Geraldine Ferraro criticizes Barack Obama on Bill O'Reilly's show

[Elyse]

From Too Sense: What The Clinton Campaign Wants You To Hear



Geraldine Ferraro had a full media schedule today. Despite Hillary Clinton's surface condemnation of her racist comments regarding Barack Obama, she was booked on the Today Show, The Early Show, and yesterday, most insidiously, Bill O'Reilly's Radio Factor.

O'REILLY: This crossed the wire. Apparently you told the Daily Breeze newspaper in Torrance, California, quote, "If Obama were a white man, he would not be in this position. If here were a woman of any color, he would not be in the position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is in a country who's caught up in the concept." Did you say that?

FERRARO: Yeah, but I also said a lot before that.

O'REILLY: Right, but you know you're gonna get hammered on that.

FERRARO: I was not speaking – no, I was speaking to – it was a paid speech. I was not representing a campaign. I go out and give speeches. I don't –

O'REILLY: Oh, I understand that.

FERRARO: You know, like you do.

O'REILLY: I absolutely know they can take you out of context, but do you believe that Barack Obama, if he were a white mean, white senator, would not be in the position?

FERRARO: Absolutely, and let me tell you what I said before that. I said, "I am the first one –" and it's not the first time I've done this. In fact, I did it also in Michigan. Bill Krystal and I were on the same program in two events Thursday and Friday morning. I said, "If I were –" and usually it's in response to a question. "If I were not Geraldine Ferraro, if I were Gerard Ferraro in 1984, there is no way I would have gotten the nominee for vice president."

O'REILLY: Okay, that's interesting, interesting.

FERRARO: I always preface it by saying that, by saying the truth. And if you take a look at this, I mean, there are lots of pieces. First of all, this is the first time someone who has his experiences in the State Senate, was in the Senate for a year-and-a-half, is running for president. Take a look at the experience of the people that we've elected president or have made nominees in their party – senators of long standing, members of – you know, a vice president. Dwight Eisenhower is the only one that wasn't governor of a large state or in the Senate, and he was not exactly a person that you could turn around and say, "Gee, he's not qualified."

O'REILLY: I got it. I got it. I got it. No, listen, I mean, I'm not saying you're wrong –

FERRARO: But the other piece of it is –

O'REILLY: Geraldine, I only have 30 seconds here.

FERRARO: Thirty seconds – would the African-American community have turned out in the numbers that they have if he were white?

O'REILLY: Okay, I'm just gonna say, it's not a –

FERRARO: I'm not saying it's a negative. It's a positive.

O'REILLY: Look, I got it, but you're gonna get hammered by it, but if anybody does, let me know, and I'll take care of them. Geraldine Ferraro, everybody. Geraldine's too nice, see.

WIEHL: We love Geraldine.

O'REILLY: She's too nice, but I know what happened with Spitzer. 1-877-9-NO-SPIN. We'll take your calls when we come back.

If the Clinton campaign was truly embarrassed or disagreed with Ferraro's comments, they wouldn't be tossing her into the media frenzy to shout her message from the mountaintops that Barack Obama's success is due only to his blackness. And they would not be utilizing the most effective means of doing so--the Right Wing smear machine that nearly destroyed Bill Clinton's presidency.


The aim here is to evoke racial resentment on the part of white voters over issues like Affirmative Action, and cast Obama as a talentless hack who excels only because our country is held victim by political correctness. The hope is that this will drive a permanent wedge between Obama and white voters that will sway Superdelegates to ultimately go with Hillary at the convention. At worst, Obama will be so damaged in the general that he can never be a threat to their ambitions again.

[kingcap72]

FERRARO: Thirty seconds – would the African-American community have turned out in the numbers that they have if he were white?

I wonder how Ferraro explains the fact that Obama won big in states where there WASN'T a huge black turn-out, and the fact that black voters turned out in HUGE numbers for Bill Clinton?