Democratic Underground - Surely Hillary Clinton Will Not Wrap Herself in "the White Vote" in the waning days of the campaign

Excerpted from TPM on another thread:

We all knew it was coming. The tentacles of race baiting snaked out of Bill's mouth, Rendell's mouth and Ferraro's mouth. Now, however, I sickens me to report that it is about the only them left to HRC's campaign. Let's call it like it is. Her last remaining stand is racism. Pure and simple. "No you can't."

Last night while the likes of Russert and the MSNBC crew were assuring us that HRC would continue the remaining days of her campaign on high ground, Begala was suggesting that Obama couldn't win because of the "white" vote. This morning, Wolfson, at his press conference, suggested the same thing.

Now, apparently, the Clinton camp is suggesting that the massive loss they suffered was a victory of sort because they won the "white" vote in North Carolina.

I found this at TPM and find it disturbing to the point of head exploding:

Garin argued that the North Carolina contest, which Obama won by 14 points, represented "progress" for Hillary because she did better among white voters there than she did in Virginia.

Garin said that the Virginia electorate was the "closest white electorate in the country" to North Carolina, and added that Hillary "started even" among whites in North Carolina, and "ended up earning a significant win of 24 points."

<snip>

Put in the context of the Hillary campaign's chief argument that she's the more electable Dem, Garin's overall implication here is that her success among white voters in North Carolina yesterday is "progress" in the sense that it strengthens her case for electability.

In other words, it's an explicit, and unabashed, linking of her claim of electability to her success among whites.

And more specifically, Southern and Appalachian whites, given her trumpeting of the gains made among white voters who are "most akin to those in Virginia" specifically, and excluding "other types" of white voters who split more evenly and are accused of being "elitist" for their open-mindedness. She is trumpeting success in a very specific metric here -- white voters who feel uncomfortable with Obama's race. She is saying the campasign should continue as long as a certain portion of white voters regard race as an issue, and regard issues like Wright as a "race" issue based on the accent and color of the man's skin alone.

Surely Hillary Clinton Will Not Wrap Herself in "the White Vote" in the waning days of the campaign [View All]