Why did race only become an heated issue only AFTER Obama won Iowa?

[FrenchieCat]

Poll question: Why did race only become an heated issue only AFTER Obama won Iowa?

Seems like prior to Iowa, Obama was known as the the candidate who transcended race.

In between Iowa and New Hampshire, race seem to become an issue.

What happened?

[angie_love]

1. obvious

Its obvious, Hillary decided she needed to take him down, and whats the best way to take him down? Marginalize him, inject race in an ever so subtle way so as not to take any blame and making the other candidate too polarizing to white voters.

[Political Heretic]

2. I really don't know. But it sucks.

[Hieronymus]

10. That magazine cover says it all.

[book_worm]

3. I believe it was a strategic move on Clinton's part

they had to make Obama "the black candidate" but I think it backfired on her during the debate in South Carolina. I think we will see people in other primary states vote on the person not on race or gender. But Obama needs to begin to ignore the baiting of Billary. He just needs to have surrogates answer them and he, himself, stick to his own message.

[Colobo]

7. Great post. I agree.

[BringBigDogBack]

21. Damn fine post.

Hope they see this.

[Essene]

36. Backfires among blacks, but alienates them and galvanizes white support.

Think about it.

This is how it always tends to end up when stuff like this happens.

Even if Obama wins SC now, it is going to be framed in racial terms (it already is). It will be perceived as a "black thing" and while HIllary's support among black voters even in New York just tanked... she still gains among white voters.

If Obama slaughters here in SC... the media will emphasize the black vote. He will be destroyed on Feb 5th out of fear and white backlash.


PERSONALLY, i'm not sure he had a chance on Feb 5th anyways but it will be overshadowed by the race tensions. The bigger question is what happens to all the insulted black voters who watched the heroes of the democratic party race bait and exploit them? Will they turn out on Feb 5th and again in November?

I'm not so sure.

See the 2001 NYC mayoral race for an analogy.

The white candidate got VERY nasty with racialized stuff and smearing in the last days of the primary against a popular latino leader. There was also considerable voter suppression during the DEMOCRATIC primary among minorities.

Voter-turn out among minorities tanked disgracefully and in walked Mike Bloomberg on the GOP ticket.

I'm sure there are countless other campaign analogies...

[Occam Bandage]

4. I think it's obvious that Obama decided that the best way to win was to completely reverse strategy

and turn himself into Al Sharpton, Jr.

No, wait, wait, that's fucking insane. The only person who would benefit from Obama becoming racially aligned would be Hillary.

[Cha]

11. Precisely! It must be really

challenging for anyone who has studied and worked so hard for their success and then come upon the billarys who see you standing in their way back to the whitehouse so they set out to destroy your image and mold it into their craven reality. How many hilary surrogates have had to apologize for their smears on Obama, including bob johnson?

[VotesForWomen]

25. yeah, that's why the hill supporters kept accusing themselves of racism. face it,

the obama camp blew this one; whether there was racism or not, whether it was a deliberate clinton strategy or not, they would have been wiser to say nothing than to make the issue that they did.

[Essene]

37. Exactly. Those naive enough to think Obama is dumb enough to make race an issue...

are depressing me.

[JackORoses]

5. Hillary decided to risk dividing the Party in order to marginalize Obama as the 'Black Candidate'

[VotesForWomen]

26. and up is down. nt

[Essene]

34. Correct. And more DUers apparently see the truth.

[The_Casual_Observer]

6. Obama started to pretend he was MLK incarnate. Kind of made it hard

to miss the racial aspect of it.

[Quixote1818]

8. Because of this

Must see video:

http://www.goleft.tv/viewer.asp?v=928&c=1

[FrenchieCat]

14. Interesting commentary in that video.....

Although I have to say that Obama showed that he could level out his attackers and still appear hesitant to do it....at that SC debate.

Thank you for the link! :hi:

[Quixote1818]

16. You are welcome. Two old Wes Clark supporters still fighting the good fight

:hi:

[Cha]

9. the hilarys are not nearly as

clever as they think they are.

I bet I know who voted for the next to the last one.

[Hippo_Tron]

12. Because more than anything it became a contentious race

Remaining above the fray only works when you're running ahead. When it becomes a close race, you dig trenches and start fighting dirty.

[aquart]

13. After Iowa, or going into South Carolina?

Really, who's kidding who?

[Occam Bandage]

15. You and you.

[1corona4u]

17. None of the above.

[McCamy Taylor]

18. It became an issue after NH, when Tweety said NH voters are racist for not giving Obama more voters.

Tweety was arranging the Democrats into a circular firing squad, because he and his handlers got tired of watching them act civilized.

[FrenchieCat]

19. Weird......

I was noticing it prior to New Hampshire, and wrote about it at the time.
Want to provide stronger evidence than Tweety? :shrug:

[VotesForWomen]

27. you wrote about it? so in other words, you were contributing to the "clintons are racist" furor,

which then came back to kick obama in the ass.

[smalll]

20. Even accepting your framing -- isn't it better if Hillary "makes notice"

of the fact that Obama is black now, during the primaries, rather than let the Republicans "make notice" of that fact in the general election? I guess you were hoping that he could just keep that under wraps for ten months until November, and let the cat out of the bag around Inauguration Day a year from now, as a little surprise? (Along with his middle name, his inexperience, that Rezko dude, voting "present"?) Think that would work out well for us?

[FrenchieCat]

22. Nope. I don't think that race should have been used.......

I thought that Democrats were not Republicans. Whatever else is needed to be distorted about Obama, would have been fair game. Him being Black was evident....it's just that many Democrats were willing to judge him by his character. That would have worked a hell of a lot better for us, than how it has made me feel up to this point about who we really are, and what we truly represent.

[smalll]

23. It's not that before Iowa, many Democrats were juding him "by his character." --

It's that before Iowa, many Democrats saw him as a disembodied spirit of youthful yummy goodness. Once Hillary's campaign and others were able to pull him down to earth and reveal him to be a human being on the mortal plane like the rest of us, the pigmentation of his material incarnation was noticed. It was going to happen one way or another at some point in time. One might even say - it was inevitable.

[VotesForWomen]

24. happened after NH, not after iowa; go figure. nt

[FrenchieCat]

28. Her MLK comments were on 1/7/08,,,,,,

MLK Comments, made on 1/07/08
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/07/civilrights/
http://sweetness-light.com/archive/hillary-lbj-not-mlk-passed-civil-rights-act-2

Fairytale comment made on 1/7/08
http://time-blog.com/real_clear_politics/2008/01/clinton_fairy_tale.html

Primary was the next day.

Certainly, it went downhill from there.....

[Essene]

31. The race baiting started the day before NH vote, part of wider smear campaign

Before Iowa/NH smearing, the Clinton campaign had already engaged in nasty activities eluding to Obama being a radical muslim, being soft on crime, having no substance, unelectable because of his drug history, etc.

In the day or so before the NH primary, the smearing hit a fever pitch... and included the first race baiting and extreme fear mongering.


"An untested man who offers false hope." "We don't need to be raising the false hopes of our country about what can be delivered." 1/4

Govern in prose (not poetry) 1/6

Assassination! 1/7

MLK comment 1/7

All qaeda will strike! 1/7

Fairy tale rant (the famous bill video) 1/8

Shucks n Jives 1/10

Hip black male who can't provide 1/10

Hispanics wont vote for him 1/12

Obama is an Uncle Tom who was doing drugs when the Clintons were fighting for blacks (1/13)

"99 problems and a Bitch aint one of them" 1/14

Black supporters just because Obama is black 1/15

etc

[LeftCoast]

29. Yes, it's amazing. There was absolutely no discussion of race until then.

:eyes:

[Essene]

30. Looks like the vocal minority of DU denying the truth needs to...

Needs to calm down, because most people here... and most americans... see the truth. And that doesn't make them dumb pro-obama people, either. I myself am not an "obama supporter" but i have been one of the more vocal here about Hillary's race baiting (only to get constantly flamed here).

The Clintons made this into an issue and are hurting the democratic party. Here are my unfortunate predictions:


1. blacks will continue to turn on hillary (although whites, latinos, etc wont care enough to reject her over this)

2. obama will win south carolina, and the media will convey this is because of black voters

3. SC will freak white america out, and the dialog will remain focused on black vs other voters... with the notion of their being a "black outcry" as storyline.

4. black voters will become alienated, with a backlash against obama on Feb 5th.

5. regardless of the impact this all has on the Feb 5th (i.e. regardless of whether obama ever had a chance anyways), the race will have been cast in increasing racial terms from NH through Feb 5th.

6. black voters will be alienated, insulted and WILL NOT TURN-OUT FOR THE DEMOCRATS IN NOVEMBER

[Clintonista2]

32. Actually, race became an issue after Hillary won NH. Obama needed an issue to play on.

And he chose race.

[Essene]

33. Wrong. See my post above (#31). The Clintons absolutely started it... stop lying.

[Clintonista2]

38. Wrong, Obama said nothing about her comments until AFTER new hampshire

[Essene]

35. "Because Obama believes that paying extra attention to his race would help him win" ATTENTION

All of you who said this... need to step back and realize Obama isn't stupid.

This is america. He was running on a race-nuetral platform for many reasons, but one of those include the truth that a black candidate for President CANNOT racialize the campaign because they absolutely will gain nothing from it.

If you honestly think a black candidate "gains" by making race an issue, you are naive about america.

Very naive.