Politico reports that, "in Pennsylvania and Ohio, Clinton won a stunning seven in ten white voters age 60 and older." The reason for this is obvious once you know where to look. Hillary Clinton is pursuing the same strategies as the segregationist George Wallace did in order to convince older white Democrats to vote for her.
Those of Barack Obama's generation or younger have few memories of George Wallace and have trouble relating to his racist message. Older voters, however, are well aware of Wallace's impact and many were sympathetic at the time to his message. Hillary Clinton is craftily playing off this hidden communication and bond.
The Sixties are ancient history to most of the readers of this blog, but they are alive and well in the Clinton campaign. In 1968 Hillary Clinton was 21 years old and openly working for the Republican Party. She had a good view of George Wallace's racially motivated run for the presidency. She learned from Wallace how to demagogue race while appearing to be the white knight coming to the rescue.
Like Wallace, HRC vigorously denies any racist intent, while slyly exploiting the politics of racial division. We all know how her surrogates have tried to make Obama unelectable; Penn tried to paint Obama as a cocaine dealer, Clinton claimed the race card, Carville "branded" Richardson, Rendell claimed Pennsylvanians were a bunch of racists who'll never vote for a black man.
But HRC has done herself no honors either; she refuses to acknowledge that Obama is capable of being president, she's resorted to invoking Farrakahn and Wright at every opportunity, and she leaves the door open on whether he's a Christian or not. That's the short list.
Dan T. Carter in his biography of George Wallace, "The Politics of Rage," writes how Wallace was able to cloak his racist message in a language that ordinary people could get behind;
In speech after speech Wallace knit together the strands of racism with those of a deeply rooted moral xenophobic "plain folk" cultural outlook which equated social change with moral corruption. The creators of public policy-- the elite-- were out of touch with hardworking taxpayers who footed the bill for their visionary social engineering at home and weak-minded defense of American interests. page 345
It's almost like you're reading HRC's playbook, isn't it? Carter describes Wallace's verbal attacks that drew such large crowds and were so effective at the time;
"...his snarling attacks against hippies, civil rights "agitators", welfare recipients, atheists, beatniks, anti-war protesters, Communists, street toughs..." exhilirated his audience. page 346
Substitute the Weather Underground, Reverend Wright, Moveon.org, Louis Farrakhan, and Judas in place of George Wallace's epithets and its easy to see the Clinton strategy.
Carter reveals a little known fact about George Wallace. He knew he wasn't going to win. He was only running because he was, "damn sure going to try to keep (Hubert) Humphrey from being elected." page 358
One last quote that I found interesting;
The American "sickness" had been localized in the person of George Wallace, the "ablest demagogue of our time, with a bugle voice of venom and a gut knowledge of the prejudices of the low-income class. page 367
Since HRC is running on her husband's legacy and he's helping her shovel the manure, I couldn't help but notice that this description fits Bill to a tee.
It's hard to ignore the fact that Hillary Clinton is employing the most racist tactics employed by anyone in the modern Democratic Party. If Obama is going to defeat these despicable political acts, he is going to have to understand George Wallace.