Obama's Sad Victory

After Iowa, I felt good about Barack Obama and his campaign, even though my candidate lost. I loved his speech that night, and believed he was good for the progressive side of American politics. But after the last week, Obama's victory in South Carolina tastes like thin, salt-less gruel to this hopeful Democrat. It nourishes no one except the hard-core partisans, and its audacity - to use the favorite word du jour - was evident only in its cynical partnership with the rabidly anti-Clinton, race-baiting media.

It was a great political victory with a terribly sour after-taste, as Craig Crawford notes this morning:

The Obama camp was smart to gin up any plausible rationale for sidelining or ridiculing the former president. For the most part, he is an asset for his wife, the New York senator.

It was certainly brilliant for Obama’s team to enlist the aid of the news media in stirring up racial resentment against the Clintons – going back to New Hampshire when reporters and pundits promoted the bogus notion that Obama lost the state because of racism. That still unproven charge had to help Obama’s forces get the attention of African-American voters in South Carolina.

But it was sad to see so many in the news media become tools for one campaign’s agenda.

When you watch the likes of conservatives Joe Scarborough, Bill Bennett, Byron York, Andy Sullivan, George Will and Peggy Noonan "worry" about how the racial divide will split the Democratic Party, a slow burning rise of bile burns the throat. Digby:

So, this ugly race is over and it looks like all the racial talk was overblown and overplayed. The voters, once again, made their voices heard and the politicians will have to heed them.

I would hope that the media will take a little breather as well. Watching the concern trolling about Democratic racial divisiveness among people like Peggy Noonan, Joe Scarborough and Bill Bennett is enough to make me sick and should give progressives pause. As I wrote last night, I don't think this helps Senator Obama any more than it helps Clinton.

Twice now, the Obama camp has been too smug and too clever by half - early on, they enjoyed the vicious and openly sexist campaign against Hillary Clinton, until the "likeable enough" backlash cost them in New Hampshire and forced an on-air apology from Chris Matthews. In South Carolina, they cleverly played the race card - and I mean cleverly with all the sincerity of a reporter who once covered the mean streets of Bronx politics. They demonized Bill Clinton (who did a pretty good job of helping out, it must be said) and assisted in making the Clinton campaign seem racist - even though not a single racist statement has ever been attributed to either the Clintons themselves or to any of their bungling surrogates. They allowed the media to claim that the use of the word "fairytale" and any mention of Obama's youthful drug use was racially-tinged, even if the words came from black men who'd fought all their lives for civil rights. Why? Because they know the villagers (as Digby calls them) hate the Clintons, and always have. Lance Mannion:

The story is arising out of the same old prejudice against the Clintons.  The bullshit about Hillary being so goddamn ambitious, as if no other politician in American history ever actually wanted to an election, is a legacy.  It was Bill who was originally the ambitious one, the one who would do anything to win, like read polls and find out what voters wanted and then give it to them, the snake!

If they'd thought of it they'd have begun calling her Slick Hilly a long time ago.

They, of course, are the insiders' insiders of the Washington Insider establishment, the royalists and their journalist toadies, who have always been appalled by the Clintons' presumption.

For me (and I suspect for many other Democrats who feel silenced by the sexist anti-Clinton media onslaught), Barack Obama wasn't knocked off his pedestal by Bill and Hillary Clinton. He climbed down himself, with David Axelrod holding his hand. And he'll never reclaim that lofty position again.

Sadly, many normally sane observers bought into the national media lines. Hell, even Al Giordano - who claims he's pretty "hardboiled about politics" but fairly melts under the chosen one's gaze - actually says, "Obama became inoculated against the most powerful plays in the Clinton playbook." What plays, Al? What playbook? You actually think the Clintons took billionaire Bob Johnson aside and said "hey Bob, can you slyly inject race into this contest by  appearing to clumsily refer to Obama's drug use?" It's patently absurd, and guys like Giordano and Bob Herbert at the Times - who used a single anonymous comment from an unattributed blog to cry racism this week in a shockingly juvenile column - ought to know better. So should the Josh Marshalls of the world, who actually have the temerity to claim that President Clinton's comparision of Obama and Jesse Jackson as pioneers to African-Americans was a racist ploy. Hey Josh, my second presidential vote went to Jesse Jackson, pal. The man was a pioneer. Inoculated? As if the Republicans won't dig up the very dirt the Obama campaign itself sent out regarding a racial divide that didn't actually exist?

The morning after Iowa, I felt pretty good about the future of the Democratic Party. This morning, I need a shower to wash away the slime of Obama's not-very-subtle partnership with the sickening race-baiting media.

Sour grapes, you suggest? Hell yeah. Not at the primary win, but at the sheer dishonesty openly employed by the Obama campaign and its media enablers. And there are millions and millions like me - Democrats who once thought they could happily vote for Barack Obama as a decent second choice. If it comes to it, I'll still pull the lever against any Republican, but I'll know what I'm getting now.

UPDATE: Once again, Barack Obama is singularly ungracious in victory.

UPDATE II: Big Tent Democrat, always a cynic (though an Obama supporter), absolutely nails it over at TalkLeft:

Regarding the Media coverage of this primary season it now seems clear that there is a new rule that objectivity and appearances thereof are out the window. Certainly at NBC this is true. From the far right commentators like Joe Scarborough to the liberal newscaster Keith Olbermann and Establishment columnists like Eugene Robinson and Margaret Carlson any pretense of not openly rooting against the Clintons has now been discarded. NBC's performance last night was unlike any other I have seen outside of Fox News. Olbermann, who likes to trash Fox, properly in my view, should pause for a moment and consider how much his broadcast last night resembled Fox.

But Barack Obama has an opportunity here to make these new rules, as they pertain to him, lasting. And so does the progressive blogosphere. I have long stated that Obama is a Media Darling, and indeed it is one of the main reasons I tepidly support him for the nomination.

He then lists a bunch of rules that basically boil down to: any criticism of Barack Obama is now to be considered "vaguely racist."

UPDATE III: It's incredible to me how supposedly liberal commentators are eager to smear Jesse Jackson, and ignore his record as Presidential pioneer. Do they forget that in 1988 - the famed "Year of Jackson" proclaimed by Times political writer R.W. Apple - Jesse Jackson won 11 primaries and caucuses, and racked up seven million votes? He won a majority of Hispanic votes in New York, and 14 percent of the white vote nationally. He was the first crossover black candidate for President, and he seriously challenged Michael Dukakis from the left. Yet according to Josh Marshall and this poorly-informed DailyKos diarist, the invocation of his name by President Clinton (who is close to Jackson) is some kind of racist smear against Obama. It would be laughable if it wasn't so sad.

UPDATE IV: Jesse Jackson weighs in.

Comments

[Allienne Goddard]

Yeesh. I'm glad I don't have a preference in the Dem primary. I would hate to be consumed by such wanktacious feelings. Do petulant posts like these actually drum up support for the candidates? Doesn't it just make everyone more pissed off?

[JoeCHI]

Bravo.

[carissa]

You nailed it Tom. I am also left with a bad taste in my mouth after what I've seen happen in the last couple of weeks. The bitter divide that this is creating in the Democratic Party will reverberate through November 2008. I am an activist. I walk precincts, staff phone banks, donate money, train precinct captains, etc. If Barack is our nominee, after what I have seen come down, I will be hard pressed to do any of that for him. And that makes me want to cry.

[JoeCitizen]

Hmmm, I'm sitting here wondering why it is that this well written, seemingly intellegent analysis, seems so out of whack and confused to me.

I think one issue might be the word "racism". What a horribly overused word, whose meaning seems to be corrupted by its constant use as a bludgeon in the rhetorical wars.

Racism of course, refers to the attitude of racial superiority. The Clinton's seem to me to have not a racist molecule in their bodies. So any defense of them against a charge of racism will be extremely well grounded.

The problem though, is that no one is really accusing them of racism. What they are being accused of is playing the race card - which is something very different. It is playing off the latent racism in the voting population, in order to advance their own political prosepects - that is the charge brought against them, and I think it is a valid charge.

The MLK-LBJ issue was the start. I agree with those who find that whole episode bizarre - the reactions were very inappropriate. The Clinton's had no intention of insulting or minimizing Dr. King, so those charges really were bizarre.

But they most certainly did intend to insult and minimize Obama. The not-so-subtle (but I guess way-too-subtle for a lot of folks) message was: I (Hillary) am a presidential-level politician, you (Obama) are an inspiring speaker fighting for the rights of your people.

This is the frame that the Clintons have been laboring to build, and Bill's comments of the last few days have made it about as obvious as it could possibly be.

Obama is not to be taken seriously as a contender for the presidency. Like King, or Jesse Jackson, he is a crusader for black equality, his campaign might, at best, serve to advance the notion of a black man being a national player, but no one should imagine that he could actually be, or should actually be the actual president of the United States.

Its a Rovian gambit. Go after your opponents strengths, not his weaknesses. Obama is not, of course, the black candidate. To the contrary, everything about his campaign and his persona make clear that he is a candidate who happens to be black.

And there is such a hunger in the country, especially in the Democratic party, for a transendance of that type. That Obama, or any black person, can actually run for the presidency and be taken seriously, and evaluated on his merits, just like JFK was able to transcend his Catholicism.

This is the notion that the Clinton's have set out to undermine. This is why so many of us Democrats who have so many scars from our fights to defend the Clintons, are so absolutely disgusted with them now.

They have had a chance to run this campaign as an object lesson to America, in terms of how to run against a serious black candidate. Treat him like you would any other candidate. Of course you know, in the back of your mind, that he will enjoy some extra advantage in the black community, just like he will in his home state. Just like Hillary will amongst women, or New Yorkers. But take that in stride, and engage the candidate on his merits.

But no. They have set out to use his race against him, by framing him as the "black candidate", ala Jackson and Sharpton. Someone to be patronized, someone to be given a place on the stage to make his special plea for his own people, but not to be taken seriously as a potential president of all the people.

No good Democrat, no good liberal can allow them to succeed in this.

[Al Giordano]

Since you asked - "What plays, Al? What playbook? You actually think the Clintons took billionaire Bob Johnson aside and said 'hey Bob, can you slyly inject race into this contest by appearing to clumsily refer to Obama's drug use?'" - my answer is "yes!"

Obviously they didn't tell Johnson to be "clumsy" about it. But in big league politics you simply do not have anyone introduce you without vetting (or writing) his or her words first. Maybe a lapse is possible on the part of some campaigns but never from the control-freak Clinton method of politics.

You mention having covered politics in the Bronx. That's my hometown. How you can say with a straight face that any Democrat or liberal is above playing divide-and-conquer racial politics, given that experience, is mystifying. I cut my teeth on politics as a kid when the first-ever Hispanic congressional district was created for the 1968 elections in the South Bronx (disclosure: my dad was the campaign manager of one of them, Louis Gigante). There were five candidates in the Democratic primary. Herman Badillo won. There was also a significant swathe of African-American voters in the district. They voted heavily for Gigante, who, despite the hispano-sounding name, is Italian American. Black-Latino tensions existed then as now. In New York, they were exploited by Giuliani against David Dinkins and by Bloomberg against Freddy Ferrer.

A week ago I watched, in Las Vegas, that same cut-throat dividing politics at work in the Nevada caucuses, perpetrated by the Clinton campaign. I wrote about at CounterPunch. What the Clintons attempted in recent weeks could set progressive movements - electoral and not - back 40 years by exploiting racial divisions.

Even last night, Bill Clinton's cracks about Jesse Jackson as explanation for losing the South Carolina primary, were acts of political arson against black-Latino solidarity. Talk about "melting under a gaze"!

If you choose to put on blinders and ignore the parade of race-baiting moves out of the Clinton camp: Billy Shaheen's drug dealer smear (and even after that, Bob Johnson's, from the knowledge that they wouldn't have to disassociate themselves similarly if another African-American was the messenger rather than a white politician), Bob Kerry's "secular Madrassa" act (and the Clinton Iowa people getting caught forwarding those ugly emails), the insincere "apology" by HRC on the tarmac of Reagan airport only to then go and bait the hook again and again with her High School Student Council candidacy statements about Martin Luther King, and then trotting Bill out there for the last week to hit, again and again and again, on the same themes, and you want to say that somebody other than the Clintons is responsible for jumping into the race-hatred mud pit?

Well, it's anyone's prerogative to play the victim card after opening that Pandora's box. Just as it's my prerogative to identify it and speak out about it when it happens. But something interesting happened yesterday in South Carolina: when more voters that said Bill Clinton's efforts there were "important" to their vote cast theirs against Senator Clinton. White and black alike rejected those Jim Crow politics soundly.

One thing about being from the Bronx: We're under no illusions that Democrats or liberals are any less racist than Republicans or conservatives. In many ways they're worse because at least on the right, for all their faults, at least they're not such whining hypocrites about it.

Anyway, many of them got the memo delivered by rank-and-file voters last night. If you didn't, so be it. But many of us see something much more grave than the mere Clinton-v-Obama horse race at stake. We either acknowledge that divide-and-conquer racial politics exist and work to bury that chapter. Or we deny it's existence which is the same as perpetuating it.

Outside of this primary election, the cause of bringing working people - black, white, Latino, Asian... Americans all - to fight together rather than against each other simply has more priority for many of us than this year's electoral passions. The Clintons tried to set that cause back decades and it blew up in their faces. And no amount of spin can wipe the self-inflicted stain off of them now. For many of us, what they have attempted in recent weeks is as unforgiveable as George Bush Sr.'s Willie Horton ads.

[Tom W.]

Hey Al, did you know Walter Diamond at all - he of the "Brillo for Badillo" gambit, aimed at convincing white Italians in the north Bronx that Herman was from the old country?

Well, we were both raised on the same thing - and we see this entirely in different ways, what can I say. The Clinton campaign, in my view, has not taken a single race-baiting action, not one, nada. Did they burned by a couple of surrogates, yeah. Are those surrogates racist - or race-baiters - nah, I don't buy it. They're just inelegant. To suggest that the "Clinton machine" had some kind of secret plan - and yet pulled it off so clumsily, with the aid of the right-wing media - seems like pure fantasy to me.

And I say that as a New Yorker who lived through all the race-baiting here. Indeed, race has hardly been a factor in this campaign - it's all media-driven - there's been no overt racism, although there has been tons of over sexism.

BTW, Hispanics were with Jesse Jackson in NY in 84 and 88 - I covered those campaigns.

And Willie Horton? Well, that's being as unreasonable toward a liberal fellow Democrat as you can possibly get.

[btw, I like your stuff]

[Tom W.]

Joe, you say - "This is the notion that the Clinton's have set out to undermine."

In my view, that is simply a straight-out untruth - I'm amazed you can type those words.

Oh, and by the way, go to your previous sentence and type in "woman" instead of "black person" - then see how good you feel. The sexism in this campaign has been open and overt - not Obama personally, but his supporters on the right (why so many?) and the media. Racism? Again - show me.

[stellaa]

Today I delete Josh Marshall from my Bookmards, and you will replace him.

From my 23 year old daughter: "Democrats these days are about as critical as a 14 year old girl going home with a hot senior"

[Ronzoni Rigatoni]

Jeebus! I liked what Jesse Jackson had to say in both elections you cite, but knew he could not win. These days I like what John Edwards has to say, but I fear the same results. Alas, America. We've truly forgotten FDR, haven't we?

[JoeCitizen]

Tom,

How on earth can you say it is untrue?
Have you heard Bill today, yesterday, the day before?
What kind of absolute denial are you drowning yourself in? He constantly is trying to put Obama in the Jesse Jackson frame. The campaign came out and explicitly claimed that he is now the "black candidate".

And the woman thing? Give me a break. Tell me one thing that the Obama camp, or the candidate, has ever said that could in any possilbe way seek to stoke some notion that a woman should not be seriously considered for the presidency because she is a woman.
It aint there, and I find it inconceivable that you dont know it.

"Racism? Again - show me."

Now this shows me some real bad will. I began my comment by explicitly defining racism, and explicitly laying out how the Clintons are completely innocent of the charge. The issue is playing the race card, not racism. You seem intent on defending them against a charge not being made. That is evasion, not honest discourse.

[Tom W.]

Joe - do you have any idea what Jesse Jackson accomplished as a candidate? How many Hispanic votes he got? How many white votes he got?

I saw Jackson at the Clinton Global Initiative - the Clintons view him as an elder statesman of African-American politics. So to suggest Bill Clinton was going negative by comparing Barack Obama to Jesse Jackson - a personal friend of Bill's - is entirely disrespectful.

Secondly, no ill will - but why divide a cynical race-based strategy - as you suggest - from racism. I don't see a divide there. Accusing the Clintons of that cynicism or, as Al promotes, actually asking Bob Johnson to play the race card is pretty much calling them racists. Hell, we called Pat Buchanan a racist for similar stuff. Let's own up to it: Obama supporters are calling the Clintons racists.

[Tom W.]

On sexism, it's all over the Obama media strategy of refusing the repudiate a sexist press corps - silence, pure silence as conservatives tee off. So the campaign might not be actively sexist, but damn if the strategy don't work for 'em.

And it's sad. You can still be openly sexist in our society, and get away with it. (See all of Obama's right fans, from Andrew Sullivan to Bill Bennett).

[Linda]

There has definitely been open sexism in the Obama campaign, and very obviously in the press. What do you think Obama's statement about Hillary just having tea parties with international leaders was all about? How well would it have gone over if Hillary had said Obama was out eating watermelon with leaders?

I find it very depressing that absolutely nothing can be said about this man without it being racist. It's racist when his record is mentioned. It's racist when his associates are mentioned. How, pray tell, is one supposed to campaign without being able to make those points, which are definitely being made against Hillary?

I agree with you, Tom. The people I see playing the race card are the Obama campaign. When Jesse Jackson, Jr. gets on all the talking head shows and criticizes Hillary for supposedly crying about her appearance and not Katrina, I think that's playing a race card, to say nothing of being insulting. How the hell would he know whether Hillary cried about Katrina or not? Most of us did. Did he follow her around every minute for months watching? And if he watched the tape, he knew damn well it had nothing to do with her appearance. Sounds like a bit of sexism to me.

I think the media played the race card, and the Obama campaign took it and ran with it. They started out by running clips of Bill and the "fairy tale" statement by taking it out of context of what he was talking about. They also took what Hillary said about LBJ totally out of context. You can make anyone a racist by lifting one sentence out of a whole speech and then playing it over and over again ad nauseum. The fact that the Obama campaign took this stuff, even though they had to know better, and tried to make gravy out of it is really repugnant to me.

Unlike you, Tom, I am going to have an extremely difficult time pulling the lever for him if by some miracle he makes it to the general. I have no confidence in him winning a general against the republican slime machine. And I have no confidence in him cleaning up the government and getting it back on the right track. Right now, Obama is only a couple of points higher in regard to me than Bush.

[athyrio]

TPM has been deleted after proving how biased they are...I fail to see the difference between their biased reporting and the Fox News ....I have added your site to replace them...thanks for being here...

[Whitecat]

"Tell me one thing that the Obama camp, or the candidate, has ever said that could in any possilbe way seek to stoke some notion that a woman should not be seriously considered for the presidency because she is a woman."

For starters: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNrlSn7ndAA

I've got more - lots more. But this should get you started, and give you some idea of the Obama campaign's - and the media's - continuing misogyny and sexism.

BTW, Obama never condemned this or apologized for it.

[Freefall]

Sexism? Easy to see. Consider the Obama attack to which Bill Clinton replied with his comment about Jesse Jackson -- and his compliment to Obama's campaign right after it, but that gets edited out.

Yes, it was in response -- again -- an Obama attack: the "two Clintons" remark (same as his first shot in the SC debate).

It is sexist because it says that a woman can't compete on her own. Got it? No? Well, women do. . . .

We also can see the "two Obamas" at work, if the media can't. Consider that Michelle Obama was the one who raised race way back in Iowa. And we know how to read "The Woman Behind Obama" (Chi Sun-Times, 1/20/2007) in which we find out that she had to take along her husband on a job interview before he would let her take a job with the Daley machine.

Yep, before he would "let her" do so. Fighting words for a lot of women, and we're talking about it, even if the media aren't doing so.

[ghost2]

Thanks, Tom.

Yes, it's a very sad commentary. I am really mad at the left in America. They don't seem to know what shit (discourse, I mean) they are peddling.

Here is a thought. The media enticed bloggers with support of Obama, and they took the bait. They were longing to join the slimy crowd of MSM and now they have. That goes for Josh Marshall. Markos was always about business first, even though he may not know it. His blog is his baby, he doesn't care much for what is on it. Marshall really wanted to be a younger version of E.J. Dionne (analogy curtesy of DailyHowler). The circle is now complete.

It's a very sad day for the truth. I wish Billmon still had his blog (what happened to him?)

[Ralph]

The Clintons should have learned from what happened to Mark Green's 2001 mayoral run in NYC. Green ran a negative campaign against popular Bronx borough president Fernando Ferrer even though he was way ahead in the polls. The result was he alienated many of his minority supporters he needed to win against the ex-Democrat, Bloomberg. I am afraid that, regardless of Obama's questionable tactics, Clinton should be running a smarter, more positive campaign. Rove has infected us all, something we hate to admit.

[Jonesy]

Obama IS in the Jessie Jackson frame. They both used race to win South Carolina. Obama wasnt that before New Hampshire, but when he lost there and it looked like he might lose the nomination thats what he became. Bill is right.

[Tom W.]

Ralph, I actually agree with you that some of the tactics in SC weren't smart - for instance, the lack of a real ground game and the ad hoc nature of Bill Clinton's campaigning.

The Green-Ferrer comparison may be apt, but it's going to cut both ways in '08 - because many women will be alienated by a nasty Obama win.

[LatinoVote]

Al Giordano,

I saw racism in Las Vegas too and in was from the Obama support team. The ad they ran against Hillary saying she didn't respect Latinos was absurd and racist. I've seen the race card played since IA and NH where JJ jr went on tv and compared fighting against HRC with OJ Simpson. I saw him say after NH that Hillary didn't cry for victims of Katrina. I've seen the race card played and it was done by Obama surrogates since IA.

[techinvestor]

Craig Crawford is a Clinton Shill and isn't always objective when covering the political races...Obama has run an outstanding campaign with integrity and he's the only candidate who can unite our country and create a new working majority for change...Caroline and Ted Kennedy realize this too...

Ted Kennedy embraces Obama

http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=BCD77237-3048-5C12-003B0005FE714F31

Kennedys to Bill Clinton: You Are No John Kennedy

http://liberalvaluesblog.com/?p=2792

[Temple Stark]

Thanks for that point about Jesse Jackson being at the CGI. Pretty much negates any "race card" criticism that follows; trouble is no one - even sensible people - seem to be listening.

- Temple

[Judith]

really well written, as ususal. looking forward to the book.

[Muataman]

Hey Tom, thats the best thing you ever wrote.