Posted on 02/14/2003 10:46:53 AM PST by Free ThinkerNY
Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff
Friday, Feb. 14, 2003
Clintons Out to Sink Sharpton?-
If Bill Clinton hadn't been America's "first black president," suspicions might be swirling today that he was out to torpedo the campaign of the Democrat Party's top black presidential candidate, the Rev. Al Sharpton.
Last month, for instance, Howard Wolfson, who managed Mrs. Clinton's New York campaign for the Senate in 2000, sounded the alarm to national Democrats about the trouble Sharpton was likely to cause in the 2004 race. "These guys have no idea what they're in for," Wolfson warned.
Then, on Jan. 17, the Clintons' handpicked Democratic Party chairman, Terry McAuliffe, announced that he thought it would be wonderful if ex-Illinois Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun threw her hat into the ring, a development that would certainly take votes away from the firebrand reverend.
"To have a prominent African-American female out there making the case for the party would be great," McAuliffe told the Chicago Tribune.
Ten days later McAuliffe had a 40-minute sit-down with Mosely-Braun, whom Bill Clinton had appointed ambassador to New Zealand as a consolation prize after she lost her 1998 race to Republican Sen. Peter Fitzgerald.
A Democratic Party spokesman told the Tribune that McAuliffe discussed a range of issues with the former Clinton ambassador, including "the mechanics of a campaign."
This week Mosely-Braun made it official, announcing on Thursday that she plans to file papers for a presidential exploratory committee early next week.
Of course, the Clintons themselves wouldn't be caught dead with their own fingerprints on any "Stop Sharpton" movement. Luckily for them, former Gore campaign manager Donna Brazile has stepped up to the plate.
"It's time for Black women to become bigger players in the political process," Brazile tells Essence magazine about a Moseley-Braun campaign. "Black women are the most loyal and consistent voters in American politics. Without us, there would be no Senator Zell Miller of Georgia or Hillary Clinton of New York."
But Brazile has also reportedly floated the idea of finding male black candidates who have strong regional followings, such as Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, former New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial and Rep. Harold Ford of Tennessee. All three would be able to deny Sharpton a substantial chunk of his black support in home state primaries.
If the ex-Gore campaign chief is taking her marching orders from Bill and Hillary, she's not going to admit it. Still, it's widely acknowledged that the former first couple still control just about everything that goes on inside the Democratic Party. If they didn't approve, the plug on Brazile's efforts would be yanked in a heartbeat.
Then there's the added element of Sen. Clinton's own presidential prospects. Not only is she the Democrats' overwhelming choice to run in 2004, Quinnipiac University pollster Maurice Carroll noted Thursday that Clinton is the only Democrat who could put a substantial dent in Sharpton's black support.
"New York’s own, the Rev. Al Sharpton, was a distant also-ran in a Quinnipiac University poll of voters nationwide, and he doesn’t do well with Sen. Clinton in the mix," Carroll reported on Quinnipiac's Web site. "But with Clinton out of the race, Rev. Sharpton runs well in New York."
The radical reverend, meanwhile, has been making noises suggesting that it's time to reopen Bill and Hillary's skeleton closet. "The next time anybody wants to know about Tawana Brawley," Sharpton says of the rape hoax that has dogged him since 1987, "I'm going to ask them ... 'Do you ask Hillary Clinton about her husband?'"
Ah, a nice Irish lad!
That conjures up an image or two....
GO AL GO!
Go Al Go!
AND the longer you stay in the race the more goodies you'll get when they buy you out.
Ya gotta love this. The dims are so freakin' ham-handed they could actually end up p*ssing off the blacks.
And the longer he stays the more he points out other candidates deficiencies.
Go Al Go!
-PJ
Just consider what the media and the hateful dems did to Trent Lott and then think about how they treat Sharpton.
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