The Clinton’s want the presidency, it almost feels like they think it a birthright, but along the way comes a charismatic young Senator who is indeed quite short on qualification, in the Senate a total of 3 years. (Say what you want of Bill Clinton’s experience in 1992 but he was a several-term Governor and nationally known for years)–And this young Senator is liked, whereas the Clintons are finding in some places a reverse Sally Fieldism (a lot of people, indeed a lot of Democrats, really don’t like them).
So, the Clintons double up and play and fight hard–well, welcome to the world of tough politics Senator Obama. Can anyone point to a racial insult by the Clintons? ‘Fairy tale’ and semaphoric references to past drug use are not racial assaults (the fairy tale comment was about Obama’s Iraq stance for instance).
But, I gather, merely because Obama is black, many in his camp and many of his supporters took the hard Clinton campaigning as racial…..BUT THAT IS WHY so many of us have begged for colorblindness in our politics and policies: so that you could praise rightly and critique rightly a man or woman without his or her race being seen as part of that praise or critique. So, in an ironic sense, the philosophy that the Clintons held, about this country not being ready for a policy of colorblindness, has come back to bite them: race-identity politics and policy is a sword that can cut two ways.
And if we are being honest, I think we have to admit that when a candidate does talk like this, race cards are (unfortunately) being played: “Some people say . . . African Americans can’t do it….I’m one of those people who, when you tell me I can’t do something, that’s when I decide I’m going to do that.” AND: “They’re trying to bamboozle you. It’s the same old okey-doke,” he said, using slang for a con job. “Y’all know about okey-doke, right? It’s the same old stuff.”
It’s a shame politics has come to this, although we conservatives have been saying for years it’s not right–while the Clintons, while in office and since, have reaffirmed policies and politics of non-race neutrality for years. Maybe soon they will see our, and Martin Luther King’s point.