Race race

Juan Williams:

Hillary Clinton, down to her last straw, is making the case that she is the better candidate to run against the Republicans because, unlike Barack Obama, she can win white Democrats.

She is right. But because she is daring to touch the hot button of racial politics, she is being told to shut up or risk being charged with exploiting racial tensions for political advantage.

The facts are stubborn, however. Since his phenomenal win with 33% of the white vote in nearly all-white Iowa, Obama has been unable to get a firm grip on white Democrats. He has won a majority of these voters in only six states, the biggest of which is his home state of Illinois. Clinton has defeated Obama among white voters in key states such as California, Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. Exit polls show Clinton winning an overwhelming average of 57% of white Democrats since the February Super Tuesday elections.

If you think none of this is a real issue for Democrats as they try to win the White House, then listen to Republican guru Karl Rove. Citing Obama's inability to get more than 30% of Catholics or working-class white voters in a big state such as Pennsylvania, Rove recently wrote: "Defections like this elect Republicans."

And now we are heading into a general election with an even larger group of white voters in play, key independents and suburbanites in "toss-up" districts that swing between Republicans and Democrats.

So it is critical for the Democrats to focus on what it means to nominate this particular black candidate. It is critical for them to honestly assess his strengths and weaknesses, even when those are uncomfortably intertwined with his race.

In particular, being silent on race is not going to erase Obama's ties to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and the preacher's fireballs of inflammatory rhetoric.

...

Obama has run a brilliant campaign. He has won over many white voters by making them proud to vote for a supremely educated and capable man who, at his best, makes race a secondary concern. It is not inconsistent, unfair or unsavory to point out, at the same time, that Obama has been growing weaker over the months in his ability to win all but black voters. Nor am I necessarily suggesting that white voters are drifting from him because of his race - as opposed to judgments about the content of his character or candidacy.

...

The white voters who are rejecting Obama are the same ones who rejected Jimmy Carter in 1980 and Walter Mondale in 1984. They are rejecting Obama for the same reason. He is running for Jimmy Carter's second term with his terrible foreign policy judgments and economic policies of punishing success. They are voters who do not like being denigrated for wearing their flag lapel pins. It is arrogant liberalism, not race they are rejecting.

This opinion piece in the LA Times gives a look at the issues that pull these voters away from Obama.