2008 Re: Clinton and Her “White Americans”
posted by on May 8 at 9:45 AM
Let’s reflect for a few more blog moments on the rather amazing statement that Hillary Clinton made yesterday explaining her justification for remaining in the race for the Democratic nomination.
Sorry for re-posting the statement in full, but it deserves a second look:
“I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on,” she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article “that found how Sen. Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.”“There’s a pattern emerging here,” she said.
Remember: Hillary Clinton cannot win the Democratic nomination through the votes of ordinary Americans. She has lost that fight. She is behind in delegates won through votes and caucuses, she is behind in the popular vote, she is way behind in the number of states won. She cannot, in any realistic scenario, overtake Obama in any of those categories. She can’t even overtake him if the delegates from Florida and Michigan are counted in the way that she wants—and even her own campaign has admitted this.
So what is Clinton doing here?
Maybe she’s talking to the undecided superdelegates who she hopes will reverse the will of Democratic voters, but that seems unlikely. These undecided superdelegates already understand the point she’s making, and have heard it from her many times before. (The argument being that Obama will be hobbled in the general election by his difficulty attracting down-scale, uneducated white voters, a group that Clinton has pandered and dog whistled to, and as a result has done rather well with.)
But like I said, Clinton has been making that argument to the superdelegates for a long time, and it’s one thing to make it in private meetings and quite another to make it on media conference calls and in the pages of USA Today.
So why is she doing this? Especially when, as Clinton must know, Obama improved his take of white women voters (one of Clinton’s core constituencies) during the primary in Indiana. Especially when, as Clinton must also know, Democrats don’t win general elections with a majority of the white vote. Bill Clinton only received 43 percent of the white vote in 1996, and received even less (39 percent) in 1992. All Gore’s popular vote victory in 2000 didn’t include a majority of white voters, and neither did Jimmy Carter’s more successful run for the White House. Democrats don’t need to win over every last uneducated white voter in America in order to have a successful coalition.
Clinton must know this, and she must also know that black voters—who she is further alienating with statements like this—are hugely important to the Democratic coalition. If anything, she’s making her non-viable campaign even more absurdly non-viable by so transparently trying to activate the latent racism and inchoate fears of “the other” among white voters in West Virginia, Kentucky, and elsewhere. If she wins West Virginia by scaring up more white votes in this way, she only hardens the resentment against her in places like, oh, say, Gary, Indiana—where the black vote was instrumental in, as far as the reality-based community is concerned, ending her campaign.
So, again, what is Clinton up to here?
At this point, with the number of rational explanations for her behavior dwindling, one is left with this: She’s playing a kind ruthless politics, either for revenge or in order to create a short-run bargaining chip, that involves tearing Obama down long past the point of positive long-run returns for her. Maybe in Clinton-land that’s seen as being good for Hillary Clinton. But I don’t see how it’s good for the Democratic party.
Obama is about expanding the Democratic Party to represent all Americans and our core values of Truth, Justice, and the American Middle Class way of life.
Clinton is about her peeps.
McCain is about his (adopted) peeps working for the uber-elite top 0.1 percent of America while becoming serfs.
Choose.
Me, I'm going with the guy who makes more pies, not the ones who want to shrink the pies.
clinton has always been for minorities so she finds it a big galling that they don't show a bit more respect. she comes across as the white housewife with a person of color maid who becomes bewildered when they want to better themselves/vote...
She's positioning herself for a powerful exit. If there's a divide in the party (there is), and if she can paint herself as representative of the half of the divide Obama doesn't reach (she can), then she loses strongly.
Expect MORE "I can bring the Democrats X" in the upcoming week.
"Remember: Hillary Clinton cannot win the Democrat nomination through the votes of ordinary Americans"
"Democrat nomination"?? I thought only the Right used that insult to grammar to piss us off. It's DemocratIC nomination.
Maybe this is her way of uniting the Democratic party. If she acts crazy enough, her supporters won't feel so bad for abandoning her and rallying around Obama. It's already working.
Man, what a ball-buster. She's now acting like a bitch or even a fat, lesbian harpy. She reminds me of my wife, nag, nag, nag - lie, lie, lie - cackle, cackle, cackle (at least my wife has never push me to cheat!).
Just drop OUT!
If she ever wants to be in a position like this again (or any woman for that matter), she needs to show that she's a competent, liberal, intelligent and tough woman. Men don't need to prove this, it's a given.
pfffffffffffff
she should concede. stephanopoulos said she wants to negotiate her way out in exchange for vp. she shouldn't do that. it shouldn't be a quid pro quo. it's obama's to offer not hers to demand. he's the winner, he gets the choice and deserves the respect.
Please delete @6. Sounds a lot like ecce.
When you have a popular person-vs-person series on TV, you don't end the fight in the MIDDLE of the series, right?
This is just WWE for the Democrats at this point.
@8 fascist! You’re “pure”, clean, non-offensive world will never exist.
oooops, you no what i meen.
I don't think "pyrrhic victory" is the right term for Al Gore in the 2000 election. A pyrrhic victory is happens at great cost to the victor and Al Gore neither suffered much nor actually won the election.
If, say, McCain's wife died of cancer propelling him to victory, that would be pyrrhic.
Good point, Mr. Joshua. Deleted "pyrrhic."
"Democrats don’t need to win over every last uneducated white voter in America in order to have a successful coalition."
And thank fuck for that...what a horrible fucking party we would have if that were the case.
The Dixiecrats have risen again!
Don't worry about it too much.
Most Democratic Voters are not really paying attention to this or the specifics of the statements being made, or the pundits, the bloggers, etc.
Obama will be fine.
The Democrats are going to kick McCain's ass.
In a month no one will even remember this.
She's treading water until her people can come up with some dirt on Obama that will blow him out of the race. Maybe he had an affair, maybe he used to roll joints with paper that looked like tiny American flags, something like that.
There was this James Cagney movie where the priest asked him to act terrified when they drug him to the electric chair at the end of the movie. So the kids watching him would lose respect for him and not become notorious gangsters themselves. What movie was that?
angels with dirty faces
17: That's exactly what she's doing. Buying time before the next big "scandal" which will probably involve race, radical politics or sexual indiscretions. It's so fucking transparent.
"Al Gore neither suffered much nor actually won the election."
We'll never know how much he suffered, but we do know that he won the election. What he lost was the illegal Supreme Court ruling. In Post-Democracy America, not getting the Presidency is not the same thing as not being elected to it.
@21, why was gore so bad a candidate that he could have won without some small shenanigans going against him?
Two possibilities come to mind.
She wants something in exchange for her support, that is in exchange for delivering the non-obama vote.
She is setting up a "I told you so" for 2012.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wd6HbBwg9iw
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