{"id":4409,"date":"2008-05-08T12:15:53","date_gmt":"2008-05-08T19:35:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2008\/05\/08\/clinton-hard-working-americans-white-americans\/"},"modified":"2008-05-08T12:15:53","modified_gmt":"2008-05-08T19:35:41","slug":"clinton-hard-working-americans-white-americans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=4409","title":{"rendered":"Clinton: "Hard-working Americans. White Americans.""},"content":{"rendered":"

Clinton:<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was just an AP article posted that found how Sen. Obama\u2019s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.\u201d<\/p>\n

“There’s a pattern emerging here,” she said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n


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Yes, there is a pattern emerging.<\/p>\n

Elrod<\/a>:<\/p>\n

[…] The implication is, of course, that hard-working goes hand-in-hand with white. Never mind that Obama has won hard-working black Americans, or that he\u2019s won whites everywhere outside the South and the Rust Belt.<\/p>\n

The \u201chard-working Americans, white Americans\u201d is a classic Wallace\/Helms\/Buchanan equation of whiteness with hard work and honesty. The opposite is either effete white intellectuals who don\u2019t work, or lazy blacks who also don\u2019t work. In fact, the Reagan coalition GOP even dropped the word \u201cwhite,\u201d knowing that \u201chard-working\u201d and \u201claw-abiding\u201d already implied, in their minds, white people.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think Hillary Clinton really believes that only white people are hard-working. But she has to know that such phrasing is downright toxic given the racially polarized electorate in the primary.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Jack and Jill Politics<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Hard-working Americans = white Americans. Right. The rest of us sit on our porches eating watermelon and plucking banjos.<\/p>\n

For some reason, despite this “broader base” Clinton still seems to be having trouble raising money, and you know, getting more votes than her opponent. But at this point any abstract metric besides votes or delegates that Clinton can use as a rationale for her candidacy becomes the only appropriate one to use.<\/p>\n

This kind of comment is less a description than an agitator, it’s meant to give white voters the impression that they would be “disenfranchised” by an Obama win. It’s a not so subtle effort to evoke racial resentment over Obama’s success. […] <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

J&JP also points out that neither Clinton nor Obama will win a majority of the white vote in November (the majority of whites have always gone to Republicans, in recent decades). What matters isn’t who gets the majority of whites, but who gets the majority of voters.<\/p>\n

Pam at Pandagon<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The frame is specific \u2014 that\u2019s why Clinton referred to hard working white Americans. What happened to \u201cblue collar Americans?\u201d Oh wait, there are a lot of hard working black and brown blue collar\/working class Americans, and many of them they voted for Obama, so she had to slice that demo down to the bottom line. Dog whistles no more.<\/p>\n

I want to believe that it wasn\u2019t a purposeful slip of the tongue because it\u2019s too painful to contemplate that the black vote is now perceived as a \u201cproblem\u201d because it skews to Obama, and because there are more white voters who have a problem with him based on his race, we have to nail that demo.<\/p>\n

Remember, the black vote has been the most reliable Democratic vote, not the Reagan Democrats. Black voters don\u2019t turn out for Obama solely because he is black. I\u2019ve blogged before about this bizarre train of thought \u2014 if the affinity vote is so powerful we would have seen a bum rush for Alan Keyes. What Clinton is saying is not inaccurate (polls slice and dice this way), but its use here is inappropriate and inflammatory.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In Matthew Yglesias’ comments, Brendan writes<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The point isn’t that she’s calling non-whites lazy–I didn’t read it that way at all–but that she’s suggesting white votes should carry more weight than black votes in choosing the nominee. That is a blatantly racist claim, no matter the ostensible rationale behind it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Steve Benen:<\/a><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s put aside the unfortunate wording of Clinton\u2019s statement in which she equated \u201chard-working\u201d with \u201cwhite,\u201d and consider the merits of her broader point.<\/p>\n

Clinton has done well with white \u201chard-working\u201d Americans, especially in states like Pennsylvania. But her argument is premised on the notion that White Joe Six Pack who votes in a Democratic primary would rather support a Republican than Obama. Where\u2019s the proof to bolster this claim? There isn\u2019t any.<\/p>\n

By the logic of Clinton\u2019s argument, we should also note that her support among African Americans is quite poor, and the \u201cpattern\u201d is pretty clear. Are we to assume that if she were the nominee, those same voters would back McCain over her? That Clinton couldn\u2019t possibly win because she\u2019d never get the support of African-American Dems? Of course not.<\/p>\n

Why, then, characterize the race in this illogical, race-based way?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The Politico\u2019s Ben Smith:<\/a><\/p>\n

Now, the press has talked about the race in these terms constantly, so I won\u2019t feign shock. But it\u2019s a bit strange to hear it so bluntly from the candidate\u2019s mouth, and probably not a great way to endear herself to African-American voter.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s also noteworthy that the blunt talk on appealing to whites surfaces the day after the last round of primaries in which there\u2019s a substantial number of black voters.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

More blogging on this: Stereohyped<\/a>, All About Race<\/a>, The Angry Black Woman<\/a>, Comments From Left Field<\/a>, Jeff at Blog Of The Moderate Left<\/a> (but unless I missed it, not cross-posted to Shakesville), Fables of the Reconstruction<\/a>, The Roland Report<\/a>. The American Street<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clinton: \u201cThere was just an AP article posted that found how Sen. Obama\u2019s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.\u201d “There’s a pattern … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,93],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-elections-and-politics","category-race-racism-and-related-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4409\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}