Ferraro: Pickin’ on me ‘cuz I’m white! Update: Twenty-year flashback!

posted at 8:15 pm on March 11, 2008 by Ed Morrissey
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The strange case of Geraldine Ferraro continues. While even Hillary Clinton refused to defend her supporter for claiming that Obama only made it this far because of his race, Ferraro refuses to retreat. In fact, now she claims that critics only attack her because she’s white:

But far from backing off from her initial remark, Ferraro defended it and elaborated on it.

“Any time anybody does anything that in any way pulls this campaign down and says let’s address reality and the problems we’re facing in this world, you’re accused of being racist, so you have to shut up,” Ferraro said. “Racism works in two different directions. I really think they’re attacking me because I’m white. How’s that?”

In Vegas, this is known as “doubling down”. In politics, it’s considered “suicide”. Regardless of whether it’s fair or not, whites don’t make a sympathetic victim class, so Ferraro’s whining does nothing to further her cause — and makes her sound like a bigot.

Ferraro has it both right and wrong here. Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are benefiting from a healthy dose of identity politics this cycle, and this appears to be a good year to play these cards among Democrats. The difference between them is that Obama has mostly eschewed that approach for his campaign, preferring to run as a candidate who happens to be black rather than as a black candidate. Hillary, on the other hand, has not just enthusiastically played the gender card but also has tossed a few race cards around the campaign trail as well.

In this environment, Ferraro should know better than to make statements that sound like she’s blaming Obama for one source of his popularity, albeit a major source. Did she expect him to hide his ethnicity, or to deny it? He may benefit from his race, and she may dislike that, but at the least he’s not getting hindered by it — and that’s undeniably a good thing. Crying that Hillary and herself have become somehow handicapped because they’re white may have some truth on one hand, but historically speaking, it’s laughable.

Hillary really needs to get Ferraro to keep her mouth shut, or at least to blame gender for the criticism.

Update: Politico’s Ben Smith notes that this isn’t Ferraro’s first ride on the racial merry-go-round. Guess what she said about Jesse Jackson in 1988?

Placid of demeanor but pointed in his rhetoric, Jackson struck out repeatedly today against those who suggest his race has been an asset in the campaign. President Reagan suggested Tuesday that people don’t ask Jackson tough questions because of his race. And former representative Geraldine A. Ferraro (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday that because of his “radical” views, “if Jesse Jackson were not black, he wouldn’t be in the race.”

One large difference between the two campaigns: Barack Obama actually holds a national office. Jackson’s run was his first major political race. She had more standing for that comment in 1988 than she does today against Obama.

Update: Johnny Dollar has a Geraldine appearance on John Gibson’s radio show in which she defends and attacks identity politics all at the same time.   She brings up “dark-skinned Italians” as a group that suffered racism in America, but then backs off when Gibson warns her she will wind up regretting that analogy.

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