The Ferraro Gambit Is Deliberate

The Clinton campaign's decision not to reject or denounce Geraldine Ferraro's racial gaffe strikes me as a conscious and deliberate one. The Obama campaign saw Samantha Power resign for a less offensive remark. But Ferraro is now on the networks and airwaves amping up the volume, and Clinton, in classic passive-aggressive mode, is merely "disagreeing." Isn't this obviously about Pennsylvania? Isn't this classic Rove-Morris politics - to keep designating Obama a beneficiary of affirmative action and Clinton a victimized white woman in order to racially polarize a primary where Clinton needs white ethnic votes?

Ferraro's original gaffe was an accident. The compounding of it is a strategy. A reader comments:

I'm willing to bet damn near anything Bill thought this up himself. As a white male Bill realized he couldn't push Obama into the ghetto box, but what a brilliant strategy! - let's have another "disadvantaged group" lambaste Obama through an elderly white female surrogate to divide and conquer in the victimology sweepstakes.  Since whites outnumber blacks, and white females in particular outnumber black voters, it's an incredibly audacious gambit to win the nomination. Throwing the kitchen sink apparently means turning the Democratic Party into an all out race versus gender war, ultimately allowing Bill and Hillary to either emerge on top or for Obama to be so badly damaged that the Superdelegates will fear he's lost the white vote in the general election. That's exactly the game the Clinton's have set in motion here.

(Photo: U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton chats with longtime-friend Geraldine Ferraro before commencement exercises for Marymount Manhattan College in Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center May 20, 2005 in New York City. By Chris Hondros/Getty Images.)