Sawyer Suggests Hillary Should Reject Race-Based Votes. And Obama?

May 15th, 2008 8:22 AM

Hillary Clinton won among white voters in West Virginia by a 67-26% margin. Pretty lopsided. Then again, that's nearly an even split compared to the 90+ percent of black votes Barack Obama's been racking up in state after state.

So who does Diane Sawyer suggest should reject race-based votes? Senator 90+? Nope. James Carville was Sawyer's guest during the GMA's opening half-hour today.

DIANE SAWYER: I want to talk about the fact that 20% of the voters coming out of the West Virginia race said race was in fact a factor in their vote, and of those Senator Clinton won 84%. Here's my question: should Senator Clinton say she is rejecting the votes of anyone who votes based in any way on color of skin?

View video here.

JAMES CARVILLE: Well, I don't know. She certainly should not be a part of any kind of campaign or anything like that, but I have no idea honestly, how do you, do you have like a, does Senator Clinton have like someone out in front of every voting place, and like, quiz people, or put them under a lamp or something like that?

Carville was clearly being disingenuous. He knew very well that Sawyer was suggesting no such thing, as emerged in her follow-up.

SAWYER: No, but make a statement.

Carville eventually made the obvious point.

CARVILLE: But a candidate can't go to—there are a lot of people that vote for Senator Obama, I'm sure, based on race also. Should we not let these people vote? Of course we should.

Thus confronted with reality, Sawyer ceded the point.

SAWYER: And should everybody make that statement, then?

Better late than never, I suppose. But what does it say about Sawyer's pro-Obama bias that it didn't occur to her in the first place?