"Let me be absolutely clear where I stand on all of this. There is no room for sexism in a modern political campaign. There is no room for racism either. There is no room for remarks that could reasonably be interpreted as sexist or racist. In fact, given the history of sexism and racism in this country, there is no room for remarks that could even be willfully misinterpreted as sexist or racist. There is no room for rudeness, or for the appearance of rudeness. There is no room for comments of any sort by anybody a candidate might have met under any circumstances in the course of his or her life, unless they have been vetted for sexism, racism, rudeness, or the appearance of these qualities by the campaign's senior staff. There is no room for unfair accusations that the opposition candidate has engaged in sexist, racist or rude remarks, or that anyone he or she has ever met has engaged in such remarks. And of course there is also no room for perfectly fair accusations of this sort, which can be misinterpreted, and usually are.

Basically, in the modern political campaign, there is no room for remarks of any sort on any subject which could be interpreted as giving offense to anyone, and that covers just about every subject there is. Therefore, my campaign will enter a cone of silence from now until I am sworn in as president next January. And I call upon my distinguished opponent and her campaign to do the same. The stakes in this election are much too high for anyone to say anything."

-- Michael Kinsley, "Offense Taken", Washington Post Op-Ed

Throughout the Democratic primary campaign, there have been charges of racism, race-baiting, playing the race card, etc. For the most part, it has been the Clinton campaign that has been blamed for bringing race into the debate. This has been largely supported by the mainstream media (right and left), the blogosphere (right and left), and Obama supporters and campaign staff - and seems to have become the majority opinion. But is that the case?

There are some, myself included, who have argued that the race-baiting has actually originated from within the Obama campaign itself - but are we right or are we misreading events - or simply indulging in the politics of personal destruction? Or has it been the media raising the issue and fanning the flames simply because there is a minority candidate in the running and it's a headline-grabber? Or is the GOP feeding these stories to the press in an effort to smear both candidates?

Unfortunately, many debates involving race here degenerate into the closest we get at America's Debate to flame wars - and too often such threads end in tears (or closure). I'd like, if possible, to keep this one civil. It would be good if people could bring as much foundation as possible to their arguments and avoid inflammatory remarks. We're trying to assess the race-baiting in the campaign, not contribute to it. Many of the statements that have been characterized as "racist" are open to a bit of interpretation, so we will obviously be bringing our own opinions and parsing into the discussion. But I'd like to keep those opinions confined to the statements of others without adding our own smears.

So:

Who do you think has most frequently played the race card?

On what do you base your opinion?

Why do you think they would engage in race-baiting?

Examples are welcome - but do try to provide sources. Be as objective as you can and, if humanly possible, avoid incendiary comments (this goes for me, too).

I might as well repeat myself...

Who do you think has most frequently played the race card?

Barack Obama. Without a doubt.


On what do you base your opinion?

Watching Barack Obama speak, listening to his supporters in the global (as opposed to the US) media. Reading posts by Obama supporters on


Why do you think they would engage in race-baiting?

Because for Barack Obama, race is an ace he can play at will and no one can openly call him on it without being judged out of line.

I have to say that it is definately the Clinton Campaign. But I am willing to hear MOIF's argument on this other than a simple statement.

Let's start with Bill Clinton's remark and just adress this issue first.



link


Well, we see he makes a comparison here with Jesse Jackson and Obama. So my first question would have to be... "Why Jesse Jackson?"

In what ways are these two men similar, other than race, for Clinton to make this comparison.

The only meaningful similarity I can think about with out going super deep or super shallow, is race, but I am open to other opinions.

This does not make the statement racist, but it adds racial connotations for no other purpose but to discredit Baracks candidacy on the basis of race. Clinton used race to achieve an agenda, that makes it race baiting in my opinion.

1) Really hard to say. It is the 800 pound gorilla in the room, in any event. The problem is, for a white candidate, playing the race card can really backfire. A black candidate has an easier time playing it. The same corollary holds true, at least to a great degree, for the gender card vis-a-vis a male candidate.

2) Reading and watching very much about this campaign, and about 30 years' experience watching campaigns.

3) For the Clintons, it's easy. The card is used only if it looks like other means are not working and they become desparate. For them, this issue is like handling nitro-glycerine--very dangerous.

For Obama, so long as he's winning, he does not need to overtly bring up race, as his race is evident every time you see him. His race can chill debate about race, at least among whites, because of the potential for backfires. Speaking in platitudes and generalizations has been his approach and it has worked.

The fact that apparently the Clinton campaign finally chose to bring up the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's incendiary speeches and it has lead to Obama's need to make a race speech tonight is an indication the Clintons were getting desperate. This strategy could be working. Obama has not needed to deal overtly with race much until now. We will get to see how believeably he addresses the issue.

What is interesting is black liberation theology does not really distinguish between the public and private spheres the same way more traditional U.S. theology does, at least when read in concert with the U.S. Constitution.

One scholar at Wake Forest, in describing a step along the road to black liberation theology, suggested:

"It was at this point that [MLK]exposed the moral failings of the white clergy of Birmingham. They were hiding behind a faith in two spheres: the public and private, the secular and the sacred, statecraft and soul-craft. While Whites accepted without challenge the idea that one can draw such distinctions, King drew on the rich resources of the Black Church which refuses to separate or compartmentalize life in this way. African-American spirituality taught that there is a unity of sacred and secular, that the entire world belongs to God, and all within it. And because of that, there can be no separation between church and state or society and the church. "

http://www.wfu.edu/~matthetl/south/eighteen.html


"There are many reasons why Christianity has not been real for blacks [and needed black liberation theology to make it relevant]. To begin with, white Christianity emphasizes individualism, and divides the world into separate realms of the sacred and secular, public and private. Such a view of the world is alien to African-American spirituality. The Christianity that was communicated to blacks had as its primary focus life in world to come. This was at odds with traditional African spirituality which was focused on life in the present world."

http://www.wfu.edu/~matthetl/perspectives/twentyseven.html

So, one advantage Obama possesses in this debate relative to his church is so many whites, and especially those who have cast aside the church, don't feel threatened by anyone's religion--after all, isn't religion a "private" thing? In short, what his church does may not be that problematic to many whites. For many in the black community, there may not be quite the same detachment. Obama's speech, if he aggressively disavows what Wright espouses, may actually hurt him more with blacks than it helps him with whites because of this lack of separation among some in the black community.

At any rate, Obama's "race" speech today could well be a watershed event in this campaign.

Meh, complicated.

It's true that the history of anti-black racism in the United States has made the public consciousness sensitive to echoes of the shameful past.

Indeed we are thirty to forty years removed from human rights abuses we would sanction other countries for today.

So a white candidate must avoid obvious racism.

Subtle racism is another matter all together and it is far more important in US politics.

Don't call them "sambos"... welfare queens will do.

I agree with droop, the Clinton campaign has played the race card most frequently, though not in a very organized manner.

They do it to dismiss Obama as a serious candidate and paint him as an inexperienced flavor of the month.

This has been one of the chief reasons I can't really get behind Clinton. Her experience isn't much greater than Obama and she's overplayed her hand so much it's a bit disgusting.

I have to go with Turnea on this one- Clinton's not organized, and bit ham fisted and clumsy if anything. I think if anything, Obama has tried to steer it away from that, when he can, and answer it head on, when he can't.

Mostly because he has to win white voters, not black, to win, both the nomination and the presidency. He has to fight the "bradley effect" as well.

Some people say if he weren't black he wouldn't be even in the discussion- he would still be a junior senator from Illinois- I don't buy it at all- I think the fact that he is a viable candidate is because of how bad a job Republicans have been doing in the last 27 years.

It takes a truly bad president to get a lifelong voting republican from Georgia to say "Screw the republican party, I am voting for Obama"- when white guy republicans from Georgia put down thier beer and say something like that, it is a testament on how badly the ruling party did- not neccesarily on who the top running candidate is-

Obama, as I have said, just represents everything GW is not-

Not from a privileged class that has never known a hungry day in his life, or EVER had to worry about personal failure- no one there to enable Barak.

NOT another cocky white dude in a suit.

NOT a bad public speaker that is obviously dumb as a box of rocks

NOT a neo-con.

I think any GOOD white candidate that was male as well would have done well in the dem primaries- but really, I don't think that anyone is as good a candidate for the dems than Barak- white or black, he is just the best they have.

IT is a pity that the republican party didn't notice that they had much better candidates than McCain- if Ron Paul were sitting in McCain's place- we would be wondering why Ron Paul has such rockstar status and why he is packing auditoriums full of a very diverse cross section of voters- but they went with "McSame"- which is a McShame.

He IS inexperienced, but then, so is Hillary. That is the real problem with the experience debate on the Democratic side. I mean, those red telephone ads HC ran basically call out for John McCain to answer the call...

Oh, experience is wildly overrated in presidential politics. Some of our finest presidents were inexperienced its the old hand political operatives and their cronies one has to be careful of.

What the Democrats have is better policy, that trumps years soaking one's head in Washington any day.

Obama is has experience working as a grassroots organizer and is a constitutional law expert. That I think will do.

No one man or woman can be a government and he'll choose a good cabinet. Worked for George Washington.

Well, if experiance means "doing the same dumb thing over and over"- ya maybe McSame does have the experiance. In fact, I would prefer someone that DOESN'T have that experiance. I prefer someone more nuanced and, well, smarter.

But, back to the question at hand, Obama's speech yesterday was the first that Obama dealt exclusively with the race, his pastor, and black community views and such. Very, very well done. In fact, I would even call it "refreshingly honest and sincere", like no other candidate, has done, ever.

The way he presented both sides of the racial view was outstanding, knocked it out of the park- here is the yahoo news version:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080318/ap_on_el_pr/obama_race

The way he refused to "disown" his pastor while addressing the issue- well, damn, that was outstanding- what can I say?

Obama said sermons delivered by his longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, "rightly offend white and black alike." Those sermons from years ago suggested the United States brought the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on itself and say blacks continue to be mistreated by whites.

While Obama rejected what Wright said, he also embraced the man who inspired his Christian faith, officiated at his wedding, baptized his two daughters and has been his spiritual guide for nearly 20 years.

"I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community," Obama said, speaking in front of eight American flags. "I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother — a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe."


Obama said Wright's comments have sparked a discussion that reflect complexities of race in the United States that its people have never really resolved.

"We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country," Obama said. "But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow."

Obama said anger over those injustices often find voice in black churches on Sunday mornings. "The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright's sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning," he said.


You want plain spoken honesty in a candidate? Well, there it is. Just awesome. I may not agree with his policies, but I find myself admiring him more and more.

Oh, thank God someone said it!

It has been the studious avoidance by American politicians of that reality which I feel is the most consequential race card in our public discourse.

Until someone deals with that reality, they have no credibility on race issues. I'm with CR, home run.

That's pretty rich coming from a guy who goes to a black-only church. If he came to my church, he would find something different, but then again my church wouldn't help a Kenyan-Hawaiian-Indonesian earn his "African-American" bona fides. How can you lament the racial divide on Sunday morning, when you are helping to maintain that very divide with your choice of church?

Sounds like he nailed the speech though, which is true to form.

Indeed, but form follows function I think.

What Obama did with that speech was sidestep the petty dialog over his own racial background and instead focus on what characterizes the nation as a whole.

Instead of playing the race card, he addressed the race issue.

Fault the man for being a masterful orator if you will, but it's hardly a negative.

Who do you think has most frequently played the race card?

I think without a doubt it has been the Obama supporters, certainly the ones here on AD.



On what do you base your opinion?

Just look at the posts and threads here. Day after day we get people coming here and ripping into the Christian Right for things that some associated with that group have said. Then, they point to any interaction McCain has had with them, even something like one of them endorsing him and proudly proclaim, "See!!! McCain is an intolerant bigot! McCain hates Catholics, he hates gays, he hates blacks!"

Ok, then along comes Rev Wright who has had a close association with Obama for decades. People bring that up and suddenly the Obama camp starts screeching "racism! bigotry! You don't support Obama cause you're afraid of a Black President." Well, I don't support Obama because he's a big time 1970's tax and spend liberal, but that's beside the point. I must be a racist, and I should feel guilty and I'm not going to get invited out with the guys for a beer.

That's race-baiting to the extreme in my opinion. But what the hell do I know? Afterall, I must hate blacks because I'm a conservative Republican.



Why do you think they would engage in race-baiting?

For the same reason a dog licks his private parts.... Because they can.


Aquilla

Who do you think has most frequently played the race card?
The Clinton Campaign has played the race card with a close 2nd being the media. You have from the Clinton Camp Ferraro saying Obama got this far because he is black. You have Bill comparing Obama to Jesse Jackson i.e. Even Jackson won South Carolina. Here Clinton compares Obama to a person that is seen (by some if not many) as a hot headed Civil Rights activist concerned only with Black Power. It also allows Clinton to downplay the loss in South Carolina by playing the "black people stick together race card". Also from her camp there are "volunteers" using race to divide and muddy the waters. One volunteer sent out an e-mail claiming Obama was a Muslim. Add to that the leak of Obama dressed in African garb allegedly leaked by the Clinton Campaign or enthusiastic "volunteers". From top to bottom the Clinton campaign has used the race card. When it backfires all she has to do is have someone resign, make a statement about how unconscionable the remarks or actions were, and move on. Because in the end just like in a court case no remark is really stricken from the record or disregarded by the jury.
On what do you base your opinion?
I base my opinion on what I see and hear. From newspapers, the net, and radio.
Why do you think they would engage in race-baiting?
I think Clinton will do anything and say anything to win. So if playing the race card helps her win she will do it. If crying helps her win she will do it. I think Clinton believes she can do these things, get the nomination, then turn around and with puppy dog eyes mend the fences and get the support of all the democrats she has offended.

Who do you think has most frequently played the race card?
This is a difficult question to answer without citing very specific examples, because I think the answer will depend on the instance. In a general sense, I feel like the media has pulled the card out of the deck more often than the Clinton campaign has played it. Proving it is a challenge, however. Its kind of like a technical foul in a basketball game. More often than not, its the guy that retaliates that gets the "T".

The Dr. Jeremiah Wright's story is a very good example. Which came first, Sean Hannity (the chicken, yeah, I know, but it was just too easy ), or Clinton's communication director (egg)? Or another source altogether. Given the viral nature of the internet, who really is responsible for the story (I want to be clear in separating it from the race card) vs. the specific playing of the race card? Admittedly, one could make the case that its one in the same with this issue. I really don't have a good answer here, but I will say that the media most likely (especially the blogosphere and talk show circuits) have been the most responsible for giving this the race card play they want because it inflames and gets ratings.

On what do you base your opinion?
Two things, perception (yeah, I'll own it), and my understanding of the sequence of events. Let's take a look at a few examples, cited from a previous thread and part with Wertz's assistance:

1. The MLK comparison to Pres. Johnson. The race comparison really only gets played here due to the analogy. But Clinton chose to issue the volley, and given that its over MLK's ability to get racial issues legislated, she gets the race card blame here.

2. The Jesse Jackson comments following Obama's SC victory. This one is fairly obvious. Ding Clinton again.

3. Geraldine Ferraro's semi-obvious comments. She was on Clinton's campaign, so again, ding. The media gets a ding here for making a firestorm out of it.

4. Bill Shaheen's comments regarding Obama's cocaine use. The race card here is scurrilous at best, so I'm gonna ding Obama's campaign due to including it in the memo. The media gets a ding here as well because the race piece (admittedly perception is running here) really seemed to come out of the spin in the media vs. either campaign.

5. Clinton's "Fairy Tale" comments about Obama's Iraq position. Donna Brazille is the one that made the race card out of it, so the media gets dinged here but Obama's campaign gets a ding for using it in their campaign memo. I found it ridiculous how this got played out of context. It became a meme for Obama's campaign being a fairy tale when that isn't what Clinton was saying. Big media ding here.

6. Obama in the muslim garb on a Congressional junket. This one is hard to find a patient zero on. Did Clinton's campaign circulate it? Probably. Is it race related? I don't think so, but I know others paint with a different brush than I do. This was more targeted at the muslim card for Obama which is at best a veiled race issue ala Louis Farrakhan, etc. At best Clinton gets a ding here but this really didn't gain much legs on it. Maybe half a ding since I think the race part is loose, which hits the media again due to spin.

7. Dr. Wright. - This is hard to score. The media likely gets the most blame for playing the card but I have no doubt the Clinton campaign took advantage of it. For scoring I'll give a full score to the media and a half to the Clinton campaign.

The problem in scoring here is similar to the technical foul analogy I made earlier. Do I ding the side that retaliated when the card was out there to begin with?

Right now I have the scorecard as follows based on the 7 examples cited: Clinton Campaign - 4 (1,2,3, 6 half, 7 half), Obama campaign - 2 (4,5), the Media - 5(3,4,5,6,7)

Why do you think they would engage in race-baiting?
This is an invitation to speculation. One argument that I can understand is the Clinton's being upset at losing so much African-American support compared to previous campaigns. To be fair, per the Kinsley quote, its like a double play in baseball. If the throw gets in the ballpark of the bag, its an out (race card). That's why I lay much of the blame at the media's feet. Its the spin that seems to draw the card out more than the actual words, with only #2 & #3 being blatant plays. The media's excuse is obvious - ratings. Unity isn't news worthy, neither is post-racial politics. For Obama, I think its the counter-punch that seems to get them in trouble. That's the only time I've flagged them on it, in retaliation.

1) No question it's been the Clinton campaign.

2) I base it on several things: the Jesse Jackson comparison, the Ferraro comments, the way her campaign makes it a point of bringing up that Obama is a black man, and the manner in which she's used black surrogates to publicly criticize Obama. For example, I seriously doubt that she would have enlisted the aid of Bob Johnson if her opponent were not black. With his big business ties, he should be more of a liability than anything to her campaign.

3) To win votes. The specific mechanism for winning more votes varies with each instance of race-baiting. For example, the Ferrarro comments were an attempt to equate Obama's successes with affirmative action, which plays on very popular, negative feelings of reverse racism. The Jesse Jackson comments were meant to pigeon-hole Obama as the typical black political figure. I think the comments from Clinton's black surrogates are an attempt to lure Obama into a fight over black voters, thereby alienating non-black voters.

Clinton is free to court the black vote as she would any other demographic constituency without fear of being pigeon-holed as a candidate who is only for that demographic. If Obama publicly courted/fought over the black vote as much as Clinton, he risks being painted as the black candidate. The black candidate is not going to win any national elections, ever. That's why Obama has an invested interest in race not being a part of this election; because to do so makes him the black candidate.

I think that white voters tend to feel threatened by what they consider to be the typical black political figure. They see black political figures as bringing up race to bully whites into compliance by trying to make them feel guilty and racist. They exceptionalize Obama because he avoids much of the racial territory people expect from the stereotypical black political figure, which allows white voters to not feel guilty and racist. The few instances he does bring up race is to frame race issues as something that we all simply need to move beyond.

Fair enough. Just bear in mind that I'm seeing all this through various cultural filters, and I'm not talking up either Clinton or McCain either.

When I look at the Obama campaign, I don't see Barack Obama. The things that have really stood out about the 'pre election elections' for me, have been how hostile the media has been towards Hillary Clinton, how invisible John McCain has been in the European media, and how much of Barack Obama's campaign is essentially being run by third parties, such as supporters, enthusiastic media and the like. I only recently got to watch Barack Obama himself, as opposed to being told about him, and even then, its only because I went to You Tube and watched some of the speeches. What I found was vapid, devoid of much substance. Typical American election posturing. Uninspiring.

To me, the Obama campaign seems tailor made. Everything Barack Obama says is designed by a cunning political mind to elicit a specific response and he gets it. This recent 'race speech' is no different. No sooner had Obama made it than it was met with open arms by Americans and foreigners alike, desperate to hear it. You only have to read some of the responses on to see how badly people wanted to hear this speech, wanted to hear Barack Obama say it. The BBC also immidiately ran the story as a head line though why a speech about race in an American election is global news, never gets explained. One thing is for sure, no speech by McCain is ever going to be met with as much welcome on the BBC nor would any speech on race by either Clinton or McCain have been met with such heart felt gratitude.

The speech is seen as being a response to the Wright affair. Again, I don't buy it. Obama's people knew Wright was going to be a liability and they've been prepared for a long time. The speech is far too smooth to be the work of an unprepared but basically honest politician. They knew this was coming, I would not even be surprised if they'd provoked it some how to give Obama the chance to make just such a 'race speech'. They know full well what so many people want to hear in the USA, that racism is in the past and if you just vote for a Barack Obama, then the dream can come true.

And thats been the message I've seen from the Obama camp all along. He is described as being 'post racial' and yet race/change is at the very heart of his campaign message. This is why Clinton's sniping is put into the shade for me. The Obama camp has been waiting for her to make such a move and were ready for that too. Such is American politics. There are more attack groups than just the 527's or what ever they're called. The level of paranoia and acrimony in these affairs always goes to extreme lengths leaving me pondering the weird contradiction between America's obsession with its political candidates, and American apathy when it comes time to vote for them.

But its all good as far as I am concerned. Despite what others might think, I'm not 'down on African Americans'. I'm just extremely sceptical about popular politicians, especially those who use race as a means to get elected. Obama has nailed his colours to the mast now though (no pun intended) and its going to be interesting to see if America falls for it. The bottom line is, politics is not just about rhetoric, its about getting the job done and I doubt very much if Barack Obama can do it.

I can tell you one thing for certain; Barack Obama will not end racism in the USA any more than Nelson Mandela ended it in South Africa.


Barack Obama lures voters with the promise of a non racial future. Only time will tell if he can do this. He's already covered his bases by saying he knows it can't be done by him alone. Wisely he promises nothing, merely hints at it.


edited to correct poor spelling

Who do you think has most frequently played the race card?

On what do you base your opinion?

I'll tackle these two questions together, following the "scorecard" lead of Doclotus. I've come up with a baker's dozen of "race-baiting" stories and will try to determine what was actually said, how the story was spun, and who did the spinning. As Doc ran into a bit of difficulty with split decisions, I'm allotting each story two or four points (which can be divvied up), depending on the impact of the story. As I type this, I'm not sure what the scorecard may look like at the end - and I may disprove my own assumptions. Then again, I've been monitoring the coverage of the "race-baiting" fairly closely all along, so I'm doubting that I'll surprise myself much...

For the sake of brevity (ha!), I'm leaving out the various memes relating to Obama's Muslim background (the numerous references to Barack "Osama", Bob Kerrey's backhanded defense of Obama's heritage, Bob Cunningham's Barack "Hussein" Obama remarks, Hillary Clinton's "as far as I know" response, etc.). For the purpose of my assessment, I'm including as "Clinton campaign" and "Obama campaign" not only people directly involved in one campaign or another, but also those who have endorsed one candidate or another and those who have demonstrated a clear bias for one candidate or another: in short, clear advocates for one candidate or another. I'm attempting to look at the stories more or less chronologically, though there's often a bit of overlap and it's sometimes hard to tell when a story started - or when it's "racial" spin started. I'm also trying to look at them as objectively as possible. Wish me luck.

Okay, then:


The story: On December 12, 2007, Bill Shaheen (co-chair of Clinton's campaign in New Hampshire) told the Washington Post that he had doubts about the electability of Edwards and Obama. Among other things, he suggested that Obama's background was so relatively unknown that the GOP would do their best to unearth negative aspects of it or concoct mistruths about it. As an example, he said, "The Republicans are not going to give up without a fight ... and one of the things they're certainly going to jump on is his drug use. ... There are so many openings for Republican dirty tricks." When criticized for the remarks (especially by the Edwards campaign), he apologized and resigned from the campaign. Clinton representatives told the press that Shaheen had not been speaking on behalf of the campaign in the interview and that they had disowned his statement (and accepted his resignation).

Two days later, on Hardball with Chris Matthews, Clinton campaign adviser Mark Penn was discussing the campaign with Edwards and Obama advisers Joe Trippi and David Axelrod. Matthews asked if "going after his youthful drug use" was "an appropriate shot" or whether it was "below the belt". Penn replied, "I think we've made clear that the issue related to cocaine use is not something that the campaign was in any way raising, and I think that's been made clear." Trippi interrupted, "He did it again - he said it again! ... He just said 'cocaine' - again!" Axelrod added that Penn had complained about Obama asserting Clinton was "disingenuous on some points. I think that's a lot different than saying someone's a drug dealer."

The spin: None of the flurry of coverage mentioned race or the comments about drug use being racially charged (and the story virtually disappeared following the Iowa primary) - until the Obama campaign began distributing a memo two weeks before the South Carolina primary (immediately following the New Hampshire primary) detailing five instances of "racial insensitivity" on the part of the Clinton campaign, known as the South Carolina Memo. Even the memo, though, didn't specifically construe the Shaheen/Penn remarks as race-baiting - that was left to an op-ed piece by Frank Rich, an unabashed advocate for Obama, a few weeks later: "In an effort to scare off white voters, Mr. Obama was ghettoized as a cocaine user (by the chief Clinton strategist, Mark Penn, among others)."

My assessment: As I mentioned earlier, none of the coverage for the first two months described the remarks as being racially charged. Nor do I personally think they were. A month before Rich's op-ed, Michael Medved wrote a column in January entitled "Obama's Cocaine Confessional Won't 'Blow' His Chances" and there have been numerous references to "cocaine" in the press - including three op-ed pieces in Rich's own paper, the first by Gail Collins on December 15 (the day after Penn's appearance on Hardball) stating that "Barack Obama is the first serious presidential candidate ever to acknowledge using cocaine." No one has yet accused Medved or the Times editorial board of "ghettoizing" Obama for using the c-word, least of all Frank Rich.

Further, allegations of cocaine use were leveled against George W. Bush in 2000 and no one claimed he was being "ghettoized" as "the black candidate". And, while cocaine may have some associations with the jazz culture of the 1930s when Frank Rich was a lad, hasn't it been considered more of a yuppie drug over the past few decades? This should have been a non-issue from the outset - and certainly not a racial issue - but it got the buzz going.

My verdict: Obama campaign - 2



The story: Hillary Clinton won the New Hampshire primary.

The spin: The next day, Washington Post columnist and Obama advocate Eugene Robinson attributed Clinton's victory to "The Bradley Effect" on Countdown with Keith Olberman. The phenomenon is based on the 1982 gubernatorial race in California where polls consistently indicated a double-digit lead for black candidate Tom Bradley over his white opponent, George Deukmejian - yet Bradley lost. This - and several similar instances (David Dinkins, Douglas Wilder, Harvey Gantt) - has been attributed to white voters telling pollsters they were going to vote for the African-American candidate, but once in the voting booth, opted for the white guy. Robinson semi-retracted his statement in an op-ed piece the next day saying that it was "not possible to conclude that racism played any role" in the primary, but that "[w]hen you try to think of precedents, you keep coming back to races such as, well, Tom Bradley's and Doug Wilder's."

My assessment: While I agree that "The Bradley Effect" may well play a role in the general election if Obama's the candidate (and possibly a big one), there's little evidence to suggest that it had a major impact in New Hampshire - in fact, in terms of "identity voting" it was more likely gender that swung the vote in New Hampshire. Bill Schneider, senior political analyst for CNN, indicated, immediately after the primary, that there is no empirical support for "The Bradley Effect" in the voting. He pointed out that the pre-vote polls gave Obama an average of 37% of the Democratic vote and Clinton 30% - fairly consistently for more than two weeks leading up to the primary. Obama actually came away with 36.4% of the vote, almost exactly as predicted. A "Bradley Effect" could only possibly be mooted if there was a sharp drop in Obama's numbers. There wasn't. The change was that Hillary moved from 30% to 39%.

This is a fairly minor card, perhaps, but it did officially introduce race into the campaign, along with the suggestion that Clinton was attracting the votes of shallow liberals who lied to pollsters out of "white guilt". Robinson's comments were picked up on by numerous others - including John Nichols at The Nation (which has endorsed Obama) and weblogs such as Liberal values and The Discerning Texan. The race-based "Bradley Effect" was brought into the coverage spuriously - by Obama advocates.

My verdict: Obama campaign - 2



The story: The day after the New Hampshire primary, Jesse Jackson, Jr., co-chair of the Obama campaign, appeared on MSNBC, attributing Clinton's win to her emotional moment in the Yale Child Study Center. He went on: "But those tears also have to be analyzed, they have to be looked at very, very carefully in light of Katrina, in light of other things that Mrs. Clinton did not cry for, particularly as we head to South Carolina where 45 percent of African-Americans will participate in the Democratic contest ... we saw tears in response to her appearance, so that her appearance brought her to tears, but not Hurricane Katrina, not other issues."

The spin: The story is the spin.

My assessment: If not exactly playing a race card, this was, at the very least, pandering to black voters by portraying Clinton as uncaring about the plight of poor blacks on the gulf coast. This one's pretty clear - and, as of January 27, 2008, race officially becomes an issue.

My verdict: Obama campaign - 2



The story: The same day Jackson was appearing on MSNBC, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, a staunch Clinton advocate, was speaking on talk radio about the campaign. During the interview, he said, "It's not a TV-crazed race. You can't buy your way into it. You can't shuck and jive at a press conference. All those moves you can make with the press don't work when you're in someone's living room."

The spin: Not much spin required here: Andrew Cuomo used a fairly derogatory (in this context) slang expression associated with the African-American community to describe an African-American candidate. Politically incorrect, to say the least - and obviously intended as a swipe, regardless of the vocabulary. Not that it matters, but his comment doesn't even make sense.

My assessment: The Obama campaign may have exploited Cuomo's remark (it made the race cards in the South Carolina Memo a royal flush), but he said it - and it was "racially insensitive".

My verdict: Clinton campaign - 2



The story: On January 7, Hillary Clinton, in an interview with Major Garrett of Fox News, was asked about Obama's reaction to her claim that he offers "false hope".



The spin: The quote, which was immediately truncated by the New York Times as "Dr. King's dream began to be realized when Pres. Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ... it took a president to get it done." This was the only version that appeared anywhere for days - was seized upon by bloggers and op-ed artistes as another example of "the soft bigotry of low expectations", claiming that Clinton dismissed King's work and implied that a white person must finish what a black can only start. Following critical op-ed pieces by Obama advocates Bob Herbert, Maureen Dowd, and Frank Rich, the Times printed an editorial saying that "it was hard to escape the distasteful implication that a black man needed the help of a white man to effect change."

The Obama campaign ran with this interpretation, including it as another of their bullet points of racial insensitivity in the South Carolina Memo. Sen. Obama himself participated in the "denigration of Dr. King" spin in an interview with the Times. "Sen. Clinton made an unfortunate remark, an ill-advised remark, about King and Lyndon Johnson. I didn't make the statement. I haven't remarked on it," he remarked. "And she, I think, offended some folks who felt that [her remark] somehow diminished King's role in bringing about the Civil Rights Act."

My assessment: First, many people have pointed out (and most agree) that Sen. Clinton's statement was factually correct. Bill Moyers, for example, said, "There was nothing in that quote about race. It was an historical fact, an affirmation of the obvious. But critics pounced." So the question centers entirely on what she meant by her response. To me, it looked like she was sticking with her "rhetoric vs. reality" meme, that a skilled manager can accomplish what a visionary can only dream. Clinton's original comment, Obama's response, and her follow-up all had to do with making speeches as opposed to effecting change. It was Obama who brought Dr. King into the debate - and, to my mind, Clinton's response was in no way intended to demean King's vision or his activism (as she clarified several times within days of the original statement) - or his race. Now, to me, it wasn't that great a response - Obama-as-president could theoretically "get it accomplished" as readily as Clinton-as-president - but she was clearly trying to play the "experience card", not the "race card".

Sen. Obama himself said, in the Cleveland debate, "You know, I would not be sitting here were it not for a whole host of Jewish Americans, who supported the civil rights movement and helped to ensure that justice was served in the South." Was he "somehow diminish[ing] King's role in bringing about the Civil Rights Act"? Or was he, too, simply referring to the historical record to make a political point?

I have to agree with Jesse Jackson (Sr.) who commented on the spin in Essence:


My verdict: Obama campaign - 4



The story: Addressing a crowd at Dartmouth College on January 7, Pres. Bill Clinton was asked about Sen. Obama's judgment. Clinton claimed Obama describes himself as "the only one who had the judgment to oppose this war from the beginning":


The spin: The media leapt on one sentence from that response - the last one quoted above - and spun it out of all proportion:

"Pres. Clinton ...described Mr .Obama’s campaign narrative as a fairy tale." - New York Times

"Bill Clinton [was] dismissing Sen. Barack Obama's image in the media as a 'fairy tale'." - Politico

"Bill churlishly dismissed the Obama phenom as 'the biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen'." - Maureen Dowd, New York Times

"So there was the former president chastising the press for the way it was covering the Obama campaign and saying of Mr. Obama's effort, 'The whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I've ever seen'." - Tim Russert, Meet the Press

"To call that dream a fairy tale, which Bill Clinton seemed to be doing, could very well be insulting to some of us." - Rep. James Clyburn, New York Times

But it wasn't until Donna Brazile was interviewed by Wolf Blitzer that race entered the spin cycle:

"For him to go after Obama, using a fairy tale, calling him a kid, as he did last week. It's an insult. And I will tell you, as an African-American, I find his tone and his words to be very depressing." - Donna Brazile on CNN

Brazile's oft-repeated sound-bite was subsequently added to the South Carolina Memo as yet another instance of "racial insensitivity" thus:


My assessment: Pres. Clinton said Obama's claim of consistent opposition to the invasion of Iraq was a "fairy tale". That's debatable. He did not say that Obama's "campaign narrative" or his "image in the media" or or his "effort" or his "dream" - or even "the Obama phenom" - was a fairy tale. He said his "superior judgment" in relation to "the war" was a fairy tale. That's it. And I don't see how arguing that a candidate's record is exaggerted is a racial slur - or how it paints the candidate as "a kid". It's better, I suppose, than claiming Pres. Clinton was calling Obama gay for using the word "fairy" - but not by much.

The media removed the context, the Obama campaign ran with the "racial" spin.

My verdict: Media - 2; Obama campaign - 2



The story: Being interviewed on the street in Columbia, South Carolina, on their primary day, Pres. Clinton was asked what it said about Sen. Obama that it takes two Clintons to beat him. Bill Clinton replied, "That's just a bait, too. Jesse Jackson won in South Carolina twice in '84 and '88 and he ran a good campaign. And Sen. Obama's run a good campaign. He's run a good campaign everywhere. He's a good candidate with a good organization."

The spin: Numerous bloggers, broadcasters, and journalists claimed the statement was intended to inject race into the deabte and dismiss Obama's presumed win as "a black thing".

My assessment: Given the charged atmosphere of the campaign at this stage, it was probably a blunder for Pres. Clinton to draw the comparison, but I don't think he was trying to marginalize Obama or dismiss him - or to remind the blind that Obama looks black. I think Clinton was making a reference to the demographics, but not for the purpose of belittling - any more than saying that "Sen. Obama's run a good campaign" was supposed to be an insult. This is probably one of the most debatable race cards, particularly since it has gained such currency and has pretty much come to be accepted as a given. But I must again agree with Jesse Jackson (Sr.) in the Essence interview:


Amen. I don't think Pres. Clinton was race baiting. He was making an observation about the primary and its likely outcome, based on his assessment of all the factors, including the results of internal polls - and he proved to be right. Jackson was a good barometer for South Carolina: when the returns came in, the similarity between Obama's '08 percentages and Jackson's '88 were striking - both in terms of the overall vote and the black vote.

Numerous Obama advocates have, of course, run with this story in a big way - though they can't be blamed for originating it per se. Race had become such a prevalent issue by this point - including in all of the media's forecasting surrounding the South Carolina primary - that the blogosphere and punditocracy pounced on the mere mention of Jesse Jackson's name.


My verdict: Media - 4



The story: In mid-February, it was reported that Obama's co-chair, Jesse Jackson, Jr., had put pressure on Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri, who had endorsed Sen. Clinton and was acting as co-chair of her Missouri campaign:
The spin: This is another story that doesn't require much spin. There were reports in the blogosphere that the Obama campaign was similarly strong-arming other black PLEO delegates, but none with primary sources.

My assessment: While this story didn't arouse nearly as much publicity as any of the Clinton "transgressions", this seems to be a clear instance of using race to affect the campaign - from the top.

My verdict: Obama campaign - 2



The story: Also in mid-February, the New York Times reported that Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, a civil rights veteran and prominent Clinton supporter, had changed his mind and "planned to cast his vote as a superdelegate for Senator Barack Obama". According to the article Lewis had said, "Something is happening in America, and people are prepared and ready to make that great leap." The story was debunked in the Atlanta Journal Constitution the next day, in which Lewis's spokespeople described the report that Lewis would back Obama as "inaccurate" and that he had not made any decision about his vote.

The spin: Despite the denial from Lewis's office (which was also carried by the Washington Post and several other major papers - except the Times), according to the Chicago Sun-Times, the Obama campaign continued to circulate copies of the article to campaigners and constituents as evidence of a turning tide among black politicians.


My assessment: It's hard to tell what led to the publication of the original Times story (the reporter has stood by his report), the Obama campaign used it as part of their campaign despite its dubious provenance.

My verdict: Media - 1; Obama campaign - 1



The story: During the Ohio debate on February 26, Tim Russert asked Sen. Obama about his endorsement from Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and whether he accepted his support:
Sen. Clinton interjected that she had been endorsed by a splinter party during her first senate run "that was under the control of people who were anti-Semitic, anti-Israel. And I made it very clear that I did not want their support. I rejected it. ... And there's a difference between denouncing and rejecting." Obama replied, "I have to say I don't see a difference between denouncing and rejecting. But if the word 'reject' Sen. Clinton feels is stronger than the word 'denounce,' then I'm happy to concede the point, and I would reject and denounce."

The spin: The Clinton campaign - and the senator herself - tried to get some mileage out of Obama's "weak" denunciation, without much success. I think this was more of a "holier than thou" card than a race card, but the coverage tended to focus of Farrakhan and the NOI.

My assessment: There is a difference between "denunciation of Minister Farrakhan's anti-Semitic comments" and rejecting his endorsement, but to my mind this is almost as spurious as Clinton's "as far as I know" in her rejection of the Obama Muslim meme. Obama didn't solicit Farrakhan's endorsement - as far as I know - and shouldn't be held accountable for his positions. Maybe he should have rejected the endorsement outright, but he did denounce the anti-Zionist rhetoric.

My verdict: Clinton campaign - 2



The story: According to a diaries by jthomascronin and Troutnut at DailyKos, a Clinton campaign ad from early March depicted Sen. Obama as "blacker" because "as most of us know, one of the ways in which to demonize a person of color is to make them appear darker than they are". The next day, Markos Moulitsas ("Kos" himself) picked up the story, publishing two articles about it.

The spin: DailyKos has been rabidly pro-Obama and so virulently anti-Clinton that a number of their contributors went "on strike" and thousands of participants have moved to MyDD. Troutnut's diary was introduced as "yet another reason to despise Hillary Clinton and her vermin strategists" and said that, "I'm not accusing Hillary of technically being a racist. But she is cynically exploiting racism to further her personal ambition, and it's part of a pattern." There were numerous comments debunking the the darkening theory by the time Moulitsas weighed in, yet he posted that the ad also made Obama look "more Muslim" and his second piece, entitled "Obama 'blacker' ad no accident", concluded that "There was a concerted effort by Clinton's ad people to make Obama look darker, more sinister, and with a wider nose. The evidence is indisputable."

My assessment: As it turns out the "evidence" was highly disputable - but no matter. This story was only pursued to add fuel to race-baiting fire. From the outset, the assertion was dubious and was thoroughly discredited - in another DailyKos diary and by FactCheck.org - on the same day Moulitsas added his articles. There has been no retraction by DailyKos nor any of the columnists, bloggers, or newspaper reports that continued to give the story currency even after it had been debunked.

The next day, IAMO contended that the Obama campaign had been doctoring images of Hillary to make her look blonder, implying that her hair color makes her "too damn stupid to be president." At least one campaign has a sense of humor.

My verdict: Obama campaign - 2



The story: On March 7, Geraldine Ferraro was interviewed by the Los Angeles Daily Breeze, during the course of which, she said:
There was an instant furore and within the week, Ferraro resigned her honorary post on Clinton's finance committee.

The spin: While Ferraro insists that she meant that people, herself included, were "excited" about Obama's candidacy, in part, "because he's black" and that her remarks had been "twisted", but her words don't look that celebratory on paper. She obviously confront the race issue head-on and, with "racial insensitivity" central to the current spin zone, the media needed little prompting to escalate the language. Within hours, everyone from CNN to the Boston Globe was making reference to Ferraro's "racist remarks" and her "ugly, bigoted comment", suggesting it was part of an ongoing campaign within the Clinton campaign: "Still, are her statements the uncensored ravings of a bigot - or yet another example of the Clinton campaign playing the race card and then saying, who, me?"

The Obama campaign immediately called the remarks "offensive and outrageous". Obama's foreign policy adviser Susan Rice insisted that Clinton repudiate the remarks (which she has) and claimed they were "far worse" than Samantha Power calling Sen. Clinton "a monster". Obama's chief campaign consultant David Axelrod called the comments part of an “insidious, growing and disturbing pattern” from the Clinton campaign. Sen. Obama himself finally entered the the game and called Ferraro's remarks "divisive" and "patently absurd".

My assessment: Ferraro was clearly making a case for race playing a role in Obama's success. What she said certainly had grains of truth, but for anyone in the Clinton camp to talk about race at all at this point in the campaign is political suicide, never mind saying things that might speak ill of the electorate. And to do so in the midst of this campaign was colossally stupid - and inflammatory. And we can't blame the frenzied media for having a field day with it - not after there was finally someone in the Clinton campaign making blatantly race-oriented comments.

The Obama campaign was very quick to ramp up the rhetoric regarding Ferraro and characterize it as evidence of an “insidious, growing, and disturbing pattern”, claiming that "a pattern of 'accidental' racial slurs has persisted throughout the campaign". Well, there's certainly been a pattern...

But Ferraro is not the only one to have made similar observations. An article that appeared in the Los Angeles Times, reprinted on Obama's senatorial web site, discusses the senator's position on a number of race issues:
The fact that Obama himself acknowledges that if he were a white man, he would not be in his position makes his campaign's exploitation of Ferraro's similar remarks more than a tad hypocritical. Were his remarks "offensive and outrageous"? Is his campaign demanding that Obama repudiate his own words? Is he describing himself as "divisive" and "patently absurd"? Oh, my God - are his remarks the "uncensored ravings of a bigot"? If the argument is that it's okay for a black man to make such an observation, but not a white woman, who's really playing the race card on this one?

My verdict: Clinton campaign - 2; Obama campaign - 2



The story: On March 13, Brian Ross did a story on footage of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama's pastor for twenty years and a member of his African American Religious Leadership Committee, preaching to his Trinity United Church of Christ congregation. His report included footage of Wright that had been circulating on YouTube for a couple of months. Quotes from the video clips included "The government gives [black Americans] the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law, and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America'. No, no, no - God damn America! That's in the Bible - for killing innocent people." and "We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost." and "Hillary ain't never been called a nigger."

Rev. Wright has since stepped down from his position on the campaign team and Sen. Obama was prompted to give a national address on race to address the issue.

The spin: Most of the strongest criticism this time seems to be coming from the right-wing media, conservative commentators and personalities, and GOP advocates who argue that many of the excerpts are racially inflammatory and have applied guilt by association to Sen. Obama.

My assessment: The story was "broken" by the relatively non-partisan Ross and there's no evidence that any of the political campaigns were involved. But it was seized upon immediately by sources places like NewsMax, Fox News, talk radio, and the conservative blogosphere - and they've been thriving on it ever since. As it first appeared as a news item, I'll principally attribute the controversy to the media.

For devoting so many hours to the story, though, with so many commentators emphasizing the racial divisiveness of the Wright excerpts, the GOP and McCain advocates deserve a bit of credit for making the story ubiquitous and playing the first reverse race card.

And because Rev. Wright is an intimate of Sen. Obama and a member of his campaign team, they deserve a bit of the credit "by association" - Wright is, after all, a closer associate of Obama than Andrew Cuomo is of Clinton. But the story really originates with Wright himself and the media's suddenly ubiquitous broadcasting of his sentiments.

My verdict: Media - 2; Obama campaign - 1; GOP - 1


So this is how my scorecard looks:

Clinton campaign - 6
Obama campaign - 20
Media - 9
GOP - 1


By my reckoning, that places the deck pretty firmly on the Obama side of the table, with the media trying to look over their shoulder - and playing pretty much all of the real headline-grabbing cards (with the obvious exception of the Rev. Wright controversy). The GOP hasn't even joined the game yet.

Obviously, some (most?) of my verdicts are open to debate. I'm open to being swayed, but it would take a lot of swaying to get me to accept that "the Clintonistas" have been the prime movers behind the race-oriented controversies that have been raised so far.


Why do you think they would engage in race-baiting?

The media would do it to generate sensational stories and boost their sales/ratings or because of partisan bias (anti-Clinton, pro-Obama, anti-Obama, or anti-Democrat, depending on the source).

The GOP might do it to keep reminding their less tolerant (and slower) constituents that Obama remains black (with all the attendant fear and loathig that goes with it) or, more likely (and in typical Rovian fashion), to turn one of Clinton's strengths - her traditional support by the black community - into a weakness, thereby losing her the primary.

The Obama campaign might do it to co-opt some of Clinton's key constituencies. By characterizing the Clinton campaign and the Clintons themselves as racially insensitive (to say the least), they could easily shift many black voters into their camp (or, as Michelle Obama put it, helping the black community to "get it"). They might also gain a lot of younger voters, especially college students, and more than a few affluent Democrats. Indeed, were most of the charges true, I wouldn't blame anyone for switching candidates.

The first card was played in mid-December, before any of the primaries - when Clinton was leading Obama in the polls (and was ahead of him among black voters by double digits), but there were few serious race-related stories until after Clinton's unexpected "comeback" in the New Hampshire primary. By playing the race-baiting card, starting in South Carolina in earnest, the Obama campaign could potentially secure large black majorities and energize his activist white base, especially on university campuses and among limousine liberals - which, as it happens, is exactly what has occurred.

The Clinton campaign might do it in order to offend liberal whites, drive most of Clinton's black supporters to another candidate, shatter her cross-cultural coalition of support, derail their own campaign, alienate a lot of the media, undermine one of Clinton's key concerns ("It is abundantly clear that race and racism are defining challenges not only in the United States but around the world. And for anyone to assert that race is not a problem in America is to deny the reality in front of our very eyes."), and guarantee Barack Obama the nomination.

I've heard some argue that Clinton campaign wanted to attract more Hispanics and southern whites in the primaries, but that makes no sense. Clinton has always been popular among Hispanics and working class, female, and older white Democrats wherever they live. I have yet to see a compelling argument for why the Clinton camp might racialize the campaign that wouldn't be outweighed by patently obvious self-destruction.

EDITED FOR A COUPLE OF TAG ERRORS

Wertz, well thought out post... If it were a house, it would be a mansion. Here is my problem.



To me Wertz, you are basically telling us before we read the rest of the post... "I'm going to use the word 'campaign', but I'm not going to limit myself to the campaign's of two parties." Regardless how well built you home is, and one can see the effort you put in your post, you're building that house on a dune of sand where you can where you can sway it to forth as it meets your needs. And as can be seen that need is to paint Obama's Campaign as a campaign willingly playing a race card.

MOIF, you seem to be using a similar tact. Where as, because Obama is Black, all he does or all issues that deal with race, no matter how ill the effects, are due to him playing some race card.

In what way can Barack being painted the "Black Candidate" benefit him in becoming the President??

Also you two are so loosely defining the "race card" to something that resembles "anything race related". I've always taken the race card to be "blah blah blah... happened because 'I'm, he, she' is 'insert race'"

Well that's what it used to be, but now it is broadened to such a degree that the race card is any racial issue.

That being said if the operational definition of race card is "any racial issue" and playing the "race card" is any message that touches racial issues, and Campaign is stretched to encompass any advocate, supporter, campaign worker or not, well I guess Wertz and Moif has it right. In fact, Obama played a race card the minute he put his hat in for President of a majority White Country.

But damn, if i don't feel like I am playing Monopoly back home with my family, with the rules so stretched from the original meaning I call it "Hood Monopoly"

I'm going to address Wertz's order first, then some of my own.

One preface though, I would argue that the SC memo should count as only 1 card. It was 1 primary and 1 memo that was a index of comments. My scoring will reflect that but I'll give it a full -4 initially.

Bill Shaheen and Mark Penn: "Ghettoizing" Obama
I think this is mis-scored a bit. Obama's campaign including it in the memo was a reach, so he deserves the ding here. The media gets a full ding for the spin and the "ghetto" facade. Clinton's Campaign still gets a ding here for Mark Penn's handling of it. The only point I'll concede in part here is whether Mark Penn's insistence on using the word "cocaine" each time was racially insensitive. You can't tell me he wasn't choosing his words carefully, Penn knows better.

Adjusted Score: Obama -4 (full SC memo here), Media -4, Clinton -2

Eugene Robinson, et al.: "The Bradley Effect"
This is a good example, Wertz, of where I think you mischaracterize the difference between someone's campaign and advocates in the media. Eugene Robinson might be an Obama advocate, but he is not on Obama's campaign (that I'm aware of). He is a member of the MSM. There is nothing in your position on this example that ties back to the Obama campaign.

Adjusted Score: Media -4

Jesse Jackson, Jr.: No Tears for Katrina
I don't really have a rebuttal to this. It was pandering, plain and simple.

Andrew Cuomo: Shuck and Jive
I don't really have a complete problem with the scoring here. If it had gotten more play, maybe a -4.

Hillary Clinton: MLK vs. LBJ
This is one area where I think the scoring is incorrect, because Obama did weigh in on this, and rose above the race card. More importantly, the race card was played almost exclusively in the media in the examples you provided. The one exception is the SC memo, which I concede, but the rest of the campaign really didn't hystericize this as a race issue vs. a somewhat fair argument of a visionary leader vs. the president who got it done.

I will concede a personal correction from my original position on this. Clinton didn't open with the MLK card, Obama did in a speech after the "false hope" comment.

I guess my question here is, is it automatically a race card to mention MLK? There's no question Obama went there first, but is that a race card to talk about a key figure in American history who led an entire movement? Does that automatically intone race, or is it merely fulfilling Michael Kinsley's prophecy?

Adjusted Score: Media -4, Obama Campaign -2

Bill Clinton: The "Fairy Tale"
Other than the SC Memo, the media gets full credit here.

Adjusted Score: Media -4

Bill Clinton: Jesse Jackson in South Carolina
I think you're spinning a bit here, or at least minimalizing it some. I won't disagree with you or Jesse Jackson that this wasn't race "baiting", but there is no question the race card was played (and was arguably the most glaring example of it at that stage) when Clinton compared Obama's Campaign to Jesse Jackson's. While Jackson was right that the two are linked, Clinton went there, not Obama. Clinton gets the full ding here, along with the media.

Adjusted Score: Media -4, Clinton Campaign -4

Jesse Jackson, Jr.: A Difficult Position
No change here.

Rep. John Lewis: "Something Is happening in America"
I hate to debunk the debunk, but Lewis did switch his vote to Obama, as documented by the AJC on the 28th of February.
Besides that, I'm not sure I see a race card here, other than the fact that he's an African American leader in Georgia. Does his ethnicity automatically constitute a race card? Obama get's no ding here or Clinton gets one too for publicizing his endorsement to begin with.

Adjusted Score: Media -2

Louis Farrakhan: Rejected and Denounced
The scoring is fine here, I could argue for a media ding and more for Clinton, but I'm sure haven't been as even handed elsewhere

DailyKos: Clinton Ads Make Obama Blacker
C'mon Wertz, this is a reach and a wrong score combined. The blogosphere isn't Obama's campaign. At best its a -2 for the media. Obama's Campaign did nothing with this tin foil hat theory.

Adjusted Score: Media -4

Geraldine Ferraro: "Lucky" Obama
This is probably the one where you and I disagree the most. First, the media gets a full ding for playing the card far more than anyone. Second, the Clinton Campaign gets at least a half ding, arguably a full one, in part because of their hypocrisy when comparing this to the Power comments. The only guilt Obama's campaign had was for punching back, which is exactly what they should have done. Samantha Power stepped down with class and grace after her "monster" comment, Ferraro showed little class at all. She made the same exact comments regarding Jesse Jackson in 1984.

Clinton's campaign has asked Obama to denounce AND repudiate Farrakhan, fire Samantha Power, and do the same with Dr. Wright. When Ferraro made at least comparable incindiary comments, her response was tepid at best, that earns a full ding in this case.

Kinsley's analogy probably applies the best here. Is Ferraro a racist? Of course not, but her comment was insensitive regardless. Not only that, she's wrong. While there is no question Obama's race carries a benefit in certain ability to obtain notoriety like in a book deal, it is a far cry to say that Obama somehow has an advantage in this Presidential campaign because he's black. That's just absurd. If Obama were a white man or a woman, he'd likely be blowing Hillary's doors off in this campaign.

Obama's Campaign gets no ding here in my view, any punches thrown were in retaliation at worst, and directed not at the race card, but the divisiveness of the statements.

Adjusted Score: Media -4, Clinton -4

Rev. Jeremiah Wright: "Chickens Coming Home To Roost", etc.
Scoring is fine here, I'd give the media a heaver score, though.

So here's the adjusted score near as I can figure:

Clinton Campaign - 16
Obama Campaign - 9
Media - 32
GOP - 1 (probably deserve more, but my focus is the media)

I think the key difference in our counting is your conceptualization of the media vs. Obama's campaign. And I will concede that the media's culpability may be slightly mitigated by each campaign's willingness to use them for its purposes, but they kinda know that.

It looks like AL Sharpton has just endorsed Obama.


Al Sharpton

Subtract a couple more points from the Obama campaign

I don't have much time at the moment - and a few good points have been raised that I'd like to get back to - but I at least wanted to interject the rationale behind my "inclusiveness" in defining the Clinton and Obama "campaigns". Political campaigns have become incredibly media-driven, especially if we're now including teh internets. We've come a long way from the Nixon-Kennedy debates when an hour-long black-and-white teevee debate, a few cheesy ads, and the odd two-minute piece on the evening news constituted almost the entirety of the "electronic media". We judged the politicians on the basis of their platform - by reading their platform in the paper or a pamphlet, not by downloading Web 2.0 slogans. If we were politically active, we attended rallies to show our support, do a bit of networking, and hear the candidate discuss the issues and his or her proposals for addressing those issues so they could be disseminated by word of mouth. Now, the media is the campaign. Rallies are used as backdrops for sound-bites - and talking point spin has replaced content.

In such an environment, it is important to know - and key to winning a campaign - who is choosing the sound-bites, who is devising the talking points, and who is responsible for the spin. When an increasingly partisan "news" media is increasingly dominated by pundits, columnists, op-ed writers, and bloggers, those partisans, those advocates for one party or another, one political position or another, one candidate or another, they are part of the campaign.

Wooing journalists, broadcasters, and even bloggers has become central to political campaigns - especially those who traffic solely in opinion. People who have access to an hour of teevee time five nights a week - and who have openly endorsed a candidate, a party, or a position - are far more important as part of a political campaign than a has-been politician with an honorary position on a state finance committee grasping at another fifteen minutes of fame.

I will admit that the lines are blurred, but it must also be admitted that in many cases being an "official" member of a candidate's campaign or not has become distinction without a difference. In my assessment, I tried to be as objective as possible in splitting "race-baiting" that was being driven by media coverage ("news" reports) from that being driven by clear and admitted partisans spinning stories on behalf of one candidate or another. Taylor Marsh is, apparently, an unequivocal Clinton advocate, just as Maureen Dowd is an unequivocal Obama advocate. DailyKos has become a virtual Obama campaign web site, just as MyDD is becoming a Clinton campaign web site. The fact that Tina Fey is not on Sen. Clinton's payroll (or volunteer roster) is virtually meaningless. Similarly, when you have a nationally distributed columnist who has endorsed Barack Obama and whose full-time occupation has become Hillary-bashing, it can't be divorced from the campaign.

Perhaps I should have used a different term - "Clinton camp", for example - or maybe divided "Media" into "Obama-biased media advocates" and "Clinton-biased media advocates" (and I'm willing to reassess my scorecard using such criteria).

To me, though, it's just a difference in terminology - the result is the pretty much the same: the race-baiting, overall (and overwhelmingly), is coming from Obama supporters not Clinton supporters. We hear far more about the playing of the race card than the cards themselves, mostly because many of them have little, if any, substance. And the charge that it is the Clinton campaign that has been dealing the cards is patently false. There is a much stronger case to be made that the race-baiting (or race-baiting-baiting) is coming from the Obama campaign faction and that it has been part of the strategy from very early on. A case could also be made that, to at least some extent, it has been orchestrated by members of the official Obama campaign like Jesse Jackson, Jr., David Axelrod, and David Plouffe. I don't think there's any question that "race-baiting" meme has been spread and amplified by Obama advocates, not the Clintons, not the "neutral" media, not the GOP.

I'll be back...

So:

Who do you think has most frequently played the race card?
It so happened this more or less came up on another forum(Hc. in case you're interested Wertz) and I did a little research on it. My impression from that is that the race card interpretations first came up from Obama supporters and then after New Hampshire was woven into the Obama campaign in the form of a 5 part memo, all of which in my view involved bogus rationales, the LBJ civil rights remark of Hillary's being an example. I don't know if Obama himself was ever consulted. When confronted with the memo he ordered the race card game stopped.

On what do you base your opinion?
Sourcing stuff from google.

Why do you think they would engage in race-baiting?
I think from the standpoint of the Obama campaign it was after New Hampshire and they were feeling a little desperate.

Who do you think has most frequently played the race card?

I think the race card is an old and idiotic term, that, like the word Nigger would be A-OK with me if it died an instant death and was never spoken by another human being on earth again, except quietly in universities lined with flowers on the hill.

I think this cynical search for umbrage in the collective remarks of two campaigns is a monumental diversion, complicated by the fact that it has political value -- every time some bozo makes a remark about Hillary's ankles or some bozo married to Hillary makes a remark about Obama's race, one or the other benefits, and the whole campaign dissolves into a question of aggrieved vs. aggrieved, a pyrrhic spy verse spy for the 21st century. So it's very possible that both campaigns are highlighting umbrage wherever they can -- I mean, did anyone really give a whoop that Samantha Power called Hillary a monster to "the Scotsman???" who the heck even reads the scotsman, not even real scots people read the scotsman.

I think that AD has become a very dull, depressing place whenever the subject of race is reared because the same people make the same provocative statements and force the same other people to re-hash the same defenses.

I think that Wertz is clearly antagonized by Obama's preponderance over Clinton, but I can promise Wertz that the feelings will reside but never dissappear if and when she makes her concession speech. I know just how it hurts.

But I can promise you, if we Americans choose this moment to have a debate about the race card, instead of a thoughtful debate about race -- or who knows? the war, the economy, terrorism, human rights, etc. -- then we will fumble and lose what patriotism this country has left in it, and when I say patriotism, I don't mean one's ability and willingness to flaunt a little flag pin, that's easy: I mean the act of genuinely liking the other people one shares a nation with. That's hard.

Because every time some aggrieved Clinton, Obama, or McCain supporter uses the clumsy term race card like a ref throwing a red flag, then our problems fester just a little bit stankier and nothing gets solved, and white people further misunderstand black people and vice-versa, and everyone convinces themselves that their little cozy corner of reality is the god-given truth and we get stupider until no one on AD can even remember how to spell.

So who do I think has most frequently played the "race card"? The same media that invented the term when OJ was on the stands. Feckless goons like WolfBlizzard™ who make a living panning for gold in exit polls instead of getting on the phone and reporting new leads. And you guys watch this stuff, apparently, breath it in, and come on here to talk about it. So much fun. Here's what Joan Didion said, in her essay "Slouching Towards Bethlehem," about why the San Fransisco counter culture would never change the world:



Substitute "broken home" for "race card.

Not all, but your on the right track. After all, if he wins, he will be The First African American President because of who he is. You can't ignore the fact of what he is and what that means. Its implicit in his very skin.

It means everything, even though, paradoxically it ought to mean nothing. It means everything though because of the history of the USA, because of the history of the human race, because of the nature of human beings, democracy, human rights and everything we're supposed to have learned from so many past mistakes.

If Barack Obama wins, the implications could literally change not only America, but the whole world, for better or worse remains to be seen (after all, I suspect he might be a lousy president).

But anyway, you can't have an African American run for president, get so close as this, and demand every one stays colour blind. Its not going to happen. EVERY BODY knows who Barack Obama is and a whole lot of people, for various reasons, really want him to win, mostly I wager because he is 'black'. Because he represents that 'change' simply by virtue of his being black.

Obama will make more history in his first day in office than GW Bush made in his entire political career. If Obama wins, his name will be remembered for a very long time.


Because so many people want change and no one and nothing in this election represents change like Barack Obama does. He is the political opposite to GW Bush where as Clinton is considered compromised by her compromises, and he is the chromatic negative to GW Bush which represents change in a way no one has seen before. The First Black President. You now what I'm talking about. Change. Obama talks about change all the time. His whole message has always been about change. He represents change and he does this because he is far far to the left of GW Bush and because he is an African American.

Hillary Clinton is a woman. She also represents change, but she doesn't bang on about change. Her political message appears to be muted by comparison. I'm sure a lot of women will vote for her because of her gender, but a lot of people will vote against her because they despise her. She is after all a woman shamed by her husbands infidelity and human beings have always punished women for such things. Thats a fact of life and a burden she must bear.

I also believe sexism is far deeper ingrained in human beings than racism is. Racism seems to be curable. Sexism doesn't.


I define racial politics as anything which has a decided racial implication, for or against, it makes no difference. I don't care whether or not Barack Obama uses race as a political tool, he's welcome to, just so long as every one under