Published in the New York Post on May 28, 2008.
In its final days, Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign has come to echo George Wallace's 1968 run.
Like Clinton, Wallace as a candidate stalked the Northeast exploiting white anger. Like her, he bypassed the nation's more educated and liberal parts to focus squarely on those who felt left behind, rallying animosity against elites.
But behind the mask of populism, it was race that fueled Wallace's campaign from the start. And it is race that has brought new life to Clinton's campaign in its final days.
Like Wallace, Clinton doesn't address racial prejudice squarely, but cloaks the appeal to our darker fears in seemingly neutral issues. He used opposition to school busing; she has played off Obama's alleged elitism and ties to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
To be fair, neither appeal is totally invalid.
Busing failed to integrate our schools and led, instead, to greater segregation as whites fled to the suburbs and/or to private schools.
Rev. Wright, meanwhile, is enough to scare the daylights out of anybody. To have a president who sat willingly in his pews, absorbing and seemingly condoning his hatred, is a worrisome prospect indeed.
But the basic fact remains that Clinton, like Wallace, is relying on race. Their tactics are similar, appealing to the same kind of voters for parallel reasons.
No, Clinton isn't a racist - but she's still using race to win elections. (So, by the way, did Bill Clinton in 1992, with his criticism of Sister Souljah and his much-publicized backing for capital punishment.)
Racism is as racism does. When a politician consciously exploits racial divisions, fears and animosity to win an election, he or she deserves condemnation.
But Hillary Clinton is neither a racist nor a populist; she's an opportunist. Discovering that the establishment consensus has left behind millions of disgruntled voters - the angry white men of yesteryear - she, like Wallace before her, is creating new fissures in the electorate in the hopes of upsetting a harmony that doesn't serve her ends.
Her advocates say that Clinton has found her voice. But this new voice is but an echo of a a discordant note in a discredited past.
In the coal mines of Kentucky and West Virginia and the former factory towns of Western Pennsylvania and Central Ohio, the anger into which this voice taps remains alive, hot and glowing. But most of America has moved beyond prejudice, beyond diversity, beyond even tolerance, into a post-racial era.
It was a proud feature of our politics in 2008 that we seemed to have crested this wave of progress - until Clinton, embittered by frustrated ambition, blew on the smoldering embers of racial fear to stage a comeback for the nomination.
It isn't her proudest moment.
what politican isnt an opportunist, really though
ReplyDeleteany white person who votes for obama is an idiot. he's been brainwashed and conditioned by rev. wright and that whole congregation to hate white people. how the hell can wright talk about being oppressed when he is living in a two million dollar mansion? obama is gonna stick it to whitey if he gets elected. it's what he's been taught. he pays homage to his father who bailed on him at the age of two instead of paying tribute to his white mother and grandmother who raised his selfish, unappreciative ass. i'll bet his uncle who was in wwII was one of his white uncles. he didn't bother to specify. if that uncle was so instrumental in shaping his beliefs, the uncle would have been included in his book and not his absentee baby-dady. he's gonna dialogue with enemy heads of state and foster a new environment of cooperation in washington? he won't even go to iraq with fellow american john mccain and dialogue with an american war hero. this guy is a phony, man. he's gonna change washington? really? did he change harvard university? his church? the illinois legislature? the u.s. senate? the state of kansas, hawaii or the country of indonesia? nothing he's been involved in before has been changed in any measurable way. so, how the hell is he gonna change washington? how can people be so freakin stupid? it's utterly amazing.
ReplyDeletethe new pastor of trinity united church in chicago is none other than the "reverened" otis moss jr. if the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, i think you can safely presume what is taught in the cleveland church every sunday morning. remember the first official act for mayor elect jane campbell was to fly down to havana with the "reverend joan" and have lunch with fidel castro. this is the mindset of these idiots. obama is just an educated, polished art mckoy, both "community organizers" (read registering black voters with an inspirational message of racial hatred). even geraldine ferraro has finally figured it out.
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