ANALYSIS/OPINION
Hillary Clinton holds a race card, and she does not hold it close to her vest. As the South Carolina primaries and Super Tuesday draw nearer and dearer to her ambitious plan to be the Democratic winner of her party’s presidential race, she’s likely to play that race card often.
On Tuesday she told a luncheon group in South Carolina that she vows to fight “systemic racism.”
That’s what Mrs. Clinton does. She plops herself among a group of people, and gives the impression that she shares their pain and suffering. She knows, in other words,” that “it takes a village.” She took a Yoruba/Igbo proverb and milked it. Smooth politicians do that all the time. Mrs. Clinton is one of the best.
As another example, she played on the pain and suffering of black moms who lost their children to violence.
Here again, that’s what Mrs. Clinton does. To wit, she didn’t hand out personal sympathy cards to Trayvon Martin’s mother and the mothers of Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, Dontre Hamilton and Jordan Harris — the genesis of black lives mattering. She strummed the right chords, however, amid a black audience.
And for good measure, she threw in white and wealth guilt: “Tackling and ending systemic racism requires contributions from all of us. White Americans, we need to do a better job of listening when African Americans talk about the seen and unseen barriers they face every day,” Mrs. Clinton said. “We need to recognize our privilege and practice humility rather than assume our experiences are everyone’s experiences.”
A heck of a campaign ploy, eh?
As my colleague S.A. Miller reported, “She leads [Bernard] Sanders by more than 20 percentage points in most South Carolina polls. A decisive win in the Palmetto State will give Mrs. Clinton added momentum heading into the delegate-rich Super Tuesday primaries and likely put her on a fast track to the nomination.”
Just remember, it’s not individual votes Mrs. Clinton is trying to muster, although she wants more popular votes in the win column than Mr. Sanders. What she’s gunning for are the delegates’ votes and the sympathy votes.
Recall, she lost to Barack Obama in 2008. (Sniff, sniff.)
Hillary Clinton fighting the “system”?
Hillary Clinton helped to create and sustain the system.
Remember, too: Politicians who play the race card don’t always reveal their trump.
• Deborah Simmons can be reached at dsimmons@washingtontimes.com.
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