I wanted to believe she would finish out the race with a bit of class and some long-absent grace. I refused to listen to that little voice in the back of my head that was trying its best to tell me not to trust her. Alas, I should have.
Sen. Hillary Clinton, yesterday to USA Today:
I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on...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.Can you say "race-baiting?" How about "Dixie-crat!?" Good God! The Clinton team never ceases to amaze me. Now before my Clinton supporter friends start piling on, think about this: Had another Democrat said this, or had a Republican said it, the comment would have been enough to kill their campaign. Why oh why is Clinton held to a different standard?
The issue of race has become an obsession with the Clintons in this campaign and it has ruined their reputation with the African-American community to the point where it will most likely never be repaired. Bill Clinton was once called the honorary first black president. His support in that community was essential to both of his election victories and to the success of his presidency. He was wildly popular among African-American voters and they were his most loyal demographic during his years in the White House.
And so, after Clinton's campaign surrogates used racist tactics in an attempt to beat back a challenge from her African-American opponent, after her husband (the honorary "first black president") went into white middle-class neighborhoods to throw his most loyal followers under the proverbial bus...well...it was oh-so-fucking-sweet to see African-American voters head to their polling places in droves this past Tuesday and hand both Bill and Hillary Clinton their asses on a platter.
In my eyes, the complete and total abandonment of the Clintons by their strongest supporters from the 1990s is the most fitting of final chapters to such a vile, Bush-esque campaign.
