Sen. Clinton touches the third rail

What do you think of Sen. Clinton's "spade work" now?

In this campaign season, I was willing to hear her out and give her a chance until she made the following comment to Matt Lauer on the Today show:



If this statement were the only one, I would give her the benefit of the doubt.

But coming after her campaign's Bill Shaheen insinuating that the Republicans might wonder about Barack dealing drugs, coming after the "If you have a social need, you're with Hillary. If you want Obama to be your imaginary hip black friend... then he's cool" comment by a Clinton adviser to the Guardian, after Pres. Bill Clinton's "Jesse Jackson won South Carolina" and Mark Penn's "cocaine" quip on http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/22246069#22246069">Hardball...now we may have to add the Clinton campaign circulating the photo of Sen. Obama in Somali traditional dress--through Drudge, no less.

I bit my tongue on this issue because I believe that it is the political "third rail" --just too dangerous to touch. I do not want to divide Democrats on DU because that only serves the interest of the enemy.

Today, though, it is clear that the Clinton campaign has been engaging in the politics of planting in the popular public consciousness associations that play on deep rifts in the American body politic. I have to wonder, with friends like these, who needs enemies?

The mood about Sen. Obama's campaign has been one of positivity and hope and it has swelled with people from every demographic united with one ambition: to undo the damage that has been done to our country by years of the same old politics of division. To see the Clinton campaign go so negative, so ugly--it is just tragic, really.

I only hope that other supporters of Sen. Clinton's run will also turn away from her campaign when they realize what a treacherous group of people she has drawn to herself.

or that those "left" ideas are per Obama "on the table" to trade for GOP love and changing the atmosphere in DC.

The best part of Obama's campaign was Obama stopping discussion of his lack of political ability to get left type victories of any size - just by playing the race card and getting 24/7 discussion of the "race card" - all by using his folks to say they saw racial undertones in comments by Clinton supporters - while he let it boil for a few weeks until he finally said the Clintons were not racists (not noting anything they had accomplished for blacks - like better jobs/income) but then claiming Hillary should be faulted for lack of control of all who support her - only 4 weeks later when he unleashed a few slurs/smears via supporters he claimed it was silly to assume anyone could control their supporters.

The walk on water sale via a GOP organizations/corporate media that has had its emails explaining its support of Obama as an attempt to get the weaker candidate printed on DU many times seems to work well with the men that are afraid of a women in authority.

Here is a link to a conservative blog that contains a photo of the page from the February 4th 2008 National Enquirer smear story about Barack Obama that contained the picture of him in traditional African garb:

http://sweetness-light.com/archive/obama-wore-muslim-ge...

The story was titled:

"Obama's Shocking Al Qaeda Link"

Here are the circulation figures that the National Enquirer releases about their rag:

"Place a classified ad in the National Enquirer. This weekly tabloid has excellent circulation at 2,760,000. Ad is placed in the classified area of the magazine under the appropriate category. Certain restrictions apply, and ads must meet the approval requirements of the National Enquirer. Circulation: 2,760,000."

http://www.nationwideadvertising.com/naten.html

Do you think an internal Clinton staff email discussing the photo just broke this news to American voters?

Sen. Obama might have "said the Clintons were not racists." It is a fact, though, that Bill Clinton also exploited rifts in the American electorate to give himself the image of being tough on blacks. One need look no further than his overseeing the execution of the functionally retarded Ricky Ray Rector and his public beat-down of black rapper "Sister Souljah."

“ If Black people kill Black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people?" -Sister Souljah

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sister_Souljah#Sister_Souljah_moment

Rector:

On March 21, 1981, Rector and some friends drove to a dance hall at Tommy’s Old-Fashioned
Home-Style Restaurant in Conway. When one of Rector’s friends was refused entry after being
unable to pay the three dollar cover charge, Rector became incensed and pulled a .38 pistol
from his waist band. He fired several shots, wounding two and killing a third man. The third
man, Arthur Criswell, died almost instantly after being struck in the throat and forehead.

...

Rector left the scene of the murder in a friend’s car and wandered the city for three days,
alternately staying in the woods or with relatives. On March 24, Rector’s sister convinced
him to turn himself in. Rector agreed to surrender only to Officer Robert Martin, whom he
had known since he was a child.

...

Officer Martin arrived at Rector’s mother’s home shortly after three p.m. and began
chatting with Rector’s mother and sister. Shortly thereafter, Rector arrived and
greeted Officer Martin. As Officer Martin turned away to continue his conversation
with Mrs. Rector, Ricky Ray Rector drew his pistol from behind his back and fired
two shots into Officer Martin, striking him in the jaw and neck. Rector then turned
and walked out of the house.

.....

Once he had walked past his mother’s backyard, Rector put his gun to his own
temple and fired. Rector was quickly discovered by other police officers and
was rushed to the local hospital. The shot had destroyed Rector’s frontal lobe,
resulting in what was essentially a self-lobotomy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricky_Ray_Rector

Sistah Souljah was a little-known young, black rapper who said something really dumb. Bill Clinton pounced on it and made it into a kind of national crisis. Likewise, he made a point to use a functionally retarded* man's execution to look tough on crime--whether you see it as looking on black crime, I suppose that is a up to you.

*Ricky Ray Rector is said to have told the prison guards that he was saving the piece of pecan pie that he had left on the tray of his last meal "for later."

Well, excuuuuse me!

three threads now...just asking:shrug:

:rofl:

She has run the sort of campaign that makes it plausible to have done so.

I know people will bristle at what I just said, BUT the fact remains that racial and ethnic divisiveness continually has become the "accidental" trademark of the Clinton campaign.

once or twice is an accident. 5, 6, 7, times is a strategy. And its a failed one, IMHO

:crazy:

My point is that its consistent with the tone of her attack campaign.

when that happens, when you run the type of campaign she has run, then it opens up opportunities for even false claims (if this is false) to sound plausible.

get it?

If she had not just run the type of pointless attack campaign she has, I'd be the first to say "no way!" but now, I have to say "I'll wait and see".

do you understand why I'm saying that's the downside of running a negative attack strategy? You've already given up the high road, so everyone expects you to do the worst, even if you don't.

It's not that hard to get.

so , no you don't get it, unless its a way to play the victim yet again.

what now, you gonna say I'm a misogynist for pointing out the flaws in a negative attack strategy?


jeebus you guys have extreme tunnel vision.

No, mandated universal health care is the third rail, as least for Obama.

Mandated Health Insurance from private "For Profit vendors.
This is NOT Universal HealthCare.
BIG difference.
Hillary and her supporters make that mistake all the time.

All health care is administered through someone; multi-payer simply means that private insurance companies are in the mix. The US will be in good company if it gets mandated, multi-payer, universal health care, as Germany, France and the Netherlands already have it. The argument that if we can't get single-payer we won't get anything is not a good one. Oh, sure, it'll be spun as another of those 'choice' issues.

She either made it up or else pulled it from somewhere. Anyone know?

No reason why you can't. I believe in gardening, it is a way to prepare the soil. You dig up the sod with a spade and chop it up, and then later plant your garden in that prepared soil.

However, "spade" is also a very well known ethnic slur towards black people. Not sure about the origin, but it is not connected to this common phrase, according to wiki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_call_a_spade_a_spade

spadework is defined here as "prepatory work"

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/spadework

Using it there was probably not meant as an ethnic slur, but also probably not advisable. Which may have been the cause of the stuttering as the person talking realised they'd just verbally stepped in some dog pooh and lost their train of thought.

Thanks for that. :hi:

P.S. Stuttering is a nervous speech phenomenon precipitated by anxiety, and so, she could have just been anxious about misspeaking, but in all honesty, I wouldn't be surprised if she'd rehearsed using that word deliberately at some point as a means of helping voters make a negative association, and when she actually SAID it, she realized how weird and jarring it sounded. She certainly hasn't held back on her negativity as of the last few days.

because it doesn't make sense to try to appeal to the racists in our party to help win the nomination. I think she is perhaps just used to using that term from time to time, but as she spoke she realized "oh crap, I just practically said spade when talking about a black man, quick, rephrase, rephrase!"

Why not use the term 'groundwork' instead? Maybe she has done a fair amount of gardening and thinks of it as spadework. An innocent term should retain its innocence even when its use is not the wisest move.

The Clinton have actually been good to both African Americans and to Africans. I remember that South African guy (if not his name) strongly defending Bill during Monicagate. So she/they are neither that vile, nor that stupid. I just don't see how doing it on purpose would help her.

I've been known to do that. :D

The image is of the PFC digging a trench (doing spadework) while the officer lounges around.

Like "tarbaby" it can be an unfortunate choice of words when talking about a black person. Whatever the opposite of le mot juste is.

although I learned it as a sticky situation that was created as a trap, when there was a fuss about it, I learned that the origins were the "Uncle Remus" stories which were written by a known white supremacist. It's origins are not innocent, although it can easily be used without intended malice by people ignorant of those origins.

There's a sender, who encodes a signal, which is sent to the recipient, who decodes it. The encoding and decoding process are, in general, not exact bijections so the received message is in many senses different from the sent message, despite sharing a single encoded signal.

Recipients need, perhaps, to use a bit more grace in decoding than they do, but senders need to be rather vigilant as well.

When did we start talking about the hormone shots you get as part of a sex change operation?

:P

"maybe we can make language a total impediment to understanding" Hobbes

"a good pass is one that's caught" Not always true, but like a guy I played basketball with, it does no good to zip the ball to somebody with too much speed and spin for their ability to handle it.

The purpose of a degree in engineering is being able to speak exhaustively and incomprehensibly about a vanishingly narrow subject, in short, to know everything about nothing.

(In contrast, the purpose of a liberal arts degree is to be able to speak broadly about a wide array of subjects, in short, to know nothing about everything.)

For the curious, a bijection is a function that relates every single element in its domain to a single element in its range, that is, a function that loses no information at any point in its processing, and so can be reversed with 100% accuracy.

Communication is, in general, modeled by functions that are decidedly not bijective.

I've used it in the context of the story -- something that entangles you and you can't get rid of.

A "Tar Baby Project" is any task that I don't want but can't get rid of.

But given the world and the way it is, I don't think I would use it any more.

It refers to preliminary drudgerly that you have to do before the real work begins. And what you assumed is the correct analogy.

From the book "Internet Culture" by David Potter, in a disscussion of "community" as it applies to the internet: "From here, one must proceed carfully. A little bit of etymolgical spadework only serves to show how complicated the issues are"

Hillary's suggestion was the Obama has "paid his dues" sufficiently to run for President. You can agree with that or not, but what she said is decidedly NOT an ethnic slur.

She said spade heh-heh heh-heh

I'll give her a pass on this one. This is a perfect acceptable figure of speech, although dated. It sounds like something Hillary's mid-western parents would use. It refers to the difficult labor required to be done by hand which cannot be mechanized. Just when I thought this campaign couldn't get more ridiculous, the morons show up.

or perhaps you overestimate yourself. You see, it is just the ability to deflect and deny that "spade work" was anything but innocuous that makes it such a potent tactic.

You may not be convinced and I, too, wish that I could just believe that she didn't mean anything by it--but the way her campaign has unfolded it is plain to see that yes, she went there.

I will make a deal with you: when Hillary uses the term 'spadework' she is making veiled racist reference. no problem.

When Obama uses a virulently anti-gay preacher to campaign for him in South Carolina, it's completely innocent and a cultural thing.

got it.

and they are poisoning the well in the face of falling to defeat.

The claim made on that site is that "stressed staffers circulated a photo" and wrote "Wouldn't we be seeing this on the cover of every magazine if it were HRC?" in an email.

I don't doubt that they circulated the photo among themselves. The question is whether somebody from the campaign took the next step and forwarded it to Drudge for publication. The question was put to the Clinton campaign and there was no denial.

(Not really.)
:hi:

I don't know why it's ignored, in favor of pointing the finger at Drudge.

IMO, it's a figure of speech with no malicious intent.