Hillary’s best hope: racism

Democrats bristle at talking about this in plainer terms. They say Sen. Hillary Clinton has found her base -- the "working class." That's why she won in the Rust Belt primaries. That's her great hope in Kentucky and West Virginia.

But calling Clinton's strategy one of kowtowing to the "working class" doesn't quite say it, does it? Isn't this just old-fashioned racism within the Democratic Party?

When Hillary strategists say they are winning the "working class," they don't mean they are winning working people with a household income of, say, less than $50,000. All the exit polls show quite clearly that lower middle-class people who work split between Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Clinton. The difference is generally skin color. Hillary wins the lion's share of the "working-class" white Democrats. And, sadly, as Hillary's campaign has become meaner and more to the point, that margin has become bigger.

The Clinton racism strategy first became apparent in Nevada, when her struggling campaign began to publicly talk about her "Hispanic firewall" against Obama among the rank-and-file in the Culinary union. It hit the national consciousness soon thereafter when former President Bill Clinton, after Hillary lost the South Carolina primary, dismissed Obama's big win as a race-inspired victory akin to Jesse Jackson's success in that state years ago.

The record clearly shows that Hillary's campaign was the first to use Obama's race against him. The strategy gained an unexpected boost when Sen. Obama's former pastor, the egomaniacal Rev. Jeremiah Wright, cribbed the Obama spotlight only to show the world that racism could be a black thing, too. The opportunistic Clinton campaign shamelessly took full advantage of the tension. They not only raised questions about what the Wright debacle meant for an Obama presidency, they slyly positioned Hillary, like a latter-day George Wallace (the Alabama governor, not the very funny Las Vegas comedian), as the "working-class" candidate.

She was the candidate, as one union worker called her, with "testicular fortitude." She drank boilermakers. She bowled. She even challenged that "latte-drinking" Sen. Obama to roll against her. Her campaign reinforced the idea that she was the only candidate willing to look after "working-class" folks in Washington.

Don't fool yourself for a minute by entertaining the idea that the Clinton campaign didn't know what it was doing. Hillary and Bill knew. It was their plan. They were getting their butts kicked by the Obama campaign and rapidly reaching the point of no hope. If they were going to win, they needed a game-changer, and that had to be a profound fear of Obama.

That fear of the different guy, combined with Obama's pastor disaster, paid off. Not only did it give them late wins in important states, it gave them cover to make a thinly veiled racial appeal to the ruling class of the Democratic Party -- the "superdelegates."

The "superdelegate" whisper campaign goes something like this: Hillary is better built to win in November. Obama is soft and elitist. He's a dangerous unknown quantity. But most importantly, Mr. and Mrs. Democratic Insider Superdelegate, look at the voter numbers in key states. Forget about pledged delegates, wins and losses and overall popular vote. Look deep into the numbers of the key states Democrats must win in November.

Do you see those "working-class" numbers? Those are Hillary people. Those are the people who will win the White House for Democrats this fall. Those are the people who count because, faced with a choice between Obama and Sen. John McCain, "working-class" Democrats will vote for McCain.

It's a disgusting display for which Democrats ought to be alarmed and ashamed. The remedy is this: Stop calling Hillary's base the "working class" and start calling it what it is.

Where you been?

You may have noticed that I have not written a Sunday column in a few weeks. Contrary to popular opinion, I have not been lounging about enjoying another gorgeous Las Vegas spring. I've been right here working. Besides wrestling with this nasty old "recession" as your publisher, I've been spending time delving into one of the mysteries of the Internet -- blogging.

You can verify this by going to the Review-Journal Web site (www.LVRJ.com) or my page directly at (www.LVRJ.com/blogs/sherm).

Trust your publisher

Regular readers will know that on March 9, I passed along a tip from a local developer I trust who said he saw signs that the Las Vegas housing decline may have bottomed out in February. I suggested that if you wanted to snag a bargain, now's the time.

More than a few of my friends gave me much ribbing for that tip.

Now come the April numbers and ... well, it looks like your publisher was right. The inventory of homes for sale has stabilized and April home sales are up over April 2007.

Don't get me wrong, it's still a tough market for sellers. But it indeed looks as if February may have been the bottom. It's not too late for buyers looking for a discount, of course, but may I suggest you trust your publisher next time he passes along a hot tip.

Sherman Frederick (sfrederick@review journal.com) is publisher of the Review-Journal and president of Stephens Media.