Clearly shaken up by Hillary’s landslide defeat in South Carolina last night, former President Bill Clinton took yet another swing at Barack Obama: ”Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in ‘84 and ‘88. Jackson ran a good campaign. And Obama ran a good campaign here.”
Jake Tapper of ABC News summed up the Clinton comment: “Boy, I can’t understand why anyone would think the Clintons are running a race-baiting campaign to paint Obama as ‘the black candidate.’”
This kind of racial division within the Democratic Party could destroy their chances for victory in November. Democrats have leaned heavily on the African-American vote and yesterday Obama captured about 80% of it in South Carolina.
If Hillary is the nominee, alienated black voters may flock to likely Green Party nominee Cynthia McKinney.
January 27th, 2008 at 11:02 pm
Yes, Austin… Black voters have gone in droves to support the Green Party nominee in the past. Just look at the landslide vote in 2008. Let’s see… the choice is between the Clintons, with Bill Clinton famously being referred to as the first Black president, and John McCain. I’d say you are going to lose the Black vote by 10-to-1.
Black voters are the only group of voters in the United States that vote for their own self-interest. Because of the horse sense on the part of Black voters, you Republicans aren’t going to get diddly squat because Republicans are a party with a racist past and they don’t support efforts promoting racial equality.
Poor white voters in the “Heartland”, on the other hand, vote against their self-interest in favor of “values-oriented” candidates who only stand up for corporate interests and the rich. That’s why you have a candidate like Mitt Romney, who prescription for out-of-work autoworkers in Michigan is to vote for someone who is going to lower capital gains tax rates. Precisely how are more neo-liberal economic policies, responsible for displacing jobs in the United States, going to bring back employment for the working class? Let’s hope people wake up this election and don’t vote for any of the candidates from the Republican party.