system, but slavery is not a precondition for racist attitudes. Fuck, Teddy Roosevelt, enlightened as he was, was a racialist to the core.

Northerners not racist? What a strangely ahistorical and naive viewpoint.

@ Tony and BA: When was the last time you were in the south? I mean the real south. Because I do it a lot, and I also spend a lot of time in places like NY and Boston and Chicago. And the south is still fucking culture shock to me for the way blacks are treated. Today. Right now. Could northerners be less racist? Sure. But I've known northern blacks who are racist, in their own way, as well, and southern blacks sure as hell don't have that luxury.

So your entire point was what now? that because the south has more severe white racists we shouldnt call out northern white racists when they say some pretty blatant race baiting shit?

that seems like a pretty stupid point.

5280, I am from SC, and several members of my immediate family still live there. I visit them often, as do my relatives in Boston, NY & Philly. And I face racism in those places and Seattle too. The difference is that the racism in the South is out in the open. You know what people think. And, in some ways, I prefer that to closeted racists. There are no games. I don't have to wonder what people think. How is it better for blacks to deal with closet racists?

@24, @25 & associated vomit above...

My god you two are asinine when you try to tell everybody what's what about the blacks and the browns and all them other minority types you have so much expertise on. I guess you got used to the other freepers telling you how smart you are and now you're just kind of coasting.

The most racially segregated suburb in the US? Long Island.

The community most resistant to school integration in the US? South Boston.

Yeah all those race riots and radical black separatist/Black Panther movements just kind of happened in a vacuum because northern whites were so benign and free of bigotry and the desire to discriminate.

Yeah, kinda, BA. What I've been arguing against is Jessie Jackson's statement that the north is more bigotted than the south. I never said it wasn't bigotted or racist; my point was that anyone who says the south is LESS bigotted and racist obviously hasn't spent very much time there.

What is this 1972? Ferraro sounds like a complete loon. When she says "I'm only telling the truth", I feel very sad for her that she doesn't see the truth right before her eyes. She's alone on this one.

You know, I suspect that we all probably agree with each other a whole lot more than we disagree. Wish I could sit down over a beer with you guys, but as long as I'm 1,000 miles away from you, that will have to be a fantasy. You're all obviously great people, and I wish we weren't limited to this imperfect medium of communication.

@32, dont' we all wish.
Welcome to the internet..

And elenchos, BA's right - trolling doesn't become you.

5280, I agree wholeheartedly!

elenchos, cite a point i made where I knew what was what for black and brown people. Are you just making stuff up again because you cant form a good argument against my neutral POV on the topic?

Are you going to deny there are white racists all over the country and not just localized to one region? That isnt even a white POV statement. Or that the civil war wasnt fought for altruistic northern tendencies but because the south had to be backhanded.

Elenchos, you're going to have to actually attack what i said, instead of what you wish i said.

I wouldn't hold my breath on a response to that one, BA.

Dumbass motherfuckers at the Stranger actually think they are im charge of Slog. Heh. Heh heh heh.

Hillary is damn intelligent and ambitious. If she hadn't married Bill Clinton, you can be sure that she would have been successful in her own right. I don't even like her, but this "she wouldn't have achieved anything if it weren't for Bill" pisses me off.

Keshmeshi, I love you hunny-bunny and all, but what does that have to do with what we're talking about here?

Please don't make this about race.

Gee, we've run through the Kitchen Sink (pre Texas/Ohio), and apparently moved onto the filing cabinet (20 yr old xeroxed quotes), they seem to be running out of things to throw. What next, toilet strategy?

And yes, Keshmeshi, I'm sure Hillary Rodham would probably be a terrific Representative from Arkansas by now or working in the Justice Department. But I think the argument can be made that she might not have made it to such a high office... unless you are admitting her ambition for it transcends even Bill?

oh,it's real! i just see that pics about him causually on a site named interracialmatch.com/photo/blackchats
it's realy unbelievable.

Oh, STFU, spamster.

@40 so because you have steer the comments slightly off-topic you think that people who are close to the real issue (the presidential election) are flinging non sequitors? That is some USDA grade bull shit

Any hopes that this nomination wouldn't be about race are quickly diminishing, thanks to Clinton and her supporters. As I wrote at my blog, if Nixon were here he'd be smiling to see the Democratic Party use the Southern strategy on itself.

You said it Gabriel and it deserves to be said again: if Nixon were alive he'd be laughing his ass off watching the Democratic Party use the Southern strategy against itself!

It's literally nauseating for me watching this play out this way with the Clinton campaign's tag team of race baiters (we should make a pool on which of her top supporters will be next in the dirtly work of keeping the topic in the forfront), while Clinton encourages people to go for McCain if they can't have her...

According to Ferraro:

damn uppity negro should be thankfull he gets to stand on the same stage with Hillary - what ingrates - they all vote for each other anyway. By the way Jesse never deserved to run either in 88 - damn Black Privilege.

Damn, I didn't fully appreciate the full force of her idiocy until I saw the full Fox News clip a little further down Slog. The haughty non-apology! The arrogance! The threats to Obama! Did they actually have this woman out campaigning in 1984? Was she that batshit back then?

@42 - Ha! Her ambition includes Bill. If he wasn't Bill Clinton, she wouldn't have bothered to marry him. There's a chicken and egg thing here.

Anyone else find the "Ferraro on Jesse Jackson" headline funny!? okay, it is just me, because I have the sense of humor of a depraved 13-year-old boy!
hehe

Or you could say Ferraro's Fellatio on Jesse Jackson. hehe lol

@#3: Hillary is a woman???!!!???

Some Clintonistas, like MyDD, are already crowing about exit polling showing that Clinton took more Republican votes last night than Obama. In doing so they conveniently ignore that the same exit polling shows that 15%, yes 15%, of those voting for Hillary reported they would be disastisfied if she gets the nomination. So, we now know that Hillary is either getting a lot of Rush Limbaugh listeners voting for her with the hopes she will inflict wounds on Obama the longer this goes or that a significant number of those voting for Hillary are extremely stupid. Well, I guess we always knew the last part. But here's proof.

@53 Please cite a reference for that "15% of those voting for Hillary reported they would be disastisfied if she gets the nomination."

That just seems unbelievable to me...

A true-life story that happened to this white girl from the upper midwest: I used to be in the Army, and was home for recruiting duty. Went out to lunch one day with my grandpa in a very culturally and racially diverse neighborhood. I was standing at the buffet in uniform, loading up on some chinese, and along comes a man who asks me, "What, are you going to Iraq or something?" I tell him no, not in the near future, and he says, "Good, because you need to be at home making white babies." Ahhh...the ignorant. Fun, aren't they?

If you pull up my name it will open the Daily Kos story on this.

I meant click on, not pull up.

Dear Obama supporters:

We hope Obama and all the Obama supporters will support a way to make sure we here in Florida and Michigan have votes that count.

QUOTE:
March 12, 2008
David Plouffe
P.O. Box 8102
Obama for America
Chicago, Illinois 60680

Dear David:

The 2008 primary campaign has been a spirited contest that has resulted in record voter turnout. Both of our candidates can proudly boast of bringing new people into the process and energizing our Democratic Party.

With the campaign now entering the final phase of the nominating contest, it is vital that both of our campaigns come together to ensure that the delegations from Florida and Michigan be seated to reflect the will of the voters.

In Florida and Michigan, nearly 2.5 million Americans made their voices heard and participated in primary elections. We think the results of those primaries were fair and should be honored.

Over the last few weeks, there has been much discussion about how to ensure that the Florida and Michigan delegations are seated. We think there are two options: Either honor the results or hold new primary elections.

To that end, we are in active consultation with all of our supporters in Florida, including Members of Congress. In Michigan, we are in active consultation with the committee appointed by Governor Granholm.

We hope that your campaign will join us in our efforts to ensure that these votes are counted.

Sincerely,

Maggie Williams
Campaign Manager
[Clinton campaign]

----------------------------

We look forward to hearing very soon about the Obama plan to ensure millions of us have votes that count.
Sen. Obama's ardent pursuit of justice and fairness regarding the Ferraro comments give us every assurance he will be equally ardent in ensuring we have voting rights.
Of course, on the other hand, if Obama does NOT work on a positive solution, then we will know what really counts for him is TALKING ABOUT WHAT PEOPLE SAY rather than DOING SOMETHING TO ENSURE millions ACTUALLY HAVE VOTES THAT COUNT.

Yours in unity, and against deprivations of rights,

except.....

@ 56 & 57

thank you

Words matter too!

Except when they don't:

"in an appearance on the BBC, Power seemed to indicate that Obama's commitment to expeditiously withdraw American forces from Iraq was a campaign plan that would not necessarily guide his actions as President"

You all seem to be missing the larger point which is that Eli and Erica are true reflections of the candidates, with nitpicking bullshit over who said what when and how they said it. I appreciate that they are no different than the rest of the media on this point, but as a voter I'm tire of this bullshit. Can we just say that both campaigns and people associated by a stone's throw or a tenuous thread have made extreme missteps in not so lightly veiled attempts to discredit the other. We develoved to this crap seemingly because no one wants to take the time to discern the real differences between the candidates - on the surface they seem similar but explaining the differences would just be "too complicated". Can we get back to an issue checklist and leave this bullshit crap to other media? I mean these missteps aren't true news - every campaign has them - but they become news at the expense of the real shit we need to know about folks. Its impossible for them not to have jackasses around them - shit we all do. Geraldine and Samantha are jackasses - and even during the times of the underground railroad the north was not slavery, but it doesn't mean it was all milk and honey, welcome here's your 40 acres and mule. (I mean do people still think lynchings only happened in the south or will we devolve into a well it was way more prevalent in the south. A lynching is destructive wherever it happens) Now can we get back to the differences in health care between Obs and Hills? Tanks.

re 58: Maggot Williams, exactly what were you doing with those files from Vince Foster's office? Nice to see that you're continuing your Aunt Jemima role.

Yada, yada, yada. Do whatever you want with having, or not having, a valid vote within the DNC rules. Just stop trying to cram invalid votes down our throats or asking the democratic party to pay for your second vote. When someone violates rules they pay the fine, not others. So stop pretending someone else has tried to keep Florida or Michigan from having a valid election. It was their choice, and great for them if they see the error of their ways and now proceed within the established DNC rules.

Also, some updated Ferraro contact info. She switched employers late last year and is now with BLANK ROME GOVERNMENT RELATIONS LLC
Geraldine A. Ferraro, Principal, New York, 212.885.5000

You simply cannot make a rule change when the results of the rule change are known. This is fundamental. The rules can only be changed before measuring their impact. This is so fundamental it's far more fundamental than Florida's and Michigan's right to vote.

Compare to 2000, that was an "interpretation" and it was bad enough. Interpretation is unavoidable of course. Judges often know what the result of their judgements will be. For better or worse they're first & singular responsibility is to be impartial.

Perhaps FL & MI should sue? But of course we know what the result of any interpretation of the rules would be.

i'll say it again: this is a brilliant move by the clinton campaign. making it about race does not benefit obama. it would only benefit if it was clearly -- not subtly -- racist, and if it were coming from clinton -- not someone who is mildly associated with the campaign in a difficult way to define.

sexism in the MSM (and blogs everywhere!) pushed people to support clinton.

charges of racism have had the same effect in mississippi. but will they have that effect in penn?

by comparing obama to jackson, obama is stuck agreeing he's like jackson, or agreeing ferraro was right the first time. it could be a difficult line to walk.

Let's put things into perspective, Obama is no a BLACK MAN, in case you people have forgotten, his mother is white! The media and Clinton campaign keeps bringing up race, the man mother was white for crying out loud. However, this is one reason i'm againts affirmative action, because it devalues and minimize the hard work of those minorites that have works their butts off to acheive good grades, job promotion and the like.

It has been my observation over the past 80 plus years living manywheres about the world that we are all racists, black, white, red, blue or yellow. Human beings tend to circle the wagons. Probably necessary for survival several thousand years ago, but useless, deplorable, exceedingly restricting from knowing and enjoying other cultures, and unhappily universal today. Perhaps we should all work at eliminating the beam in our own eye instead of just calling names. I am personally sorry for poor Geraldine. She must be missing so much in life.
Vermont.