Words and underlying racism

PAUL CAMPOS, Capitol Hill Blue

- When Hillary Clinton claimed last week that Barack Obama was having trouble getting the votes of “hard working Americans, white Americans,” much speculation ensued about whether she was intentionally exploiting classic racist beliefs about the supposed laziness of African Americans.

My view is that Clinton isn’t as gifted a politician as her husband, so this apparent appeal to the kind of racist populism that fueled the careers of demagogues such as former Alabama Gov. George Wallace may have well been a verbal slip (if Bill had said something like that you can be sure it wouldn’t have been by accident).

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