Jack & Jill Politics

Honestly, seriously, what about this does not sound threatening? As an African-American, it’s been chilling and unprecendented to hear people like Huckabee joke about Barack Obama, a presidential candidate, ducking from gunfire or Bill O’Racist O’Reilly imply that Michelle Obama should be lynched.

Can you imagine if people were saying the same things about George W. Bush or John Kerry during the 2004 race? My God, when did propriety, decency and a sense of responsibility leave the table? Oh and if anyone was still wondering if there would be an Obama/Clinton ticket? Yeah, I think this probably puts the last nail in that coffin.

From BlackPoliticsontheWeb.com:

– In an interview with the Sioux Falls Argus-Leader, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton made the following comments about staying in the race:

“”My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don’t understand it.”

The campaign of Sen. Barack Obama, through spokesman Bill Burton replied, “Senator Clinton’s statement before the Argus Leader editorial board was unfortunate and has no place in this campaign.”

Matt Stoller on OpenLeft writes:

Howard Wolfsen clarified:

“Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson defended the comments to The Post, ‘She was talking about the length of the race and using the ’68 election as an example of how long the races in the past have gone — she used her husband’s race in the same vein.'”

In some sense, what he’s saying is right. The call to drop out is premature by the standards of the 1992 and 1968 race. But her staying in the race has no precedent, since in both of those cases the race was not decided. It’s not like Hubert Humphrey was waiting around in case someone went off and shot RFK, or Bill Clinton was hoping he could convince superdelegates to override the will of the voters in a clearly losing strategy. There were still primaries going on that could have a significant impact on the outcome of the race.

2004 is a better analogy. Did John Edwards or Howard Dean wait around, musing that perhaps John Kerry would be killed, even though he was clearly going to lock up the majority of the delegates? Of course not. They lined up behind the winner.

It’s a doubly unfortunate reference given what the Kennedy family is going through as we speak. I am frankly shocked and disgusted by this statement and call upon the Clinton campaign to clarify and apologize immediately. The Wolfsen statement is inadequate given the horror of the analogy.