Wednesday, March 26, 2008

The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan:

Jeremiah Wright is now the moral equivalent of David Duke? The latest Clintonite ratchets up the Wright issue still further. However dim a view you take of some of Wright's rhetorical excesses, and I'm not defending them, to compare a man whose church has such a long history of social work, black self-help, outreach to people with HIV, and inclusion of gay people to a rank neo-Nazi is another step too far. Comparing the first potential black president's pastor to a man who represents some of the worst racism in America is also bound to impact African-Americans. If the Clintons keep this up, they will not only destroy Obama's chances in the fall, they may also make it very hard for black Democrats to vote for a Clinton again. Josh comments here. I think Clinton has decided to use race in the way that Republicans have for the past couple of decades, to play on white resentment of what are regarded as double-standards on race and to fuse the integrative, dignified campaign of Obama in the minds of some white ethnic Americans with demagoguic soundbites from Wright.

The goal is to win a huge margin in Pennsylvania and to use that as an appeal to the super-delegates that Obama cannot be elected in key swing states with white working class voters. If that won't work, Clinton will have done all she can to ensure Obama's defeat by McCain in the fall, which she will then use as vindication for another run in 2012.