Hillary's Code

Not it's not about Hillary's code of ethics. That would be a very short post. It's about her wholesale use of racial code in her frantic attempt to misconstrue an Obama statement taken out of context.

It's hard to read her intent otherwise when, as JedReport shows, she utters the word "American" 18 times in a four minute speech criticizing Obama. In this context, "not American" is racial code for "not white." In this context, it's arguable but relevant to see the charge of being "elitist" as code for "uppity." Because the context clearly is (given her references to white working class childhood and her sudden embracing of the gun culture, as well as new photos of her swilling beer and downing shots with red-faced white men) an attempt to win the white working class male vote, which was slipping away from her in PA and Indiana. Her last hopes for viability rest with that group.

It's a gamble she might lose. She's trying to pump up her numbers in small town and rural white working class areas, but she may only get the votes she would have gotten anyway: those of racist whites who never would have voted for Obama, and now don't have to hide the fact. They don't have to say it's because he's black, let alone an uppity black. They can say it's because he's not American, and elitist.

Her problem in PA and Indiana, and certainly in North Carolina, is that the people who understand code words perfectly well are African Americans. They have already registered in record numbers in PA and North Carolina. Until she started this, there was some danger in PA--especially in Philadelphia--that the party machine working for Hillary would suppress the black vote, because people don't want to defy the local party, but they don't want to vote for Hillary either. Now that's not going to happen. African American voters are going to come out to defend Barack in tremendous numbers in PA and Indiana, and with such numbers in North Carolina that Obama will win more of the delegates there than he might have otherwise.

Is this racial polarization good for Democrats? Of course not. But if Hillary is able to hoodwink white working class voters, the so-called Reagan Democrats, into voting for her in the primary, this time they will be marginalizing themselves. Because the cold political calculus says that some of these are going to vote for McCain even if Hillary was the Democratic nominee. But no African Americans are going to vote for McCain if Obama is the Democratic nominee.

We'll see how latent racism is in the broader white community, and just how far we've come in getting beyond it. But here's the politics we know: Black voters in unprecedented numbers, young people in unprecedented numbers, a healthy chunk of middle class white voters (including Independents and some Republicans), and (if it is Obama v. McCain) Latino voters, who also know code when they hear it-- in every part of the country: that's the Obama coalition. Hillary is currently alienating all of them with her campaign. This is going to win over super-delegates?

In fact what will be interesting to observe is how this "covert" but very obvious racism plays with her actual bedrock constituency, older white women and older upper middle class feminists. How are the women who want to see Hillary as a role model and/or a victim of nasty men going to see this? Do her older white feminists believe in justice, equality, empathy and consciousness? Or are they just another selfish pressure group, with their own racial and class issues, willing to lose everything in November as well?

As for how this is playing now, those who feel this is a fatal error are currently the loudest, but the sentiment isn't unanimous. There's this quote from a Washington Post piece: But another Democratic strategist, who assessed the moment candidly on the condition of anonymity, said: "Ultimately, the case that McCain and Clinton will try to make that Obama is an elitist or out of touch has to be credible to the voter, and I don't believe it is. My sense is more people believe Obama, rather than McCain or Clinton, understand their lives and the challenges they face on a daily basis."

There are outraged posts on the Internet like this one. Even Joe Klein at Time is unconvinced. And there are plenty of progressives at least who see this as Hillary's last desperate act, and another sign the Republicans are afraid to run against Obama. And yet another signal that the corporate media will always try to do in a progressive candidate, as well as Hillary's ethical code: she'll destroy anybody--including the party and the country's future--in order to win something.

So far I see Obama bringing more visible and audible emotion to his empathy for the people left out by the Clinton-Bush boom for the wealthy, and more emotion to his call for the need to change Washington and elect people who will listen. So far I see his supporters rallying, and I'm guessing he's going to come out of this weekend having received far more campaign donations than Hillary-McCain. The battle has been joined. One more fight for the American soul and the world's future.