How Barack Obama played the race card and blamed Hillary Clinton

[Clinton Crusader]

How Barack Obama played the race card and blamed Hillary Clinton
by Sean Wilentz
The New Republic
February 27, 2008

excerpt

To a large degree, the (Obama) campaign's strategists turned the primary and caucus race to their advantage when they DELIBERATELY, FALSELY, and
successfully portrayed Clinton and her campaign as unscrupulous race-baiters-a campaign-within-the-campaign in which the worked-up flap over the Somali costume photograph is but the latest episode. While promoting Obama as a "post-racial" figure, his campaign has purposefully POLLUTED the contest with a new strain of what historically has been the most TOXIC POISON in American politics.

More than any other maneuver, this one has brought Clinton into disrepute with important portions of the Democratic Party. A review of what actually happened shows that the charges that the Clintons played the "race card" were not simply false; they were deliberately manufactured by the Obama camp and trumpeted by a credulous and/or
compliant press corps in order to strip away her once formidable majority among black voters and to outrage affluent, college-educated white liberals as well as college students.

The Clinton campaign, in fact, has NOT racialized the campaign, and NEVER had any reason to do so. Rather the Obama campaign and its supporters, well-prepared to play the "race-baiter card" before the primaries began, LAUNCHED it with a vengeance when Obama ran into DIRE straits after his losses in New Hampshire and Nevada - and thereby created a campaign myth that has turned into an incontrovertible truth among political pundits, reporters, and various Obama supporters.

This development is the latest sad commentary on the malign power of the
press, hyping its own favorites and tearing down those it dislikes, to create pseudo-scandals of the sort that hounded Al Gore during the 2000 campaign.

It is also a commentary on how race can make American politics go haywire. Above all, it is a commentary on the cutthroat, fraudulent politics that lie at the foundation of Obama's supposedly uplifting campaign.
more: http://tinyurl.com/3c76xb

[DURHAM D]

1. Thanks for posting. This is a must read.

Gives me some hope that the text books will get it right one day.

[libbygurl]

2. 'Textbooks'. Alas, it might actually be too late for today! Damn!

Why wasn't Wilentz saying this much earlier...like after SC?

[DURHAM D]

3. I don't think even the Clinton campaign thought Obama

would continue the race baiting - it seemed way to sinister for a Democratic candidate to pursue. It is, however, typical hate-mongering Republican dirty nasty politics.

Or, perhaps the Clinton campaign gave the media and the voters too much credit in that they thought the strategy would be called out. To me, the inability of the public to understand what is going on with Obama's race mongering reflects on our educational system and highlights the failures across the board.

[rodeodance]

6. shall i take it "out there"??

[DURHAM D]

8. If you mean GD-P - I would say no.

If you put it out there you will need to become involved with the over indulged and aggressively nasty "Baby on Board" generation.

[rodeodance]

12. i know. i am rather chicken. but the thought has itched at me.

[Clinton Crusader]

11. Only if your asbestos suit is out of the cleaners

[rodeodance]

17. i is a bit of chickie

[kikiek]

4. Excellent article. I am not surprised.

[rodeodance]

5. i just read the whole thing. wondering if I should take it 'out there" ??

[kikiek]

7. It still is on the greatest page but sinking. It needs some hits!

[DURHAM D]

9. Thanks for the tip.

Found it and gave it a little love.

[kikiek]

10. Great!

[rodeodance]

13. i did not know that. thanks whow.

[kerstin]

15. This should be posted in the GD-P.

I promise to support you in your endeavor! :)

[rodeodance]

16. I will give it some thought--right now it is Editorials:---give it a rec. Lets bring to FRONT page

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=341223&mesg_id=341223

[kerstin]

18. I just noticed it was posted by someone else in GD-P!

I just kicked and recommended it.

[rodeodance]

19. oh my

[kerstin]

21. I also recommended the "Editorials" posting. Thanks. n/t

[susankh4]

14. Excellent link!

Thanks.

[Qanisqineq]

20. It always bothered me how so many were so quick to call them racists

And to not actually find out what was said and in what context. And now with the Drudge and the Somali costume thing-- this is Drudge and yet everyone believes him. If you say, "but it's Drudge" then the Obama supporters fire back, "she's been working with him!". They don't care that the damn picture has already been out in the public before, just cry "Hillary is using race" and DU is in an uproar.

[rodeodance]

22. its in gd=p-but really not too many touching it at this point:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4803561&mesg_id=4803561

[libbygurl]

23. Another post of same article - I kicked twice, and it's on front page again.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x341223

[Qanisqineq]

24. Finally finished reading the whole article

Really makes me lose all respect I had for Obama. To know that influential supporters and people in your campaign are feeding the fire on the race-baiting claims and Obama does nothing infuriates me. He acts like he is above dirty politics but really he just lets other people do it for him and the Obama-loving media ignores it. No, they don't ignore it, they feed into it too. They make Hillary and her campaign look like it is race-baiting and really playing dirty. I've never understood why people would believe that the Clintons would bring race into it. It would be the death of (and almost has been) her campaign. I'd expect crap like that from the republicans in the GE against Obama but the Clintons would know it would lose them more votes in the primaries than gain them.

[rodeodance]

25. no one has ever given reason why--they just make the claim!

.......'ve never understood why people would believe that the Clintons would bring race into it. It would be the death of (and almost has been) her campaign. I'd expect crap like that from the republicans in the GE against Obama but the Clintons would know it would lose them more votes in the primaries than gain them.

[rodeodance]

26. story has been posted again here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4808142&mesg_id=4808142