The Clinton Strategy

Former Democratic Presidential candidate and Senator Gary Hart recently wrote an opinion piece decrying the Clinton campaign's breaking of an important, unwritten rule of politics:

"One of those rules is this: Do not provide ammunition to the opposition party that can be used to destroy your party's nominee. This is a hyper-truth where the presidential contest is concerned. By saying that only she and John McCain are qualified to lead the country, particularly in times of crisis, Hillary Clinton has broken that rule, severely damaged the Democratic candidate who may well be the party's nominee, and, perhaps most ominously, revealed the unlimited lengths to which she will go to achieve power."

When Clinton began taking this tack, I was stunned and couldn't figure out why she would do it. I couldn't remember a Democratic candidate or a Republican candidate vouch for the other side and slam one of their own as being unready.

She can't win the pledged delegate race. There's no realistic scenario that she can overtake Obama in pledged delegate. So to make a case for superdelegates to put her over the top, she's going to need something else. She's started saying that she's won big states. But Obama can point to the fact that he's won twice as many states.

Then there's the popular vote. Obama leads. If Hillary could win the popular vote, it could be a rationale to attract superdelegates. How does she win? By maximizing the white vote. She maximizes the white vote by playing on white resentment of affirmative action. That's why she and McCain are qualified and Obama isn't. That's the underlying theme.

She's running against a less qualified black guy who is being promoted ahead of her. I think that strategy helped her in Ohio and Texas. Prior to her "kitchen sink" strategy, Obama had won the white vote in Virginia and Wisconsin. But then Hillary won whites with 64% of the vote in Ohio and 56% in Texas.

Then we see Geraldine Ferraro basically saying Obama is the Democratic Party's token Negro. He's an affirmative action candidate. She literally spells out what the campaign has been hinting at. The Clinton campaign's tepid response to Ferraro's comments sit in stark contrast to their outrage over one of Obama's aides calling Hillary a "monster."

Make no mistake. The Clinton strategy is to paint Barack Obama as the affirmative action candidate. They may as well run Jesse Helms' infmaous "hands ad." That message will resonate with a good swath of white working class voters in Pennsylvania. This is a Clinton strategy from a couple that will do anything to win. Portraying Hillary as a wronged white woman at the hands of a less qualified black man is quite the gambit. It may pay off big dividends in PA, but what about November? (My vote will not go for Hillary Clinton because I will not reward this type of campaigning. They're counting on Obama supporters having nowhere else to go. I've got somewhere else to go. I'll go for a drive.)

One might say, "But Obama is getting 80-90% of the black vote in some states. What's wrong with Hillary getting 64% of the white vote." Nothing, in and of itself. But you have to look at how they're getting that vote. Bill and Hillary Clinton have as much to do with Barack Obama's success with blacks as he does. Obama isn't pitching an anti-white message to get black votes. He's not pitching a sexist message to get male votes. But there is something wrong about appealing to prejudices to get votes. I'd expect it from Karl Rove. But the Clintons have shown this campaign that Rove has nothing on them.

You have Clinton's strategy in a nutshell: "the unqualified Negro is stealing my job."


As Politico's Roger Simon mentioned in a new piece, if Obama is "lucky" to be black, it sure hasn't paid off for many other black candidates. We've had exactly TWO elected black governors in the history of this country. How many female governors do we currently have? Jennifer Granholm of Michigan, Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, Janet Napolitano of Arizona, Ruth Ann Minner of Delaware, Linda Lingle of Hawaii, M. Jodi Rell of Connecticut, Christine Gregoire of Washington, and 22 former female governors. Since Reconstruction, we've had exactly THREE elected black Senators. How many female Senators do we currently have? Sixteen with another 19 former female Senators.

Gloria Steinem and Geraldine Ferraro has said sexism is worse than racism. I'm not going to debate whose 'ism' is worse. I will say that when it comes to elective office, the numbers don't lie.

What a benefit to Barack Obama to be black. What a lucky guy.