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01 May 2008 12:31 pm

Quote For The Day II

"I really don't want an African-American as President ... I thought about it. I think he would put too many minorities in positions over the white race. That's my opinion. After 1964, you saw what the South did ... There's a lot of white people that just wouldn't vote for a colored person. Especially older people," - a Clinton supporter in Eastern Kentucky, to George Packer of the New Yorker.

One remarkable aspect of this race that I certainly didn't expect but that the Clintons must be relishing: they may be becoming the vehicle for white racial resentment! When you recall how many of these voters felt about the Clintons in the 1990s, you really need a double take. But if the Clintons bring down the first serious black candidate for the presidency, they could ride a wave of redneck gratitude toward a re-branding in American politics. The Clintons would have no qualms about this - and obviously don't. What the Clintons have to be in order to keep power, they will manage to be. And the Wright scandal gives all such sentiment a form of high-minded permission.

You watch this and want to look away. To paraphrase Bill Clinton, everything right in America can be wrecked by everything wrong in America.

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