Clinton Implies Working, Hard-Working Americans = White Americans

I guess in Hillary's world, where she still has a chance to win the presidential nomination, only White Americans are working Americans or hard working Americans. According to a report in USA Today:

"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article "that found how Sen. Obama's 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."

"There's a pattern emerging here," she said.

Click to listen to her comments to a USA Today reporter.

Clinton's blunt and demeaning remarks are getting widely criticized in no uncertain terms, as such comments should be at any time in any campaign -- but especially as her sorry campaign for president slides into oblivion. For instance, Pam's Blend says Clinton is "race baiting" and deems her comments "inflammatory" and Oliver Willis writes, "Congratulations, Hillary Clinton, you win the prize for the first Democratic Bigot Eruption since I’ve been keeping track of this."

Mike Barnicle makes it even plainer by writing:

Now, faced with a mathematical mountain climb that even Stephen Hawking could not ascend, the Clintons -- and it is indeed both of them -- are just about to paste a bumper sticker on the rear of the collapsing vehicle that carries her campaign. It reads: VOTE WHITE.

Speculation has been widespread that Clinton would finish the campaign on a high note, going easy on the presumptive Dem nominee. Apparently not.

Instead, Hillary seems to be resorting to the worst kind of racial politics, basically framing African-American voters as unnecessary to her cause and lumping them all together into one homogeneous, problematic demographic viewed as The Blacks. This is something we might expect from certain Klan-friendly Republicans, but from someone who claims to represent the Democratic Party mainstream?

Hillary's comments mirror surrogate Paul Begala's gurglings during a heated exchange on TV with Donna Brazile on the evening of the Indiana and North Carolina primaries in which he stated that "we cannot win with eggheads and African-Americans." Everyone knows, of course, that there are no black- or brown-skinned eggheads. Or hard working Americans who happen to be black, brown or something in between.

Also note the implication that a majority of white working class voters support Clinton because they won't vote for an African-American candidate. I wonder how Hillary knows that all the votes she's gotten from that slice and dice are due to her being white -- and that these Dems would refuse to vote for Obama in the general election because he's not. Such framing is clearly insulting to both white and non-white voters, isn't it? It suggests that we all base our votes primarily on race, not issues or other factors. But then what do I know, I'm one of those "eggheads" I guess, not a "hard working American."

How low can the Clinton campaign go? I hope that question is on the minds of all the undecided superdelegates, as well as those who have previously endorsed Clinton. Is this the kind of campaigning we want to see among Democrats, or Americans for that matter?

What's ironic is that Hillary's husband failed to win the "white vote":

According to CNN's 1996 exit poll, Bill Clinton lost the white vote (Dole 46%, Clinton 43%, Perot 9%). He lost the white male vote by an even larger margin (Dole 49%, Clinton 38%, Perot 11%). And he lost gun owners badly (Dole 51%, Clinton 38%, Perot 10%). However, Clinton won the popular vote overall 49%-41%-8%, and he won 70% of the electoral votes.

In 2000 -- when Al Gore won the popular vote by half a million votes -- he lost white males to Bush by a whopping 60%-36%, according to CNN's exit poll. He lost men overall 53%-42%. He lost whites overall 54%-42%. He lost gun owners 61%-36%. He lost small-town voters 59%-38% and rural voters 59%-37%. He lost the Midwest overall 49%-48%.

She knows that, but at this point in her desperation she apparently doesn't care.

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