Question--When did you first realize that there would be racial dissonance in the primary?

[Aloha Spirit]

For me, it was when I first heard somebody on TV say that "Obama needs to wait his turn."
I could feel the puke coming up my throat, and it's been there ever since.

[FrenchieCat]

1. When they were discussing if he was Black enough.......

[Aloha Spirit]

3. Oh right, that reminds me of "Obama needs to stop acting white"

[cliffordu]

9. Right - That was pure scum. It hasn't let up, either.

[Yossariant]

2. When Obama started the racebaiting over MLK and Lyndon Johnson --- even before his

racebaiting in SC.

Very disappointing.

[Aloha Spirit]

5. Hmmm.... I recall Clinton *accusing* Obama of drawing out that issue... but can't recall Obama

*actually* doing that. Hmmm.

[Zhade]

42. That's because it didn't happen.

NT!

[EFerrari]

7. Was that before or after Shaheen was fired?

[Yossariant]

15. After, but I agree. She really did try to keep a lid on it. Obama just couldn't stop himself.

[EFerrari]

22. Right, Hillary uses the GOP tactic.

Let your surrogate get their hands dirty and then, turn them loose.

Disgusting.

[Yossariant]

31. Your post is idiotic. She shouldn't have fired Shaheen at all. She was just making every effort

to avoid even the appearance of attacking Obama:

"Even before the first caucus met in Iowa, the Obama campaign was ready to play a similar game. In mid-December 2007, one of the Clinton campaign's co-chairs in New Hampshire, Bill Shaheen, remarked entirely on his own on how the Republicans might make mischievous and damaging political use of Obama's admitted use of marijuana and cocaine during his youth. The observation was not especially astute...
And it was not in the least a racist comment, as cocaine abuse has afflicted Americans of all colors as well as classes.

None of the reports at the time about Shaheen's miscue (and the Clinton campaign's decision to relieve him of his ceremonial duties) mentioned anything about racial overtones. Yet the Obama campaign kept stirring things up. After being questioned for ten minutes about the drug allegation on cable television--and repeatedly denying that the national campaign had anything to do with it--Clinton campaign pollster Mark Penn mentioned the word "cocaine" (which was difficult to avoid in the context of the repeated questioning about drugs). "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," he said. Obama's campaign aides (as well as John Edwards's) immediately leapt on Penn and chastised him as an inflammatory demagogue for using the word that Obama himself referred to in his memoir as "blow." Since then, Obama's strategists and supporters in the press have whipped the story into a full racialist subtext, as if Shaheen and Penn were the executors of a well-plotted Clinton master plan to turn Obama into a stereotypical black street hoodlum--or, in the words of the fervently pro-Obama and anti-Clinton columnist Frank Rich of the New York Times, 'ghettoized as a cocaine user.'"

The racial innuendo seemed to fade when Obama won his remarkable victory in the Iowa caucuses. With the polling data on the upcoming New Hampshire primary auguring a large Obama triumph, it looked as if the candidate's own appeal might sweep away everything before it. But at the last minute (as sometimes happens in statewide primaries), there was a sudden movement among the voters, this time toward Clinton...

But instead, Clinton won outright, amazing her own delighted supporters and galling the Obama campaign.

That evening, the Democratic campaign became truly tangled up in racial politics--directly and forcefully introduced by the pro-Obama forces. In order to explain away the shocking loss, Obama backers vigorously spread the claim that the so-called Bradley Effect had kicked in...

The very next morning, Obama's national co-chair, Representative Jesse Jackson, Jr., a congressional supporter from Chicago, played the race card more directly by appearing on MSNBC to claim in a well-prepared statement that Clinton's emotional moment on the campaign trail was actually a measure of her deeply ingrained racism and callousness about the suffering poor. "But those tears also have to be analyzed," Jackson said, "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." And so the Obama campaign headed south with race and racism very much on its mind--and on its lips...

[EFerrari]

38. My post isn't idiotic. It is the truth that even the foreign press

has picked up.

I'm sorry if you can't grasp that. You lie down with dogs, the fleas are free.

[anamandujano]

10. When the words "fairy tale" were called racist.

The Obama campaign scored some points with the card, tarnished the Clintons with the card, split the party in two. Now it's biting them in the @ss. Good luck to them.

[cliffordu]

11. Hmm... I'd love to be able to take you seriously,

But you leave me no choice....


:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

moran.

[stillcool]

29. nasty...

December 10, 2007
Third Clinton Volunteer Knew Of Smear E-Mail
A third volunteer for Hillary Clinton's campaign was aware of a propaganda e-mail alleging that Barack Obama is a Muslim who plans on "destroying the U.S. from the inside out. "Let us all remain alert concerning Obama's expected presidential Candidacy," the email reads. "Please forward to everyone you know. The Muslims have said they Plan on destroying the U.S. from the inside out, what better way to start than at The highest level."

Two Clinton volunteers, Linda Olson and Judy Rose, have already been asked to resign from the campaign for their roles in forwarding the e-mail. The AP reported yesterday that Olson, a volunteer coordinator in Iowa County, sent a version of the e-mail to 11 people, including Ben Young, a regional field director for Chris Dodd's campaign. Young passed it on to the AP.
http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/archives/2007/12/third_clinton_v.html

Kerrey Apologizes to Obama Over Remark
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=4031436
Kerrey's mention of Obama's middle name and his Muslim roots raised eyebrows because they are also used as part of a smear campaign on the Internet that falsely suggests Obama is a Muslim who wants to bring jihad to the United States.
Obama is a Christian.
The Clinton campaign has already fired two volunteer county coordinators in Iowa for forwarding hoax e-mails with the debunked claim. Last week, a national Clinton campaign co-chairman resigned for raising questions about whether Obama's teenage drug use could be used against him, so Kerrey's comments raised questions about whether the Clinton campaign might be using another high-profile surrogate to smear Obama.

Hillary: Sorry for Any Offense Campaign (Bill) Has Caused
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FB65wJ6Rcfs

Bill Clinton Asks for a Second Chance
By Liz Halloran
Posted February 11, 2008
The morning after his wife, Hillary, was routed in three state contests by Sen. Barack Obama in their dead-heat battle for the Democratic nomination, former President Bill Clinton made his case for her before a packed Sunday service at one of the largest black churches in Washington, D.C.
But first he offered an apology of sorts for racially tinged comments he made about Obama and his candidacy that have triggered a backlash in the black community and among many other Democrats.

Clinton invoked his "worship of a God of second chances" in pronouncing himself glad to be at the Temple of Praise, which claims nearly 15,000 members. His invocation of second chances echoed comments he made early last week at black churches in California, where he campaigned for his wife before that state's
Super Tuesday primary, which she won.
http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/campaign-

2008/2008/02/11/bill-clinton-asks-for-a-second-chance.html

Source: Newsday
Posted on Sunday, December 16, 2007 at 12:04 pm
Barack Obama Accepts Apology From Hillary Clinton
Washington D.C. 12/15/2007 09:17 AM GMT (FINDITT)

Hillary Clinton went straight to Barack Obama with an apology following a staffer's remarks about any skeletons that may be lurking in Obama's closet, pointing out that she had accepted the staffer's resignation over the disparaging remarks. Obama accepted her at her word, according to his campaign staff, and is moving on without letting it interrupt his campaign plans.


Obama is currently leading the polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, the two early primary states often considered key to the process, according to numbers at usaelectionpolls.com, but on a national level Clinton still holds a huge lead. The most recently posted poll results show Obama with 31 percent of the
probable voters in New Hampshire backing him with 29 percent showing support for Clinton.
http://www.transworldnews.com/NewsStory.aspx?id=30629&cat=5

Clinton Camp Pushes O-Bomber Links: Ignores
Her Own Radical Ties
By: Justin Rood

ABC News - The Hillary Clinton campaign pushed to reporters today stories about Barack Obama and his ties to former members of a radical domestic terrorist group -- but did not note that as president, Clinton's husband pardoned more than a dozen convicted violent radicals, including a member of the same group
mentioned in the Obama stories."Wonder what the Republicans will do with this issue," mused Clinton spokesman Phil Singer in one e-mail to the media, containing a New York Sun article reporting a $200 contribution from William Ayers, a founding member of the 1970s group Weather Underground, to Obama in 2001.
In a separate e-mail, Singer forwarded an article from the Politico newspaper reporting on a 1995 event at a private home that brought Obama together with Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, another member of the radical group.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4330128&page=1

Bill Clinton To Apologize At LA Black Churches
Once again, Bill Clinton is ready to repent.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/02/bill-clinton-to-apologize_n_84573.html
On Sunday the former president is scheduled to visit black churches in South Central Los Angeles, where he's expected to offer a mea culpa to those who "dearly loved him" when he was their president, Rep. Diane Watson (D-Calif.) says. Watson, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus who has endorsed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), tells us she'll usher the former president to more than half a dozen churches in
her district where she says he needs to "renew his relationship" with congregants who were turned off by his racially tinged comments in the days leading up to and following the South Carolina primary. (Such as when Clinton compared Sen. Barack Obama's landslide victory to Jesse Jackson's wins in 1984 and 1988.)

http://graphics.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/politics/20080112_nevada_lawsuit.pdf
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/17/a-feisty-bill-

clinton-defends-nevada-lawsuit/
CLINTON ALLIES SUPPRESS THE VOTE IN NEVADA...
On Meet the Press on Sunday, Hillary Clinton said her campaign had nothing to do with a lawsuit--written about by Nation Editor Katrina vanden Heuvel--that threatens to prevent thousands of workers from voting in the Nevada caucus on Saturday.
Back in March, the Nevada Democratic Party agreed to set up caucus locations on the Vegas strip for low-income shift workers, many of them members of the state's influential Culinary Union, who commute long distances to work and wouldn't be able to get home in time to caucus. It was an uncontroversial idea until the Culinary Union endorsed Barack Obama and the Nevada State Education Association, whose top officials support Clinton, sued to shut down the caucus sites.
The Clinton camp played dumb until yesterday, when President Clinton came out in favor of the lawsuit.
Clinton's comments drew a heated response from D. Taylor, the head of Nevada's Culinary Union, on MSNBC's Hardball. "He is in support of disenfranchising thousands upon thousands of workers, not even just our members," Taylor said of Clinton. "The teachers union is just being used here. We understand that This is the Clinton campaign. They tried to disenfranchise students in Iowa. Now they're trying to
disenfranchise people here in Nevada, who are union members and people of color and women."
Rank-and-file members of Nevada's teachers union also come out against the lawsuit filed by their leadership. "We never thought our union and Senator Clinton would put politics ahead of what's right for our students, but that's exactly what they're doing," the letter stated. "As teachers, and proudmDemocrats, we hope they will drop this undemocratic lawsuit and help all Nevadans caucus, no matter which candidate they support."
The lawsuit's opponents make a persuasive point. Creating obstacles to voting is what the GOP does to Democrats, not what Democrats should be doing to other Democrats.

Clinton adviser steps down after drug use comments
Earlier Thursday, Clinton personally apologized to rival Obama for Shaheen's remarks.
Obama accepted her apology, according to David Axelrod, the top political strategist for the Obama campaign.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/12/13/clinton.obama/index.html

January 6, 2008, 5:18 pm
Edwards: No Conscience in Clinton Campaign
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/edwards-no-conscience-in-clinton-campaign/
By Julie Bosman
KEENE, N.H. – John Edwards angrily took on Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton at two news conferences in a row on Sunday, saying that her campaign “doesn’t seem to have a conscience.”

COMPTON, Calif. (AP) — Hillary Rodham Clinton and her campaign tried to mend ties to black voters Thursday when a key supporter apologized to her chief rival, Barack Obama, for comments that hinted at Obama's drug use as a teenager. The candidate herself, meanwhile, praised the Rev. Martin Luther King and promised to assist with the rebirth of this troubled, largely black city.

Bob Johnson, the founder of Black Entertainment Television, apologized for comments he made at a Clinton campaign rally in South Carolina on Sunday that hinted at Obama's use of drugs as a teenager.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-01-17-

johnson-apology_N.htm?csp=34

Clinton Surrogate Compares Obama Ad to Nazi March
http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20080201/cm_thenation/45278988_1
Fri Feb 1, 2:23 PM ET
The Nation -- On a media conference call organized by the Hillary Clinton campaign today, Clinton surrogate Len Nichols compared an Obama health care ad to Nazis.
----------
Accusing political opponents of Nazism is an outrageous smear. Raising the specter of a Nazi march in response to a health care mailer that evokes the insurance industry is so absurd, it would be hard to take the attack seriously, were it not launched from a high profile national campaign conference call in this crucial stretch of the presidential race. And political observers know, of course, that the Clinton Campaign regularly arranges opportunities for surrogates to launch these kind of smears, which are later followed up with apologies. (See: Bob Johnson, Bill Shaheen, Bob Kerrey, and Francine Torge, to name the most recent offenders.) For his part, Nichols did not immediately return a call requesting further comment.
-------------------------
Len Nichols, Director of New America's Health Policy Program, stated, "For nearly 17 years I have worked tirelessly to reform our nation's struggling health system. Today my passion overwhelmed me. I chose an analogy that was wholly inappropriate. I am deeply sorry for any offense that my unfortunate comments may have caused.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk1k0nUWEQg

[JeffR]

4. The day Senator Obama announced.

Not trying to be a smartass. I really did.

This all makes me sick, too, but he'll get through all this shit. I'm confident.

[EFerrari]

6. Me, too and me, too.

He'll be fine.

[Aloha Spirit]

8. Really? I didn't see it coming, from within the party.

[anamandujano]

13. from within the Obama campaign

[JeffR]

23. Agreed. I assumed it would be initiated by the media

as soon as the fax machine at the Heritage Foundation was warmed up. I didn't see it coming from the party, either.

[AspenRose]

16. Yep.

eom

[ampad]

21. Same here (NT)

[DemGa]

12. When the smears on Bill Clinton in S.C. began

I was shocked -- and I knew it was going to be dirty from Team Obama.

[emilyg]

26. That it has been.

[Zhade]

43. "When the smears from Bill Clinton in S.C. began"

"I was shocked -- and I knew it was going to be dirty from Team clinton."

Fixed your typos.

[trashcanistanista]

14. I knew it on the day Barack announced.

I assume he was well prepared for it and I believe he will master it.

[Cha]

17. Who said that? I don't watch

mediawhore tv.

I thought it was when bob kerrey had to resign 'cause he was talking disingenuously about Obama's middle name? Or was it billy shaheen who was talking about it? No, wait a minute..that was billy shaheen trying to smear Obama on drug use.

[Aloha Spirit]

19. Haha, weren't those both, like, within a couple days of each other? Early Dec 2007. Good times.

[Cha]

24. Mellow times..

that's for sure..relatively.

[BenDavid]

18. Back in December 2006 when obama was in New Hampshire

and I read where he said the following, "“minority candidates have ‘a higher threshold in establishing themselves with voters.’” I knew then obama would use this later and would use it often and play the race card. I do not have the posts where I said those things but that was it for me, and I knew that if obama really played the race card it would be to blame someone else. Little did I suspect obama and his campaign with a willing whoremedia would play it against hillary and then blame her and bill.....

Ben David

[Aloha Spirit]

28. Question for you--do you consider Hillary to be a minority vis a vis her gender?

[leftstreet]

20. When Bill Clinton said "Jesse Jackson won South Carolina twice"

That's the first time I realized HRC's campaign strategy would be to remind voters Obama was OH NOES! black.

[Aloha Spirit]

25. You want a funny story about that? The day after the comments aired, I was doing a visibility event

for O in the neighborhood, and a petite elderly French dude comes up to me, asking me why he should vote for Obama. Completely uninitiated, he says, "Truthfully, I love Hillary. But I just saw Bill Clinton compare Obama with Jesse Jackson. I don't think that was right." That was before the backlash. He decided all on his own that it was wrong.

[MrSlayer]

27. The second Obama announced his candidacy.

Everyone had to see this coming. Did anyone really believe that people were just going to stand back and talk about real issues and may the best candidate win? Are we that naive?

[NJSecularist]

30. If we were going to talk about the real issues, Obama would be out of the race by now.

He has 2 years of experience in the Senate.

[Aloha Spirit]

33. 3 years... but I get your point.

[MrSlayer]

34. And yet he has more overall legislative experience than Clinton.

But, I agree, if it was really about Democratic issues Kucinich would be the nominee.

[Aloha Spirit]

32. I didn't ask if the "race card" would be dealt or played... I asked about intraparty dischord. ...

Remember when Obama defended Biden after that stuck-on-stupid debate question in Iowa? I don't see why it was a foregone conclusion that the Democratic candidates would allow for things to turn out the way they have.

[MrSlayer]

37. And my answer remains the same.

You just had to know that anyone would do this to him if he got close. Did you not expect the Clinton campaign to get this nasty? There is a reason she was the last choice of the majority on the site. I just thought they would get him long before now.

[Aloha Spirit]

39. Fair enough. Nope, I didn't expect it to get this nasty. I'll know better next time ;-)

[2rth2pwr]

35. When Obama accused black families of serving their children cold Popeye's chicken for breakfast.

[Aloha Spirit]

36. So you realized it two months ago?

[2rth2pwr]

40. Is that when that happened, maybe it was when he was talking about Ray Ray?

[Zhade]

41. When the clintons brought it forth by playing the race card.

NT!

[Seabiscuit]

44. As soon as Obama declared his candidacy.

I predicted way back then that the media would play him up just the way they did in order to make it a close race with Hillary, but if he ever took the lead they'd get ready to chew him up and spit him out, and they'd find some way to make race a central issue in all of it.

[truth please]

45. When they started saying Obama supporters are

drinking the kool-aid.

[terrell9584]

46. In all honesty, when I read his resume.

In general, when you can get whites who belong to the more skeptical groups within the white citzenry to support a black candidate it is usually because.....

-He is a veteran, almost always a veteran
-Usually a middle of the road kind of guy, takes pains never to be seen in a controversial light (Doug Wilder of VA the prime example)
-Will often take a strong law & order posture (T. Baker in GA, and Wilder in VA)
-Has an established record in doing something that causes even people who have more racist tendencies to look past it in the particular instance (Gantt, Kirk, Melton before he went insane, also applies to Nagin prior to the storm)
-When they run as strictly racial neutral candidates and match their platform to the area they are running in, this usually runs in tandem with a very well known aura of personal honesty (Bishop in GA)

And there are a few others, however, when I saw Obama's resume, the first thing that came to my mind is that in several areas, he doesn't fit the profile, and that's when I figured he'd have trouble.

[quakerboy]

47. At Baracks convention speach. n/t