Something about this whole issue has been bothering me, and I have finally figured out what it was. People have been telling me that Bill and Hillary Clinton came up with a diabolic scheme to make voters in the Democratic primary aware of Barack Obama's race so that White voters would not vote for him. In order to do this, they began to make references to his race that were so veiled (according to Tim Russert just now on MSNBC) that no one but an African-American would take offense at them. For instance, calling Obama "young and eloquent" was supposed to denigrate him for being Black. However, only other Blacks would know this.
If Russert is correct (and I guess he is, because I would not have suspected that being called "young and eloquent" was an insult) then such a strategy was doomed to fail. Whites would not have any idea what was going on. Blacks, on the other hand, would be royally pissed. When African-Americans started crying "racial slur", members of other racial groups would become alarmed since racism is forbidden within the Democratic Party. Even Republican "soccer moms" do not like it. They would look at Hillary, who had stopped being a "bitch" in their eyes after New Hampshire when she showed that she could cry just like a real woman, and they would start referring to her as the "mega-bitch". Since Democrats of all races love the underdog or victim, Obama's support would rise, just as Hillary's support rose in New Hampshire after the "pile on" and Clinton's poll numbers rose after the impeachment.
Had Bill and Hillary Clinton been serious about directing a race based attack against Obama, they would not have attacked him as "young" or "inexperienced" or "someone who experimented with cocaine" or "someone who makes things up"---all charges that are racially nonspecific and charges which did not keep W. from getting elected. These things do not scare Americans. They are not considered contraindications to becoming president.
Were the Clintons attempting to interject race into the campaign, they would have started a "fear Obama" smear. That is how politicians keep Whites from voting for Blacks. "Fear the Black Man."
The only place I have seen or heard "Fear the Black Man" this campaign is from the right wing, which keeps harping on the links between Obama's Church and Louis Farrakhan and Black supremacy. It is in the
American Conservative this month. That is Pat Buchanan's magazine. You know. Pat Buchanan, the man who keeps insisting that the Clintons' are conducting a diabolic plan to inflame African-American voters by casting racially charged aspersions at Obama.
I do not believe that the Clintons ever intended to interject race into this campaign. I believe that they wish that Obama was as White as Hillary. Race has benefited Obama in South Carolina where he has been able to play the victim for the benefit of the entire Democratic Party. It has benefited the mainstream media which has had a juicy story to hype and distort.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2008/01/new_york_times_11.php And boy, are the talking heads at MSNBC trying to sell it right now.
Pat Buchanan "Bill Clinton is laughing."