Boundless cynicism?

I don't believe that Hillary Clinton intended to inject race into the campaign when she compared the contributions of Martin Luther King and LBJ in enacting the civil rights laws of the 1960s; I think she made an unfortunate and awkward analogy. On the other hand, she has not had the grace to admit that her choice of words was inapt. (Contrast this to Obama's appearance on GMA, last week, where he did say that his comment, "Hillary, you're likable enough," at the final New Hampshire debate was a mistake.)

Nor do I think that Bill Clinton was referring to the dream of Obama becoming president when he used the phrase, "it's a fantasy;" in context, he was clearly making reference to the assertion that Obama has been a consistent opponent of the Iraq war. Clinton was wrong about his charge, but it wasn't racism or demeaning Obama as a candidate. (See talkingpointsmemo for an analysis of this.)

However, a number of Clinton campaign officials and surrogates have made comments that raise implications of race and/or behavior stereotypically assigned to black males. Her co-chair in New Hampshire asked whether Obama had ever distributed any of the drugs that he long ago admitted using as a teenager. Andrew Cuomo, attorney-general of New York, said that Obama could not "shuck and jive" his way into contention. Yesterday, prominent Clinton supporter Robert Johnson--founder of Black Entertainment Television--asserted that the Clintons were "deeply and emotionally involved in black issues since Barack Obama was doing something in the neighborhood." He later tried to deny that he was referring to Obama's use of drugs, making the absurd allegation that he was speaking about the Senator's work as a community organizer.

The worrying part of this is that Clinton has not reined in her supporters. True, Bill Shaheen resigned from her campaign, but that was clearly a matter of PR. Just as clearly, Hillary and Bill have not put out the word that these kinds of attacks are out of bounds. Which leads me to conclude that they have embraced the "politics of personal destruction" that they used to decry. They seem also to have calculated that the loss of votes she may suffer among blacks will be more than offset by the number of whites she may attract. That's the kind of divisive politics that used to be the exclusive province of Republicans.

When these attacks are taken with the suit by Clinton allies to block the holding of Democratic caucuses in Las Vegas casinos--a move that came more than a year after the state Democrat Party decided to set them up, but only a few days after the Culinary Workers' union (which represents casino employees) endorsed Obama--it's clear that Clinton has embarked on a scorched earth campaign to win the nomination. The boundless cynicism that the campaign's tactics represent (the NYT has revealed that both Bill and Hillary have been misstating the Iraq war resolution that she voted for) is bad for the party, bad for the Democratic Party and, very likely, bad for her as well. It's also bad for the country.