America in the Balance

BILL CLINTON, GERALDINE FERRARO,GLORIA STEINEM & ED RENDELL: WHO’S PLAYING THE RACE CARD NOW — THE DEMS OR THOSE MEAN OLD REPUBLICANS?

By

Ken Eliasberg

I really enjoy watching the sophistries in which the Dems engage as they constantly try to portray themselves as the tolerant people that they are not. Their latest effort in this regard is to try to deny that they are playing the race card — while they are clearly and demonstrably PLAYING THE RACE CARD! It’s what I always love about the Clintons; as I have oft noted, they don’t insult your intelligence — they just assume that you don’t have any (in passing, let me note that this column was prepared before the Jeremiah Wright controversy hit the airwaves; I’ll have a lot to say about that in future columns). And, given the fact that their leading candidate for the Presidency is not an honorary black (the status that was accorded Bill Clinton), but an authentic black (well, at least half black), this has got to be driving the Clintons crazy. Why? Because if they make one serious misstep, they risk offending a constituency that is absolutely vital to the continued viability of the Democratic Party — BLACKS!! As I have frequently noted, 90% of blacks vote Democrat, giving the Democratic nominee for President a 9,000,000 vote edge right out of the starting gate. Now the typical way that the Clintons stab you in the back is through surrogates; Hillary’s style (which is frequently awkward and clumsy) is to try not to leave any fingerprints. Her predilection in this regard is spelled out in Sally Bedell’s excellent book,For Love of Politics.

And so it is in this most delicate matter of race, where some of Hillary’s surrogates have been considerably less than delicate. Let’s review a sampling of their offerings, the most recent of which was tendered by Geraldine Ferraro, a former New York Congresswoman and Walter Mondale’s Vice Presidential running mate who had this to say:

“If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position