Does anyone really believe that Geraldine Ferraro was speaking only for herself, and not for the Clinton campaign, when she went after Barack Obama? Because I don’t.
I’ve been watching how the Clintons work for years. They do what it takes – sometimes, whatever it takes – to win. That doesn’t mean Hillary would be a terrible president, and if she wins the nomination, I will happily and proudly vote for her. I like her health-care plan better than Obama’s, and I think having someone in the White House who is tough and fierce and knows how to fight in the streets with the worst of the political hacks is not entirely a bad thing.
But let’s be honest here: This was carefully, and brilliantly, orchestrated.
Ferraro is a veteran politician, and she knows how presidential campaigns work. She knows that you don’t make comments about something as sensitive as race without checking with headquarters. She’d be a fool – and she isn’t a fool – to just blurt that out.
Think about what she did from a political perspective. The key battle now is Pennsylvania, a state with a mixed demographic. Obama will win Philadelphia, with its large African-American population and sizable numbers of students and liberal white people. But there are plenty of more conservative, suburban and working-class areas – and in some of those places, there are no doubt people who are unhappy about affirmative action.
And that’s who Ferrero’s comments were aimed at – the angry white people who want to blame their problems on black people.
Her message was pretty simple, when you get right down to it: Obama got an unfair advantage over a white person (Clinton) because he’s black. She may not have said it in so many words, but in the areas where the Clinton polling shows she can exploit that sort of fear and resentment, people will get the point right away.
Naturally, Clinton could never say anything like that (any more than Obama could say that his opponent was a “monster” who would do anything to win). But both candidates wanted that message out, and in both cases, sophisticated surrogates put it out, then fell on the sword and resigned for the team.
I know this sounds incredibly cynical, but this is how the game is played at this level.