(Community Matters) “House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (S.C.), the highest ranking African American in Congress, warned yesterday. . . . Clyburn accused Clinton and her husband yesterday of marginalizing black voters and opening a rift between her campaign and an African American Democratic base that strongly backed Bill Clinton’s presidency. Some surrogates in her camp are trying to render Obama unelectable against the Republican nominee so she could run for the Democratic nomination in 2012, he suggested. The discussion flared up yet again when Bill Clinton suggested this week that Obama’s campaign had played “the race card” after the former president compared the candidate to Jesse Jackson after the South Carolina primary.
‘We keep talking as if it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter that Obama gets 92 percent of the black vote, because since he only got 35 percent of the white vote, he’s in trouble,’ Clyburn said. ‘Well, Hillary Clinton only got 8 percent of the black vote. . . . It’s almost saying black people don’t matter. The only thing that matters is how white people respond. And that’s what bothered me. I think I matter.'”
“There are signs that the anger voiced by some African Americans is beginning to extend to the Democratic donor base . . . . a growing number of Clinton’s early supporters migrated to Obama in March . . . . Of those who had previously made maximum contributions to Clinton, 73 wrote their first checks to Obama in March. The reverse was not true: Of those who had made large contributions to Obama last year, none wrote checks to Clinton in March.
‘I think she is destroying the Democratic Party,’ said New York lawyer Daniel Berger, who had backed Clinton with the maximum allowable donation of $2,300. ‘That there’s no way for her to win this election except by destroying [Obama], I just don’t like it. So in my own little way, I’m trying to send her a message.’ The message came in the form of a $2,300 contribution to Obama.”
Community Matters 