Election 2008: So is Hillary Clinton finished?

Subject: Playing the "Black" card to scare Whites...

Bill Clinton is a smooth, educated, savvy and thoughtful politician.

Why then is Bill Clinton talking about Jessie Jackson winning South Carolina in 1984 and 1988 after Obama winning South Carolina. Why go back to Jessie?

Who the hell is thinking about Jessie Jackson right now and why is he relevant to the discussion about Obama...

Interesting.
The Clinton's are showing their "true color", so to speak.

I'm not buying that one....not completely.

Democratic Results

1988: In 1988, South Carolina Democrats held a caucus rather than a primary. Jesse Jackson won, defeating Al Gore with approximately 55% of the vote.

1992: Bill Clinton won with approximately 69% of the vote, defeating Paul Tsongas.

1996: Uncontested (Clinton was the incumbent president and was renominated).
2000: Al Gore won with 92% of the vote, defeating Bill Bradley.

2004: John Edwards won with 45% of the vote, defeating John Kerry.

2008: Barack Obama won, defeating Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Edwards, with approximately 55% of the vote.

Why not bring up Gore in 2000?

Edwards won S.C. in 2004 ( the LAST election before this one) and is currently running against his wife in THIS election (barely).Why do we have to go back 20 years - before his administration- when there are much more relevant examples of winning in S.C. and NOT becoming president or the nominee. Even Dean had a head of steam early in 2004 and still lost the nominee. Bill Clinton was trying to "package" Obama with the "other black guy that won way back when" that could NEVER win. The one with a lot of political baggage and racial politics behind him.

I think you are underestimating the Clintons and overestimating and the average persons understanding of the in depth analysis offered by the foreign BBC news service - whatever it was. No, most Americans are NOT concerning themselves with what the BBC is saying about Reverend Jesse Jackson during an American presidential election in 2008. They just aren't.

The BBC is "on the outside looking in"and I have seen it miss the mark many times. Jesse Jackson 1984 is not part of the current national dialouge about change and moving forward in America in 2008. He only came up when Obama started kicking Hillary's ass - with lots of white help.

And if you ask any person on the street (or especially a foreigner watching the BBC from Scotland or Pakistan) what the comparison is between Jesse Jackson and Obama is, what would be their first answer? Few would have any idea what the political comparisons between Jackson and Obama are today - especially BBC watchers overseas.

My very large African American family (many in South Carolina) have not been discussing Jessie Jackson at all. He just isn't relevant to the discussion about Obama and today's election. This is true no matter how many foreign new services STILL consider Jesse a "Black leader". I think that just speaks to how out of touch the BBC is with what is going on in America and with most African Americans in 2008 if they are bringing Jesse Jackson back in to relevance. Some people voting in this years election were not even born in 1984.

I'm not waiting for Al Sharpton and Louis Farrakhan's popularity to come up in comparison to Obama from the Clintons. Surely his middle name (Hussein) will get dropped in a few times for "shock value" before it is all over...wait for it...just wait for it.

and also, just keeping ti strictly scientific:

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2008/01/27/mickey-kaus-refutes-clintons-obama-jackson-comparison">
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2008/01/27/mickey-kaus-refutes-clintons-obama-jackson-comparison

Mickey Kaus Refutes Clinton's Obama-Jackson Comparison
Photo of Tom Blumer.
By Tom Blumer | January 27, 2008 - 11:02 ET

In the wake of Hillary Clinton's 2-1 thrashing in South Carolina at the hands of the politician I typically refer to as BOOHOO (Barack O-bomba Overseas Hussein “Obambi” Obama), the spin from Mrs. Clinton's husband is that it has no more significance than Jesse Jackson's Palmetto State victories in 1984 and 1988.

Kausfiles blogger Mickey Kaus shows that the claim doesn't stand up to scrutiny:

Obama got about a quarter (24%) of the white vote, according to exit polls.

..... Update: Alert emailer L finds the following in a Christian Science Monitor story from March 17, 1988: Although Jackson's white support was significantly higher in South Carolina than in 1984 - it is estimated this year at between 5 and 10 percent of the voters - he has not made much headway with populist, blue-collar whites ...

24% vs. 5-10%. It looks as if Bill Clinton's comparison will not work to his wife's advantage.... More: Tom Maguire asks the same question and gets the same answer, from an old New York Times story. The "5 percent to 10 percent" estimate of the white vote for Jackson seems to come from "party leaders."

As a clarification, the reason the Times got the 1988 information from "party leaders" is that, at least per Wikipedia, South Carolina was a Democratic caucus state in 1988. The Times's article further noted that Jackson received almost no white support in 1984.

Will Old Media outlets note the, ahem, vast white discrepancy between what Bill Clinton is claiming and the truth?

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

—Tom Blumer is a CPA based in Mason, Ohio and a contributing editor to NewsBusters

doctorj wrote: I have a simple question: why does everyone, media included, keep calling Obama 'black' when he's just as white as black? (not to mention, not the descendent of African-American slaves commonly called black here).

Is it ok if I call him 'white/Kenyan-American', or just 'white' for short? He could become the nation's first 'white/Kenyan' president.

You could ask any taxi driver who refuses to pick someone up because of a racial perception to get an answer, but here is a good starting point on the history in America:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-drop_rule

One Drop Rule:

The one-drop rule is a historical colloquial term in the United States that holds that a person with any trace of sub-Saharan ancestry (however small or invisible) cannot be considered white[1] and so unless said person has an alternative non-white ancestry they can claim, such as Native American, Asian, Arab, Australian aboriginal, they must be considered black.

This notion of invisible/intangible membership in a "racial" group has seldom been applied to people of Native American ancestry (see Race in the United States for details). The notion has been largely applied to those of black African ancestry. Langston Hughes wrote, "You see, unfortunately, I am not black. There are lots of different kinds of blood in our family. But here in the United States, the word 'Negro' is used to mean anyone who has any Negro blood at all in his veins. In Africa, the word is more pure. It means all Negro, therefore black. I am brown."[2]

During the Black Pride era of the Civil Rights Movement, the stigma associated with sub-Saharan ancestry was claimed as a socio-political advantage.[3]...

Mainly because of the one-drop rule there are many pale-skinned people that are considered black. In many of these instances the person can actually have more white ancestry than black. There are examples of how this could happen through the generations. During slavery, there could have been a mulatto person, who because of the one-drop rule, was considered black. If they then had a child with a white person, the child would have been considered one-quarter black, but still considered black. There are plenty of people through American history that have been more Caucasian than sub-Saharan (Black) but have been generally, or often, considered black. Examples of this would include Sally Hemings and G.K. Butterfield. However these people are the exception, not the rule. The average person who self-identifies as black in America has at least 53% of their ancestors from sub-Saharan Africa. Only 10% of Americans who self-identify as black are less than 50% sub-Saharan in ancestry.[12]...

One of many long held American traditions...
We didn't make the rules up.

Here is a great book on the subject - there are many, many more: