Former VP candidate Geraldine Ferraro has become quite a controversial figure in Democratic circles this week. In surprisingly bitter language, she argued that Barack Obama is “very lucky” to be a black man running for president. Pressed for an explanation, Ferraro, a prominent Clinton backer and member of her national finance team, said, “I really think they’re attacking me because I’m white. How’s that?”
Last night, doing her best Archie Bunker imitation, Ferraro added, “Every time that campaign is upset about something, they call it racist. I will not be discriminated against because I’m white.”
No one, including Clinton or her aides, have defended Ferraro’s comments, though Clinton has also not asked Ferraro to step down from her campaign role. Given all of this, we probably shouldn’t expect to hear from Ferraro for a little while, right? Wrong, she did two of the national morning shows today.
“I am sorry that people think this was a racist comment,” Ferraro said in an interview with ABC’s Diane Sawyer on “Good Morning America.”
She declined to apologize directly for the firestorm she created when she told a newspaper last week that “if Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position.”
She told Sawyer she was “absolutely not” sorry for what she said.
On CBS’s “Early Show,” Ferraro added, “It wasn’t a racist comment, it was a statement of fact.”
I’m going to assume that the Clinton campaign has some influence with Ferraro. She is, after all, a campaign surrogate and finance-team member. With this in mind, maybe someone from the team can give Ferraro a call and say, “For the love of God, please stop talking.”
Jonathan Cohn suggested that the Clinton campaign won’t make that call, because this might be part of a deliberate strategy.
Ferraro’s original statement to Daily Breeze, which suggested that Obama has gotten preferential political treatment because of his race, was a dog-whistle to white voters who resent affirmative action. (Her subsequent statement to the New York Times, in which she defiantly defended herself by proclaiming “I will not be discriminated against because I’m white,” wasn’t a dog whistle. It was a huge, screeching megaphone.) Dwelling on that probably won’t help the Obama campaign in Pennsylvania, particularly given the racial voting patterns yesterday’s Mississippi result confirmed.
A cynic — ok, maybe even a non-cynic — might suggest that’s precisely why the Clinton campaign isn’t moving more swiftly to cut ties with Ferraro.
I kind of doubt that the Clinton campaign intends to benefit by having Ferraro make crazy, racially-charged comments to the media. I hope the campaign wouldn’t do that. But the best way to make sure no one gets this impression is to a) disassociate Ferraro from the campaign quickly; b) get her to stop talking immediately; or c) both.
As long as we’re on the subject, it’s probably worth taking a moment to respond to the substance of Ferraro’s latest comment — the notion that it’s a “fact” that Obama is benefitting because he’s a black man running for president.
Relying on my own perceptions, I suspect there are a number of Americans who are excited — if not genuinely elated — by the notion that the United States might elect its first African-American president. For these people, the color of Obama’s skin gives him an advantage, inasmuch as it creates an added motivation to vote for him.
The mistake, I believe, is to assume that these people represent a large percentage of the American electorate. Ferraro said Obama has a “huge” advantage because he’s black. That seems kind of silly. As Obama himself said on ABC this morning, “The quickest path to the presidency [is not] I want to be an African-American man named Barack Obama.”
Josh Marshall added:
There’s no doubt that Obama’s race is the central factor in allowing him to consolidate almost unanimous support from African-American voters, especially in the South. But African-Americans make up only about 13% of the population. And does anyone doubt that that advantage he gains there is not balanced at least to a substantial degree by resistance to voting for him among white voters? Why is Obama running so poorly among white voters tonight (compared to his rates in northern states) in Mississippi? And in South Carolina? We hear a lot about Sen. Clinton’s bedrock of strength among non-college educated white voters. Do we really think that’s simply a matter of appeal of Sen. Clinton? More speculatively, but I think no less true, is that a lot of the Farrakhan/Muslim/foreign influence stuff has more sticking power because of Obama’s race. […]
You might support Obama or not, think he’s qualified or an empty suit but suggesting he’s only where he is now because he’s black is something much worse than outrageous. It just seems obviously false.
And Kevin Drum added a valuable angle that shouldn’t be overlooked:
Implicit in Ferraro’s statement is the idea that if Obama were a charismatic young white guy, there’s no way he’d be getting any attention. And that’s just plain crackers. Charismatic young John F. Kennedy won the presidency in 1960. His brother, charismatic young Robert F. Kennedy, attracted huge support in 1968 and might have become president as well if he hadn’t been assassinated. Charismatic young Gary Hart nearly stole the 1984 Democratic nomination from Walter Mondale. And charismatic young Bill Clinton won the presidency in 1992.
Being young and charismatic has been a pretty good combination in the Democratic Party for the past 50 years. And being against the Iraq war from the start is a pretty is a pretty good credential in the Democratic Party this year. Contra Ferraro, if Obama were a white man he’d still be getting plenty of attention.
Quite right. The sooner Ferraro realizes this, the better.