Are opponents of President Barack Obama’s health care proposals playing the race card?
Wade Henderson, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, thinks so. He accuses some health care reform foes of reaching way down to the bottom of the deck to play an old, but tested hand favored by Southern civil rights era segregationists: State’s rights.
In spite of fawning media coverage, an unpopular Republican president and economic challenges, Democrat Barack Obama has not managed to build a very substantive lead over his Republican rival John McCain. Recent polls show McCain closing the distance in key states, and one national poll even had the Republican candidate with a slight lead.
There are those that have, of late, attributed Obama’s lackluster polling to race. It happens that they are correct. But Obama’s presidential run has always been about race. It has not, however, been about race as we most often envision it, as part and parcel of race-“ism”. Most Americans are tired of race and are looking to move beyond it in a concrete way.
Obama’s polling numbers have not stalled because he has hit the glass ceiling of white supremacy. He has struggled because Americans no longer view him as a candidate that can transcend race. Many have, in fact, come to see him as ardently willing to manipulate race in order to gain a political advantage. Rather than representing a different kind of politician, he then appears to be not so different from any number of liberal black politicians who have graced the stage.
RACINE, Wisconsin (Reuters) - Republican White House hopeful John McCain's campaign accused Democrat Barack Obama on Thursday of playing racial politics in some of the most biting back-and-forth of the presidential campaign.
The negative twist in the campaign for the November 4 election was prompted by a McCain television advertisement on Wednesday that called Obama a celebrity akin to star-crossed U.S. personalities Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.
In response, Obama said McCain was trying to scare voters away from him by pointing out he has "a funny name, and he doesn't look like all the presidents on the dollar bills and the five dollar bills."
Ah, I love the smell of Democrats playing the race card in the morning!
The Democrat in this case? Why, Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, now in Week Two of her realization that she doesn’t get the Democratic presidential nomination handed to her just because her last name is Clinton.
Clinton trails Sen. Barack Obama in the number of superdelegates and regular delegates. Some political observers have noted that she has no chance of winning the nomination, but she’s vowed to stay in the race until the bitter end. Many have asked why, and the answer may have come last week, when African-American columnist Richard Prince wrote about what Clinton said regarding the West Virginia primary.
Bill Clinton told a Philadelphia radio station Barack Obama's campaign played the race card to turn black voters against him after he marginalized an Obama win in South Carolina by comparing it to Jesse Jackson's wins there in 1984 and 88.
The day after the interview, as Pennsylvanians headed to the polls, Clinton denied that he ever said it.
In Monday's phone interview with Philadelphia's WHYY radio, Clinton's South Carolina comments were brought up and he was asked if it was a mistake to play the race card.
"No. I think that they played the race card on me. And we now know, from memos from the [Obama] campaign and everything, that they planned to do it all along," Clinton responded.
He went on to explain that his words comparing Obama to Jackson had been twisted and he has been unfairly labeled as a racist. To defend himself, he cited his own appointment of blacks, Hispanics and women to top administration posts during his presidency, his work worldwide to combat AIDS, and reminded the reporter of his office space Harlem.
The next morning in Pittsburgh, Clinton was shaking hands with supporters at the Jewish Community Center when an "embedded reporter" from NBC asked the former President about his WHYY interview the day before. His response is detailed in the transcript below:
NBC: “Sir, what did you mean yesterday when you said that the Obama campaign was playing the race card on you?” CLINTON: “When did I say that, and to whom did I say that?” NBC: “On WHYY radio yesterday” CLINTON: “No, no, no. That’s not what I said. You always follow me around and play these little games, and I’m not going to play your games today. This is a day about election day. Go back and see what the question was, and what my answer was. You have mischaracterized it to get another cheap story to divert the American people from the real urgent issues before us, and I choose not to play your game today. Have a nice day.” NBC: “Respectfully sir, though, you did say …” CLINTON: “Have a nice day.” [continues shaking hands with supporters]. I said what I said, you can go and look at the interview. And if you’ll be real honest, you’ll also report what the question was and what the answer was.” NBC: “They asked you if you regretted your comparing Jesse Jackson to Barack Obama on the day after the South Carolina primary.” CLINTON: “And I pointed out that I did not do that, and that I complimented them both. And that Jesse Jackson took no offense. And I called him myself, I said, ‘Did you find that offensive?’ And he said no.
Later Tuesday, Obama was asked to respond about Clinton's accusations that his camp used the race card.
"Hold on a second, so former president Clinton dismissed my victory in South Carolina as being similar to Jesse Jackson and he's suggesting that somehow I had something to do with it? Ok, well then you better ask him about it," Obama said.
The Illinois senator was then asked if, as Clinton said, his campaign had a secret plan to use race.
"Was there something that we had a plan to get him to say that my campaign was like Jesse Jackson's? I don't know what he is referring to unfortunately," he said, laughing.
Meanwhile, Clinton is also making news about comments he made immediately after the WHYY interview when he thought the microphone was off. Once the interview was over, he turned to someone next to him and said: “I don’t think I should take any sh** from anybody on that, do you?”
