Some pundits believe that Hillary Clinton was intentionally invoking the security issues of a black man running for president when she mentioned the Robert Kennedy assassination during an editorial board interview last week. I don't think that she was, but still her comments were disingenuous and yet another example of her less-than-honest approach to politicking.The RFK remark came in the context of Clinton ruminating on why so many were demanding that she leave the race for the Democratic nomination, which she effectively lost weeks ago. She said that Kennedy was shot in June, which was meant to strengthen her argument that other nomination races had gone that deep into the calendar. She also said that her husband didn't secure his nomination in 1992 until June.
In the furor over the perceived offensiveness of her comments, I have heard only a couple of media sources mention that, when RFK was running in 1968, the primary season began in May. Therefore, Bobby Kennedy and the other Democrats running for president were two months into their primaries. This year the elongated process began in January, which puts us five months down that road. Meanwhile, in 1992 her husband had his party's nomination effectively sewn up in March.
Maybe I am a bit offended of the crassness of injecting the RFK metaphor into the race at a time when Ted Kennedy is battling brain cancer, but the real issue is Clinton's manipulation of the facts, which she tried to pass off as bolstering her argument when the truth is that all of the evidence makes clear that she should step aside while there is still a tiny bit of gracefulness to be had.
2 comments:
in 1968 the primary process began in Jan in NH when Eugene McCarthy polled over 40% driving Lyndon Johnson out of the race--RFK entered the race and did not have enough delegates to win the nomination when he was killed--Bill Clinton needed California to win the nomination,and he didnt do that till June--those are the facts.
The 1968 New Hampshire primary was actually held on March 12, so we both stand corrected. RFK joined the race four days later and LBJ dropped out at the end of that month. Only 13 states held primaries at the time, with most of the convention delegates apparently chosen by party bosses.
As for 1992, as I wrote in the post, Bill Clinton had effectively locked up the nomination in the spring, though it's true that, by the numbers, it wasn't official until later.
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