Clinton Camp Says Obama Is Now "The Black Candidate"

Following Barack Obama's primary win in South Carolina Saturday, members of the Clinton campaign continued to inject issues of race in the contest. From the Associated Press:

Barack Obama routed Hillary Rodham Clinton in the racially charged South Carolina primary Saturday night, regaining campaign momentum in the prelude to a Feb. 5 coast-to-coast competition for more than 1,600 Democratic National Convention delegates....

...Clinton campaign strategists denied any intentional effort to stir the racial debate. But they said they believe the fallout has had the effect of branding Obama as "the black candidate," a tag that could hurt him outside the South.

Meanwhile, Bill Clinton compared Obama's win in South Carolina to Rev. Jesse Jackson's two South Carolina victories during the eighties. Watch the video, and Obama's response this morning on ABC's This Week:

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1390897361http://www.brightcove.com/channel.jsp?channel=1178199204

Political Punch has the transcript here.

Read Obama's response to the Jesse Jackson comparison here.

Josh Marshall debunks the comparison here.

First reported on the Huffington Post here.

Comments

[detriangulation]

This morning on MSNBC, Clinton surrogate Senator Bill Nelson, as part of a continued effort to hype Clinton's anachronistic FL "victory", highlighted her superior performance across all demographics---with one notable caveat. Nelson concedes Obama decisively won "THE BLACK VOTE" in FL that, looking ahead to Super Tuesday, only gives him marginal and inadequate "POCKETS OF SUPPORT."
This is further evidence that Hillary Clinton continues to rely on her establishment sycophants (including Bill Clinton, with his Jesse Jackson assertions after South Carolina, etc.) to pursue a Southern Strategy: a desperate, futile and shameless attempt to racially polarize the electorate and relegate Obama to the status of a candidate who is for, by, and of African Americans alone. This racial triangulation will continue to backfire because it outrages African American, white, Latino and Asian Democrats alike. Please make people aware of Senator Nelson's comments!!

[StillAmused]

Clinton Camp Says Obama Is Now "The Black Candidate" ?

Campaign strategists opined that "the FALLOUT has had the EFFECT of BRANDING Obama as "the black candidate"..."

JOB OPENING:

HuffPo Headline Writer

Must be willing to read out-of-house copy before formulating headline.

Need is urgent. Will pay relocation expenses.

[daddigrace]

Is Hillary Clinton the "Gay candidate?"

I could apply the same type of divisive logic and argue that Hillary is the Gay Candidate, or at least half-gay candidate. How else would you explain her victory in New Hampshire when the polls had her as much as ten percentage points down?

""New Hampshire now tops the list of states with the largest percent of growth of same-sex couples, according to 2000 U.S. Census Data and the 2005 American Community Survey. Researchers said it is unclear what has caused the jump in numbers."

http://www.citizen.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071230/GJNEWS_01/541950656/-1/CITIZEN

This logic would be equally as valid to the Clintons in this case, since GLBT rights advocacy groups, just as animal rights groups such as PETA, often draw comparisons of their respective movements to that of the black civil rights movement. With her victory in New Hampshire, Hillary has now become the "The Gay Candidate", or at least the half-gay candidate. Because she played up to the GLBT community, and played the "gay card accordingly.

Now we can all be rest assured that a Clinton presidency will bring about an abundance of pro-gay measures that will threaten our great and civil society. For heterosexual America, that's what the outcome of the New Hampshire Primary has come to mean for them.

The problem in South Carolina is not that the blacks voted for Obama. There weren't enough Gay, Lesbian, Bi-Gender, and Transgendered couples to counter for Clinton.

[Professornitpick]

Without typos, with my apology!

Numbers don't lie. In south Carolina, 55% of total people who voted in Democratic Primary were black, 43% white, 1% Latinos, and 1% others.

Obama won 55% of the total vote.

80% of 55% is 44%.
So out of a total of 55% that he won, 44% was black vote. Add 11% of Other-than-black vote to get to his total 55%.

11% of non-black vote is hardly an indication of cross-racial appeal. Hilary won 19% of black vote, while Edwards won only 1% of the black vote.

So what do the numbers say?

Black voted overwhelmingly for Obama, while Obama's support among other-than-black vote was only 11%.

In states where total black democratic vote is in low teens, how will he win?

It was fine when he was a presidential candidate who happened to be black. Due to the stupidity of people like Clyborn, and South Carolina's electorate, this color based voting, has made him the great black hope. How can a race candidate win when his constituency is only 10% of the total electorate? People in SC, in their enthusiasm, have killed him off.

If there was an even distribution of black vote with let's say more proportional black vote divided among all candidates, he could have stayed away from the race label. Now he cannot. The argument against him is solidified when one takes into account that in Nevada Primary, he won more than 83% of black vote.

I feel sorry for him. The question is with this new tendency, can he even win in Iowa again?

BTW, another term for 'racial pride', is naked racism if non-black people resort to it. We thought we were going to rise above 'racial pride' and vote on merit.

Alas, this times blacks have chopped their own knees.

[Professornitpick]

Numbers don't lie. In south Carolina, 55% of total people who voted in Democratic Primary were black, 43% while, 1% Latinos, and 1% others.

Obama won 55% of the total vote.

80% of 55% is 44%. So Obama 44% all votes for Obama was black vote. He won 11% of non-black vote to get his 55%.

11% of non-black vote is hardly an indication of cross-racial appeal. Hilary, won 19% of black vote, with Edwards won only 1% of the black vote.

So what do the numbers say. Black voted overwhelmingly for Obama, while Obama's support among other-than-black vote was only 11%.

In states where total black democratic vote is in low teens, how will he win?

It was fine when he was a presidential candidate who happened to be black. Due to the stupidity of people like Clyborn, and South Carolina's electorate, this color based voting, has made him the great black hope. How can race candidate win when his constituency, is only 10% or so? People in SC in their enthusiasm, have killed him off.

If there was an even distribution of vote with lets say more proportional black vote divided among all candidates, he could stay away from the race label. Now he cannot. The argument against him is solidified when one takes into account that in Nevada Primary, he won more than 83% of black vote.

I feel sorry for him. The question is with this new tendency, can he win in Iowa again?

BTW, another term for 'racial pride', is naked racism if non-black people resort to it. We thought we were going to rise above 'racial pride' and vote on merit.

Alas, this times blacks have chopped their own knees.

[OhgReaTone]

The Clintons point out the obvious. Yeah, so, McCain is old, Huckabee is a theocrat, Romney is a Mormon Scientologist for Jehovah on the 7th Day, Guiliani is a serial husband. Clinton is a woman. Each candidate carries their persona into the campaign. It is the responsibility of the campaign to maximize and minimize where appropriate.
Ohg
http://thefiresidepost.com/2008/01/28/racism-just-another-campaign-challenge/

[Bagger]

Bills mouth has become a natural disaster. So much for attempting to restore his legacy. Everyone sees who this man really is. Sad sad sad.

[BeamMeUpScotty]

Bill Clinton reams out Jessica Yellin of CNN when she brings up "race and gender", then he deliberately refers to Obama as "the Black candidate."

As a southerner, who knows how racism works down south, Bill Clinton should be ashamed of himself.

[imsosure]

It's not so much what they say but rather what they don't say and what they do that concerns me.

I am not interested in bush/clint­on/bush/cl­inton at all, I think that would be a terrible mistake to have this country endure that nonsense any longer than currently necessary.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1656880303867390173

[MaryNY1]

I really, really hope i'm wrong here:

But after Clintons "tearing-up"-stunt, I fear she's plotting something even worse in order to change the momentum in the final seconds, maybe an "assassina­tion-stunt­":

Next monday Feb. 4, 9pm, the news may be:
"An unidentified young african-american man jumped out of a cheering crowd an ran towards Clinton, holding a knife over his head, screaming "die woman - go obama". He tripped and fell just before reaching Clinton and got overpowered. Clinton is unharmed but under shock. No video footage available."

I really, really hope i'm wrong here...

[IRIE]

William (Willie Lynch)Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III

http://www.daveyd.com/willlynch.htmlJefferson "

http://www.uky.edu/StudentOrgs/AWARE/archives/lynch.html

[letsreallygetreal]

Obama will be the next President of the United States. Here's why. He has already gone up against the two toughest campaigners and more than held his own with both of them. Even though they have tag-teamed him. The Clintons have tried everything and nothing is working. They and their advisors realized they needed to take Obama down a peg by putting him on the defensive. They figured if they criticize him and he does not respond they win because he looks weak. They also figured if they criticize him and he does respond he will look like any other politician. Now, that strategy appeared to work for a few days until Obama took a deep breath and moved on to his message of unity. Then the Clintons decided it would be best to marginalize Obama as the black candidate. So when Bill was asked yesterday afternoon why he and his wife felt they needed to double team Obama, Bill ignored the question and said Mr. Jackson won twice in South Carolina. In other words, it is no big deal for the "black" candidate to win in South Carolina. Of course this ignored the fact that Al Sharpton only got a small percentage of the black vote in SC in 2004 and lost to a white candidate who finished third this time. When Bill Clinton spoke that day he did not realize that Obama was going to get more votes than any candidate, black or white, in the history of South Carolina primaries. Bill also did not realize that more than half of all the white voters under 30 were going to vote for Obama; he probably also did not realize that his wife was going to lose by an overall margin of 2-1. Everyone knows black citizens will vote for white candidates for President. This is the first time whites in significant numbers have voted for a presdidential candidate who happens to be as black as he is white.

[hillaryj]

How in the world is he ever going to stand up to the Republican machine? He can't say they are racist....­......they will just laugh and keep cutting him to pieces. I hope if he wins the nomination he will come up with a better way to answer back. Bill and Hillary Clinton are not racists!

[OhPlease2007]

In my opinion, [this HuffPost story] is the same-old-same-old perpetuating and playing the media race baiting card, disguising it as ‘news.’ Are we all truly supposed to believe that because Bill Clinton didn’t use some kind of mythical proper nomenclature in so-called ‘politically correct society’, to describe the candidacy of Obama, who happens to be black, we are all supposed to get all up in arms accusing Bill Clinton of being some kind of racist? That is just utterly ridiculous! If Bill Clinton was black, nobody would have blinked an eye over what he said. But because Bill Clinton is white, and irrespective of stating factually correct information that Obama, is, indeed a presidential candidate who is black, LOOK OUT! … Bill Clinton has now got the holier-than-thou “Political Correctness Police” banging down his door falsely treating him as if he was using “the N word”, when he didn’t!
This is nothing more than a bogus media witch-hunt to ‘try’ to stomp-out Bill Clinton’s free speech, ‘trying’ to beat him over the head with the, distorted –and- deluded stick of ‘political correctness’ as it DOESN’T pertain to ‘honest –and- ethical American society of color.’ In my opinion, [this story] only exists to ‘try’ to score political points, for the Obama camp. But at what price? The denigration of civil –and- constitutional rights for ALL Americans, irrespective of skin color? For political gain at the expense of the innocent American citizenry? When are we as a people, together, going to wake-up to what is really going on in our society over this cultural divisiveness in politics that is plainly being furthered by the media-at-large??? Newsflash,… Millions across this nation of ours already know that Obama is black –and- running for president! Bill Clinton didn’t tell us anything that we didn’t ALREADY know! And we don’t need the media-at-large using former presidents as scapegoats for ill-conceived tactics in race-baiting to ‘try’ to score political points for their seemingly supported presidential candidate/­candidates­.

[fourex]

This may have come from the Clinton Camp, perhaps Carville.

"The e-mail questioning Obama's faith and patriotism, though widely discredited, is still alive on the Internet, where it has been forwarded to thousands of voters and has appeared on right-wing blogs. It recently appeared on a local Republican Party office's website in Washington state.

The anonymous author has not been identified and the origin of the e-mail is unknown. A version of the e-mail asserts this is "something that should be considered in your choice" for president."