Democrats have been known to employ identity politics on occasion — but rarely on each other.
Recently, a CNN news segment focused on a group of black women working at a hair salon. The participants were asked if they felt torn between leading Democratic Party presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. It was titled: “Gender or race: Black women voters face tough choices in S.C.”
It is possible, you know, for black women to come to their political verdicts based on policy rather than only race and gender.
And since Hillary and Obama share virtually identical policy views, why would an African- American woman feel torn supporting, not only a black man, but a gifted liberal politician she can be proud of?
Frankly, there is little to admire when it comes to Billary. Unless you admire ruthlessness. And after the couple began using code and innuendo to make race an issue in South Carolina, the African-American community reacted by voting in huge numbers for Obama.
The Clintons continued to play the game, though, as Bill dismissed Obama’s victory by pointing out that “Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in ’84 and ’88.”
Color me skeptical, but it sounds like Bill is trying to connect Jackson and Obama in the mind of white voters. It won’t be easy. Because while Jackson is busy shaking down corporations in a conflict-ridden and marginal political existence, Obama keeps sounding so, I don’t know, inclusive.
In his victory speech, Obama attempted to distance himself from racial politics, claiming that he did not see “a white South Carolina and a black South Carolina. I saw South Carolina.” The crowd chanted, “Race doesn’t matter! Race doesn’t matter!”
But, of course, race does matter. It mattered months ago when perpetual Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said that, in Obama, we have “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.” It continued when the co-chair of Hillary’s campaign, William Shaheen, said that Obama would have to answer questions like: ” ‘Did you ever give drugs to anyone? Did you sell them to anyone?’ There are so many openings for Republican dirty tricks.” (Yeah. Republican dirty tricks.)
It persists with former Democratic Atlanta mayor and Clinton supporter Andrew Young, saying, according to a New York Times columnist, that “Bill is every bit as black as Barack. He’s probably gone with more black women than Barack.”
You know, these are the sorts of comments that any good liberal will tell you are utterly racist and misogynistic — especially when they come from the mouth of a Republican.
How could this have happened to the party of tolerance? Hillary is married to Bill, after all. As we all know, Bill — according to poet Toni Morrison — was not only the first black president, but “blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children’s lifetime.”
Whoops. Morrison now endorses Obama. But not because he’s black. “I would not support you if that was all you had to offer or because it might make me ‘proud,’ ” she wrote. No, it was because of “a creative imagination” coupled with brilliance “equals wisdom.”
Then again, perhaps no one wants to admit the Clintons fooled the African-American community. As Melissa Harris-Lacewell, a professor of African-American studies at Princeton University, recently wrote, the “hypnotic racial dance of cultural authenticity that Bill Clinton performed in office lulled many blacks into perceptual fog.”
The Clintons have long played on victimhood and fear — or, more precisely, any tool to win power. Obama is only the latest to get a taste. As bad as the last seven years might have been, we’re now reminded that the previous eight years were as ugly and divisive as any. The Clintons won’t let us forget.
Reach columnist David Harsanyi at 303-954-1255 or dharsanyi@denverpost.com.
