How Hillary Lost This Black Vote (And Maybe Many Others)

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/05/how-hillary-lost-this-black-vo.php

How Hillary Lost This Black Vote (And Maybe Many Others)
By Boyd Reed - May 5, 2008, 1:29AM



snip//

There are many theories about what's happened this year. Most of them center around the signs of race-baiting from the Clinton campaign. That is a powerful theory. However, what I believe - and will speculate on, based on my experience and lots of conversations - is that Blacks were waiting for the answer to this question: "Can Barack Win?"

Obama reached out to us, along with every other racial constituency. We watched Clinton as she began to align more and more with the Republican side. We watched Clinton as she tried to make a racial concern issue out of her appearance at the State of the Black Union. We watched Clinton's rallies, where she drew mostly white women, and realized that we wouldn't be comfortable at those events.

Finally, we watched Clinton triangulate, prevaricate and obfuscate her way through this primary season. Maybe, after years of being treated as children by our elected representatives, we just decided to vote for someone who would talk to us like adults. Now, coupled with that assumption is some toxic behavior from the Clintons that's turning off voters of all hues.

In the end, I believe Hillary Clinton assumed that we'd be there for her when needed, and allowed her campaign to exude indifference to everyone except her sisterhood. Barack Obama knew he needed everyone, and wanted to build an electoral base that would stretch across the chasms of race, economic status and politics.

I know which strategy I want to support. And I think a lot of other African-Americans feel the same way.

Come to think of it, a lot of Americans feel the same way, period. So, maybe in the final analysis, true leadership and decency just attract people irrespective of race. It's a concept that just doesn't fit in the poll-tested, micro-trended campaign strategery of Hillary Clinton, which is why she never really grasped it in the first place.

Nothing MORE, nothing LESS!

To state that black people always support the black candidate is simply unsupported by the facts.

Obama's campaign is the very first in U.S. history when a black candidate for president is actually being taken seriously. Who do you think voted for all those white candidates in years past? Black people. Who supported Bill Clinton when he was down? Black people.

I'm white, by the way. I'm reporting what I've observed.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=5762065&mesg_id=5762136

If you do, you're a flaming hypocrite.

and infer that the Clinton's are bigots; THEY are NOT!

You complain about AA voters voting for Obama by overwhelming margins, yet in the post of yours I linked to, you DEMANDED women support Hillary just because of her gender.

You can't have it both ways.

EDIT: It's EXTRA yummy to watch white folks calling black folks racist for voting for the candidate that doesn't suppress their vote. And this after 50 years of voting for white candidates.

Women should support HRC; it has less to do with 'gender' and a lot more to do with gender issues. It is amazing that THEY don't support her in greater numbers. Likewise the MAJORITY of AA voters support obama over Clinton. http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/18/poll.2008/index.html

ALL women should be voting for HRC. What about some damn support for your OWN gender!!!

No mention of gender issues there -- just gender itself. Stop backtracking.

I choose my candidate based on their qualities and qualifications, not on gender or race.

This woman does NOT support HRC, and you're an idiot if you think that voting for HRC because she's a woman is a good enough reason.

--feminism has been strongly linked with being antiwar. Next question?

At least half of all black voters are women, you know. So this "blacks vs. women" crap is useless right out of the box. Unless you only think black men and white women count.

candidate has a natural constituency. If the candidate were Italian or Greek you'd expect to see massive support in those communities. Hillary is an older woman so the question is why doesn't she have stronger support from her natural constituency? If Al Gore had won his natural constituency, his home state of Tennessee, Florida wouldn't have mattered.

Trust me. After a slate of black presidents you would not be seeing 90% support.

We have voted for the Clinton's without any problem.

BEFORE they turned Republican that is.
Before they started the race baiting in NC that is.

Now most of us are voting for Obama now but we sure do have a lot of other races that are with him all the way.

Gobama!

and she is not a republican. please stop with that meme. It is only damaging and divisive.

and let her know there are many Democrats that believe the same thing ~ I am not alone.

Oops, forgot that she doesn't care about her fellow Democrats.

My screen name is goclark because I was elected a delegate for Clark -- he got out of the race about a month after that time.

However, my name is CLARK.

Why is it racism when black people finally have a black candidate to support, but it wasn't racism when white people voted for white candidates for all these years?

In more than 200 years this country has never had a president who wasn't a white male! Does that bother you?

Or does it bother you that it might change?

and 90% of black voters voted for them, would you assume that they were voting for them only because they were black?

He got one percent of the African-American vote in South Carolina.

I see people who feel empowered voting with their hearts. I don't really mind that, but it would be nice if people would just admit it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/03/opinion/03blow.html?scp=11&sq=hillary+clinton&st=nyt

Since January, the Clintons have pummeled Barack Obama with racially tinged comments and questions about his character.

Hillary Clinton has questioned why he didn’t walk out on the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr.; why he “denounced” but didn’t “reject” Louis Farrakhan; and whether he is too chummy with the former radical Bill Ayers. She chastised his characterization of white working-class voters as being highfalutin and chided him for not agreeing to a street-fight-style debate.

Bill Clinton has called Obama’s stance on the war a fairy tale, dismissed an early primary win as mere Jesse Jackson redux and recently claimed that Obama was playing the race card against him. Some of this is valid, the result of Obama’s own missteps, but some of it is baffling.

The rhetoric appears to be trafficking in old fears and historic stereotypes. The unspoken (and confusing) characterization of Obama is that he’s militant yet cowardly; uppity yet too cool for school.

snip//

Many blacks are aghast that their extraordinary support of Bill Clinton in the past would be repaid by the Clintons with racial innuendo (in a Times/CBS News poll after the salacious 1998 Starr report was released, his unfavorable rating among whites climbed to 52 percent; among blacks it was only 10 percent). Some who stood by him then now apparently feel betrayed.

more...

and a whole lot of MSM fabricated stuff is TOTAL BS.

Be honest. When was the last time you saw a white candidate's white pastor put under the microscope like this? Where is the outrage over comments made for decades by Falwell, Robertson, and the others?

All black people don't support Obama. Some black people never liked Hillary Clinton. Some black people support John McCain.

And if you look back through past elections, there have been many, many black candidates who didn't get the majority of support from the black community.

Do some thinking and grow up, please.

wants to include AA rethugs for mccain in this discussion? Give me a break. The MAJORITY of AA Democratic voters will vote for BO. Deny that! Hardly ignorant; don't make it what it isn't.

:eyes:

let's be fair, now

:toast:

unless you actually did forget your sarcasm tag. But this is such a common idea among HRC supporters, I suspect you didn't forget.

WHY then did Hillary start out with more than 50% of the AA vote? Barack was a candidate at that point, but yet the majority of African Americans were still loyal to the Clintons. They actively threw away that support with all the race-baiting... i.e. South Carolina Jesse Jackson comments, Geraldine Ferraro, etc. etc.

The FACTS do not support your argument. This is more lying bullshit spin from idiot racist Clintonistas. PERIOD.

And racists too; i.e. "Blacks only vote for blacks."

Absolute bullshit!

How's that working out for you, Hill? Did you win over more "lunch bucket" votes than you lost?

I just LOVE how the asshats constantly claim that blacks are IMAGINING things when they call Hillary's campaign for race-baiting. Then the asshats claim the Obama is reponsbile for "playing the race card." The stupifying denial of reality and attempt to blame-shift betrays a racist/conservative bias more clearly than almost anything I've seen on DU.

...she's lost more than the AA vote, I'm afraid.

But you know in THIS country, black votes don't COUNT. Only black PASTORS do.

a white voter and will be voting for Obama. I was going to vote for Obama anyway but then I would have voted a Party ticket in the GE whatever the outcome. Her voting record, campaign tactics, gutter politics and lies took that option away from me, I couldn't live with my conscience if I voted for her now. I will certainly vote for Democrats in House and Senate races.

Skin pigmentation is the furthest thing from my mind. Home foreclosures, healthcare, Iraq, jobs being sent overseas, closing the gap between the "have everythings" and the "have nothings", restoring our world credibility, those things are important to me, give me a candidate that can tackle these issues and be honest with me at the same time, he/she could be purple as far as I'm concerned.

AAs do vote for white candidates, they vote for Republicans, they vote Independent, they vote for women, men. To suggest otherwise is plain silly.

....my reference to AA votes not counting refers to the pundits (and Hillary) constantly whining:

"Ohhh but Obama doesn't do well among white working-class voters"

But they NEVER mention that Clinton doesn't do so well with AA voters, the majority of whose votes in this election are going to Obama.

Seems those AA voters don't count in the minds of the pundits or Hillary

But they can't seem to shut up about Wright - the black pastor.

And BTW, I just wonder who are all these "working-class" people they are talking about. Thanks to NAFTA (among other things) are they talking about workers in China, Mexico and India? Thats were ther jobs went? We are loosing jobs by the thousands. I wonder if it's a repeated typo and what they are trying to type is "wishing working class"?

Since black voters automatically vote for black candidates.

Or Carol Moseley Braun?

they have no answers of course...

originally.

You may not realize it, or value it, but politics is important to African Americans.
We have voted for White candidates all the times, that has always been OK with us and OK with White America for sure.

And way OK with the Democratic party.
And it has always been OK with HCBC.
African Americans are informed voters.

We were sincerely hurt by the racist statements by Bill Clinton in Carolina and they just kept coming.

We would have voted for anyone but Clinton after that and those of us that were always for Obama were shocked to see so many rush to Obama after Carolina.

I will circulate your remarks to my email list of friends and keep you updated.
They will laugh at your dismissal of the importance of our vote and make a donation to Obama ~ that will really get them energized this morning!

You have also inspired me to donate to Obama today, right now. THANKS! :bounce:

I don't engage in spreading myths. You can, but I will not.

thanks to people like you.

Obama was losing the black vote, even though I'm pretty sure he was black before SC.

How do you explain that, Einstein?

You need to prove to me that Obama was losing the black vote before South Carolina, since exit polls show us nothing that would confirm your theory.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

You are aware that voting didn't start until January, right? :rofl:

Like I said, before SC.

Would you like to comment how this shoots your racist theory full of holes?

Or shall we just let it be?

:crazy: :crazy: :crazy:

I guess you are going to alert me because I'm telling the truth, huh?

It's a shame what this forum has come. It's a fact that Obama is getting 90% black support because he is black. Thinking anything else is naive.

As I just demonstrated.

:rofl:

vote for someone because of the color of their skin. They can't think. They can't reason. They can't compare candidates, and make a choice based on that. No, no, no. They just vote for Obama because he's black.

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?????? Your statement is beyond stupid; it's ignorant!

youth vote.

Not to mention the patronization of politicians like the Clintons who count on them cast their votes for the "lesser of two evils".

tru colors started to shine through

....a black person decided to run for president.

Americans is OK? Really?? You defend the Clintons' behavior?

I said that black voters walked, or ran .....to a new candidate because he was black. Please quote me precisely and quit making things up.



http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/24/washington/24obama.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print&adxnnlx=1205900977-7qz2FINroV037CY44ibn8w

Note the date.

the article explains what the Clintons have done to piss off black people. :eyes: So, you can't actually admit it in writing, but do nonetheless. Got it. See ya after the primaries...or not.

Check polls taken where a majority of blacks still appreciate the Clintons. Simply put, Hillary Clinton did not "lose" the black voters. They went to one of their own. And I don't blame them for so doing. In fact, I applaud their actions.

The charges of race-baiting were despicable. Obama set out to smear them for political gain--sadly, it worked.

Steve

racist ideas floating around here. I'm talking about people claiming blacks only vote for Obama because he is black. Total nonsense. It must be a result of some of them believing that women SHOULD vote for Clinton because she is female. That is also total nonsense. Because they think Clinton should be president because she is female, they believe that blacks HAVE TO be voting for Obama because he is black. Yes, maybe a few are, just like a few woman are voting for Clinton because she is female. Fortunately, both these groups are a minority.

:crazy: :crazy: :crazy:

If he wasn't black, he wouldn't be getting 90% of the black vote. That is a fact.

Or is that a "fact" that you pulled out of your ass?

he might be getting 10-20% of the black vote because he is black. Clinton is probably getting 10-20% of the women's votes because she is female. Clinton is also getting maybe 10-20 of the white voters who will not vote for Obama because he is black. That would give Obama a decent majority of non-biased voters - black, white AND female.

I was totally floored that Dems felt this way. Now, not so much, as I've read it so often. I think these people will now compose my subset of ignored posts, right after the downright nonsensical ones. Quite the list I'm gathering.

We must be heading to North Carolina.

Yeah, right??????

How about Obama losing most of the white working class vote? I guess that they don't count.......

:eyes:

If Obama was a crap candidate, people would not vote for him. Saying that they vote for him just because he's black is crap, crap, crap. If that were true, Al Sharpton or Alan Keyes would be president, or at least have a good shot at it. They aren't, and they didn't.

And stop with the BS about the "white working class vote".

I'm white working class, and I know a lot of white working class voters who are supporting Obama.

:wow:

for, the fact that he's black wouldn't be that much of a factor. That's been shown before with Sharpton and Keyes.

You sound like you are assuming that blacks cannot think for themselves, and vote solely on color, which is absolutely ridiculous.

I know plenty of discerning AA who are not supporting Obama. All of them highly educated people who can see right through his act.

But, the truth is that most of his peeps are voting for him simply because he's a "brother". Why deny it?

:shrug:

Educated blacks see through Obama, most "brothers" vote for him because he is black.

Turn it around - Hillary is getting the uneducated and old voters and a bunch of women who vote for her because she's female.

Stereotypes are crap.