The Clintons’ Two-State Strategy
I won’t call it racism. Racism takes a lot of forms, but I’m going to give the Clintons the benefit of the doubt about their latest claim and soften the judgment to ‘racial bias’. How can this be interpreted any other way?
ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos Reports: Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and former President Bill Clinton are making very direct arguments to Democratic superdelegates, starkly insisting Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., cannot win a general election against presumptive Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
I’m sure they’re citing the poll numbers released earlier today that seem to indicate that Clinton would win Ohio and Florida in a general election. Of course, this argument is silly, because right now Clinton and Obama are opponents. If Clinton would outperform Obama today, would Obama outperform Clinton tomorrow after her endorsement?
But more to my point about racial bias, consider this report from TPM:
In a reference to Wright’s controversial views, Ickes continued: “Nobody thinks that Barack Obama harbors those thoughts. But that’s not the issue. The issue is what Republicans [will do with them]…I think they’re going to give him a very tough time.”
Well, duh. And do the Clintons think that they’re immune from stories like this one where a former boss publicly stated that he had fired 27-year old Hillary Clinton and refused to give her a letter of recommendation for her unethical efforts in the Watergate investigation?
Why?
“Because she was a liar,” Zeifman said in an interview last week. “She was an unethical, dishonest lawyer. She conspired to violate the Constitution, the rules of the House, the rules of the committee and the rules of confidentiality.”
The Clinton campaign is desperately engaging in voter suppression (he’s not electable in November, don’t vote for him in the primaries), and the direct statements that he cannot win.
Further, instead of answering the call to have a dialogue about race and begin to elevate the discussion to the issues and pivot away from politics-as-usual, the Clintons are essentially saying that the American electorate will reject a candidate who has demonstrated integrity, honesty and leadership on the question of race, but if a white woman runs, she will capture those states and somehow win the election.
In the end, it’s less about what will be thrown at Obama or Clinton by the Republicans, but how they’ll deal with it. If you look to their history, it seems clear to me that the one who has dealt most effectively and honestly with it is Barack Obama, which is consistent with what voters seem to be saying at the polls.
If Hillary Clinton thinks she’d win on the two-state Florida/Ohio strategy, she’s really reached the lowest point of the denial phase of grief. Let’s hope she moves through the rest of the stages rapidly.
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