The Daily Background

Clinton won Michigan with 55% of the vote and only Kucinich on the ballot with her.

Obama won 55% of the vote in South Carolina in a robust race with three candidates on the ballot (and a popular former president campaigning heavily for one of them).

That’s pretty impressive. And Obama’s win in the Palmetto State is also the largest margin of win of any candidate in either party this year. And 55% of the Democratic voters in SC were African American. Does this mean the “black enough” meme is officially dead yet? I wrote about how stupid this meme was last year when it was in full swing:

To assume that the sole litmus test that African Americans apply to Presidential politics, or politics in general, is race, is to make an awful expectation. African American voters are just like white voters, Hispanic voters, middle eastern voters, Native American voters, and everybody else. They’re interested in where candidates stand on the issues, not on what the candidate’s race is. To assume that African American voters, unlike every other voter demographic, are, shallow, stupid, and unsophisticated enough to only care about race is just plain wrong.

More, in another post:

On the “black enough” question specifically (which Obama recently said he is sick of), it strikes me as the sort of thing journalists will look back at in 15 years with humiliation. We’ve never had a president who wasn’t White, and now when an African American candidate runs, they’re asked if they’re black enough?

Considering historical context, any space alien observers looking down on the process are probably wondering why the media isn’t asking Obama if he’s White enough.

I dunno about you, but I’d be pretty embarrassed if I was one of the idiots pushing that stupid “Is Obama Black Enough?” meme.

Speaking of this meme, Bill Clinton made some pretty awful borderline racist comments right before Obama’s victory Saturday that an awful lot of people are going to be awfully pissed off about. Here’s what he said:

Jesse Jackson?! Jackson and Obama have virtually nothing in common as candidates, other than the fact that they’re Black.

Bill is basically downplaying Obama’s landslide win by pushing the idea that African American voters only voted for Obama because his skin is the same color that their skin is. At the same time, he’s also trying to paint Obama as the “Black candidate” in an attempt to marginalize him for White voters by using race as a wedge.

Flashback: Hillary Promised to “Rein In” Surrogates Who Make Outrageous Comments

Lynn Sweet, Chicago Sun-Times, January 16th:

Careful not to rekindle a controversy over race, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama said Tuesday at a Democratic presidential debate here — on the birthday of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. — that they would rein in their aides and supporters.
[…]
After calling a truce Monday after a quickly escalating war of words fueled by staffers and surrogates — the most heated in the almost yearlong campaign — Obama and Clinton were pressed about how the situation even developed.

“We both have exuberance and sometimes uncontrollable supporters,” Clinton said. Asked whether Robert Johnson, the BET founder who alluded to Obama’s past drug use, would continue to be part of campaign events, Clinton only said he had issued a clarifying statement.

Update: Jeff Fecke adds:

When your wife’s campaign is saying that they’re pleased you’ve branded Obama as “the black candidate,” well, all I can say is fuck you, Bill.

And while we’re at it, fuck you too, Hillary, for authorizing and endorsing and supporting these attacks. I don’t for a second think Bill’s just out there saying stuff, without your approval. This is your campaign, and you’re using Bill as the attack dog, so you can keep your hands clean. But this stuff is beyond the pale. You’ve taken a lot of crap in this campaign from the media and from allies of you opponents. You don’t deserve it. But that hasn’t come from the Obama campaign itself, and certainly not from Obama himself, nor from his wife or anyone close to him.

Bill, you need to STFU, and Hillary, you need to repudiate these attacks, and make clear once and for all that you are not a campaign for whites only. That crap works in the Republican party, but our party kicked the racists out in the sixties, and thank God. If you want to pander to the racists, fine — but the rest of us, the vast majority of the Democratic party, will find someone else to vote for.

Filed under: Z-TDB Blog