Joe Conason: Hillary equating "hard working Americans" with "white"

[dkf]

While I still cannot believe she actually intended any such nefarious meaning, she seemed to be equating "hard-working Americans" with "white Americans." Which is precisely what Wallace and his cohort used to do with their drawling refrain about welfare and affirmative action. This is the grating sound of Richard Nixon's Southern strategy, even though Tricky Dick would never quite stoop to saying such things in public.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2008/05/09/clinton_remarks/index.html

[midnight]

1. Can you imagine the reaction if she equated hardworking

and underpaid to women. Man o Man the earth would shake. Women work harder for less money.

[global1]

2. So At The Same Time Is She Saying That African Americans Are Not Hard Working?.....nt

[dkf]

3. That seems to be the inference.

I was wondering if I was the only person picking this up...

[sunnystarr]

17. I was wondering the same thing ..

it's the first thing that hit me when I read her quote.

[MonkeyFunk]

6. no

she uses "hard-working" to replace "working-class".

You have to really stretch to believe she was making racist comments.

[scheming daemons]

14. Conason is a Hillary supporter..... did he "really stretch" too?

[nichomachus]

15. I'm not sure the comments were racist

I think she has reached the point where she's just babbling -- and it came out wrong.

It will, however, be a huge nail in her coffin.

Her campaign is over. The longer she stays in this death spiral, the more she endangers her entire political career. She is turning herself into an object of ridicule.

Also, by continuing the race, she is having a negative impact on the ability of Congressional candidates to raise money. If that's the case, they will never forgive her. Her effectiveness as the junior senator from NY will be shot to hell. She may lost that next time around.

[sunnystarr]

19. Actually according to MSNBC Hillary has said this more than once

She's repeating it on the campaign trail.

[nichomachus]

20. Then, this may have killed her Senate career too.

[RaleighNCDUer]

21. What comes out when you are exhausted or drunk is what you really think.

That's when the safeties are off and the brakes are gone.

[global1]

22. Sorry - Listen To Her - She Wasn't Babbling - She Was Choosing Her....

words very carefully.

[DanTex]

23. Agreed (sadly). She knew the world would be listening.

I don't think this is some offhand remark. It was in an answer to the question "how can your campaign win". That question was on the front page of every newspaper in the country. She's been preparing for this one question since Tuesday at least. The words were chosen carefully, well before the interview took place.

She's trying to bring up the image of lazy, victim-playing black people, and all the racial resentment that goes along with that.

She knows it will cause controversy. But, she's already down near 10% with black voters. So she hopes that the negative emotions this stirs up in white voters will override the outrage over playing the race card.

She's banking on latent racial resentment.

[intheflow]

24. Well...

If being an object of ridicule kills political careers, we wouldn't still have Ted Kennedy in the party, or Howard Dean, John Kerry, Barney Frank, Dennis Kucinich, or John Murtha. And since the Clintons have similar name recognition as the Kennedy's, and both Clintons have successfully weathered intense public ridicule in the past, I think it's doubtful that anything that happens this primary season will be enough to fatally wound HRC's future political viability.

I'm neither defending nor decrying her conduct in this primary, I'm just noting that others have been shat upon by the media and even other Dems, yet they've endured to continue long and successful political careers.

[TheWraith]

16. Actually, you don't.

Not when she gives you a softball like "hard working white people," not to mention the other times in the campaign when she's pandered to conservative white Democrats on the basis of race.

[marylanddem]

4. Conason is too kind to her.

[rocktivity]

5. She also equated them with "dumb Americans"

as in too dumb to truly appreciate Obama--lucky for her.

:shrug:
rocknation

[lligrd]

7. Yet She Supports Bringing In Workers From Other Countries

because we are not hard working or smart enough to do the jobs here. Which is it Hillary?

[enid602]

8. Hill

She's just saying that the Dems might still need a broad coalition to win this year, despite Obama's successes and McCain's perceived weaknesses. I think she was probably hinting that she'll offer team Obama a broader coalition, including lots of working class people AS WELL AS lots of caucasians. Obama should take the bait.

[Jane Austin]

11. We DO need a broad coalition this year.

So why isn't Hillary cheerleading for Obama with her working class supporters?

Why isn't she reminding them that it's all of us against the giant corporations and financiers?

She could make that coalition happen for the party if she'd promote it.

[enid602]

13. motives

Personally, I think she's waiting for a position on the ticket. It would please a lot of her base, so I wouldn't consider it totally selfish on her part.

[pdxmom]

9. She did equate hard-working and white. That is what I found offensive.

Had she stuck to the demographic, this wouldn't be a big deal. But she went to the subjective of "hard-working white people". As opposed to what? Lazy black people? It was a major mistake, and I give Obama great credit for not jumping all over this the way Hillary jumped all over the "bitter" comment.

[DanTex]

10. Yes she was

I also was wondering whether I was the only one who picked this up.

Grammatically, the most likely parsing of the phrase "hard-working Americans, white Americans" in the way she used it is not "hard-working Americans AND white Americans" but rather "hard-working Americans, WHICH IS TO SAY white Americans"

But this isn't about parsing. I'm sure she meant "I am leading with Americans who are both hard-working and white". She's not actually racist. She's just trying to win an election by exploiting racism in society (is that any better?).

Anyway, the exact phrasing isn't important, it's the imagery. The fact of the matter is, she's hitting the "black people are lazy" meme. Everybody knows that meme. If a republican said something like this, we wouldn't be sitting around and thinking, gee, maybe she's just making a statistical observation about voting trends. It's the "welfare queens" all over again, 20 years later, and this time by a Democrat.


I hope I'm wrong and the whole thing was a misstatement. I know that she's under stress, and when you record every word out of someone's mouth for 6 months, everyone's going to say something stupid. In which case she needs to apologize. Soon.

[anonymous171]

12. Obama and his surrogates should not take the bait.

The Clinton Campaign WANTS Obama to denounce these comments as racist.

[TheWraith]

18. Of course they won't. They've stayed as far away from race as an issue as possible.

Excepting the times when they absolutely had to deal with it, and even then did so with a minimum of fuss.

[Fly by night]

25. The "hardest working" people in Tennessee aren't white or American. They're Mexican laborers.

I just wish some of their work ethic would rub off on the next generation of white-bred weenies whose only marketable skill seems to be playing with their joy-sticks.

[WillyT]

26. Wow...

:wow: