Andrews says he heard racist strategy from Clinton camp

[Truth2Tell]

Source: The Star-Ledger

by Josh Margolin
Friday June 06, 2008, 12:05 AM

A Democratic superdelegate from New Jersey said this week he is worried that unifying the party behind Barack Obama may be difficult because the Clinton camp "has engaged in some very divisive tactics and rhetoric it should not have."

U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews, who supported Hillary Clinton throughout the primary season, disclosed he received a phone call shortly before the April 22 Pennsylvania primary from a top member of Clinton's organization and that the caller explicitly discussed a strategy of winning over Jewish voters by exploiting tensions between Jews and African-Americans.

"There have been signals coming out of the Clinton campaign that have racial overtones that indeed disturb me," Andrews said at his campaign headquarters in Cherry Hill Tuesday night after he lost his bid for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination.

"Frankly, I had a private conversation with a high-ranking person in the campaign ... that used a racial line of argument that I found very disconcerting. It was extremely disconcerting given the rank of this person. It was very disturbing."



Read more: http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/topstories/index.ssf/2008/06/andrews_says_he_heard_racist_s.html

[jgraz]

1. Color me not surprised.

Where there's smoke, there's a burning cross.

[Zuiderelle]

2. Without anything actually quoted it's all very subjective about what "racial overtones" means.

Not even hearsay in this case, just his opinion of what was said (not quoted) by someone (not named).

[madeline_con]

4. Maybe he meant racist overtones.

I wouldn't be shcoked if this were true. I believe Clinton thinks it was in the bag, and might sabatoge Obama.

[Zuiderelle]

8. I don't like to trash people just because one person says they heard something from someone.

[virtualobserver]

11. not a particularly useful thing to say at this moment, what did he hope to gain?

[RaleighNCDUer]

13. Absolution, maybe?

This was a CLINTON supporter, verifying what Obama supporters have been saying for months - that her campaign was deliberatly playing on racial differences to benefit her campaign.

It's rather like the Bush administration officials coming out and saying "we knew there were no WMDs". It's too late to change anything, but admits that those who made the same claims at the time were NOT crazy.

[Zuiderelle]

14. Pandering to the winner, maybe?

[aquart]

15. Of course you wouldn't be shocked.

You WANT to believe it's true. Guess what? Any campaign that doesn't consider all the dynamics between all the voting groups that have to be pleased and pandered to is not doing its job.

You want to see racist overtones? There are reasons no one will be releasing tapes of the Veep discussions.

[loves_dulcinea]

20. subjective?

"discussed a strategy of winning over Jewish voters by exploiting tensions between Jews and African-Americans."

yeah, subjective. :puke:

[Zuiderelle]

21. Yes subjective. There is no quote, therefore whatever you or he gleans from someone's unquoted word

is subjective.

[Vattel]

3. OMG! This proves

nothing.

[Truth2Tell]

5. Right.

He's probably just making it all up. :eyes:

[mitchtv]

6. sour grapes

disgruntleed former candidate

[liberalcanuck]

28. LOL! That's funny but I do think this is just counterproductive information at this point

We need unity!

[Leopolds Ghost]

7. Hmm.

[uberblonde]

9. Rob Andrews just lost his own primary challenge.

And is trying to suck up to the new power in town.

[robcon]

10. I'm sure his cousin's girlfriend's best friend can attest to the story.

phony, until names are named.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

12. Yet he still backed the Clinton campaign as a SD?

What a "uniter" he must be to keep his wagon hitched to a horse, whom he says admitted to him was strategically exploiting tensions between Jewish voters and African American voters.

[Frances]

16. This kind of talk just hurts Obama

It's time to move on and support the Dem winner

[Lone_Star_Dem]

17. Pardon me?

I don't think I understand how what I said hurts Obama.

On edit: To clarify my previous post for you in case that was the problem. I was pointing out how the person making this claim had shown he's not in possession of a particularly high set of personal ethics himself by his own actions.

[Frances]

19. Sorry I wasn't clear

I agree with you. It's the representative who's causing the problems.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

22. Thank you for clarifying

I thought it may have been my confusing writing style blurring my point.

[lidem]

18. you know...

I think it was brave of Andrews to endorse Hillary openly given the very divided nature of the NJ electorate especially because the younger activists who are more likely to vote in primaries probably supported Obama.

I suspect that Lautenberg was privately for Hillary because Bill cut this ad for him. (http://www.lautenbergfornj.com/multimedia/video?id=0001)

As for this story, I believe him. I think that during the time before the PA primary when Obama was choking and the supers may have been willing to come out big for Hillary the campaign was pulling out all the stops. And I do mean all the stops.

[Carrieyazel]

23. If Hillary had really wanted to get down and dirty regarding race, she

would have brought up Obama's Reverend last year in an attempt to force him out of the race before the primaries, according to some radio interview yesterday. She likely would have seriously damaged Obama at an early juncture. However, she didn't want to do anything to harm black voters, the most loyal Democratic constituency, so she didn't even consider it.

Don't know if this is definitely true, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was. I spoke to a Hillary supporter who's an acquaintance who also brought it up. He said that Hillary didn't have the killer instinct and didn't take Obama seriously, and if she really wanted to take him out early, she could have done it.

[Blaq Dem]

26. ...And Obama could've brought up Monica's stained dress.

But he didn't. He simply stuck to the issue and didn't throw Hillary's huge baggage into the race. Hillary ran a desperate campaign that failed. She thought she was already the nominee before the primaries began.

[Dogmudgeon]

24. Sounds like Andrews wants in on the Obama "action"

He's a long-time political wheeler-dealer, and the way they often act is to stab you in the back when they switch sides.

He's done it before in NJ politics.

He'll do it to Team Obama, too.

--p!

[Dogmudgeon]

25. duped again!

(ignore this)

[Tippy]

27. Can anyone deny these words were spoken, by the Clinton camp....

Since at least the South Carolina primary, the Clinton campaign’s began reminding voters that Obama is black. Whether it is former President Clinton likening Obama’s campaign to Jesse Jackson’s; Clinton aides telling the Associated Press that Obama is “the black candidate,” or Geraldine Ferraro tapping into anti-affirmative action anger by claiming Obama’s success is a product of his skin color, barely a week goes by without a white Clinton surrogate injecting race into the nominating contest.

Then there was the "White working class" this was interjected in to every speech Clinton made after the SC Primary. Granted it was a subliminal message but it was still about race.....

It's all now part of History....but we all know history does tend to repeat it's self if not confronted....