Bill Clinton on Race (Meet the Press)

Run time: 02:57 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGRXywbb0_w   Posted on YouTube: January 20, 2008 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: January 21, 2008 By DU Member: jefferson_dem Views on DU: 427

 
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MR. RUSSERT: Huge racial divide. Clinton's camp believes that women and Latinos are a coalition that can work in New York and California and New Jersey. But the next stop is South Carolina. Half the state are African Americans. I was down there interviewing Hillary Clinton. I couldn't find a black who didn't want to talk about this issue and raise it passionately...

MS. NOONAN: Yes.

MR. RUSSERT: ...about what they had heard. Some felt that Obama's being dissed and not respected as a candidate; others were loyal to Clinton. As we approach South Carolina, I think we can remember in 1992, when Bill Clinton was at a pivotal stage of his campaign, and he decided to play the Sister Souljah card that was talked about--here she is the rap singer--and this is what Clinton had to say back then.
(Videotape, June 13, 1992):

MR. CLINTON: If you took the words white and black and you reversed them, you might think David Duke was giving that speech.
(End videotape)

MS. NOONAN: Hm.

MR. RUSSERT: Tom Brokaw, South Carolina is going to have a lot of racial overtones on that vote. Obama needs solid black support. If John Edwards' vote amongst whites begins to slip and Hillary Clinton lays claim to that, it could be a very close race and a very heated debate.

MR. BROKAW: And a very divisive race in terms of the two groups that are most important to the Democratic Party in South Carolina. I've been on the phone to young friends of mine down there who are African Americans and they have said to me that a lot of their fathers and grandfathers have some concerns about Barack Obama being the candidate next fall, about whether he can win and whether race will become too prominent in the campaign. And one of them said to me, "but my generation is much more cosmopolitan than that. We've been raised in a different way. I'm for Obama." This young man was not wildly enthusiastic about him, but he's certainly got a foot in the Obama waters at this point. And my guess is that it will help Obama a lot.

Now, Bill Clinton today, here in New York, is appearing with Andy Young, not at the Riverside Church, it turns out, because they were concerned about a political speech, but at another Baptists church commemorating the 40th anniversary of Dr. King coming out against Vietnam, while Hillary is at the Abyssinian Baptist Church with the Reverend Calvin Butts, who's a very prominent, as you know, establishment African American figure here. So this will play out pretty heavily in the next seven days.

MR. RUSSERT: Michele, as someone who spoke to Bill Clinton said, quoted him as saying, "I don't care about this stuff, about my image as the former president. I'm going to win this campaign. I'm going to go door-to-door in the black neighborhoods of South Carolina, church-to-church." Just like he went into the casinos and split the union vote with Barack Obama that was supposed to go to Obama, he's convinced he can win enough blacks to divide them and give Hillary Clinton South Carolina.

MS. NORRIS: You know, he does plan to go door-to-door and I suspect that when he does go door-to-door he may have some feisty conversations. I mean, people may be wagging their finger at him because having been in South Carolina, there is a passionate roiling debate about this. I mean, I went down there thinking that perhaps there was a generational divide on the ground when I realized it's much more of an establishment vs. grassroots divide. Hillary Clinton locked up a lot of the establishment support early on. She had clergy behind her. And you're hearing in churches almost about revolts with the congregationists standing up and saying, "You know, we are not going to follow lockstep behind the clergy in this case."

Heard a story about a 92-year-old man who made an altar call, made his way up to the altar slowly and talked about Dr. King, and basically almost took the pulpit from the pastor, and came around to this notion of don't be shackled by fear. And that's what's so interesting about what's going on here, is Barack Obama has ignited this debate about whether you should support someone who is viable, whether you should let go of your fears, whether you should believe in the hope, and people are--you know, there's one story I heard about someone in a beauty shop, and the beautician almost put the customer out of the chair because they were, you know, arguing about one supported Obama and one supported Clinton.

MR. RUSSERT: Now, that is serious.

MS. NORRIS: Yeah, that's very serious.

MR. MEACHAM: The "Steel Magnolias"...(unintelligible).

MR. RUSSERT: We have to take a quick break. A lot more of our conversation. The race for the White House 2008. We'll be right back.