Geraldine Ferraro's remarks are just one in a series of attacks the Clinton Campaign has made, all revolving around a single point. No, not race. Legitimacy.
Geraldine Ferraro's remarks are just one in a series of attacks the Clinton Campaign has made, all revolving around a single point. No, not race. Legitimacy.
Throughout this entire process, the only answer the Clinton team has had to Obama's strengths is to dismiss them as fantasy.
Go back and take a look at all the different memes that have emerged since New Hampshire.
First there was "Barack the fairy tale." When the line was first uttered by Clinton, everyone got caught up in the accusations of racial overtones, but what was he really saying? That Obama was beating Hillary because of his opposition to the war and that that opposition was in fact a myth. "Just a speech that he later took off his own website."
Then there was "It takes a president" which began with the LBJ remarks. Obama=MLK. A man who talks pretty and mobilizes people but who is incapable of wielding the long arm of government. To bring about change you need an LBJ figure who's willing to "work hard" and "push things through."
Next there was "Union Gate" where the Clintons claimed that if Obama won Nevada, it was because Unions were suppressing the vote. This later evolved into the larger "caucuses don't count" argument.
Then we had "Obama is the black candidate." People seem to forget that the Clinton camp was sending out memos to this regard before South Carolina. Ferraro did not pull this out of her ass. In the run up to South Carolina, especially after the Jesse Jackson, comments it became conventional wisdom that the Clintons were trying to box Obama in as "the black candidate" as a full fledged campaign strategy. Only when it backfired did they back off of it.
Next came "Obamamania is a cult" where not only him but also his supporters were tossed aside as some sick generation phenemenon. Then "latte liberals don't need a president," words don't count, the media isn't tough on him, he hasn't crossed the commander in chief "threshhold," on and on and on and on and on.
The Clintons and to some degree even the media have been engaged since day one in a game of trying to explain away Barack Obama's wins. Beneath this is the assumption that there is no logical or substansive reason for Barack to be ahead. It's simply not possible for any rational, objective human being to choose him over her, there must be something else at play.
Their whole operation has been reduced to, in essence, a child throwing a temper tantrum because they didn't get selected for the school play.
I'm sure some people may have detected a degree of racial condescension from the very beginning, but until recently it was not explicit and largely debateable.
The problem with Geraldine Ferraro's remarks is that when taken within this larger context she has made the racial link that already existed to some people overt. Given that they've been saying for 3 months now that his victory is illegitimate and somehow sinister, linking that to his skin color is at best irresponsible, at worst a reprehensible accusation that, as Keith Olbermann said, he is only where he is because of some kind of unspoken quota. A subconscious desire among his supporters to see a black president at any cost.
This suggestion and indeed the larger pattern of dismissal engaged in by the Clintons is not only insulting to Obama it is insulting to those who voted for him. Their inability to recognize their own failings or the other side's strength will be a big problem in November. And yes, now that this patter appears to be heading into racial waters, it simply needs to stop. For everyone's sake.