Comments on: Clinton’s Race-Baiting Continues

By: trickledown

trickledown — Sat, 10 May 2008 18:19:00 +0000

“Hillary Clinton has a law degree from Yale Law School and worked for many years as a corporate lawyer, representing major corporate clients such as Wal-Mart. Surely she is familar with the “canons of construction,” especially ejusdem generis.”

“By ejusdem generis, her statement is read thus: “working, hard-working” are very general terms which can be applied to anyone in America, relative to the term “white Americans” which constitutes a specific racial class…thus by ejusdem generis “working” and “hard working” only apply to “white Americans,” with the implication that only white Americans work and are hard working. By omission…that leads us to another canon of construction Hillary is surely aware of: expressio unius est exclusio alterius…”

http://trickledown.wordpress.com/2008/05/10/hillary-clinton-race-white-americans-comment-3am-ad-and-canons-of-construction/

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 09 May 2008 08:49:00 +0000

Arugula-eating, college-educated, white chick and first-time reader of this blog (thanks, Democratic Underground, for the link!)

We will NEVER create the change we want for this country by trying to win over the closed-minded, so I say GOOD RIDDANCE to the HRC bigots who won't vote for Barrack. Let them vote for McCain and confirm their stupidity.

Sadly, they will continue to vote their prejudices over their finacial interests and we just have to wait for them to die off.

We need to spend our time, energy and money on motivating more young people of ALL skin colors to get involved and exercise their precious right to vote.

By: Beth Budwig

Beth Budwig — Fri, 09 May 2008 05:05:00 +0000

What a great blog post! Found it on Booman Tribune.

I just wanted to say – I’ve come to expect this from HRC. She has no shame and no sense of decency to get in the way of her self-interest. However, CNN & all other mainstream reporting of Tuesday’s elections were the same BS! “Clinton pulls out a narrow victory” in Indiana while “Obama does very well among black voters but only gets 31% of white votes” in North Carolina. Right, because clearly a f*cking landslide doesn’t count if the hands filling out the ballots are darker. UGH.

By: collegegrad

collegegrad — Fri, 09 May 2008 03:03:00 +0000

Good ole Southern strategy!! Its clear she is trying to make sure Obama won’t win the general. So she can come back and try again in 2012.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 09 May 2008 02:51:00 +0000

According to Gallup Kerry got 41% of the white vote compared to Obama's 37%.
I don't remember if it was Indiana or NC.
Either way, Obama is getting about the average white vote as most other democrats - especially those blue collar.
But, it's sad to see the Clintons treating the AA voters this way. In their effort to tarnish Obama anyway possible they are turning their backs on the most reliable voters they had in the 90s.
And they are attempting to stir the subconscience of white people who may harbor some race feelings underneath they may not be totally aware of but, are planted with the seed of feeling negative towards Sen. Obama by going into a type of psychological warfare that is stirring the subconscience.
That is indeed the dog whistle.
I am white and I find this disgusting.
Especially used against the best democratic candidate in generations. The man has the potential to be on the same level as an FDR and it's painful to see what the Clintons are trying to do to stir up race warfare.
The opposite of what Obama is about which is unity.

By: Bliss

Bliss — Thu, 08 May 2008 23:51:00 +0000

I do hope there’s room on the porch for an over 50’s thoroughly disgusted white woman in a very red county in Texas that went for Obama. I don’t know where Hillary was during the caucus, but the Obama contingent (67% in my precinct) was rainbow city. I think some of the whites there might even have worked for a living.

By: Diana

Diana — Thu, 08 May 2008 22:30:00 +0000

This gave me a laugh. It’s from today’s email from http://www.buzzflash.com:

“When Will She Start Campaigning in a White Sheet? “Clinton Touts White Support… Senator Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.” It’s not even true based on Tuesday’s exit polls. So Hillary’s a Liar and the Ghost of George Wallace. 5/9″

By: Diana

Diana — Thu, 08 May 2008 21:40:00 +0000

The first time the race-baiting really hit me was before the South Carolina vote. Hillary said that Barack was “a young African-American man with so much to contribute”. Innocuous on it’s face but she sounded like she was referring to the neighbor boy. I went from calm to boil in less than a second & have never really gotten over it.

By: Craig Hickman

Craig Hickman — Thu, 08 May 2008 20:49:00 +0000

I’m tempted to say that we should do what Obama has decided to do: IGNORE HILLARY RODHAM NIXON.

She’s a sociopath and she wants attention.

By: Felicia

Felicia — Thu, 08 May 2008 20:40:00 +0000

You guys–we need to do some sort of virtual demonstration to let the media and the DNC know we’re not cool with this overtly racist language. I was more insulted with what Paul Begala said than what Clinton said. The guy said Obama can’t win with just eggheads and African Americans as his base. That was so offensive. He’s really diminishing blacks. And if you’re black and an egghead, you’re worthless to him. And MSM let these people go on the air and stoke the fire of racism.

By: Craig Hickman

Craig Hickman — Thu, 08 May 2008 20:18:00 +0000

1952, 1956. 1972.

The war against Obama from ALL sides uses old, warn-out artillery.

And that's why it's not working.

Obama isn't Adlai Stevenson or George McGovern or anybody else.

He's Barack Obama and he's winning.

By: Oldnovice

Oldnovice — Thu, 08 May 2008 19:58:00 +0000

I’m with Sophie in VA; this OWW4O doesn’t fit the demographic.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 08 May 2008 19:38:00 +0000

I caught a fascinating echo of the 1952 campaign today. Paul Begala, a Clinton supporter promoting the line that Senator Obama’s electoral base is too narrow to sustain a winning general election campaign, stated that Democrats could not win in November with just “eggheads and African-Americans.” The term “egghead” in this negative context entered the political lexicon during the 1952 presidential campaign of another Illinois politician, Adlai Stevenson, who was also seen as appealing to a too-select, too-intellectually-inclined slice of the electorate, and unable to energize the working class. It was applied to Stevenson supporters in September 1952, in a column by Stewart Alsop. After hearing a particularly cerebral Stevenson speech on atomic energy in Hartford Connecticut, Alsop mentioned to “a rising young Connecticut Republican” (later identified as his brother John) that “a good many intelligent people who would be considered normally Republican, obviously admired Stevenson.” “Sure,” John replied, “all the eggheads love Stevenson. But how many eggheads do you think there are?” Stevenson lost the race to war hero Dwight Eisenhower 55 percent to 44 percent. During the 1956 campaign, a replay of the 1952 match-up, a woman called out to him at an event, “You have the vote of every thinking person!” Stevenson called back, “That’s not enough, madam, we need a majority!” Stevenson lost that round to Ike 57 percent to 42 percent.

By: Craig Hickman

Craig Hickman — Thu, 08 May 2008 19:29:00 +0000

This elitist college-educated white guy who voted for Obama is in a bluegrass band and I have watermelons growing in my backyard, so you can count on me to bring the entertainment while we all vote for Mr. Obama.

The Clintoons piss me off.

This has got to be one of the funniest comments I've read lately.

Thanks for the laugh.

By: Michelle

Michelle — Thu, 08 May 2008 19:12:00 +0000

Last night, I emailed Nancy Pelosi and also sent a message through the democrats.org website about this newest in the line of ugly -- quoting this comment and asking when they are just plain going to step up and say that what Clinton is doing is not what the Democratic Party stands for (frankly I am much more cynical than this and feel that their lack of denouncing and rejecting Clinton says with action that what she is doing is enough of what the party is about that they are allowing this to continue. Not surprising, seeing as how this country is well ... built on racism and they are one of the two major political parties in it)

But still. Such hypocrisy that they have all these groups of people under the "People" menu on their site, and when you click on African-American for example it's all about the GOP's badness. But their own (yes, their OWN til they publicly officially as a party disown her) resident blatant racist candidate? Standards are diferent for her, see.

All that focus on how Senator Obama should denounce and reject various people -- why isn't the Democratic Party publicly and collectively denouncing and rejecting Hillary Clinton's actions, words and tactics?

PS the comment from dday: Shorter Clinton: If we were still operating under the Constitution's 3/5 compromise, I'd be the nominee!

This exact thing came up during dinner at my house the other night.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 08 May 2008 19:11:00 +0000

minnesata, wisconsin, iowa, colorado, washington = white guilt vote.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 08 May 2008 19:08:00 +0000

What if the 'typical white person' feels that Obama's just too inexperienced or too liberal for their liking?

If white, blue collar voters find McCain to be an acceptable alternative, because he is a more moderate, center-right politician, who shares more of their values, and he just happens to be white, will dems say most voters are bigoted?

I think Obama would win in a landslide if he were a moderate conservative.

He will lose the general election, not because he's a man of color, but because he's too green and too liberal.

By: andyfrombrooklyn

andyfrombrooklyn — Thu, 08 May 2008 19:04:00 +0000

minnesata, wisconsin, iowa, colorado, washington. that is five not so small states that look like they will be in our column. that have small black populations. where she got her ass kicked. they were white voters. but maybe they don’t “work”? oh what the hell…she is crazy…time to move on…bye, bye hillary!

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 08 May 2008 18:44:00 +0000

I seriously doubt that race is NOT a major factor in the huge base of support Obama enjoys among the balck community.

I also seriously doubt the white guilt is NOT a major factor in the huge base of support Obama enjoys among liberal, educated whites.

Oh no. Is this race-baiting? Or merely speaking the truth?

By: Anne U.

Anne U. — Thu, 08 May 2008 18:38:00 +0000

Latte drinker here. I wrote Stephanie Tubbs Jones, my congresswoman, to express my disgust with Clinton’s comments and imply she has a responsibility to stand up for her constituents, white and black, in this wonderfully racially mixed district. I doubt it will work, but I have to wonder what she and some of the other CBC Hillary-endorsers are thinking these days.