Wednesday, February 27, 2008

The Race Card in the Democratic Primary

Sean Wilentz, a Princeton Historian, an editor at The New Republic, and family friend of the Clintons, has a interesting and controversial article in The New Republic: "Race Man: How Barack Obama played the race card and blamed Hillary Clinton."

This seems to be an very important article that we should read and discuss. Any takers?

3 comments:

M said...

Why don't you go ahead and weigh in first, Solon? You're clearly baiting the rest of us with your "Any takers" comment, so I for one will refrain from commenting until you lay out the argument against Willentz's editorial which will surely come out of any comment anyone makes.

Anonymous said...

I haven't read the article yet, but I like the idea of all of us reading an article now and then and discussing it. Could be fun!

solon said...

I wasn't trying to bait... since it is long, I did not know who had time.

Before I begin, both parties have used identity politics to some degree. Since the point of a campaign is to win, I do not have a problem with this. Yet, it gets demeaning when one party attacks the identity of the other.

Also, for full disclosure, I took a shot at Senator Clinton in the debate post for using gender in the debate when she said she would not use it on Meet the Press. If she did not make the claim in MTP, I would not have said a word.

Here are my thoughts on his argument.

(1) For a Historian, it is interesting to see that he distorts the chronology and context of the race. He introduces race and the Clinton campaign in the passive voice as if it is the Obama campaign that "has brought Clinton into disrepute with important portions of the Democratic Party." Yet, his narrative is incomplete when it matters most.

In this campaign, the race comments began with Clinton Co-Chair William Shaheen, who for some reason, the author believes did not speak for the Clinton campaign. The problem with Shaheen's comments was not the Senator Obama discussed drug use but that he implied he dealt drugs, which was never asked about Clinton and Bush. This is why the comments were racial but that goes unmentioned since it would undermine his entire article. These comments were made worse by Mark Penn and the repeated use of Cocaine on Hardball...and why Robert Johnson's (president of BET) comments on his past were problematic. All connections go to drug use AND dealing, which is just bad.

The author also does this with the Kenyan Clothes photo as he fails to mention that Clinton staffers were fired because they sent out emails that Senator Obama was not Christian but Muslim. Personally, I did not find the photo controversial but (a) if it came from the Clinton camp, which we will not know, and (b) fits in with the larger narrative that Obama is a Muslim, then we have a problem on the grounds race/ethnicity/ religion, which is important because of Texas & Ohio, two states not known for religious tolerance.

(2) He ignores the contentiousness of South Carolina when he ignores the Reagan comment. This set up Bill's ire and is most likely the reason why Bill Clinton to introduce the Jesse Jackson comment. Clinton's thinking is if you want to trivialize me, I will do the same with you Senator Obama: hence to compare Obama's forthcoming win with Jackson's. Now, this comment did not alter the SC vote, but it reflects the strategy to paint Obama as the "black candidate," making sure he would not win a state after SC.

In Section III, the author asks why Clinton would want to alienate the black vote in favor of the Latino vote. The answer is Florida and Super Tuesday. The Clinton campaign thought, even with the landslide in SC, the primary would be over on Super Tuesday and none of this would matter. The use of race was only a short-term goal to gain the nomination. The problem was, the race did not end that day.

Further, race-baiting by the Obama campaign, as the author contends, would not help Senator Obama on Super Tuesday because of the demographics of the states. Though Senator Clinton would gain.

I will end here for now since this is long.