Maybe she's hoping to run as a Republican in 2012.

Leverage?  What? Hello?  Why do you imagine that Obama has to "negotiate" Hillary's exit?  She has lost, period.  He does need to pay her off to go away and her threats to bring her supporters with her are completely hollow.  She can only do that so long as she doesn't seem to be doing it.  The moment it seems as though she is, she will be persona non grata in the party.  

Now, as to the substance, you think it appropriate to engage in race-baiting because it is only the racists of West Virginia and Kentucky that she is trying to appeal to?  Well, why not just bring the Republican race strategy into the Democratic party wholesale.  Indeed, turning the Democratic party into a simulacrum of the Republican party is pretty much Hillary's whole game.

Well, Scheiber.  If i wanted to be a Republican, I would join the Republican party.  I don't want the disgusting Hillary Clinton joining the Republican party to me.

Hillary is running for spite, maybe to hurt Obama's chances in the general to give herself an opening in 2012, or because her pathetic ego, nursing the wounds of being someone who has lived her life surrounded by powerful and accomplished people without ever doing anything herself, cannot bear to get off stage.  

I think her comment is just racist period.  She resents the fact that some uppity jigga-boo beat her out of what she thinks of as her birthright as a white woman and under the stress of losing, the mask is slipping.

Hillary Clinton is smart, and notwithstanding her inability to match Obama for oratorical eloquence on most days, doesn't use language randomly (a la dubya, e.g.) either.  I don't believe that her juxtaposition of "hard working," "white," and "Americans" was not revealing, any more than I believe that Obama wasn't revealing his real thoughts at some level with his "cling to" remarks.  

So what did she want?  I don't for a minute believe that Clinton is a racist, but she is rather Rovian in approach to politics, and that makes any kind of slicing and dicing of the electorate fair game.  She's already lost the African American vote this cycle, so why not use the phrase "hard working white Americans" to gain back some ground with blue collar whites?   You have to win today to play tomorrow, and if that means burning some bridges, so be it.  Remember - if she doesn't pull this out somehow, she's a historical footnote - the favored candidate who lost the nomination to a tyro; if she does, at minimum, she's the first major party female presidential candidate, even if she loses.

The question isn't whether it has come up in polite company.  We've all been digesting the polls in terms of demographics.  The problem with the comment is that it is aimed at driving the racial wedge further.  When pundits study the polls and point to the demographics, it's just analysis.  Poll ananysts are not TRYING to gain any kind of advantage from their demographic analysis.   Obviously, Hillary is doing more than the analysis.

But what if Hillary voters in KY and WV stay home? How much leverage is she going to have when she loses those states?

Don't think it can happen? McCain won Arkansas-neighbors Missouri and Mississippi.

sdemuth wrote, "I don't believe for a minute that Clinton is a racist."

That is the conventional wisdom, and I say it is wrong: Hillary Clinton is a racist.

I don't judge people by their intent. I don't give a damn what their intentions are. You know what the road to Hell is paved with.

It is the effects of their actions, and what they know or can reasonably expect those effects to be, for which they should be judged.

Plenty of racists discriminate unconsciously or semi-consciously--they sit next to a white guy on the bus but not next to the black guy. They may not be out-and-proud Klansmen but nevertheless an unconscious voice is guiding their actions. Their racism may not be extreme and may even be invisible to those around them as well as to themselves. They are still racists. (I am too often one of them.)

Clinton is a different kind of racist. I think she believes abstractly in the concept of racial equality, but her intentions in this regard are still laying cobblestones on the road to Hell. She is, instead, holding in greater importance her chances for election and thus is helping to promulgate a way of thinking (identity politics) that at the very least judges people by the color of their skin and may in fact be intentionally, subtly encouraging them to regard themselves as "white" and to act accordingly. That is the direct and intentional effect of her actions. Her actions negate her so-called "liberal" credo. Her road is well-paved.

It's time to stop judging people by what they supposedly want and instead start judging them because of what happens as a result of their words and actions. I saw an SUV the other day with a "Think Green!" bumper sticker. Are you telling me the SUV's owner is an environmentalist?

In regard to the effects that her words have and will have, I judge Hillary Clinton to be a racist.

Here I think that roidubouloi has it over Mr. Scheiber. What indeed is there to negotiate? She made a close enough run at Obama that he will give her the v.p. nod or not (I don't think he will in a million years) based upon her standing as of now. Divido et impera is Hillary's only chance. She is a bitter ender; God knows what she is thinking or hoping for, maybe some Donna Rice - like episode to ooze out of the blogosphere to cut Obama down so she can claw her way to the 2025 delegates that she needs.

Off topic, while all this is happening, McCain's team has been sharpening its knives for Obama and working to consolidate these 'white voters' by creating multi-pronged attack designs. Michael Cooper at the NY Times website can give you an interesting glimpse. BHO has had it easy so far given that HRC has been (relatively speaking) attacking him one issue at a time.

Applying Occam's razor, the HRC plan would be to plead the case that she's won the big states and most likely to win white voters in the deep red states in the GE. It's a case that can be best made on or after June 3.

Um, check out that picture of Hillary in the USA Today post.  Appropriately enough, it looks like she's at a Klan rally.

williamyard: well said!

as for the Republican's apparent attack plan, they're toast. They can't do better than a draw on the war, and only if Obama drops the ball on the point of the Taliban being resurgent. They'll lose outright in any discussion about economic policies; Bush-a-nomics has led to 2 "stimulus packages", 1 mortgage crisis, record prices on oil, and record lows on the $$. I'm pretty sure Obama wins the moderates and independents.

The remainder of the character assassination will miss, like the Closet-Muslim nonsense, unless they can generate sufficient circumstancial evidence to back their "conclusions"; I doubt that will happen, unless the MSM squelches those is a position to debunk the stories.

Given the choice between "Hillary is running a deliberate Helmsian campaign of baiting racial backlash" and "Hillary is trying to secure leverage to negotiate the terms of her withdrawal," the latter would actually make me think the lesser of Clinton as a person. Hell, what white candidate running against a black opponent hasn't been tempted to play the Jesse Helms game of egging the polite establishment into calling him a racist so that he can profit from white backlash against the racism charge? So Hillary gave it. She's a craven cynic; nobody expected better, and it's a perfectly understandable human failing.

But negotiating the terms of her withdrawal? Who the hell thinks like that? What is she, France? Kim Il Sung? Nations negotiate the terms of their withdrawal. Asian autocrats play for face-saving departure. Individual Americans don't think like that. It's time to quit, you quit. If you don't think it's time to quit, you don't quit. Mentally healthy Americans do not realize that it's time to quit but then stick it out a while longer in order to "negotiate" better "terms" of surrender. (Besides which, that kind of thing never works, anyway. You just don't improve a losing hand by staying in the game longer. See Vietnam and every hand of poker ever played.) To believe that this, and not a lapse into overt bigotry, explains Hillary's comments, is to believe that Hillary is either a Putinesque autocrat or emotionally unhinged, or both.

Hillary can't play this out until the convention and hope to have a future. This isn't 1976, she isn't Reagan and she best not hope for a similar outcome. No, Barack isn't Ford either and they have to account for who they'd be screwing.

Plus, her base is old and aging and the balance of younger and more tolerant will shift dramatically in four  years. Anyone who choses to raise doubts about Obama now will pay dearly if they are seen (in '12) to have undermined his chances. Wagering on everything going wrong must be done in secret and it's too late for that.  

She may hope for Obama to fail now or before 2012 but she can only behave as though she's 100% behind him. At least for a few years.  No, 2008 is too early to show she has her hands on the rug and is pulling on it before he's nominated. If she doesn't get on board now she may not be a viable candidate for any office. Wishing for someone to fail is one thing, investing in popular person's demise rarely pays off and often results in disaster.

How long before the slogan: Vote Clinton . . .  Before Its Too Late!  (For those who remember the Washington race in Chicago.)   I wonder if anyone can dig up one of those buttons with a circled watermelon with a cross through it.  

Occam would side with Yard and Dick Morris. Hillary's finished. Of course she knows this. To believe that she is doing anything other than deliberately kneecap this election's nominee is to suppose that she is either a) dumb, or b) completely out of control of her lust for power. She's a big girl, and a clever one, and she knows what she's doing.

Yard - youput me in mind of "Boys of Summer" - not Stevens or Angell but Henley:

_drivin' down the road /

_saw a "Think Green!" bumper sticker on an SUV /

_ little voice inside my head said,

_Don't look green, you can never look green...

Tep: right on.

Yard: I stand by my understanding.  I don't think she's a racist at heart, and I don't believe this was a racist move.  She's exploiting potential racist sentiment in society, and pandering to white resentment perhaps, but she'd do the same on behalf of African American's or Hispanics, if she thought that'd get her what she wants.  That's cynical, and despicable, perhaps, but it isn't racism.

Whatever was floating around in her mind that had her saying this is sort of irrelevant.  She's lost all the African American support she might have had in the future, and once people start thinking about it, she may loose a lot of Latino support as well.  Bigotry will hurt you every time.

williamyard - "She is...helping to promulgate a way of thinking (identity politics) that at the very least judges people by the color of their skin and may in fact be intentionally, subtly encouraging them to regard themselves as "white" and to act accordingly."

But William, many people in America do regard themselves as white.  In fact, they are white.  And many of them, when they observe Democrats, see a party whose leaders allow for, or excuse, or even celebrate identity politics for blacks, latinos, jews, gays, everyone it would seem except for white gentiles.  The unfortunate response of these bitter hard-working white gentiles has been to ally themselves with the Plutocratic Party, a party that at least officially rejects identity politics.  Soon, perhaps, they will try another tack: white identity politics, without shame.  What is good for the goose is good for the gander.  Particularly when the unholy LaRaza-Wall Street immigration policies have already succeeded in making non-Hispanic whites a minority group in California.  

Sirhc -- Bernie Epton and "Fast Eddie" were wrong, wrong, wrong it being "too late" if Harold Washington was elected.  Just when do you think its likely that another black is elected mayor of Chicago?  Or New York?  

glacialspeed --  "Um, check out that picture of Hillary in the USA Today post.  Appropriately enough, it looks like she's at a Klan rally."

So an all-white crowd reminds you of a Klan rally?  Isn't that a racist comment?    

(Or, in case you're black, "prejudiced", as we all should have learned in school, blacks can't be "racist.")

Why do you all insist on 'reinterpreting' the English language for Americans? There is a ClintonAttacksObama Wiki Incident Page, where incident after incident, the 'explanation' goes something like this..

It was 'misspoken'

You 'interpreted' it wrong.

It was 'miscommunication'.

You just need this ' clarification'.

Enough of that bull#*$!

These statements weren't said in Chinese. They were said in ENGLISH, and we understood them JUST FINE.

IT WAS RACEBAITING.

PLAIN AND SIMPLE.

Hillary Clinton says that she represents the "hard working americans, the white americans....".

Does that make the rest of us lazy niggers?

vanwurs: no, it makes the rest of you non-Americans, hardworking or not.

eudoxie: wait for Bill to claim that Hillary is 60-years old, has not taken her Metamucil for the last three months, has memory problems, budding Tourette's, latent Alzheimers - oh, but wonderful on that three am call.

Walt: "She's exploiting potential racist sentiment in society, and pandering to white resentment perhaps, but she'd do the same on behalf of African American's or Hispanics, if she thought that'd get her what she wants.  That's cynical, and despicable, perhaps, but it isn't racism."

To exploit racist sentiment in society on the basis of a cynical reach for power - that's racism.  As Yard said, what is important is the effect, not the intention.

Perfectly said again Icarus (with kudos to Mr. Yard).  You're on a roll.

Roid: thanks again ... We aim to please ;-).  And persuade ...

icarusr,

I"ll stick with niggers.  That's really what she is getting at.  (in both it's comprehensive sense..."Muslim", "Exotic", 'Other", and in it's very particular sense.)

With her explicit statement that she appeals to white voters who would not vote for an African American candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton removes herself as a viable Democratic nominee for the presidency. Her claim that Obama cannot win white votes is more wish than reality; depending on the demographic Obama has polled between 60% and 40% of white voters. Only in economically-strapped and intellectually-challenged (as measured by educational attainment) small towns in the rust belt have Obama’s numbers among white voters been in the 30 percentile range, and this only when Jeremiah Wright was still dominating the headlines.

Hillary tells us that the America that she sees is one that is not quite ready to elect Obama president; and she makes this argument explicitly along racial lines. What self-respecting African American can vote for her now? What self-respecting American can vote for her? Were the superdelegates to give Hillary Clinton the unearned nomination they would, in the words of the old segregationist George C. Wallace, be “send(ing) them a message.”

Previously Clintonistas had a degree of deniability. They were able to say that Bill Clinton didn’t mean it the way it sounded when he compared Obama to Jesse Jackson; or that Hillary didn’t mean it the way it sounded when she said “Martin Luther King had a dream, but it took a president to bring it to reality.” Clintonistas were able to say it was merely a coincidence when Geraldine Ferraro appeared to go off her meds, and went on an ugly 48 hour rant about race preference on national television, or when Ed Rendell said a good number of Pennsylvanians would not vote for a black candidate under any circumstances.

But there is no longer any deniability that Clinton seeks to base her case on her ability to appeal to racist voters. We have now heard it, in explicit terms, directly from the horse’s mouth. The only question facing the Democratic Party is whether it wants to validate, sanction, and reward Clinton’s explicitly race-based appeal by handing her the nomination. And if they should do so, the only question facing traditional Democratic constituencies is whether or not it is time stop allowing the Democratic Party to take their votes for granted.

Tthere's no way she will be the nominee in 2012.  If Obama doesn't win this year, she will be blamed for his loss.  Coupled with her I told you so's, she will be radioactive.

williamyard "Plenty of racists discriminate unconsciously or semi-consciously--they sit next to a white guy on the bus but not next to the black guy."

Oh yeah, you may not be a racist, may not have a problem to vote for a black politician, but you can still be a racist if williamyard says so. If your racism cannot be proven with palpable arguments, then it's there unconsciously. Anecdotes buttress these fine insights.

"Tail you lose, heads I win." That's the name of the game of williamyard and many others like him.

You guys with your fine parsing of Hillary's words, how about looking into Obama's chuch mission statement? That's racist too. That's where the Anointed One was a member. Substitute black with white and it sounds like the KKK. White racism, bad. Black racism, good. Fine minds you have, eh?

But who would truly expect comparing from you? You're just a bunch of rabid propagandists.

Glacialspeed: "Appropriately enough, it looks like she's at a Klan rally."

Fucking demented!

What?  She's not radioactive already?  Time to start the Dump Hillary PAC in NYS (following the election that is).  We cannot have a race-baiting senator representing the State of New York and the NYS Democratic party.  It is a humiliation that we cannot and shall not suffer.  

"Hillary Clinton says that she represents the "hard working americans, the white americans....".

Does that make the rest of us lazy niggers?"

Yep.

Roi - let me know about any dump Hillary in NYC movements.  Besides having a right wing record that does not represent New York, she needs to be thrown out on her racist ass for this disgusting campaign.  I have lots of friends that are in too.

The people who criticize Glacialspeed's comment, "Appropriately enough, it looks like she's at a Klan rally," obviously have never seen a Klan Rally, or they didn't see the picture on the front page of USA Today. Some people missed the point by jumping to the conclusion that Glacialspeed was referring to "the white people" who were there -- newsflash, there were no "white people" in the picture.

What Glacialspeed was playfully referring to was the Klan salute held at every rally. Now, you can blame the photo editors at USA for posting a picture of Clinton giving what looks remarkably like the Klan salute that is given at their rallies, but Glacialspeed's ironic comment was not inaccurate.

By the way, my observation of a Klan rally is not from being a member, but from the fact that they held one of their rallies on the steps of City-County building in downtown, so it was hard not to see it.

For those of you who have never seen one of their rallies, there are plenty of pictures available on the web an in other places. The irony of the photo that accompanied the story is hard for people who are familiar with these things to miss.

Ironically, this issue of the Democratic Party’s fear and obsession over the white working class is an issue that may best have been addressed by Obama himself when he raised the issue of guns, religion and bitterness back in 2004. Obama’s argument was that unless Democrats offered a compelling economic vision white working class voters would easily be distracted by the so-called “cultural issues,” which Republicans have proven to be adept at exploiting.

This was an issue that Bill Clinton himself was fond of raising back in the early 90s, and it became the rationale guiding his candidacy – most noted for James Carville’s dictum that was plastered above his desk at the campaign headquarters in 1992, “It’s the economy, stupid.”

(Actually, Carville had three sage slogans plastered above his desk, but that last one is the only one I remember and it is the one most often cited by journalists and historians).

As far back as 1968 Robert F. Kennedy’s staff created the image (perhaps the illusion) that Kennedy appealed to both Humphrey voters and Wallace voters. They wanted journalists to believe that RFK pull potential Wallace voters into a more progressive political movement. In 1972 George McGovern made the same claim; he attempted to broaden his base beyond anti-war supporters with his populist economic proposals such as re-distributing national income.

More recently Howard Dean got into trouble on this issue when he suggested in 2004 that the Democratic Party would have to appeal to the guy who drives a pickup truck and has a confederate flag and a gun rack on the back of his truck. In 1984 and 88 Jesse Jackson tried to create the image of bridging this gap with his “Rainbow Coalition,” which sounded populist economic themes.

This even goes further back, to the 19th century, when populists made progress in pulling together disgruntled white farm workers and newly freed blacks. This coalition was undone, however, by successful race-baiting by the Democratic Party of that period.

So, while contemporary Democrats obsess over working class white voters they should consider this: if they really want to win these voters over the issue is not whether or not they nominate an African American candidate or a white woman who poses as a “workin’ gal.” The real issue is this: what kind of economic agenda do you have to offer?

Democrats had better start channeling FDR if they are really interested in reclaiming white working class voters; otherwise they will lose these voters to Republican race-baiting, religion-baiting and other cultural diversions every time.