Just now, on the News Hour with Jim Lehrer, there was a segment with Judy Woodruff interviewing Rep. John Lewis, a Clinton supporter, and an African-American religious leader's whose name I can't recall that was supporting Obama. The discussion was, of course, about race in the campaign. Lewis kept arguing that the Obama campaign was trying to inject race into the election by interpreting vague comments in a particular way, while the Obama support argued that the Clinton campaign and its surrogates was injecting race into the election by making the comments in the first place. The key seemed to be about arguing that the other campaign was injecting race into the election. It was an uncomfortable exchange to watch. Having avoided televised news for most of the last three years of my life, I was also taken aback by it, feeling convinced that it was a very, very bad argument for the Democratic Party. No matter who wins the nomination, many supporters of the losing campaigns will definitely feel jobbed by identity politics. That isn't the sort of wound that will heal overnight. With McCain currently the Republican frontrunner, that is also very, very bad news for Democrats in November.
When watching the discussion, I felt that the Obama campaign was more in the right on this one. Some of the things that Rep. Lewis said, such as not knowing what Robert Johnson meant by his "in the neighborhood" comment and implying that Donna Brazille and Rep. Clyburn were using this fight as an excuse to endorse Obama, struck me as way off base (he isn't the VP option I once thought he was). However, while I think that the Obama campaign is more in the right on this one, I also don't think that this is a coordinated effort on the part of the Clinton campaign, as some have argued (more in the extended entry):
I think that the Clintons' anti-Obama strategy is more subtle than commentators are realizing. It is in the nature of a "provokatsiia", as the Russians say. Cuomo didn't utter the phrase "shuck and jive"without forethought; nor did Clinton bring up LBJ and MLK on the spur of the moment. Both are experienced street-fighting politicians who don't say that kind of thing to the press without thinking it through. Such comments are a provocation, waving a red cloak in front of the Obama people. When they respond angrily with charges of racism, suddenly they look like Jessie Jackson redux...just the kind of angry, militant black folks who scare white people (btw I think black anger and militancy are completely understandable...this is just a point about how much of the white public reads such charges of racism). Then the Clintons deny responsibility.
The whole point was to get the Obama people to respond angrily, which they did. Clintons win.
Functionally, I agree that the result of this exchange is a win for the Clinton campaign for the reasons described in the paragraph above. However, I just don't see some sort of group decision-making process behind the varied comments by Shaheen, Cuomo, Johnson, both Clintons, or the Nevada NEA. Not only do I seriously doubt these people all got together and discussed strategy on this matter, but no campaign is so powerful and well-organized as to not only have a wide array of surrogates on message, but to have them so perfectly on message that even a series of off-hand remarks actually fit into some greater message plan. Further, as far as trying to pin this on the Obama campaign and refusing to apologize for any remarks, that just seems like classic Clinton behavior more than anything else, since they generally refuse to apologize for anything at all. In other words, I'll go with Josh Marshall's second option, "that the Clinton campaign is extraordinarily unlucky and continually finds its surrogates stumbling on to racially-charged or denigrating language when discussing Obama."
The simple fact is that it is extremely difficult to keep all of your surrogates on message. Four years ago, I actually thought that was a major stumbling block for the Dean campaign. It has so many zealous, grassroots supporters (myself included) that there was no way to insure that everything they would say fit neatly into a broader, positive narrative. Remember, for example, the painfully ironic "I See Dean People" slogan? I think much of the same thing is happening here, and it could happen to anyone. While hardly at the same degree of racially denigrating comments, and while this person is nowhere near speaking for Clinton as rallies or on television, as an example an Obama precinct captain in Nevada is passing out some pretty negative flyers. Also, as an addendum to my post on classism language last night, I should not that the IEA organizers never pushed any classist language at all in the community college organizing campaign I discussed. Instead, that was pretty much all coming from one of their prominent stewards, and she wasn't taking any direction from the IEA in so doing. Surrogates often do their own, sometimes unsavory things.
Presidential campaigns are huge, sprawling affairs. Surrogates activists supporters number in the tens of thousands, always leading to diverse groups that support the campaign for a variety of reasons. Often times, surrogates and supporters simply go off the message reservation, too. I just don't believe that the Clinton campaign has some sort master messaging plan for its surrogates and supporters to inject race into the campaign in an extremely clever manner that will ultimately and inevitably benefit Hillary. Even the Borg isn't that well coordinated (although, at times, it seems like Republicans are). So, while I think the Obama campaign is more right on this one, I also think it is simply a run of bad luck for the Clinton campaign, not some evil master plan of the sort that both they, and Karl Rove, have long been accused.
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