The Literary Divide/Dr. Paul Barrows
| Sen. Hillary Clinton, fresh off victories in the New Hampshire Primary and the Nevada Caucuses, has clearly made the decision to put her husband, former Pres. Bill Clinton out front as the attack dog which she hopes will put a stop to the momentum that Sen. Barack Obama has enjoyed after his victory in the Iowa Caucuses. At first glance, the strategy appears to be working. It is working apparently because it was instrumental in helping Sen. Clinton pull off the classic come-from-behind victory in New Hampshire. Despite being projected as an 8 to 10%-point underdog in all of the foregoing polls, she won the New Hampshire Primary; and she also bested Barrack in the Nevada Caucuses by 6% points. In both cases, her campaign used the popularity and persona of Pres. Clinton to bring out the vote and to attack Obama on several key issues. Pres. Clinton attacked Obama claiming that his position against the war in Iraq was inconsistent, suggesting that his position on the war and the benign treatment by the media was nothing more than “a fairy tale.” In their attempt to offset the endorsements that Sen. Obama got from the powerful Casino Workers Union in Nevada, the Clinton campaign filed a lawsuit contesting the Obama campaign’s efforts to allow caucusing in casinos throughout Nevada. In comments to the media in Nevada, Pres. Clinton suggested that the Obama campaign was somehow attempting to make some voters’ votes count more than others. Similarly, in another interview, he told reporters that while strolling through one of the casinos, he was being followed by a host of Latino supporters of his wife’s campaign. Clinton stated that he was “appalled” when he noticed that some of them were quickly threatened by representatives of their Union who were told, “right in front of me” that they would not be released from their work schedules to caucus for the Clinton campaign. The reporters interviewing Clinton asked for names and documentation to support what he claimed had transpired … they were told that Pres. Clinton would get back to them at a later date. Both Hillary and Bill attacked Obama about remarks he made about Martin Luther King on the eve of the Annual MLK Celebration. In an interview published in several media, Obama acknowledged the important leadership role of Martin Luther King in the Civil Rights Movement, and he also gave credit to President Lyndon B. Johnson for his role in getting critical Civil Rights Legislation passed. The Clintons, in their zest to attack Obama and to give Hillary a boost, totally misrepresented what Obama actually said. As the National Public Radio African American reporter Juan Williams noted in his commentary on this last Sunday, “the Clintons, in this instance, have attempted to play the race card against Obama.” They did so by proclaiming in interviews and public statements that Obama’s comments suggested that he undervalued the important role played by Dr. King in getting vital Civil Rights Legislation passed and, worse yet, that Obama was really saying that only White leaders could deliver the goals and aspirations of the Civil Rights movement. The irony in all of this is that a few days afterwards, Sen. Obama was the keynote speaker at MLK’s Ebenezer Baptist Church on King’s birthday. In yet another attack, the Clintons both misrepresented comments that Obama made about the Republican Party and former President Ronald Regan. In an interview widely broadcasted, Obama commented that the Democrats needed to come up with new ideas and initiatives. He intimated that this is what Ronald Regan did for the Republican Party with his efforts to “challenge conventional wisdom.” Both Hillary and Bill grabbed onto that and put their own spin on it claiming that what Obama was suggesting was that it was only the Republicans who had new and refreshing ideas which they roundly rejected. The Clinton attacks have been enjoined by some in the Black community with the most vitriolic of them coming from Robert Johnson, the African American billionaire and former owner of Black Entertainment Television (BET). Johnson went out of his way to show support for Sen. Clinton by making a statement that reduced Obama to being nothing more than a crack smoker and dealer while the Clintons were fighting for Civil Rights. After a huge backlash from African American leaders across the nation, Johnson quickly issued a statement repudiating his earlier comments. To his credit, Sen. Obama has taken the high road and has attempted to stay above the fray issuing press statements and conducting interviews where he rebuked the attacks as unfair and unfounded. The efforts of the Clintons and their supporters have had mixed results. If the effort was undertaken to move the Obama campaign off message on the call for national unity, then it appears that there has been some small measure of success. If, however, the efforts have been undertaken to dampen or diminish African American support for Sen. Obama, it appears that this has backfired as Obama continues to enjoy growing and increasing support with Black voters. In Nevada, he bested Sen. Clinton by a 6:1 margin with African American voters. Sen. Obama’s polling numbers also continue to project strong African American support that will be critical in the upcoming primary in South Carolina and many of the Super Tuesday states with large numbers of African American voters going to the polls on Feb. 5. As for the behaviors of the Clintons and the potential repercussions down stream for the Democratic hopes for defeating the Republicans, South Carolina’s Rep. James Clyburn, senior member of the Congressional Black Caucus, put it best when he said, quoting a favorite phrase coined by the Geechies of the Sea Islands off the coast of Carolina, “Pres. Clinton needs to chill a little bit.” Clyburn also rightfully suggested that Obama should be careful about quoting someone like Ronald Reagan, given the poor standing that he had in the Black community directly as a result of the policies that he promulgated to the detriment of Blacks. Sen. Clinton, whose tactics and strategies could be characterized as a bit of “cutting off her nose to spite her face” could well profit from taking a “chill pill” as well. Failing to do otherwise implies that she feels that it is OK to alienate African Americans for the short-term, believing that if she were their only option later on, that they would come back to the fold and give her broad support in the final national election which is at best, a risky strategy indeed. |
Clintons crossed the line
Vitriolic and unfair attack on Barack Obama
Vitriolic and unfair attack on Barack Obama