1 post tagged “ohio”

I see Sen. Clinton has resorted to even more attacks on Sen. Obama, all of which smack of desperation and come through to me 7,000-plus miles away as tiresome. God only knows what the American people have to put up with on a far more frequent basis, especially if it is in my consciousness in a foreign country.
   The Clinton camp has not denied sending out a picture of Sen. Obama on one of his many visits back to Kenya, wearing traditional elder garb. Its intention: to show how “foreign” Sen. Obama is. More to the point, to show how “un-American” he is. Wear traditional costume? You are not wholesome enough to be American, in that Ward and June Cleaver way.
   You see, there is a theory that the Clinton side must have in that it is considered culturally sensitive for a white American to adopt his or her host’s costumes, but it is considered odd for a black American to do the same.
   Despite the large African-descended community in the United States, traditional African costume has not entered the general consciousness of the country. Sen. Obama, wearing the costume of his father’s homeland, looks very different to the well suited figure that Americans have seen during the campaign. He has tried to be race-neutral for the most part, rightly resisting to use that aspect in a campaign that is heated enough.
   The Clinton campaign is hoping this photo will be the undoing of Obama in Ohio and Texas. I do not think so. Americans are just too darned smart for this to work.
   There is nothing wrong with the image but for the fact that it may have come from the Clinton campaign, released with an obvious belief that it is scandalous.
   It shouldn’t be, of course, but Clinton has now made this campaign about race—or her own racism. (I suppose it might not be as bad as showing your tax liabilities.)
   Nevertheless, having a black campaign manager is not going to make her look whiter than white on this issue, if you will pardon the one attempt at humour in this post.
   These attacks have fallen flat before. Anti-Obama types and anti-Islamists stressed that his middle name is Hussein. That proved ineffective for numerous reasons. Earlier in the year, in stressing her credentials, Clinton said that it took a president (LBJ) to make the Civil Rights’ Movement effective—which was seen by many as undermining the work of Dr Martin Luther King Jr. For me, that brought up the 2004 incident when Clinton joked that Mahatma Gandhi was someone who pumped gas for a living in St Louis, Mo.
   While I tried to give Sen. Clinton the benefit of the doubt on her incidents, I am not so sure about the newest—and it wasn’t helped by the Clinton campaign’s reactions. Skemono, a fellow blogger, expresses it better than I could, quoting campaign manager Michelle Williams. I imagine that Skemono is better versed on the topic, being inside the US.
   Put these incidents together and it paints a sorry picture of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s élitism and what she regards as “American”. Obviously Indians need not apply, even the great man Gandhi. I imagine in her view blacks need the white hand to help, the freedom of the Civil War given to them benevolently, and civil rights by President Lyndon Johnson.
   Even if Sen. Clinton is not a racist, and it’s actually likely she isn’t, I believe she is not above using race for political capital.
   However, she has miscalculated things. The United States of America is founded on immigrants. It all depends on when one arrived. Even the native American, the first one there, probably migrated from Asia.
   If Sen. Clinton had a good grasp on the Hispanic vote, then I suspect she lost some potential supporters today.

Obama, the role model
Why should not Obama, whose father was an immigrant who made good on the American Dream, adopt the clothing of his homeland? Many of us who have the privilege of visiting the country from which our ancestors came would do the same. It shows Barack Obama to be a proud man, and if he is willing to celebrate his heritage, then he comes with a sense of self-respect.
   A person who is willing to celebrate their heritage, at Barack Obama’s level, can be a good role model for many others who did not consider it.
   You are only as good as your dignity, and Sen. Obama has shown that.
   While I will defend Sen. Obama, I cannot be said to be a fan of his. I do not agree with all of his policies, and I even agree with Sen. Clinton that he lacks specificity to field a credible campaign if he were nominated. I am unsure of his foreign policy credentials and how he will deal with régimes that attack the values of freedom and democracy—on that Sen. Clinton should attack him. There are signs, which conservatives are prepared to cite in their opposition, of Obama’s extreme left tendencies.
   However, I would rather see a dignified man enter the White House than a woman who resorts to playground bully tactics. Though out of the current front-runners I would rather not see any of them enter.
   Campaign and attack all you want—but do not take it down to this level.

Experience
Today on National Radio here in New Zealand, Sen. Clinton stressed her foreign policy credentials, saying she did not need an instruction manual or advisers to deal with the matter.
   The last time I looked, Sen. Obama had 12 years in elected office versus her eight.
   On a day like this, I am not sure if it is worth much—even if I agree with Sen. Clinton that she has been clearer on her foreign policy during her campaign. (I won’t bring more of her prior positions on foreign policy into this yet.)
   And if she refers to the years as First Lady and wishes to count them as part of her ‘experience’, then she must stand by her decisions at that time. Unfortunately, Sen. Clinton only stands by the ones she thinks makes her look good.
   Her Wal-mart support for cheap Chinese labour and her pro-NAFTA stance were fairly consistent positions during her time as First Lady of Arkansas and as First Lady.
   If Americans are upset by what they saw as a preemptive strike by President Bush on Iraq, perhaps they need to be reminded that President Clinton did the same in Kosovo. If she supported that as the President’s wife, and she supported the war on Iraq, can Democrats and those opposed to the war trust her?
   This is not a campaign about substance, as Sen. Clinton has stressed that it should be. And she has had a major hand in taking that substance away.
   Reading the blogosphere I have found Democrats who believe Clinton has ‘swift-boated’ Obama.

These tactics aren’t presidential
I would not want, as a citizen of a western country that has a history with the United States, and which sacrificed lives for the sake of freedom alongside members of the US armed forces, to think that Sen. Clinton’s pettiness and pit-bull tactics will affect the way I do business as a New Zealander.
   And being part of a family that has been in the US for a century, I do have a stake: to ensure my cousins and an aunt are not living in a place that has a questionable, élitist leader with dictatorial tendencies.
   The in-fighting can only be good for the Republican Party, whose lead candidate, Sen. John McCain, has not captured the public’s attention as well. Attacks on him have not really held up, either. A divided Democratic Party is just what the GOP needs, and they have Sen. Hillary Clinton to thank for it.