Hillary Clinton’s racist remarks

May 9, 2008

Sebastian wonders if Hillary Clinton’s recent questionable remarks about her success with white voters will earn her the kind of fast-track out of Washington that a Republican would get for saying such a thing:

I’m honestly surprised if any candidate for President, of either party, can get away with saying something quite that baldly and get away without appearing racist. I suppose we’ll know soon. But I’m certain that a Republican Presidential candidate would be crucified for it. [ McCain goes Racist? ]

Generally speaking, I am too. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves: In the comments section, Seb clarifies:

For a Republican this would be a career-ending moment in a presidential campaign (see also Lott for non-presidential ramifications). [...] We will see if she [ Clinton ] is forced out of the campaign over this. We will also see if she is promoted to Senate leadership in the future despite this. It is too early to tell. [ Comment on "McCain Goes Racist" ]

Seb is also at least partly right here. For at least some Republicans this would be a career-ending moment, but not because — as some Republicans seem to believe — if you make a wrong step, say the wrong word, or put the emphasis on the wrong syllable your career is immediately over. Charges of racism often stick to Republicans because they have a long history of supporting racist legislation and saying racist things.

Lott is certainly a good example of this: his record of shameful policy positions stretches back twenty years. He opposed civil rights legislation, offered support to a klansman facing legal charges, and buddied up to the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens.

So when Lott said the world would have been better off if a racist segregationist Strom Thurmond had been elected President it was pretty easy to make the case that this was evidence of Lott’s racism instead of just saying something ill-advised or taken out of context.

The same was true for George Allen. Undoubtedly some people think Allen lost his senate race because he called someone “Macaca.” But that’s not nearly the whole story. The racism charge stuck to Allen because (intentionally or not) he’d been cultivating that image for years with his penchant for Confederate flags, declaring a controversial Confederate Heritage Month in Virginia, and the prominent display of nooses in his office.

None of these things were enough to sink him because he could always explain them away as being misinterpreted somethings-else. But when he called a dark-skinned man by a coded racist slur on camera and welcomed the native Virginian to his own home state and country it became far more difficult to dispel those rumors and suspicions of racism rapidly turned into certainty.

What Hillary Clinton said certainly sounds racist, although the white male vote has been a loser for Democrats for some time. I do think it’s appropriate — and not necessarily racist — of her to highlight her strength in that demographic. It’s not racist to pursue the white male vote unless you’re using racism to do so, like George Allen and Trent Lot did when they were on their home turf and like Strom Thurmond did explicitly during his Dixiecrat run.

Whether or not the charge of “racist” sticks to Clinton, however, depends in large part on whether or not she has a long-standing history of supporting racist organizations, positions, speaking to racist groups, etc. But yes. If she had the kind of record that Lott or Allen had, then it would be unfair if she wasn’t sidelined.

But, see, Allen and Lott got away with wink-and-nod racism for decades. I don’t think a few cringe-inducing statements in a month or or two is enough to do Clinton in.

Update: Read TPM on the damage Clinton is doing to herself with this argument. It may sideline her after all.

Posted in Race