Over dinner last week at one of her favorite restaurants in this Ivy League town, Campbell and her mother, the Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, spoke candidly about why they thought Campbell lost.White West Side voters thought Campbell was too tight with Black people... so they went out and voted for the Black guy. What a bunch of racists.
“Affection of the black community for Jane cost us in the white community,” said Brown Campbell, who was in town to talk to her daughter’s students about faith and politics.
To illustrate that point, she and her daughter recalled a comment made by a white resident during Campbell’s door-to-door campaigning on the West Side. They said the woman pointed to one of Campbell’s black campaign workers and complained that Campbell spent too much time on “people like that.”
For the record, here's how the votes fell, ward-by-ward. And here's the one documented instance of "racial politics" in the campaign -- on Campbell's behalf.
I don't want to dislike Campbell personally. But with crap like this, she's making it hard to hold out.
George asks the pertinent question about her new consulting business.
democracy guy is stunned that this line is being taught in a Harvard classroom. Actually, it's not just Harvard -- it's the Kennedy School. And I don't find it stunning in the slightest... though it does make you wonder whether, and how, Campbell's students are hearing the other side of the story. You know, the African-American winner's side.