[Excelsior, Mexico]

 

 

Elsevier, The Netherlands

Like 'Shoe Polish,' the

Clintons Rub Obama's

'Blackness' Into Voters

 

"The Clinton couple, one of the most powerful political machines America has ever seen, is making sure that Obama’s blackness gets rubbed into the electorate like shoe polish."

 

By Rik Kuethe

 

Translated By Meta Mertens

 

January 28, 2008

 

The Netherlands - Elsevier - Home Page (Dutch)

It's not young Senator Barack Obama ensuring that race remains an election issue. That's the work of the Clintons, as it suits them in view of Super Tuesday.

 

Barack Obama's won a resounding victory in the South Carolina Democratic primary.  He received 55 percent of the vote against his main opponent, Hillary Clinton, who won 27 percent. And at the start of the month [January], Obama scored his first win at their first showdown in White Iowa.

 

Americans are easily susceptible to something new. Many, including John F. Kennedy's daughter Caroline, consider this “lemon-fresh man” to be in an excellent position to win the Democratic nomination.

 

Whether he succeeds will be decided on Tuesday, Feb. 5 - otherwise known as Super Tuesday - when 22 states hold their primaries simultaneously. The chances that Obama will come out the victor, however, are small. 

 

SNOW WHITE

 

The young Senator from Illinois says time and again that these elections are not about race. Quite apart from the fact that he had a mother who was as white as Snow White, he certainly means what he says. He also has an interest in keeping it so. 

 

But more recently, the Clinton couple, one of the most powerful political machines America has ever seen, is making sure that Obama’s blackness gets rubbed into the electorate like shoe polish.

 

In South Carolina, where half the Democratic electorate is Black, this works to Obama's advantage.  “Jesse Jackson also won here,” was Bill Clinton’s shameful remark. Nationally, Jackson had little chance in 1984. So the loss of South Carolina was easy to take for the Clintons.

 

LATINOS

 

In the 22 states at stake on Super Tuesday, the population is overall much Whiter than in South Carolina. In Addition, Latinos, now the largest minority, scarcely know Obama.

 

Hillary Clinton will also increasingly rely on the support of women. Slightly over half of the electorate are women.

 

Unless she makes a tremendous blunder in the coming week, Hillary still has the best chance on Super Tuesday.

 

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[WORLDMEETS.US Posted Feb. 5, 3:30am]