How Can Black People Trust Hillary Clinton After the 2008 Campaign?
A quick trip down memory lane reveals that Clinton has a history of employing race in a divisive, cynical manner.
Based on what happened the last time Hillary Clinton ran for President, we should expect that at some point Black people will get thrown under the bus again, especially if it helps Clinton gain or maintain power.
Painting Obama As Not ‘Fundamentally American’
Throughout the 2008 election season, racist and bigoted smears about Barack Obama circulated online, and bubbled up into mainstream conversation about the campaign in the traditional news media. Two of the most prominent lies about Obama, which persist to this day, were that he is secretly a Muslim (playing on fear-mongering and bigotry about Islam), and that he was not really born in America. Both of these ideas paint Obama as “other” and outside the mainstream, drawing their potency from fears about Black people gaining power. People generally associate these memes with the right wing. But the truth is that for the entire Democratic primary,
not only did Hillary Clinton’s campaign do nothing to push back against the racist fear-mongering about Obama, it actually fed this atmosphere and helped it grow. It was a part of their strategy from early in the campaign.
Back in March of 2007, Hillary Clinton’s chief strategist Mark Penn
wrote a campaign memo that proposed painting Barack Obama as un-American or “other”:
“His roots to basic American values and culture are at best limited.
I cannot imagine America electing a president during a time of war who is not at his center fundamentally American in his thinking and in his values ... Every speech should contain the line you were born in the middle of America to the middle class in the middle of the last century ...
Let’s explicitly own ‘American’ in our programs, the speeches and the values. He doesn’t.“
In December of 2007, Billy Shaheen, the co-chair of Clinton’s New Hampshire campaign,
raised the issue of Obama’s drug use as a young man, and the possibility that Obama could be attacked as a drug dealer. He said he was talking about how Republicans would attack Obama, but his statements had the effect of injecting racist stereotypes into the campaign: “It’ll be, ‘When was the last time?
Did you ever give drugs to anyone? Did you sell them to anyone?’ There are so many openings for Republican dirty tricks.” It is a tried and true tactic: floating an idea to which you claim to not personally ascribe, with the effect of getting the idea to circulate.
The next day, Clinton privately apologized to Obama for Shaheen’s comments and claimed she had nothing to do with them. Obama
didn’t accept the apologybecause he believed Clinton’s campaign was circulating emails claiming he was a Muslim. According to Reggie Love, Obama’s personal assistant at the time: “The candidate [Obama] very respectfully told her the apology was kind, but largely meaningless, given the emails it was rumored her camp had been sending out labeling him as a Muslim.”
In February 2008, the Drudge Report posted a picture of Obama in traditional Kenyan/Somali clothes (including a turban, which helped reinforce the “secret Muslim” smear). Drudge said the picture was circulated by the Clinton campaign. David Plouffe, Obama’s campaign manager
called it “the most shameful, offensive fear-mongering we’ve seen from either party in this election.”Initially, the Clinton campaign did not deny having sent the photo, instead playing dumb about the possible impact of the photo and
attacking Obama over it: “If Barack Obama’s campaign wants to suggest that a photo of him wearing traditional Somali clothing is divisive, they should be ashamed. Hillary Clinton has worn the traditional clothing of countries she has visited and had those photos published widely.”
Stephanie Tubbs Jones, a member of Congress and Clinton surrogate, when asked about the circulation of the photo,
implied that Barack Obama is native to Kenya: “I have no shame, or no problem, with people looking at
Barack Obama in his native clothing, the clothing of his country … if we’re supporting a woman or an African American for president, we ought to be able to support their ability to wear
the clothing of their nation.”
Then there’s Hillary Clinton, herself, more subtly doing the same. In March 2008, in an interview on
60 Minutes, instead of defending Obama against the “secret Muslim” smear, Clinton carefully and strategically
left room open for doubt, saying
“I take him on the basis of what he says,” and then when pressed, saying he’s not Muslim
“as far as I know.” Clinton could have clearly and unequivocally denounced the smears against Obama, but she didn’t.