I just don’t get it anymore. This seems like Campaigning 101. Don’t make a racist joke while running for national office.
www.nytimes.com/…
“Thanks for the endorsement, Bill,” Mrs. Clinton said to Mr. de Blasio, a former aide to Mrs. Clinton when she was a senator from New York who nonetheless dallied in supporting her. “Took you long enough.”
“Sorry, Hillary,” Mr. de Blasio said. “I was running on C.P. time,” a reference to the stereotype “Colored People Time” that drew some cringes from the audience.
Mr. Odom, who is black and appeared to be in on the joke,
It’s one thing to lose your cool after months of exhausting campaigning. We’re all human. But to knowingly participate in something scripted like this? It seems like malpractice.
I am sure many people are tired of being used as a political football and having people they don’t even know feign outrage and melodramatically pretend to be offended on their behalf, so I’m not going to go there. There are obvious standards we have or at least should have and if deliberately inflaming ugly stereotypes like this doesn’t cross the line, I don’t know what does.
On a broader level, how can someone who’s primary claim to the presidency is “competence” continue to demonstrate the exact opposite on the campaign trail? A week before a major primary, three days after your top campaign surrogate catches hell for stirring the same pot, you go out in public and participate in a racist comedy skit, when the only people still voting for you in overwhelming numbers are African American. That’s pretty bad judgment.