Does anybody in Hillary Clinton's campaign care about the future of the Democratic Party? That's what I'd like to know.
I spent yesterday arguing that while Geraldine Ferraro's comments about the role Barack Obama's race played in his propulsion into the presidential race may have some grounding in fact (his personal story providing a powerful campaign narrative), they were grossly unhelpful. After Team Obama responded, condemning the remarks as an attempt to reduce the candidate to little more than his race -- a charge also grounded in fact -- you would think Ferraro might graciously step back from her original remarks, say she hadn't meant them the way they came out, or whatever. But, no, instead she made it clear that she meant every word exactly as it was heard, with every drop of racial resentment the consumer may have tasted. Here's what she told the New York Times:
“Every time that campaign is upset about something, they call it racist,” she said. “I will not be discriminated against because I'm white. If they think they're going to shut up Geraldine Ferraro with that kind of stuff, they don't know me.”
At this writing, the Clinton campaign has only marginally distanced itself from Ferraro's original statement, with spokesman Howard Wolfson tepidly saying, "We disagree with her." Clinton herself merely repeated that sentiment, adding, "It is regrettable that any of our supporters on both sides, because we’ve both had that experience, say things that kind of veer off into the personal." She continued: “We ought to keep this on the issues."
It doesn't get much more disingenuous than that. Clinton surrogates have been injecting race into this contest since New Hampshire; the same can't be said of Obama's surrogates vis-à-vis gender. And the fact that Ferraro has made this flap about her and her own resentment has tarnished her heroic image as it once existed for a generation of women.--Adele M. Stan
