And the moral of the story is, be very careful when talking about presidential campaigns, Barack Obama, and the prospect of assassination.
Last Friday, Mike Huckabee tried to tell an off-the-cuff joke about someone pointing a gun at Barack Obama. It was a tasteless, foolish thing to say; Huckabee apologized; and the political world moved on.
Yesterday, as you probably know by now, talking about the duration of the Democratic nominating fight, Hillary Clinton referenced Bobby Kennedy’s assassination in June 1968.
The pushback began rather quickly. As the NYT reported, “Campaign aides were taken aback by the quick reaction to her remarks, but then quickly realized that Mrs. Clinton had to backpedal. She then spoke to the traveling press corps for the first time in more than a week, at a supermarket” in Brandon, S.D.
The story, surprisingly enough, is literally front-page news, and seems to have thrown the political world for a loop. I’m just not sure if it’s even remotely fair.
As I see it, there are three possible interpretations to consider:
* The charitable interpretation: This has been blown wildly out of proportion. Clinton was talking about the calendar, and the fact that there’s no real urgency for to withdraw, given that previous Democratic campaigns have lasted through June, as well. It may have been clumsily worded, but this was a harmless, innocent historical comparison. She made a similar reference to Kennedy a couple of months ago, and no one said a word. This is “molehill” politics to the extreme.
* The uncharitable interpretation: By raising the specter of Kennedy’s assassination, Clinton was implicitly making an incredibly offensive assertion — she needs to keep her campaign going, just in case some lunatic kills Obama. When she tried to backpedal, she said, “The Kennedys have been much on my mind the last days because of Senator Kennedy,” but that doesn’t make sense given that she’s made this RFK reference before.
* The very uncharitable interpretation: Clinton, generally a master of message discipline and subtlety, was slyly trying to introduce the notion of Obama and assassination into the broader political discussion. In other words, this was intentional — she’d knew people would freak out, but took a chance anyway, hoping the possibility of something tragic happening to Obama might raise doubts among superdelegates.
For what it’s worth, I’m inclined towards the charitable interpretation. The clip and the context make clear, at least to me, that Clinton was making a point about June. By referencing the Kennedy slaying, she was reminding people of when that happened.
If, in context, she’s been asked about plausible scenarios in which she could still win the nomination, and then referenced the Kennedy assassination, I’d be the first to express outrage. But that’s not what happened here. It was about a timeline, nothing more.
To be sure, Clinton could have worded this much better. In some ways, the reaction reminds me a lot of some of the overheated responses to some of Obama’s verbal gaffes (“bitter,” “typical white person”). These candidates speak thousands of words a day, and sometimes, their thoughts are less articulate than others. But it’s neither fair nor helpful to the process to create a scandal out of every misspoken historical analogy.
That said, the reaction has become so heated, I’ve heard considerable talk that Clinton’s chances of making the Obama ticket are much lower now than they were 24 hours ago.
Post Script: Want to know how dumb I am? The Kennedy part of Clinton’s quote wasn’t even the part that bothered me most. First she argued that “people have been trying” to push her out of the race “ever since Iowa.” Really? Who are these people? I don’t remember anyone, anywhere, arguing that Clinton needed to drop out in early January. It seemed like a strangely self-pitying comment.
For that matter, she characterized “her opponent” of trying to force her to withdraw. Again, as far as I can tell, neither Obama nor any of his top aides have done anything of the sort, at least not in recent weeks. In fact, since the North Carolina and Indiana primaries, it seems like Obama has been doing the opposite — saying very complimentary things about Clinton, and then ignoring her to focus on John McCain.
And as for the on-point discussion of previous campaigns going through June, Clinton’s point about 1968 is flawed, because the party had not yet adopted the modern nominating process 40 years ago. Similarly, Clinton’s point about her husband not wrapping up the nomination until June 1992 is also highly misleading.
Of course, in light of the assassination talk, these details will get no attention whatsoever.
Second Post Script: Given a choice between yesterday’s remarks and her speech in Florida this week comparing the Democratic delegate controversy to Jim Crow and Zimbabwe, I still think the latter was far more outrageous.