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 —
Student of social dynamics, especially as it relates to issues of race and sex.
It was Jessee Jackson Jr. who played the race card early-on. It was Obama people who seized upon the racial tension to forward a weak candidate with little or no administrative or diplomatic experience and it is the Obama camp that has encouraged bandwagoning leftist to hop aboard their gravy float with continuous harping on class and race divides. (Bitter?)
Old-time ultra liberals still cling to the notion that America-bashing is chic and can absolve them of an ongoing love affair with conspicuous consumption in a land overflowing with consumer goods.
Geraldine Ferraro simply pointed out a fact that seems missing when Obamaphiles extol his virtures; he is indeed unqualified as a candidate, and that has nothing to do with with gender nor skin color...it has everything to do with his flimsy resume. That is not the fault of Hillary Clinton. You can blame anything you like on her and generally get away with it because the truth is harder to come by in this climate of Hillary hate than a Coney Island hotdog in January.
Even Thom Hartmann, who the left seems to love and respect, observed that the Clinton negatives have been grossly ginned up by the media. Ask yourself what the billionaire media types have to gain from derailing her campaign. If you do, perhaps your own misstatements will come into focus.
Then do a little reading: I recommend Gene Lyons, award winnig journalist of the old school--he actually does his homework and doesn't take his cues off the AP wires or notes from the evening chat fests.
by
Marilyn Frith (6 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 191 comments)
on Saturday, April 19, 2008 at 6:24:00 AM
It's not a strategy thing.......it's not a gender thing........plain and simple, it's a Hillary thing........For example, if Hillary would just stand up straight and say NO to the PACs, NO to the Elitist, promise to restore the Constitution immediately and swear on a stack of Bibles she will pull 100,000 troops out of Iraq by February 2009............she would take the job no problems............
But she can't say no and the people know she's a liar, her husband was a liar, there's too much luggage with Hillary........she's not ready to shake it off for the win........she's to indebted to the corporate greed.........she will do anything to tell her cronies "OK guys we're Good to Go, I made it in the Oval Office, I told you I could do it, pass the word to NAFTA, I'mmmm Baaack and I've changed my mine agaaaain"...........
.......and probably Obama can't say NO either.........but the public sees hope in Obama.......just because he hasn't been in politics long enough to accumulate the luggage..........the public doesn't believe that an "A" student in politics is required to be President....In fact, a gentleman "C" is just fine if he is for the people's needs......unlike what we've had in the past 7.5 years...........
by
Ernest (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 132 comments)
on Saturday, April 19, 2008 at 8:52:34 AM
The Clintons are part of the Establishment. They are part of the problem. The people do not trust them. Obama, not perfect but quantum levels above Hillary in credibility and genuineness. Whatever evil he may have within (as all humans do), it is of a far, far lesser nature than that of the Clintons. Of the Republican candidate, I shall not speak.
Ideally, I'd vote for a Libertarian, but we are not there yet.
by
Luis Bosch (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 2 comments)
on Saturday, April 19, 2008 at 9:03:19 AM
AND a white woman, I will NOT be voting for Hillary. She's PNAC and that is exactly what has been taking this country down. PNAC wants a "One party country". That isn't democracy or constitutional.
Marilyn, you might want to google "Project for New American Century" and just see where Hill and Bill's priorities lay. If Obama was so elitist than why did he have NO PROBLEM submitting HIS tax statement right away, up front? On the other hand, Hill dragged her feet and hammered out excuses and old Mac hasn't even yet exposed his tax statement(never will see it or hear about it--guaranteed).
I don't SEE Obama as a black. I see him as a Presidential candidate, nothing more. Time to get the race card that the repubs invented for the dem primary OUT of the picture. This Dem race has shown more true color of the Clintons than I ever knew. They buried themselves with we "activists". We "activists" are true patriots and We activists will lay our lives down for the Rule of Law in patriotism for the Original USA, not this pseudo thing we have now.
by
shirley reese (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 393 comments)
on Saturday, April 19, 2008 at 2:51:01 PM
Incidentally, 'real Man' always presupposes reference to a male in our ethnic group, otherwise the male is an anti-man = enemy or a sub-man = slave ('boy') or child ('boy' or 'junior').
John Stoltenberg's End of Manhood and Refusing to be a Man show the way forward, which I phrase as stopping to identify with the fraternities of the 'real men' but rather returning to filial loyalty (true sons and daughters) to our mother - and beyond her our Mother Community/Motherland/Mother Earth - from whom we first took our being, when we were accepted as we were and before the twisting dramas of having to prove (and time and again re-prove) ourselves 'real men'and 'real women' kicked in.
by
Keith Mothersson (6 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 59 comments)
on Saturday, April 19, 2008 at 4:05:31 PM
AA are voting racially: - before South Carolina: African Americans are voting for Barack Obama because of Pride. Bill Clinton
AA are voting racially: -after South Carolina: Once African-Americans understood that they had a candidate with a serious chance to win the nomination and perhaps the presidency, then it was going to be a question of somewhere between 80 percent and 90 percent were going to support him . . . Bill Clinton - March 17 2008
AA are voting racially: I think for African-Americans who have been voting for decades for white candidates, they think they have an African-American candidate with a legitimate chance to be nominated and elected. There is a pull there to identify with him. Bill Clinton - March 17, 2008
AA are voting racially: simply stating an obvious truth, exit polls that show Obama taking as much as 80 percent of the black vote in the Democratic primaries.Geraldine Ferraro
AA are voting racially: (After first statements) Ferraro said she stands by her assertion that Obama's success in the Democratic campaign is due "in part" to his race.Geraldine Ferraro
AA are voting racially: "What I believe Geraldine Ferraro meant is that if you take a freshman senator from Illinois called 'Jerry Smith' and he says I'm going to run for president, would he start off with 90 percent of the black vote?" Johnson said. "And the answer is, probably not." "Geraldine Ferraro said it right.The problem is, Geraldine Ferraro is white. This campaign has such a hair-trigger on anything racial it is almost impossible for anybody to say anything." Bob Johnson - April 14, 2008 The Charlotte Observer
AA are voting racially: "In all honesty, do you think that if he were a white male, there would be a reason for the black community to get excited for a historic first? (does this explain why white people are excited) Geraldine Ferraro
AA are voting racially: "A friend of mine, a black man, said to me, ‘My ancestors came to this country in chains; I’m voting for Barack.’ I told him, ‘Well, my sisters came here in chains and on their periods; I’m voting for Hillary.’ " Ali Gallagher - Hillary volunteer
AA are voting racially: Two black women, who offer no facts, say they are being pressured to vote for Barack because of their race. CNN
AA are voting racially: Two black men, who offer no facts, are used to to describe the AA community as united and aggressive in their support for Barack, and to discuss Robert Johnson's affirmance of Geraldine Ferraro's words, namely, that AA are voting racially. CNN
Racialized language: "You've got conservative whites here ... who are not ready to vote for an African American candidate.Ed Rendell, Penn GovernorRacialized language: After describing Hillary as strong on her answers respecting the war, he suggests that Barack could be considered as singing, what is a traditionally AA song, KumbayaRacialized language: Obamamania is largely a white phenomenon based on white-guilt: Shelby Steele
Racialized language: used a senior couple to discuss distrust of Barack because he's too young. But at the end of they add, that it's not just his youth these people are concerned about . . . "They have lived through a lot of racial conflict . . ." Translation, seniors might not want to vote for Barack because he's too young and, because he's black, namely, he belongs to the group they've had conflicts with . . April 19th, CNN Racialized language: Speaking about South Carolina: "They made up a race story...what happened there is a total myth and a mugging," Bill Clinton - Media Blitz in New Orleans
Racialized language: If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. Geraldine Ferraro
Racialized language: Resolve to keep talking race: David Axelrod, his campaign manager, has chose to spin this as a racist comment because everytime anybody makes a comment about race who is white - he did it with Bill Clinton, he was successful; he did it with (Pennsylvania governor and Clinton supporter) Ed Rendell, he was less successful; and he is certainly not going to be successful with me," Geraldine Ferraro
Racialized language: "Any time anybody does anything that in any way pulls this campaign down (is this a Freudian slip) and says let's address reality and the problems we're facing in this world, you're accused of being racist, so you have to shut up. Racism works in two different directions. I really think they're attacking me because I'm white. Geraldine Ferraro
Women as victims: "if Barack Obama were a woman, we'd be saying, Are you kidding?" Geraldine Ferraro
Women as victims: "all boys club" of presidential politics: Hillary Clinton at Wellesley
Women as victims: Obama could not have accomplished this if he was a woman: gender is "the most restricting force in American life." Gloria Steinem
Women as victims: Gender is probably the most restricting force in American life: Gloria Steinem,Women Are Never Front-RunnersJanuary 8, 2008
Women as victims: "Sexism is a bigger problem. It's OK to be sexist in some people's minds. It's not OK to be racist." Geraldine Ferraro
Women as victims: Talks about the lack women in state-wide or national office in Iowa and Miss, as she's trying to wine the Iowa primary. Hillary Clinton
Women have it harder than black men: "I have a feeling that in this country, where we're at today in our thinking, it's going to be harder to elect a woman than to elect a black man George McGovern - March 25, 2008
Women have it harder than black men: "Sexism is a bigger problem, "It's OK to be sexist in some people's minds. It's not OK to be racist." Geraldine Ferraro
Women have it harder than black men: McGovern said he occasionally chats with men who don't think a woman is ready for the responsibility. "Some guy will say, 'Well, I think that's too big a job for a woman, I don't think she can handle those terrorists,"' he said, adding that he seldom hears the same said about a black man. George McGovern - March 25, 2008
The Country is failing women: "I have a feeling that in this country, where we're at today in our thinking, it's going to be harder to elect a woman than to elect a black man: George McGovern - March 25, 2008:
The Country is failing women:What America feels about a woman becoming president takes a very secondary place to Obama's campaign . . .Geraldine Ferraro
The Country is failing women:"I didn’t really get how much sexism there still was in our country . . .Chelsea Clinton - March 29, 2008The Country is failing women: "I never cease to be amazed at the misogynist attitude of some of the people in this country," he said. "I say to hell with them." Elton John
Women as entitled: Hillary can't be eliminated after super Tuesday because she's a woman. Dianne Feinstein
Women as entitled: Barack Obama: Bow to the woman, and take the vice presidency. Be a man and take vice, bow to the woman . . .Roseanne Barr
Women as entitled: Feminists are growing more fierce in charging that women who let Obama leapfrog over Hillary are traitors. Hillary supporter
Women should vote according to gender: A friend of mine, a black man, said to me, ‘My ancestors came to this country in chains; I’m voting for Barack.’ I told him, ‘Well, my sisters came here in chains and on their periods; I’m voting for Hillary.’ " Ali Gallagher - Hillary volunteer
Women should vote according to gender: Hillary is breaking through the glass ceiling, said multiple time by Hillary, Geraldine Ferraro and Chelsea Clinton
White men should vote racially: Ted Kennedy called a traitor for endorsing Barack Obamab: The head of New York NOW
White men should vote racially: McGovern said he occasionally chats with men who don't think a woman is ready for the responsibility. "Some guy will say, 'Well, I think that's too big a job for a woman, I don't think she can handle those terrorists,"' he said, adding that he seldom hears the same said about a black man. White men should vote racially: Jeannette Rankin was elected before women could vote. So who says men don't vote for a woman? (she had her facts wrong) Hillary Clinton, April 2008, Missoula, MT
Resistance to racial attacks made racial: "Geraldine Ferraro said it right. The problem is Geraldine Ferraro is white. This campaign has such a hair trigger on anything racial. It is almost impossible for anybody to say anything." Bob Johnson
Resistance to racial attacks made racial: "They made up a race story out of that...the point is, that’s political tactics. They thought they could hurt me with that, and so they put a bizarre spin on it, and it worked for a while.""What happened there is a total myth and a mugging," Bill Clinton
Resistance to racial attacks made racial: Any time anybody does anything that in any way pulls this campaign down (is this a Freudian slip) and says let's address reality and the problems we're facing in this world, you're accused of being racist, so you have to shut up. Racism works in two different directions. I really think they're attacking me because I'm white.
by
Hargrove (14 articles, 3 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 24 comments)
on Saturday, April 19, 2008 at 4:16:24 PM
They are now and always will be with us here in the U.S. because our whole economic base for several centuries was based on slavery and then cheap black labor and other minority contributions.
White supremacy is a fact in America traditionally and historically. Whites are the majority.
So...we should vote for an unqualified candidate because?... He is black and their time has come....or we rather prefer a black man than any woman? (Amazing how many women are buying into this shtick.)
Wonder, oh, I wonder what if Obama were opposed by a black woman. What would this site be like...would the men be as virulently opposed to the gal?
I am encountering the most unhealthy wall of bias I've ever seen--well almost. I can't discount the Rove factor in partisan politics.
I get race thrown up as a defense mechanism; I get Bill baggage and Hill compared to the wicked witch of the east and the most outlandish, unsourced epithets depicting her as a demon from Hell. Wonder why?...
Come on, now, Mr. Hargrove. This is not politics as usual. There is something very unseemly and disturbing going on. Why would you go to all the trouble to post that virtual catalogue of voter demographics? Where did you find it? Really remarkable and only points out graphically the abject hate-mongering going on. It only proves the electorate can be manipulated.
No one is as saleable as Barack Obama seems to be--it is not rational to presume it's real. It is fictional invention as carefully contrived and scripted as a Hollywood blockbuster and almost as entertaining--if you are sucked into the Obama vortex.
I'm not, so I can be more objective. Do you really think he is ready for prime time? Or are you just going along to get along?--swim in the mainstream of politics? Just curious. I am fascinated by this phenom and at the same time alarmed. Where will it all end?
Be careful what you wish for...an old cliche that might apply. but kudos, anyway, for your lengthy and heartfelt treatise. (Alas, I fear it's wasted on me.)
Cheers, Ms. Marilyn
by
Marilyn Frith (6 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 191 comments)
on Saturday, April 19, 2008 at 7:09:38 PM
Before South Carolina, I intended to vote for Hillary. I was a fan of the Clintons. I'm also a student of racial and sexual dynamics, and when I observed Bill using race to marginalize Barack, I was through with the Clintons.
I have more quotes than I included. I collect things like that. I'm interested in how language is used to manipulate public opinion, racially, sexually and otherwise.
I used to admire Geraldine Ferraro. I thought she was a worthy Vice Presidential candidate, interestingly enough, she got the same treatment as Barack's getting. They tried to reduce her to a feminine stereotype, but she never folded, she was great. I really hate to see her perpetrating the same things that hurt her.
Quite frankly, I think that women will be benefitted if Hillary is not elected. I don't want the first female president to be the beneficiary of a powerful man. Ferraro earned masculine respect, Hillary gets it through Bill. Besides, I don't think she has the right attitude toward her gender. I don't think she's done the hard internal work to come out with self love. I think Hillary's collecting trophies in order to feel good about herself.
Don't you think that a person who could tell that Bosnia lie is unique? Who tells lies like that? Remember it was lies that got us in to Iraq.
I think I understand how you feel because I think your seeing Hillary's condition as tied to the condition of women. But Hillary had more support and more money starting out than any one candidate before her. She's not a victim.
by
Hargrove (14 articles, 3 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 24 comments)
on Sunday, April 20, 2008 at 1:33:09 AM
Gene Lyons has been a smug, smarmy Clinton Apologist since the Clintons sold their souls to Sam Walton, Witt & Jack Stephens, Don Tyson and every other Global Corporatist home-based in Arkansas. Hillary was rewarded with a lucrative job at the Rose Law Firm( Arkansas' most prominent corporate- law firm dedicated to union busting, venal greed, and all things corporate) and a six year term on the Wal-Mart Board and Mr. Sam Walton's continuous public affirmation as Wal-Mart's most valuble board member. The Clintons's abominable behavior in both their public and private lives was completely hidden by the Arkansas' corrupt to the bone media for 12 years and Gene Lyons was a major player in that endeavor both then and now.
Recently he published a plagiarized Swift Boat piece originally spewed about Obama written weeks earlier by Larry C. Johnson.
Bill and Hillary have been a tandem act throughout their political careers. They have separately and individually been allowed to practice the most egriegious hypocrisy, unchallenged, for decades. Arkansas never benefitted from the Clintons' contributions...until Bill's rich friends and thousands of brain dead contributors of modest means enabled him to build a monument to his ego fittingly shaped in the form of a mobile home and called The Clinton Presidential Library which overlooks the Arkansas River in my homestate.... and which also overlooks the profound ethical shortcomings of the Clintons. Chris Hedges' accurate depiction of the Clintons' amoral lack of charity pales when compared to his enabling the sale of blood drawn from inmates in the Arkansas Cummins Prison during most of his 12 year administration; notwithstanding his full knowledge much of this blood was HIV and hepatitis contaminated. Briefly stated, Bill Clinton, while governor, knowingly authorized and protected "Friends of Bill" in an appalling scheme to harvest and sell contaminated blood and plasma from Cummins prison farm near Grady, Arkansas. The prisoners were bled nearly daily and paid $7 per unit, while the units brought $70 per unit to the " Friends of Bill ". The scheme continued throughout his governorship in defiance of sound medical practice, numerous warnings and flagrant violations of FDA regulations. Tainted blood from Cummins infected literally millions of people with HIV (the AIDS virus) and potentially lethal Hepatitis C (20%-25% fatality rate) all over the world -- Canada, Japan, England, Ireland, Denmark, Switzerland, Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, and not least, the United States. Clinton and his partners netted millions from it annually. I bet no one is surprised Bill Clinton now devotes much of his "charity" energy to alleviating the devastation of aids in Africa...probably the only continent his tainted prison blood has not infected!:( e.g. CBC Network " Canada's Tainted Blood Scandal ). Numerous other unreported and/or underreported scandals during the Arkansas Clinton years still foul our landscape literally and figuratively here in our state....along with Clinton's multimillion dollar eyesore.
by
Roy Murtishaw (14 articles, 0 quicklinks, 11 diaries, 80 comments)
on Sunday, April 20, 2008 at 11:13:31 AM
10 comments
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