The Clinton race and gender strategy was commenced in earnest by Geraldine Ferraro and other Clinton surrogates, using racialized and gender laden words and antics.
The effect was to create a racially antagonistic, and female sympathetic landscape, ripe for overlaying with Bill Clinton's contrived "facts."
Bill's fictional creation is that African Americans are voting racially, codified in the phrase, African Americans are voting for Barack Obama because he is "an African American with a real chance to win." This was Bill's second attempt at codifying racial voting, the first was, African Americans were voting for Barack Obama, "for pride."
The claim of racialized voting, by African Americans, was made "real" by CNN, in a "report" in which two African American women claimed that they were being pressured to vote racially, without recounting one instance in which they were asked by anyone to do that. the only thing supporting this idea was a poem, one of the women received in an e-mail, from an unknown person, describing their emotions about voting for a black man for the presidency.
A racialized social landscape makes people insecure generally, and it makes them specifically uneasy about their attraction to Barack Obama. When this insecurity and uneasiness is confronted with the idea that African Americans are voting racially, it creates a state of mind that's likely to conclude, "oh I guess I'll just vote for Hillary." Reason being, the public perception is that Hillary Clinton is a known entity, and the idea that African Americans are voting racially, is likely to inspire some European Americans, to do the same.
The Clinton strategy is to replace Barack Obama's identity with a racial identity, thereby making him more vulnerable to lies and innuendos, that raise questions about his identity, and his character.
Also, the Clintons strive to obliterate Barack Obama's message, by keeping him too busy defending himself to talk about it. And when he talks about it, they negate what he says. But while he's defending charges of elitism, and his words are called empty, Hillary is appropriating his ideas. She was for NAFTA, and now she's against it. She's taken his change slogan, and added her name. She even tried his chant, "yes we can," morphing it into "yes we will." If there's a policy distinction between them, she denies it, carefully using language that ties her to his judgment and achievements, "we both voted for," "our records are the same."
The Clintons want Barack without an identity or a message, because they don't believe they can beat his personality or his ideas. They're trying to reduce the identity of the candidates to their race and their gender.
Bill and Hillary keep saying that no matter which candidate wins it will be a historic presidency. That's the name of the "product," they're branding, a "historic president." By creating a product that does not distinguish between the candidates, except for race and gender, all that is required of the voter is to identify the form they prefer it in - black male or white woman. If that becomes the choice, Hillary wins because, if all things are equal, with a backdrop of racialized emotions, people will vote for the person who resembles what they "know," the woman who looks like their mother, sister, wife and friend.
To model this simplistic choice, the Clinton's used Jack Nicholson, who signals that it's all about identity politics, when he indicated the category, "I'm for the woman," and not the person, Hillary, as the incentive for his choice.
After appealing to the voters for a gender based vote, the Clintons make it a matter of racial loyalty, by using language that through rhythm and placement, creates a subliminal recognition of the word "real," as a substitute for, the word "white." Hence the slogan "real men are for Hillary," is emotionally experienced as, "white men are for Hillary."
The Clintons desperately want to get white men on board, and their strategy is to inspire racial loyalty by "demonstrating" that African American are voting racially, and by highlighting Barack’s race through the use of racialized words and antics, like Bill Clinton calling Barack’s reaction to his racial ranting in South Carolina, a mugging —
The Clinton tactics reflect their belief that people blinded by racism, can't recognize whose lying to them, whose stealing from them, and whose coopting them, against their own interests.
That’s what Barack was trying to communicate when he spoke about guns and religion in San Francisco. He was describing our distraction from the things that genuinely affect our lives, like the electoral process, focusing instead on meaningless symbols of power. Making those who exploit us, the only winners —
