Live By Identity Politics….
…Die by identity politics? In the political sense, that is. Matt Bai writes in the NYT Caucus blog that the Clintons are very much risking their political deaths by their all-out attacks on Barack Obama.
Just this weekend, after all the recent attacks against Barack Obama involving his kindergarten essay and cocaine, the “fairy tale” of his antiwar stance, we found out that the Nevada teacher’s union with ties to the Clintons is suing to keep workers on the Vegas Strip from being able to caucus in their workplaces, since most of those workers belong to unions that have endorsed Mr. Obama.
Meanwhile, Robert Johnson, the founder of Black Entertainment Television, made yet another elliptical reference to Mr. Obama having used cocaine. Mr. Johnson tried to walk it back yesterday by saying that he was only referring to Mr. Obama’s days as a community organizer when he said Mr. Obama “was doing something in the neighborhood — and I won’t say what he was doing, but he said it in the book… .” Sure, because community organizing is not the kind of thing you’d want to speak of in public, with children around. Better to let people find out on their own.
What’s most confounding about this latest turn into ugliness, though, is the Clintons’ remarkable capacity to cast themselves as the victims in every fight. And so here is Hillary Rodham Clinton accusing Barack Obama of somehow injecting race into the campaign, because she found herself in a world of trouble for her own comments about Martin Luther King and Lyndon Johnson. Now, I really do think she was intending only to make a sensible point about the value of experience in the White House, but look, the Clintons embody the generation that invented identity politics and political correctness. If Mrs. Clinton couldn’t guess at how that comment was going to land in the black community, then she must have been suffering amnesia.
I wrote last week about how Mr. Obama was facing a perilous moment in his campaign. It seems to me that the same is true of the Clintons, and they may need to step back and briefly reflect. Both Clintons now find themselves in an unfamiliar reality, the kind of all-out war for the nomination that Bill Clinton twice managed to avoid. They will get all kinds of advice from people whose career opportunities are at stake and who will do or say anything to win. They are surrounded by overzealous politicians and interest groups willing do whatever it takes to shut down Barack Obama and deliver their states to Hillary Rodham Clinton.
She may come out of this fight as the "winner" but how much is that victory going to cost? How many burned bridges and scorched earth will be left in the wake of it? Bai offers some good advice that the Clintons will, being the Clintons, ignore. Bai thinks the risks are incredible in the path the Clintons are heading down. Their entire political legacy – such as it is – is about to come down around their ears. Bai thinks that's bad, I kind of think it's finally coming around for them.
By feeblemind, January 14, 2008 @ 3:03 pm
I don’t see it this way. I think the race card here is being played by the Obama camp and a friendly media. The ‘fairy tale’ remark had only to do with Obama’s stand on the war. The HRC comments on LBJ and MLK were code for, ‘Barack never participated in the Civil Rights movement, ergo he is not down for the struggle.’ I detected no subliminal racial sights in either one. But Obama’s camp was quick to capitalize on them and they have the Clintons playing defense. Obama’s campaign has started to fight dirty, but I think you have to fight dirty to beat the Clintons. Either way, it is interesting to watch the Democratic party unravel over the tenets they have long proclaimed.
By Gaius, January 14, 2008 @ 3:17 pm
The Clintons are very, very good at playing the victims. Is Obama fighting back? Sure. But I think the Clintons are hitting first and hard, then whining and playing the poor little me card when Obama responds.
By Mockin'bird, January 14, 2008 @ 4:37 pm
I seem to think and say to myself daily, that feeblemind has it right again; and he’s a quickdraw, as well.
To other things…
“I’m sorry, sir, Mr. Macchiavelli is not available; he’s presently under a campaign contract with Mrs. Clinton..”
“Ms. President, the urine sample is a requirement; here is the sample bottle. Otherwise, we’ll just take a blood sample.”
By feeblemind, January 14, 2008 @ 4:43 pm
You are right, the Clintons are remarkably good at playing the victims. Oddly, I think they actually are the victims in these particular instances. But perception is reality in politics. If the Clintons can indeed be painted with the racist brush, and they go on to win the nomination, what is Obama’s overwhelming black support going to do this Fall? Stay home to punish HRC? I think it would be richly ironic if the Clintons were taken down by a tactic they have used so often on others.
By Mockin'bird, January 15, 2008 @ 6:04 pm
Excellent, again, feeblemind.