-
Website
http://www.jackandjillpolitics.com/ -
Original page
http://www.jackandjillpolitics.com/2008/01/nevada-results-robocalls-blacks-and-latinos/ -
Subscribe
All Comments -
Community
-
-
Top Commenters
-
Popular Threads
As for SC, I hope that none of the brothers and sisters become so starstruck with Bill that they overlook the best candidate in this race regardless of race, gender or party affiliation.
The race is not over...but if this race is reduced to John McCain vs. Hillary Clinton, then that's going to be a very sad day for this country. Neither of them are visionaries, both of them only promise to be "better" custodians of the status quo.
It's kind of funny...After seven years of G.W.Bush, I've gotten a physical repulsion for when Bush pops up on TV--I have to look away--like looking away from Sodom & Gommorrah--because I know the only thing that I will hear or see are LIES.
I now feel that same repulsion toward Hillary (and her surrogates). Just listening to her or seeing her cheesy composure makes me turn away from the screen.
That said, I hope the media plays up the Hillary--Latino connection over and over and over again, until it has the same affect as the Obama--Blackfolk connection.
Isn't it a shame that in 2008, that the mere thought of a Black man having the audacity to assume a role not previously prescribed for him -- yet through no fault of his own -- could create such division?
It's the delegate count that decides these caucuses and primaries, and Obama played it smart this time-- fanning out and encouraging turnout statewide, with Obama winning close to 2/3 of the counties in Nevada and winning the delegates.
The KKKlintons attempt to disenfranchise Nevada voters backfired, and now, we need to make them hurt in South Carolina.
Folks, this is WAR that the KKKlintons have declared on the African-American people, and we have to fight back just as hard.
Hillary KKKlinton had a 25% lead over Obama in Nevada just a month ago and it evaporated-- Hillary's blood is in the water, and it's time to cover and devour her and that racist jerk, Bill KKKlinton.
If Hillary were nominated by the Democrats, then nobody in my neighborhood would vote for the Democratic ticket in November-- if that means that John McCain wins, then so be it. A tiny, minor price to pay for teaching the Democrats a crucial lesson, that they cannot insult our people and reach power at our expense, and that if they try, that they will suffer a hellish reckoning.
Leading up to the primary in South Carolina, the KKKlintons will be trying all these tactics, you can count on it, and we have to be ruthless back. Bring your camcorders everywhere and record everything the KKKlintons attempt. Get in their faces and INTIMIDATE the Clinton campaign people.
Don't be brutish or obviously mean, be subtle yet also tough. Harass and frustrate the Clintonites, tantalize and thwart them, get into the KKKlinton campaign staffers' heads and demoralize them. They wanted the war like this, and they're gonna a reckoning more horrific than anything they could have imagined before.
I'm DONE!
The saddest thing of all the sad things about what the Clintons are doing and have already done is that they have now started to pick at the scab of black/latino relations. I'm praying that Obama can come up with a way to turn this around--imagine a coalition of blacks, latinos, progressive whites, fed-up independents, and working folks of all types. This is the Clinton's worst nightmare, and the Democratic party's best hope for the fall.
There's also the incident--though not a direct attack on Obama--of Bill Clinton accusing representatives of the Culinary Workers Union of voter intimidation in Nevada. The former president said he saw it. Now, how it is that the former president, who can't sneeze without it being on television and who travels with a cadre of federal agents, saw this and no one else did is beyond me. But NBC asked the Clintons if they were going to file a complaint and...well...now there's no comment.
I came into my own political beliefs under the Clinton administration, so I had a soft-spot for them for a long time. Combine that with the fact that I supported John Edwards in 2004 and the race and gender dynamic inherent from their candidacies of Obama and Clinton...it was impossible for this race not to be intensely personal for me.
What I didn't imagine, of course, was that this campaign would go so negatively and that it'd threaten my allegiance to the Democratic Party.
Sigh.
-----------------------------------
Trueblue----heard it too!
Not only that---It's been reported the Clintons are planning to visit every black church in South Carolina.
Black people---come together now!
All I could think of was "Damn it feels good to be a gangsta." :-(
I'm taking it personally, too. But I have a feeling that Clinton getting all red-faced and finger-waggin' isn't going to be convincing for much longer. At least I hope so.
But yes, it's a very disspiriting morning. Gotta work harder, gotta really start fighting for this.
It's about time we did say it....outloud!
After all,isnt J.B. South Carolina's favorite son.
http://mistyblue.imeem.com/music/TbksSp89/james_brown_say_it_loud_im_black_and_im_proud/
Mr. Russert:"Michele, as someone who spoke to Bill Clinton said, quoted him as saying, "I don't care about this stuff, about my image as the former president, I'm going to win this campaign. I'm going to go door-to-door in the black neighborhoods of South Carolina, church-to-church." Just like he went into the casinos and split the union vote with Barack Obama that was supposed to go to Obama, he's convinced he can win enough blacks to divide them and give Hillary Clinton South Carolina."
The Clinton's only care about getting back the White House. If they really cared about the black community they wouldn't be out there trying to divide them to satisy their undending greed for more power.
By the way, I'm Native American and new here. Love the site.
I feel for the Latino's in this. Should Hillary win, they will find that their votes were nothing more than a commodity to them, like so many of us are finding out now. I wish there was some way to spare them the way I'm feeling today but I'm afraid that like the rest of us, they will have to figure it out for themselves.
Obama gave a great speech today- one that should be posted on every blog,for everyone to see before Clinton plagerizes it and claims the phrases as her own...
Remarks of Senator Barack Obama
The Great Need of the Hour
Ebenezer Baptist Church
Sunday, January 20th, 2008
Atlanta, Georgia
EMBARGOED for Delivery
The Scripture tells us that when Joshua and the Israelites arrived at the gates of Jericho, they could not enter. The walls of the city were too steep for any one person to climb; too strong to be taken down with brute force. And so they sat for days, unable to pass on through.
But God had a plan for his people. He told them to stand together and march together around the city, and on the seventh day he told them that when they heard the sound of the ram’s horn, they should speak with one voice. And at the chosen hour, when the horn sounded and a chorus of voices cried out together, the mighty walls of Jericho came tumbling down.
There are many lessons to take from this passage, just as there are many lessons to take from this day, just as there are many memories that fill the space of this church. As I was thinking about which ones we need to remember at this hour, my mind went back to the very beginning of the modern Civil Rights Era.
Because before Memphis and the mountaintop; before the bridge in Selma and the march on Washington; before Birmingham and the beatings; the fire hoses and the loss of those four little girls; before there was King the icon and his magnificent dream, there was King the young preacher and a people who found themselves suffering under the yolk of oppression.
And on the eve of the bus boycotts in Montgomery, at a time when many were still doubtful about the possibilities of change, a time when those in the black community mistrusted themselves, and at times mistrusted each other, King inspired with words not of anger, but of an urgency that still speaks to us today:
“Unity is the great need of the hour” is what King said. Unity is how we shall overcome.
What Dr. King understood is that if just one person chose to walk instead of ride the bus, those walls of oppression would not be moved. But maybe if a few more walked, the foundation might start to shake. If a few more women were willing to do what Rosa Parks had done, maybe the cracks would start to show. If teenagers took freedom rides from North to South, maybe a few bricks would come loose. Maybe if white folks marched because they had come to understand that their freedom too was at stake in the impending battle, the wall would begin to sway. And if enough Americans were awakened to the injustice; if they joined together, North and South, rich and poor, Christian and Jew, then perhaps that wall would come tumbling down, and justice would flow like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.
Unity is the great need of the hour – the great need of this hour. Not because it sounds pleasant or because it makes us feel good, but because it’s the only way we can overcome the essential deficit that exists in this country.
I’m not talking about a budget deficit. I’m not talking about a trade deficit. I’m not talking about a deficit of good ideas or new plans.
I’m talking about a moral deficit. I’m talking about an empathy deficit. I’m taking about an inability to recognize ourselves in one another; to understand that we are our brother’s keeper; we are our sister’s keeper; that, in the words of Dr. King, we are all tied together in a single garment of destiny.
We have an empathy deficit when we’re still sending our children down corridors of shame – schools in the forgotten corners of America where the color of your skin still affects the content of your education.
We have a deficit when CEOs are making more in ten minutes than some workers make in ten months; when families lose their homes so that lenders make a profit; when mothers can’t afford a doctor when their children get sick.
We have a deficit in this country when there is Scooter Libby justice for some and Jena justice for others; when our children see nooses hanging from a schoolyard tree today, in the present, in the twenty-first century.
We have a deficit when homeless veterans sleep on the streets of our cities; when innocents are slaughtered in the deserts of Darfur; when young Americans serve tour after tour of duty in a war that should’ve never been authorized and never been waged.
And we have a deficit when it takes a breach in our levees to reveal a breach in our compassion; when it takes a terrible storm to reveal the hungry that God calls on us to feed; the sick He calls on us to care for; the least of these He commands that we treat as our own.
So we have a deficit to close. We have walls – barriers to justice and equality – that must come down. And to do this, we know that unity is the great need of this hour.
Unfortunately, all too often when we talk about unity in this country, we’ve come to believe that it can be purchased on the cheap. We’ve come to believe that racial reconciliation can come easily – that it’s just a matter of a few ignorant people trapped in the prejudices of the past, and that if the demagogues and those who exploit our racial divisions will simply go away, then all our problems would be solved.
All too often, we seek to ignore the profound institutional barriers that stand in the way of ensuring opportunity for all children, or decent jobs for all people, or health care for those who are sick. We long for unity, but are unwilling to pay the price.
But of course, true unity cannot be so easily won. It starts with a change in attitudes – a broadening of our minds, and a broadening of our hearts.
It’s not easy to stand in somebody else’s shoes. It’s not easy to see past our differences. We’ve all encountered this in our own lives. But what makes it even more difficult is that we have a politics in this country that seeks to drive us apart – that puts up walls between us.
We are told that those who differ from us on a few things are different from us on all things; that our problems are the fault of those who don’t think like us or look like us or come from where we do. The welfare queen is taking our tax money. The immigrant is taking our jobs. The believer condemns the non-believer as immoral, and the non-believer chides the believer as intolerant.
For most of this country’s history, we in the African American community have been at the receiving end of man’s inhumanity to man. And all of us understand intimately the insidious role that race still sometimes plays – on the job, in the schools, in our health care system and in our criminal justice system.
And yet, if we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that none of our hands are entirely clean. If we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll acknowledge that our own community has not always been true to King’s vision of a beloved community.
We have scorned our gay brothers and sisters instead of embracing them. The scourge of anti-Semitism has, at times, revealed itself in our community. For too long, some of us have seen immigrants as competitors for jobs instead of companions in the fight for opportunity.
Every day, our politics fuels and exploits this kind of division across all races and regions; across gender and party. It is played out on television. It is sensationalized by the media. And last week, it even crept into the campaign for President, with charges and counter-charges that served to obscure the issues instead of illuminating the critical choices we face as a nation.
So let us say that on this day of all days, each of us carries with us the task of changing our hearts and minds. The division, the stereotypes, the scapegoating, the ease with which we blame our plight on others – all of this distracts us from the common challenges we face – war and poverty; injustice and inequality. We can no longer afford to build ourselves up by tearing someone else down. We can no longer afford to traffic in lies or fear or hate. It is the poison that we must purge from our politics; the wall that we must tear down before the hour grows too late.
Because if Dr. King could love his jailor; if he could call on the faithful who once sat where you do to forgive those who set dogs and fire hoses upon them, then surely we can look past what divides us in our time, and bind up our wounds, and erase the empathy deficit that exists in our hearts.
But if changing our hearts and minds is the first critical step, we cannot stop there. It is not enough to bemoan the plight of poor children in this country and remain unwilling to push our elected officials to provide the resources to fix our schools. It is not enough to decry the disparities of health care and yet allow the insurance companies and the drug companies to block much-needed reforms. It is not enough for us to abhor the costs of a misguided war, and yet allow ourselves to be driven by a politics of fear that sees the threat of attack as way to scare up votes instead of a call to come together around a common effort.
The Scripture tells us that we are judged not just by word, but by deed. And if we are to truly bring about the unity that is so crucial in this time, we must find it within ourselves to act on what we know; to understand that living up to this country’s ideals and its possibilities will require great effort and resources; sacrifice and stamina.
And that is what is at stake in the great political debate we are having today. The changes that are needed are not just a matter of tinkering at the edges, and they will not come if politicians simply tell us what we want to hear. All of us will be called upon to make some sacrifice. None of us will be exempt from responsibility. We will have to fight to fix our schools, but we will also have to challenge ourselves to be better parents. We will have to confront the biases in our criminal justice system, but we will also have to acknowledge the deep-seated violence that still resides in our own communities and marshal the will to break its grip.
That is how we will bring about the change we seek. That is how Dr. King led this country through the wilderness. He did it with words – words that he spoke not just to the children of slaves, but the children of slave owners. Words that inspired not just black but also white; not just the Christian but the Jew; not just the Southerner but also the Northerner.
He led with words, but he also led with deeds. He also led by example. He led by marching and going to jail and suffering threats and being away from his family. He led by taking a stand against a war, knowing full well that it would diminish his popularity. He led by challenging our economic structures, understanding that it would cause discomfort. Dr. King understood that unity cannot be won on the cheap; that we would have to earn it through great effort and determination.
That is the unity – the hard-earned unity – that we need right now. It is that effort, and that determination, that can transform blind optimism into hope – the hope to imagine, and work for, and fight for what seemed impossible before.
The stories that give me such hope don’t happen in the spotlight. They don’t happen on the presidential stage. They happen in the quiet corners of our lives. They happen in the moments we least expect. Let me give you an example of one of those stories.
There is a young, 23-year-old white woman named Ashley Baia who organizes for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She’s been working to organize a mostly African American community since the beginning of this campaign, and the other day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.
And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that’s when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.
She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.
She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.
So Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they’re supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who’s been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he’s there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, “I am here because of Ashley.”
By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.
But it is where we begin. It is why the walls in that room began to crack and shake.
And if they can shake in that room, they can shake in Atlanta.
And if they can shake in Atlanta, they can shake in Georgia.
And if they can shake in Georgia, they can shake all across America. And if enough of our voices join together; we can bring those walls tumbling down. The walls of Jericho can finally come tumbling down. That is our hope – but only if we pray together, and work together, and march together.
Brothers and sisters, we cannot walk alone.
In the struggle for peace and justice, we cannot walk alone.
In the struggle for opportunity and equality, we cannot walk alone
In the struggle to heal this nation and repair this world, we cannot walk alone.
So I ask you to walk with me, and march with me, and join your voice with mine, and together we will sing the song that tears down the walls that divide us, and lift up an America that is truly indivisible, with liberty, and justice, for all. May God bless the memory of the great pastor of this church, and may God bless the United States of America.
I have been battered and bruised by arguing about the campaign, but you love politics and this is part of it all. It is a contact sport and did anybody think the Clintons were going to all of a sudden change their spots?
New York – Abyssinian Baptist Church Pastor Reverend Dr. Calvin O. Butts, III, today endorsed Hillary Clinton for President, issuing the following statement:
“Over the course of the past year, I have given careful consideration to the varied perspectives and agendas of the 2008 Presidential Candidates. I have observed, evaluated, and compared each of their strengths in the context of the current state of our nation and what will be required in the next 4 years to help us repair, restore and rebuild.
I, too, join countless Americans in a collective desire for change, and I do so with a vital recognition that change and experience are not mutually exclusive. The rhetoric of change in which we are presently engaged must also be accompanied by the experience and ability necessary to successfully and resourcefully accomplish it. Experience is not synonymous with status quo nor should it be vilified for the sake of campaign soundbites. With experience, comes the value of lessons learned. With experience, comes proficiency and understanding. With the right experience, comes change. Thus, I have not based my decision on the idea that I must embrace one over the other. I have instead based my decision on the candidate whom I believe will effectively use both – change and experience – to lead our nation to a place of domestic and international prosperity.
After thoughtful deliberation, I am decidedly confident that Senator Hillary Clinton is the candidate best suited to be the Democratic Presidential Nominee and the next President of the United States. I have personally had a positive working relationship with Senator Clinton for a number of years. In her current position as United States Senator from New York, she has also been very supportive of Abyssinian Baptist Church’s development work in Harlem. Thus, I have seen first-hand the wisdom, insight and concern she brings in her approach to community development, educational and developmental opportunities for youth, and economic revitalization, as well as tirelessly advocating for families, promoting health care reform, and fighting the global HIV/AIDS crisis.
I believe that we can benefit greatly from the value of Senator Clinton’s 30-plus years of service to our country that have uniquely positioned her to be a formidable leader on issues including homeland and national security, human rights, and restoration of our national image before an international audience. Her willingness to examine the issues and listen to the questions and concerns of everyday Americans is encouraging. Her proven ability to effectively work across both party and geographic boundaries towards solutions to our country’s problems and needs substantially distinguishes her from other candidates.
I go on record as endorsing Senator Clinton for the 2008 Presidential Election. As a nation, we cannot afford four more years of uninspired and uninspiring leadership. In our quest for change, it’s time that we returned to the fundamentals - experience, ability, respect, character. It’s time for Senator Hillary Clinton.”
Both Gore and Kerry won in Las Vegas, but lost the rest of the state heavily, so Bush carried the state both times.
I've read that some of the vote for Obama may have been due to republicans casting an "I hate Hillary" vote (since the republican caucus was largely uncontested). But I suspect that most of Obama's support was genuine.
Clinton runs well in the traditional democratic areas, but Obama has much more appeal to independents and moderate republicans. Doesn't help in winning the nomination, but Obama as the democratic nominee would probably make several states competitive that would be safe red states with Clinton as the nominee.
If he can change the minds of folk who thought him "not Black enough", he can change the minds of a few Latinos.
Bill Clinton knows that he can't move people like that. He knows he was a pathetic, egotistical, and self-obsessed politician whose flaws allowed the rise of this most criminal of administrations. He knows that he's not even close to Barack's ability--except in his own demented fairy tales.
Let's do what this party should've done 10 years ago: kick these losers to the curb.
but at the same time, i would find it beyond delicious for the clintons to get caught red-handed using their repertoire of repulsive tactics.
i've been calling all my relatives and friends all over the country to remind them to register to vote, that the primary is around the corner. none of them like hillary, so convincing them to vote for obama is easy. y'all should too- if it's getting personal, then GET PERSONAL.
-----------------------------------
Come on---lets do this!
We need to show up for Sen. Obama physically as well as monetarily. If anyone of you, your friends, relatives can show up at as many places throughout the country as possible we have this one opportunity to make a huge difference. Money is still needed but the ground support is needed also. Please go to his website and physically volunteer.
I just volunteered to travel to South Carolina for a few days and will go elsewhere afterwards depending on my funds. I know I can make the sacrifice. Obama is risking his life to do this, I believe we all need to get out of our comfort zones to show how committed we are. If it gets down to convention floor fight, I will save my pennies to go to Denver and rally for him there too.
Please, go to Obama's website and sign up as a volunteer and get your friends and relatives to sign up. We can complain all we want, but action is better.
Peace.
You know I agree with you, which is why the entire Kumbaya Black/Brown alliance thing is just a farce to me.
They know the Clintons tried to disenfranchise them and STILL voted for her. If there's a Latin Equivalent of Uncle Ruckus, that describes that behavior.
As I said in a previous post, if Senator Clinton is the nominee, I have no intention of casting a vote for her to validate what is clearly an anti-Black vote from Latinos, Jews, and older whites. I will not continue to be a willing participant of the plantation politics of the Democratic Party.
ICAM.
If we vote for that woman after all of this, then we will become accomplices to setting into cement, a ceiling for Blacks aspiring to higher political office. I have no intention of being that woman's accomplice. This now has become beyond Barack. This is not only about him, but any other Black politician in the future.
I have been relatively supportive of citizenship for illegal immigrants,
I'm not. Period.
but I'm not going to pretend to not be mad as hell that our one opportunity to make it to the White House will be road blocked by Latinos who only a generation ago crossed the border from Mexico. Yes, I know they are the indingenous people of this continent, but we, Black folks, built this United States of America, and what do we have to show for it? A permanent exisistence of politial servitude to Whites and Latinos in the near future?
Preach it. Preach it.
This idea is awesome!
What better way to take the Clintons down than to get videos of them looking like idiots and post them up on Youtube?!! Especially Bill arriving at someone's door? A citizen's army to blast them hard!
For anyone in South Carolina, here it goes:
1. Pretend that you're "on the fence" about the Clintons but, when a Clinton campaign volunteer shows up at the door, have a list of embarrassing questions in hand to embarrass and fluster them.
2. The big prize would be Bill himself showing up. You won't have Bill just appearing out of the blue, because of Secret Service protection (a waste of taxpayer dollars, being used by Bill to campaign for Hillary!) you'll get advance notification. Feign being on the fence for Bill as well.
3. Set up a video camera in a concealed location, even have someone else somewhere in the house do the filming. Practice this, rehearse it!
4. Set up a "neighborhood warning squad" so that when some people in the neighborhood are visited, they notify others in the neighborhood to get their camcorders ready.
5. Bring up a list of embarrassing questions to make the Clintons and their staffers look bad. Bring up the insinuations of Obama as a drug dealer, Muslim traitor candidate. Mention shuck and jive. Be specific and relevant-- hit Bill especially on his comments about Obama as a "fairy tale" and as a "kid." Talk about the way Hillary belittled MLK.
6. The core of the plan is to fluster the Clinton volunteers, rattle them, get them upset, most of all force them to make the first move and lash out. Slowly build up the argument with suspicions and misunderstandings (very much legitimate) and work your way up with them. Again, pretend to be friendly but slowly introduce these things to frustrate the Clinton people. Get in their heads and upset them.
7. Do this repeatedly and post the videos up on Youtube ASAP, get your friends to rate them up and embarrass the Clintons. Show the Clintons for the racists they really are!
bring up not only the race-baiting of the Clintons but, even more effective for us, after you pretend friendship with the Clinton staffers,
bring up the issues of the Clintons' attempts at voter suppression, fraud and disenfranchisement in the states thus far. They're desperately hoping to do something similar in South Carolina with its electronic voting machines and you can trick them into getting rattled about the tactics they're being called out on. Trying to stop college students in Iowa, the New Hampshire obstructions, that dumb lawsuit in Nevada, false directions to Nevada Obama caucusers, closing the caucus sites down in Nevada--
everybody hates these tactics because they attack the very heart of our democracy, and by focusing especially on the election fraud, voter suppression and disenfranchisement tactics, we hit the Clintons where it hurts them most. Remember, the heart of this is to paint a picture of the Clintons that hurts them most and sticks in people's minds, and an even more damaging picture than "race-baiter" is "vote-suppressors and fraudsters".
If the Clintons are depicted consistently as trying to suppress the vote, this will damage them in a nasty way. So again, feign friendship and indecisiveness, get your videocameras ready and trap the Clinton staffers, bring up the race-baiting but most of all, make reference specifically to the voter suppression tactics.
As for how to hide the videocameras, there are many methods but one of the best would be to have a friend by the door have a "cell phone conversation" but in fact, activate the Camcorder on the cell phone. Again, work as a neighborhood team, have "calls" to set this up, set the phone on vibrate mode, that kind of thing.
Like others are saying, this is plantation politics by the Clintons and they have to pay dearly for it, or no Black politician would be able to run in the future. I'd vote for Cynthia McKinney or even McCain in the general election if Hillary is nominated.
The videotaping plan is probably the best means at our disposal to thoroughly embarrass the Clintons and hurt their campaign in South Carolina and nationally. Use it aggressively wherever you are.
If you're in the audience, do not be shy, since this is your opportunity to humiliate the Clintons in an especially damaging way on national television! Be rude and interrupt Clinton, frustrate him, get under his skin, ask him about the race-baiting and mention specific examples, raise the disenfranchisement issue with specific cases and generally be hostile to Clinton and force him into losing his cool, the way he did with a reporter out in Nevada.
Do this wherever Bill goes. Make sure that his reception is as hostile, unpleasant and humiliating as you can make it!
"I saw Hillary three times: I was dissapointed that the first point a well intentioned supporter made to sway me from Obama was her belief that he was: a) A Muslim; b) likely an Al-Qaida plant; and c) refuses to say the pledge of allegiance. Now, that kind of thing has been debunked and I had no problem educating her on the truth. What was most disconcerting, however, was the sad fact that this view was shared by so many of her colleagues and that the Clinton camp was doing very little to disabuse them of these notions. The belief, rooted in fear, is deep seated and still widespread. The danger in cultivating this belief among Hillary supporters is that if Obama were to get the nomination, this kind of ridiculous belief in Obama as an enemy would likely lead the voter to vote Republican.
The only other distinction with any merit and one which was also repeated over and over at each of the three Hillary rallies I attended, was her "experience" and the fact that on day one, she will know what to do and be able to do it, implying that Obama will have a longer learning curve. This "experience" mantra was the only other point any of the Hillary supporters on the ground would make when they weren't criticizing Obama for being a muslim terrorist plant."
Then blogger ThereIsNoSpoon co-signs, which is the only reason why I bring this up here: "it was absolutely typical they distributed flyers to this effect all over Nevada. They didn't just allow these things to be said: they actively pushed them."
So, add this on top of the Clintons swarming legitimate union workers with a whole smarm of people whom no one knows where they were from or who they were with because no one even knows if they were really union workers -- PLANNED. How's that no voter ID working out? I never liked that, and I've always thought it was b.s. to claim it was for the sake of the poor.
I think the worst part of this is not that it's unthinkable that Democrats would pull this on another Democrat; but that Democrats have probably pulled this against other Democrats for a very long time. What's described here reminds me uncomfortably of what happened in Maryland -- when asked, a lot of blacks could present no real reason to vote against Michael Steele except that he was a Republican, which made him untrustworthy and a liar and an oreo. It reminded me too much of the peer-pressure 'you're acting too white' in school. It made me consider that perhaps some people WANT the rank and file to remain ignorant. Just like some people want and need generic women (since white women are supposed to represent all women including the issues of women of color) to be one-issue on Abortion... and female candidates.
Why would Latinos (nevermind whites, blacks, asians) buy the b.s. about Obama being a scary muslim, a scary black man? And if Obama really were all the things the Party says he is -- why would the Party allow him to remain within the Party in the first place instead of repudiating him? It makes no sense, and yet there it is.
I think blacks need to take a good, hard look at the Democratic Party. This is going beyond just the Clintons, at this point.
The Democratic Party itself needs to address this. If it does not, if it follows the Clinton script (as the Republicans foretold) of Lie-Destroy-MakeUp like some abusive spouse...whose fault is it if we continue to play the role of the abused who yet stays with her or him who abuses in hopes that the abuser will change out of true love and 'they need me'?
They don't need us. We need to get that through our skulls: They. Don't. Need. Us.
And when we show we don't need them, that's the only time change -- good change -- will come down the pike and stop this horror. Stop the expectations of ignorance the party seems to hold for all of us, black, brown, white and other.
@ rikyrah, thank you for speaking truths some folks may not want to hear; or have been snowed into believing otherwise.
@ RonnieB, I've noticed the number of so-called Democrats (wonder how many are Clinton operatives and not just Clinton supporters? or Edwards, to be perfectly honest) who insist that Obama is the one who brought race into the picture. They insist *Obama* is running on race. The Clintons are innocent in their world. *Obama* drew first blood. If that type of b.s. is flying on blogs and message boards where people are supposed to have more information -- what's going on in places where people only get their news from word of mouth?
People, please take a good hard look at the Democratic Party. Again, this is deeper than just the 2008 election race. Much deeper. It's too bad the Republicans' own rank and file don't offer much better. But dang.
The Democratic Party doesn't seem to want to clean up certain messes, even with Kennedy placing a call to Bill to pipe down and chill. The damage has been done. What is the Democratic Party going to do to rectify that damage, especially since it's damage done to one of it's leading, brightest stars -- a man who seems to earn the respect of everyone (no matter what side of the aisle) who actually listens to him?
If that answer is nothing -- what do reasonable people do?