After stating something everyone knew, Geraldine Ferraro was skewered as a racist, and has quit from Hillary’s campaign.

Breaking: Ferraro steps down

Geraldine Ferraro has stepped down from her role as a member of Hillary Clinton’s finance committee.

In a letter to Clinton obtained by CNN’s Suzanne Malveaux — who spoke with the former vice presidential candidate shortly after she sent it to Clinton — Ferraro said she is stepping down so, “I can speak for myself and you can continue to speak for yourself about what is at stake in this campaign.”

In a phone conversation with Malveaux, Ferraro said she was not asked to step down by Senator Clinton or her campaign

Ferraro said thousands of people are part of the finance committee, saying it is not a staff position, but a voluntary one for those who raise money for the campaign. She also said she has raised $125,000 for Senator Clinton.

When asked if she had any regrets about what she said, Ferraro replied, “absolutely not.”

“I am who I am and I will continue to speak up,” she said. She added that she thought it was a shame that the Obama campaign was trying to block her First Amendment rights, and that she felt that was no way to conduct a campaign.

Her role on Hillary’s campaign was a minor one, but obviously Hillary is happy to have a separation, as she is trying to blunt any suggestions she is racist or abides racism.

When asked how she felt about Hillary Clinton distancing herself from her remarks, Ferraro replied, “I am perfectly fine,” and that there were no hard feelings. She said she understands what Clinton is going through, and understands that being part of a presidential campaign is “very hard.”

Full letter:

Dear Hillary –

I am stepping down from your finance committee so I can speak for myself and you can continue to speak for yourself about what is at stake in this campaign.

The Obama campaign is attacking me to hurt you. I won’t let that happen.

Thank you for everything you have done and continue to do to make this a better world for my children and grandchildren.

You have my deep admiration and respect.

Gerry

Again this was predictable.  What boggles me is how many people are denying the obvious fact that Obama’s race is a boon to his campaign.  Consider this comment from yesterday:

Ms. Ferraro,

I am terribly disappointed. Your recent suggestion that Mr. Obamas’ success happened only because he is black is especially painful. To think that being black in America is a lucky thing strikes me as being inconsiderate.

I hesitate to point it out, but would it be so bad if being black was considered a good thing?

I am a black person born the same year as Mr. Obamas’ wife 1964, and I can tell you at no time in my life was being black a lucky thing, or are you unaware of the sad and continuing legacy of American race relations. You disregard Mr. Obamas’ legitimate and laudable accomplishments by attributing them to one thing, and it’s the one thing Mr. Obama tries least to be – a man of race. Mr. Obama is a child of God, a husband, a father, a university graduate and a lawyer. Mr. Obama has been a stellar state representative of Illinois and he is currently a United States Senator, and great American. Somewhere probably in the high teens of the list of things Mr. Obama is would be black man.

The statements you have made and defend amount to making his race his primary attribute. You are playing the race card in a manner that is insulting, and quite frankly would be more expected from the kind of reactionary people America has hopefully outgrown.

In 1984 I was a student at the University of Southern California an institution with a traditionally conservative bent. I remember campaigning for and ardently defending a certain congressperson from New York as being more than just a woman, but a person regardless of gender worthy to potentially lead this country. I’m sorry to know now that I was wrong, and all the time any Gerard really would have sufficed.

I have exchanged several emails with Albert, and his final note to me is a good summary:

I’d say Obama is energizing many bases including those in states without substantial populations of

minorities.  He has had great success in states like Maine, Wyoming, Iowa, and so on.  He has demonstrated majorities across many demographics, so why should minority be any different.  You make a mistake in assuming black people would vote with anything but American interest, and that the candidates race is the determining factor.  Calling on and relying on the tired race politics of yesterday is over. 

Hope is coming and his name is Barack Hussein Obama.

I will address race politics in a moment, but the fact is that Obama is shrewd in making race an issue by essentially hanging a lamp on it, then ignoring it.  He points out that his opponents are unfair, then piously notes he will not stoop to racial or gender politics.  This keeps his opponents on the defensive, but also offers a subtle message that the opponents are racist.  If anything he has perfected race baiting by refusing to be baited.

Addressing Albert’s assertion that Obama’s blackness is not a factor because he energizes many across the racial divide, I have to point out that that effectively proves nothing, unless you assume each demographic will only support their own kind. 

Whites actually can be swayed by racial politics, and can be lead to support a candidate solely on the matter of race, and that candidate could be any race at all if the manipulation, or political correctness is properly wielded.  That is politics.

In other words, in a culture so politically correct, like the uber diverse (diversity or else) Democrats, being a man of race is a huge asset when they constant complain about how its time to stop letting old white men run the country, despite the fact the Democrats are essentially ruled by old white men.

The Wall Street Journal has this to say about Obama’s use of the race card:

Obama and the Race Card

Is it just us, or does Barack Obama seem a mite too quick to play the race card when facing criticism from political opponents?

In recent days, the Obama camp has been demanding an apology from Geraldine Ferraro, the former Vice Presidential candidate and current Hillary Clinton supporter who last week let slip that, “If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman of any color, he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.”

Though Ms. Ferraro resigned from the Clinton campaign yesterday, her remarks reveal little more than a firm grasp of the obvious, even if she could have found a less artless way to express herself. There is no disputing that Mr. Obama’s skin color has been a political boon for him to date. And the suggestion that saying so aloud betrays racial animus implies that only the Illinois Senator can discuss the issue of race in regard to his candidacy

Back in January, the Obama campaign was on similarly shaky ground when it accused Mrs. Clinton of belittling Martin Luther King Jr. by stating that “it took a President” to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Mrs. Clinton was stating a fact, not slighting King, and the context in which she uttered the statement made that perfectly clear.

We’re not suggesting that the Obama campaign has never been justified in crying foul over racially tinged remarks out of the Clinton camp. When Bill Clinton gratuitously invoked Jesse Jackson after Mr. Obama won the South Carolina primary, he was clearly trying to define the Senator’s victory in narrowly racial terms.

But for all of Mr. Obama’s soaring rhetoric about the nation’s need for a post-racial politics that “brings the American people together,” his campaign at times has seemed overly sensitive about race. It also seems to want it both ways. Mr. Obama claims that his brand of politics transcends race, but at the same time he’s using race as a shield to shut down important and legitimate arguments.

…

Democrats have repeatedly touted the diversity of their party’s White House hopefuls. And it is true that a Clinton or Obama Presidency would make gender or racial history. Americans of all backgrounds can take satisfaction in watching the country field its first black Presidential candidate with a chance to win. But voters also want their would-be Presidents properly vetted, by the media and by each other. To that end Mr. Obama would do better to focus more on answering his political critics with specifics and less on questioning their motives by crying wolf on race.

Indeed.

One point that is overlooked, is that to a small degree, a sense of “it’s about time we had a black president” is fairly understandable, even if it panders to race as a qualification.

But if he can be lauded as the first black head of Harvard Law Review, or if any of the American blacks to be the first at anything can be congratulated for that, why cannot he not say the same for himself as president?

You cannot have it both ways.  Either race doesn’t matter, in which why are we keeping score as various blacks become the first black to do whatever they did, or it does matter, and we should openly discuss it.

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