Pilot

“The great story here for anybody willing to find it and write about it and explain it is this vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president.” Now, Hillary, it’s a vast left-wing conspiracy that is against you and your husband. Where do I sign up?

Lost in the fury in the controversy swirling around Geraldine Ferraro’s comments regarding Senator Barack Obama was the timing of her remarks. Her interview to that bastion of superior journalism The Daily Breeze was given on the weekend before the Texas and Ohio primaries. The day after, when the media anointed Clinton the next comeback kid, Ferraro’s comments caused ire. Everyone naturally assumed that Ferraro’s remarks were a continued extension of the Clinton campaign’s “kitchen sink” strategy; sliming Obama with anything they had, including tagging him as the “black candidate.” Actually, since they were made at a desperate and despondent time for the Clinton campaign, Ferraro’s feelings reveal a bitter, angry, frustrated, and even resentful supporter, who ardently believed that perhaps her only chance of ever seeing a female politician elected president was slinking down that very same kitchen sink.

What Ms. Ferraro said wasn’t racist; she didn’t claim, for instance, that Obama was inferior because of his ethnicity. Her comments were really bigoted. She believes—as she told us over and over again in the days after—that because of his race he is receiving preferential treatment from the media and even some voters. Her claim is that Obama’s success, as luck would have it, is because everyone is “caught up in the concept” of cleansing America’s sins by electing our country’s first non-white president. Ferraro was only one step shy from calling out Senator Obama as little more than an Affirmative Action candidate: he’s not qualified to be president, he’s not up to the job, and he does not deserve the presidency. She was practically shouting on various TV talk shows that he’s taking the one and only spot that has been historically held by white men.

The Clinton campaign mantra has been: experience trumps change and party longevity surpasses bipartisan naïveté. Ferraro had the audacity to argue the hidden gem of the Clinton campaign’s strategy: gender trumps race. So why did Geraldine Ferraro get into a fit? Because Barack Obama had the audacity to jump ahead of the line. “Didn’t he get the memo?” she seemed to be asking. It’s not supposed to be his turn! The Clintons are the most able, effective, and successful Democratic politicians of the past twenty years. How dare he, a neophyte, Junior Senator from a smaller, less important state, whose only claim to fame is a speech, declare himself to be the next Kennedy or Roosevelt!

Geraldine Ferraro’s comments and the Clinton camp’s kitchen sink strategy underscore a sense of entitlement and arrogance. For example, they have recently argued that if nominated Senator Clinton would select Senator Obama as her running mate. They are arguing that Obama is getting ahead of himself. Clearly someone of his stature is not ready to be president on Day One. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? The pro training the rookie?

Except the voters have something else in mind. Barring a major misstep on the part of the Obama campaign and the seemingly insurmountable lead he has on pledged delegates and the popular vote, the Clinton campaign and their supporters know that, in all likelihood, they’re going to lose the nomination—the very nomination which they have been mapping out for decades, the very prize which was supposed to be theirs, the very history-making event which was supposed to endear the Clintons for generations to come and rewrite their legacy in the history books. Except, instead of the rookie making all of the mistakes, he has made the pros look like amateurs.

Geraldine Ferraro’s comments were not truly directed at Barack Obama. Her frustrations and bitterness underscore the pent-up disappointment that many supporters feel towards Clinton’s flailing campaign. They can’t publicly express these exact sentiments. The Clintons have made plenty of examples out of those who have betrayed them in the past. Instead, Ferraro turned to the most primal and vile emotion which one feels when their well-laid plans disintegrate into thin air. She blamed it all on the other guy’s race.

Ferraro exploited Obama’s ethnicity as an excuse and a cover up for what has been perhaps the most poorly run and mismanaged presidential campaign in modern political history. Her gut instinct was to call out Obama’s race and use that as justification for Clinton’s failures. Her sentiment is not any different than when one feels they have been passed over, or not even considered, for a job because of they are white and the successful applicant is black. Opponents of affirmative action have beaten this fallacy into the minds of Americans for the past quarter century or more. On issues ranging from the economy to education, they have argued that affirmative action, or preferential treatment, allows for those less-deserving and those less-experienced the right to take away a position that is rightfully yours.

Coincidentally or not, the Clintons have used this argument, repeatedly pointing out that picking a president is akin to a job interview. On paper, they argue, Obama is less experienced, less qualified, and less knowledgeable on national and global affairs. How then does he deserve the job? Why should they be passed over for someone who clearly does not meet the job description’s requirements? To do so would mean you were giving preferential treatment. Electing, let along nominating, Barack Obama would be filling a quota, not picking a president.

If this is what remains of the Clinton’s kitchen sink strategy, they are in an even worse off position than before Ohio and Texas. Of the ten remaining contests, few favor Clinton; Obama is expected to win a majority of the outstanding primaries and caucuses, further padding his lead in pledged delegates and popular vote. However, the Clintons are not ones to think short-term. They have been ruminating over the presidency for over three decades—and they will not relinquish power or the chance to regain it. Their only hope is to damage Obama enough so that he loses in November and then they can claim that they were right all along. However, Obama has confounded the Clintons, and so too he probably will prove to be masterful in his campaign against McCain. After all, the American people are picking a president, not a resume.