The Crucible Of Racial Politics

Race and gender have always been subtexts of the Democratic presidential race, and for the first time, really, since this whole thing began, they've become fully fledged texts. One reporter even claims that racial politics is "roiling" the Democratic race.

Today, former President Clinton appeared on prominent black radio talk show programs to tamp down a wave of concerns that his calling Barack Obama's candidacy a "fairy tale" was racially insensitive. One by one, to hosts Steve Harvey, Michael Basin and Al Sharpton, Clinton professed his admiration for Obama and insisted that he was only referring to Obama's lack of executive experience.

In turn, the Clinton campaign has accused the Obama campaign of artificially ginning up the controversy. Clinton aides seized on reports that an Obama press aide, in response to a research query from a prominent activist, included remarks by the Clintons in a compilation of racially insensitive remarks. Hillary Clinton said the accusations about her comments were "baseless and divisive," ABC News reported tonight.

The compilation produced by the press aide starts with New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's linking Obama's style at press conferences to "Shuck and Jive." The next heading in capital letters reads: "MARTIN LUTHER KING / LYNDON JOHNSON COMPARISON." The story excerpt includes Hillary Clinton's remark that Pres. Lyndon Johnson was instrumental to the passage of civil rights laws. Then the document features Bill Clinton's assertion that Hillary Clinton is "stronger than Nelson Mandela," former Clinton adviser Billy Shaheen's plea to the press to focus on Obama's youthful drug use, Mark Penn's invocation of the word "cocaine" when trying to defend Shaheen.

There is no evidence that the campaign circulated the compilation to reporters, or to anyone aside from the activist who requested the information.

Obama has not accused the Clintons of racism and an Obama campaign aide said that campaign does not believe that the Clintons themselves were attempting to sow racial discord. Nonetheless, several powerful black politicians and political activists, including Donna Brazile and Rep. James Clyburn, say they detect, in a pattern of curious remarks, a string of questions designed to raise the issue of race. Brazile has not endorsed a presidential candidate.

"Somehow, this story is being used to create a wedge or divide," Brazile told me via e-mail. "What we have is two historic candidates battling to become the first. Meanwhile, old wounds have been reopened and now it's a mess."

Clyburn, for his part, seemed to back away from a decision to endorse.

In a statement released late today by his press office, he says he "told the DNC, the South Carolina Democratic Party and the South Carolina General Assembly that I would do everything I could to ensure this first in the South primary is a success. My position and my focus remain the same, and I have conveyed that to the campaigns of Senators Obama, Clinton and Edwards."

“I encourage the candidates to be sensitive about the words they use. This is an historic race for America to have such strong, diverse candidates vying for the Democratic nomination. I want what is best for South Carolina and the nation – a successful South Carolina primary and a strong Democratic nominee.”

Obama, the son of a black man and a white woman, has been variously described as a "post-racial" candidate or a black candidate with "cross-over" appeal, both terms loaded with implications that Obama probably does not subscribe too. For one thing, his identity is unique; he's written a book about the pulls and pushes of racial solidarity and culture, so he probably understands, at a gut level better than anyone else in the race, why identity politics is so poisonous.

Some of his fans love Obama as a concept more than a man: his election, they believe, will expiate America's original and enduring sin, that of racial subjugation and slavery. Conservative critics of Obamas, like Thomas Sowell, urge him to use his candidacy as a teachable moment for other African Americans about race and culture; older, liberal activists, like Jesse Jackson, have accused him of not acting black enough, whatever that means. It is to Obama's credit that he has forged a completely independent way of inhabitng his identity. He has graciously allowed others to use him as a canvass, but he never quite reflects what they want to see. Indeed, Obama himself has made much more modest claims, and he has never overtly appealed to African Americans on the basis of his skin color or theirs. That is not his generational point of view.

If the Clinton campaign is percieved as resorting to race-baiting in South Carolina, they're super-duper-dead-in-the-water. And rightfully so, if they're a deliberate strategy to raise any questions whatsoever about Obama and race. But -- really -- the Clintons?

Instead of answering questions, I'll pose some more:

Did white women in New Hampshire reject a black candidate, thereby confirming the idea of a white curtain in the Democratic Party? Will South Carolina become a battle for the favor of black women, who are pulled, from the standpoint of identity politics, in two different directions?

One thing is certain: it's tough for people to figure out how to talk about a black candidate, including the campaign of the black candidate himself.