Edwards: Clinton didn't choose words well on race

WASHINGTON — Former Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards said Sunday that he thinks Barack Obama will be the party's presidential nominee and that Hillary Rodham Clinton must be careful not to damage the party's prospects in November as she continues her campaign.

"I know how hard it is to get up and go out there every day, speak to the media, speak to crowds, when people are urging you to get out of the race. I mean, it's a very hard place to be in. But she's shown a lot of strength about that," said Edwards, a former North Carolina senator who exited the race in January.

"But I think the one thing that she has to be careful about ... going forward, is that, if she makes the case for herself, which she's completely entitled to do, she has to be really careful that she's not damaging our prospects, the Democratic Party, and our cause, for the fall," he said in a taped interview broadcast on CBS' "Face the Nation."

Clinton says she's staying in the race despite losing to Obama by a wide margin in North Carolina and barely winning in Indiana, which helped cement his status as the front-runner. She touts her overall electability in a general election and, pointing to demographics, recently told USA Today in an interview:

"There was just an AP article posted that found how Senator Obama's support among working _ hardworking Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how the, you know, whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."

Some accused Clinton of reintroducing race into the campaign. Edwards seemed to give her a pass.

"She's in a very tough, very competitive race that's been going on a long, long time. And you know, she didn't probably _ I'm sure she feels like she didn't choose her words very well there," he said.

"What I think is, at the end of the day, when this is over _ and I think it is likely, certainly, at this point, that Senator Obama will be the nominee _ that the Democrats will unite. We'll all be behind our nominee. And we'll be out there campaigning our hearts out," Edwards said.

David Axelrod, Obama's chief campaign strategist, disputed Clinton's assertion.

Axelrod said Obama and Clinton split Indiana voters who make $50,000 a year or less, and that Obama performed better among non-college-educated voters there. He said the same was true in North Carolina. Both states voted last week.

"The words weren't well chosen, but the thesis was wrong," Axelrod said on "Fox News Sunday.

Edwards, meanwhile, said he "might" still endorse a candidate, but "I don't think it's a big deal, to be honest with you."

Comments

[ejay579]

Why do so many confuse obstinacy with strength?

[gerireig]

ejay579: Because they see their own obstinate selves.

[jefft1]

The irony of this protracted, painful competition which should graciously have been ended the night of the N Carolina/ Indiana primaries is that we are privvy to the spectacle of the Clinton maliciousness that would play out in an HRC presidency. It is all coming out in the wash as she unravels and her real contempt for all that disagree with her views. She is proving out that just how very much she is both Narcissistic and lacking in true empathy as is Bush. What they both share is that they surround themselves in a coterie of those that only do their bidding, see it her way, and reject any outside forces. This mentality has aided and abetted George Bush's blindness to the outside world and HRC appears, in the death throes to be similiar. Just witness her handlers and it is apparent that she lives within a bubble and surrounds herself with her do gooders and bidders only.

[dumboldfarmer]

I disagree with Mr. Edwards statement that her words weren't well chosen. I believe she said exactly what she wanted to say because she knew it would affect the upcoming W. Va and KY primaries.
My bet is that Edwards knows this as well, but feels he needs to speak out in the manner he did to remind her to keep it clean. Won't work.

[Faxus]

Edwards is a loser. After this election his influence in the party will be nil because the party will be two parties and McCain will be the president.

[realtalk]

People you have to see this article, it seems that Bill Clinton is truly out to ruin the entire Democratic Party , with little regard for the millions of VOTERS, the millions of CITIZENS the party represents .
Bill Clinton's destructive, and devisive words to voters in Kentucky and West Virginia, is Bill Clinton's deliberate way of guaranteeing that the people from these states will not vote for Obama if he wins the nomination. Read this article on abcnew.com, and see the outrageous things Bill Clinton is telling the voters in the upcoming states.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/05/bill-clintons-m.html

[bxmask]

It's funny that you don't hear Obama extrapolating this as a racist comment. Hillary jumped on "bitter-gate" when Obama made the statement but Obama isn't touching this one. This is just another example of Hillary Clinton making her views on race in America apparent. She doesn't think America is ready for a Black President. This doesn't make her racist, it just demonstrates her non-progressive views (a la Jeremiah Wright). I don't think we need a President who defends and supports the status quo in this manner.

[Faxus]

That's because he's spineless and doesn't know how to get down and dirty.

[rzan]

It sounds as if he is speaking to a group of first graders. He is really speaking down to these people. It is he who has no respect for them.

[Faxus]

And Obama is a living saint. I don't think you understand what happened. The party has been coming apart for years, too diverse, no common ground between Blacks and Whites, city and country, young and old. It's finnaly stretched to near breaking and come the DNC, it will break. It will break in to two big pieces, neither of which, alone, will be able to defeat McCain. Thanks!

[thirteen13]

Will someone please explain how the offspring of a white woman and a black man equals a black child. What happened to the white part?

[stepintothelight]

Welcome to the Racist States of America!!! It's called the "one drop rule" ... look it up!!!

[NeoStar9]

I knew there was a term for it but couldn't remember it. Thanks.

[realtalk]

Good question! I wish someone would ask all those newscasters, and pundits that question.

[NeoStar9]

It's ignored due to the color of the offsprings skin :(. It's what happens. You can have a parent that is black and the other could be white, asian, hispanic, etc and the child will still be considered black if the child's skin is even tanned. It's almost as if at times as if other groups are quick to distance the offspring as not being one of them.

[NeoStar9]

It's also possible that some people are still uncomfortable with the idea of biracial children or think their viewers might not understand so they don't bring it up when they should.

[Faxus]

Viewers? You need to look at the ratings for cable news. No one watches CNN, no one even watches Fox News. The vast majority of the adults in this country do not have the time to watch the cable news and cannot even afford cable. Most of them don't have web access or laptops. that's a big city thing, not small town rural America, where half of all Americans live. You've been in the city too long.

[srijani]

I'm so disapointed with the Clinton's but this is who they really are.
That crack about hard working whites was in bad taste and she knew it
notice the hesitation when she stated those words.
Was it racism I think not, it was just the Clinton's being the Clinton's
and thats not good.

[thirteen13]

The Clinton's have the mindset of chaos, it's in their blood.

[Ramus]

thirteen13...you've made a good point here and it has not been discussed, recently.

[Faxus]

She was speaking for her constituents, saying what they told her they were feeling. You see, there are about 40 million Americans living in poverty and most of them are white, not black. Most people have that misconception.

[egal]

It tells you everything you need to know about the state of racism in our country

that (black male) Obama gets jumped on for days about saying that any blue-collar workers whose jobs had been taken away with no alternative work available could let bitterness move them into obsession zone with their important beliefs,

while (white female) Hillary Clinton gets a pass for saying that Obama couldn't get the vote of hard working people--white people, of course, which she says as if intimately connected to and inextricable from the phrase "hard working people".

[gerireig]

egal: A HUGE double standard.

[Faxus]

So cry about it. Cry some more, and keep on crying. What a bunch of sops. You people make me sick. You need to pull yourself away from your keyboard and get outside and talk to some real people, as opposed to online liars.

[NCRESIDENT]

You know what is sad is that no one is talking about his 1.5 million donors and believe me they all were not black. No one is talking about his win in Iowa when blacks was just 5 percent of the population or Kansas. No one is talking about how he stuck close to her in the Penn primaries and Ohio primaries losing only by 10 percent which is not a blowout.
When she is stating her facts about the whites not supporting Obama because he is black, did she forget the blue collar workers who didn't support her husband. It is sad if you believe that these "hardworking whites' that are not supporting Barack is a reflection on him which it is just a reflection on their racism. The hidden racism that we still have in America. All of the world is looking at us and if we continue to show the racism in America how can we have others to follow our lead.
What I find interesting is that Hillary forgot about the black people. Since she start campaigning she never talked about the blacks anymore. It became the hispanics, women, and hardworking whites. She disenfranchised herself with the blacks before Obama began getting their votes. Remember blacks thought he wasn't black enough and they coldheartedly supported the Clintons' until SC. So she should ask herself "how is she going to win without the black votes"?

[Aleka4]

Shes bascially running another shell game is why.

She is trying to put forth the case that the entire country is like PA or Indiana or KY - where the racist vote outweighs the AA vote.

It - seems- plausible to you realize that in the north and in the west there is little to no racist vote, so the whites have no problem with him, and in the deep south, the AA vote equalizes the racist vote.

This is why she is so dangerous - now when he does lose KY and WVA, it will -seem- like she's right. And who know if there are supers dumb enough to fall for this.

[fearwig]

So far the media narrative has been that she needs supers to win, and that she is still in the race after all this, so naturally it would seem (to people who don't follow the figures) that she must somehow be squeezing some superdelegates out of this drawn-out campaign.

Why hasn't the mainstream media been quicker to point out that she hasn't been increasing her superdelegate lead, but that it's been bleeding away, and is now completely gone? Why aren't they pointing out that the net movement has been one of undecideds AND former-Clinton-supers toward Obama's camp?

Her only avenue to success is a field in which she's losing. I have trouble believing even she could fall for this argument.

[Faxus]

So where is Obama going to find the 25 million extra voters he needs to beat McCain? Oh, that's right, he's having a voter registration drive. Good move but hardly effective. You know what he needs to do? Start talking to Hillary about being his running mate. You folks are sure gonna be pissed when that happens.

[benwha]

I don't want to call HRC's supporters in West Virginia or Kentucky stupid or racist because I have no idea. But what I would like to know if what percentage of them could explain even rudimentally what the difference is between a Shia and a Sunni?

I hate to generalize but when I see them saying things like they think Obama is a muslim and don't do anything to confirm that belief, it tells me they don't care to do any independent research and are open to manipulation.

[TedAtkMA]

As a person who grew up in southern Ohio and whose daughter currently works in West Virginia, I find offensive all of these posts that suggest that people who don't live on the east or west coast don't read or do research. I doubt that a random sample of tenured professors at Berkeley, UCLA or the University of Massachusetts could "explain even rudimentally what the difference is between a Shia and a Sunni?"

[benwha]

Sorry I do realize my post was a little condescending when I say "manipulation" but I gotta say, I come from a small midwestern town and this weekend I heard it all. "Barrick is a muslim" or "The gas tax holiday means HRC is looking out for us." These people go with their gut and do not consider the fact their gut might be wrong and they don't look into things further. And it just depresses me when I hear so many people say they are not voting for barack because he is a muslim.

It is just really sad.

[benwha]

Article from the Financial Times:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2a50425a-1f86-11dd-9216-000077b07658,s01=1.html?nclick_check=1

"I heard that Obama is a Muslim and his wife’s an atheist,” said Mr Simpson, drawing on a cigarette outside the fire station in Williamson, a coalmining town of 3,400 people surrounded by lush wooded hillsides.

And it is these types of people that the Super Delegates are supposed to overturn the will of the people for? Scary, very scary...

[heal57]

I received 4 emails from people I know with the same statements saying Obama is a muslim, etc. etc., Of course, I had to set them straight, but these are not stupid people. I just don['t get it. What the heck is wrong with so many people? The Bush administration has ruined so many lives and I get these crazy emails. Boy, do we need education here. However, these people are in their 50's and 60's. It's too late for them.


Independent for Obama '08

[Aleka4]

Ah those are the spam email people I am guessing.

My 65 yr old father thought the same thing - from his email spam! I had to set him straight, too. In his defense, he lives in Canada and isn't too interested in what we are doing down here, so had no reason to inform himself further, like because he had to vote.

[duze]

These people are the Hillary supporters, totally racist.

Paul v. Clinton http://www.lasuperiorcourt.org/civilcasesummary/index.asp

Talk about guilt by association. The Clinton's previous Pastor, Reverend William Procanick convicted of Child Molestation
http://www.uticaod.com/homepage/x1637676857

Present Pastor, Reverend Dean Snyder praises Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

[rzan]

I beg your pardon. I am 60 years old, and I could care less what religion Obama is. Religion is irrelevant to me in any candidate. I support Obama 100% be he Christian, Muslim, Buddhist or Hindu. And by the way, my 88 year old parents could care less either.

[stringer]

Read that too, it's disturbing.

At least people seem to understand why Obama' s going to lose that state by 70%.

Listen there's nothing wrong with West Virginia, been there it's a beautiful state, but it's also the 3rd oldest state in the nation. Many (not all) older people are rightly and justifiably proud of their previous acheivements. Sometimes however this makes them blind to the equally important changes that are coming in the future.

You cannot have a future without a past, but there is no point to the past without the future.

[Faxus]

Yeah, maybe they are just too dumb to be able to vote. maybe we should dienfrachise them? Yeah, we'll just take their vote away. Super! Too dumb, can't vote. Sorry.

[JaneaneTheAcerbicGoblin]

Honestly, Edwards jumping into the foray again means nothing. Where's he been lately? He should have endorsed someone a long time ago, but methinks he was trying to play both sides for a VP slot.

He's not gonna get one now from either candidate. It's too late.

[JuniorBug]

He has explicitly stated he would refuse VP if offered. He, like Gore, is acting as one of our party's grown-ups, looking out for the future of the larger party instead of getting wrapped up in a personality cult conflict. Somebody's got to.

[Ramus]

He really is not after the VP slot..I don't believe. He'll do something in the poverty relief area..either publicly or privately. Hillary can stay in it as along as she wishes. I've changed my opinion on that. Her supporters will feel disenfranchised if she doesn't..but she should go after McCain and not Obama while she out there campaigning in these last few states. She should make nice to the Obama people and the Obama people should make nice to her.

[Faxus]

Complete agreement. Edwards has thrown away his credibility. He's a loser, like the invisible Mr. Kerry. See what happens when you support a loser? Dean was a loser too and now he's running the party. Bill Clinton should be running the party, he is, after all, our only winner. but now, the DNC could have that, he'd be too powerful... Well look where it got us. just look.

[mybelovedcountry]

Obama will go some ways into cutting through the "working class" vote if Edwards is in his corner...

[rimofheaven]

Edwards is too much of a coward to choose a corner when it counts. He's like the back up that arrivives when the brawl is over.

[heal57]

I totally agree. He's self serving and I admit I had once ben fooled by Edwards.

[JuniorBug]

And what if he chose the "wrong" corner? Sorry, Obama supporters, but your guy is not entitled to John Edwards's support.

He's maintaining neutrality for the sake of the party. It's called "maturity."

[Faxus]

Fixing his hair.

[ohiodem250]

After reading many posts here castigating Sen. Edwards I realize why there are not many people who are successful in politics. Politics is the art of mastering public pomp with private tact. Think about it this way. If someone told a large group of people that you made racist comments and then came to you privately and asked you to stop you would dismiss them out of hand. On the other hand, if there was someone who defended you to a large group of people and then came to you and tried to explain in a reasonable way why some people might see it as racist and asked politely to reconsider wording next time you speak that advice would probably be taken with gravitas. It seems to me that Edwards is rightfully trying to place himself in the role of mediator - an Ambassador to the Democratic Hopefuls, if you will. He's not trying to score cheap political points from voters. He's basically sending a message to both Obama and Hillary. "You can come to me as a mediator. I am to be trusted. I'm not going to have a meeting with you and turn around and gossip to the media." Well played, Senator. There's a reason why you're on TV and these people are typing on their computer.

[Aleka4]

The problem is, she needed her hand smacked for this. Something so outrageous doesn't deserve mediation or respect.

Unless we WANT a racist country, we should be making it clear these kinds of tactics are not acceptable - not making ecuses for them. I think it sends a wrong message to everyone from politicians to children to enable such unethical behavior.

[ohiodem250]

I think it is more efficient and effective for Sen. Edwards to come to her as a respected competitor and friend to say, "Hey, the math is a little bleak and some people are construing your remarks as race baiting. Maybe it's time to concede and if you do now you can..." That, to me, is much more effective than him giving her a sanctimonious public lecture. He would never be able to approach her in private with any kind of credibility again. When evaluating how Obama, Edwards, and Clinton interact you must remember they were and are colleagues and that they also have a shared experience that only a handful of living people can claim. Would you castigate your co-worker in public and expect them to receive you with intimacy? I don't think so.

[Ramus]

I am no fan of HRC but I think she was just not thinking when she made the comment..She was just awkwardly quoting what the polling statistics on demographics were saying. The truth is that white working class people (those folks who Howard Dean gracelessly referred to as guys in pickup trucks with Confederate flags on their windshields)usually vote against their own best interests because they can be easily manipulated, and vote Republican. If their economic situation is bad enough and if enough of their loved ones come home from Iraq in a box, this voting pattern might change.

[CaptainVideo]

Hillary has morphed into Archie Bunker's candidate.

[rimofheaven]

Wrong. Archie was a lot of things, but he was not a liar.

[thirteen13]

Finger pointing and lying are the Clintons trademark.

[mystic]

Within the last week this site was inundated with calls for the Obama supporters to unite, and not speak so harshly about Hillary. While admirable, those calls have comparitively disappeared because Hillary has actually continued her negativism and race baiting. No one is speaking now of her having the VP spot anymore either. I suggest she and her blowjob loudmouthed uncouth philandering husband finally divorce and join an AARP health club.

[heal57]

LMAO.