I never intended to write aboutthe current presidential electionspartly because I felt that I did not have anything substantive or different to say. I was also worried that my words would turn into partisan rambling unworthy of my readers' time.
Yet over the last few weeks something so potentially divisive and destructive occurred in the Democratic primary that changed the dynamic of the whole race. The Clinton campaign has repeatedly and subtly used the race card in order to split the Democratic electorate along racial lines to hurt Barack Obama and to help itself.
What makes the current situation so remarkable is that the message of Barack Obama contrasts so strongly with that of the Clintons. His vision of a united America offers a real break with the divisive politics of the past and gives the opportunity for a new start.
The first instance of racial politics began shortly after the Iowa caucuses where Obama shocked the nation by beating the Clinton machine. While campaigning in New Hampshire, Hillsry described how Martin Luther King never could have passed civil rights legislation and that how he needed then-president Lyndon B. Johnson to assist. This unusual reference to 40 years ago, which ultimately did not make sense (because King never held public office) was perceived as a metaphor for the current race in which Obama is King to Hillary's Johnson. In essence, Hillary argued that Obama was the black candidate who spoke inspirationally, but she was the white candidate who could actually get things done.
An increasingly ugly fight among the two candidates along racial lines followed these comments. Both camps accused each other of using race in order to gain support and weaken the other candidate. Things got so bad that Obama eventually called for a truce because of the destructive potential to the Democratic Party and because he did not want the race to degenerate along racial lines. Obama's initiative in this case demonstrates his commitment to uniting the country and not using racial politics to win votes. Obama's call for a truce is even more remarkable when you consider that most polls showed that he was gaining support because of the backlash against the Clinton campaign.
It seems that the Clinton campaign accepted the terms of this truce and agreed to end the racial attacks. But in fact, the Clintons did not keep their word. Unfortunately, Bill Clinton made another racially charged comment after Hillary's large defeat in Sou th Carolina. Bill Clinton, commenting on why his wife suffered a 28 percent loss in South Carolina, said, "Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in '84 and '88." In essence, Clinton was saying that the only reason Obama won South Carolina was because he is black and any black candidate will South Carolina like Jesse Jackson. By lumping Obama with Jackson, Clinton was trying to isolate Obama from the white electorate and instead make him a candidate who could only win with black voters.
The thing that Bill Clinton forgot to mention is that he himself won the South Carolina primary in 1992 with a whopping 69 percent of the vote. At that time, Bill Clinton had wide support among black voters which helped him get elected president. He was famously called "the first black president" by Nobel Prize winning author Toni Morrison. It is a telling sign about the Clintons' standing among the black community that Morrison endorsed Obama this time around. It is truly remarkable how quickly the Clintons abandoned one of their original core supporters of black voters and use them to gain political points in the Democratic primary.
What we need now is not division and hatred among racial and ethnic lines. What we need now is not politicians dividing the electorate so that they can win an election. What we need is a new type of politics that seeks to heal our division and overcome our differences. I wish I could claim these ideas to be my own, but these are the things that Obama has been speaking about all throughout this nation.
I think the best response to the Clintons' use of racial politics is the speech Obama gave after winning the South Carolina primary, "the choice in this election is not between regions or religions or genders. It's not about rich vs. poor, young vs. old. And it is not about black vs. white." I hope the American people follow Obama's wise words and select the best candidate, and not pick a candidate based on race or gender.
Sam Shirazi is a Cavalier Daily associate editor. He can be reached at sshirazi@cavalierdaily.com.
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