Wednesday, March 12, 2008

BARACK OBAMA, MIKE HUCKABEE, HILLARY CLINTON

Geraldine Ferraro and the Victim-Card Ragnarok

Who thought Geraldine Ferraro could end up playing a high-profile role in the Democratic primary? And she managed turn herself into a liability who had to go just by declaring, "If [Barack] Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position...He happens to be very lucky to be who he is."

As many others had pointed out, if Barack Obama were an Irish-American from Illinois named Barry O'Bama, it's hard to believe that even a charismatic and gifted orator would be the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination with a grand total of four years in the Senate.

What do you call a white man who has the charisma, the humor, the laid back charm and ease in front of an audience that Barack Obama has? You call him "Mike Huckabee." And as we just saw, that will take you pretty far, but not quite far enough in a Republican presidential primary. And he had about ten years of executive experience, not four in the Senate.

Of course this is dripping with irony for Hillary, who would never have become a senator from New York if she hadn't been First Lady, and who never would have run for president if her last name hadn't been Clinton.

There's been an interesting dynamic in Democratic circles for the past three months or so. Around office break rooms, sitting at the local watering holes, at parties, at caucuses and outside polling stations, and o blogs, Democrats who support Hillary have found themselves being called racist. And Democrats who support Obama have found themselves being called sexist. Neither group likes it, and both of them are probably feeling the way conservatives have felt for the past thirty years or so. Suddenly many Democrats see how those accusations can be used to cut off further discussion and demonize the other side as beyond the pale.

This explains why Ferraro tried to get herself out by citing her grandparents' experience with discrimination as Italian-American immigrants. This is how you usually win a debate in Democratic circles, by citing one's status as a victim. (It obviously fell short in this case; she was, in essence, playing the victim card through the transitive property.)

With so many charges of racism and sexism flying around — and so many feeling unfairly maligned — the power of the "victim card" may be waning in American politics. If everybody's racist and sexist, then nobody's racist and sexist.

03/12 06:14 PMShare