First, Kamala Harris tried to blame racism for her failed campaign.
“It’s been coming up in connection to my campaign: is America ready for that? Are they ready for a woman of color to be President of the United States?” Harris insists.
Now it’s Julian Castro’s turn to capitalize on Kamala’s failure by blaming racism. And the media. That racist media. But then again, when Julian Castro wakes up in the middle of the night when a truck backfires, he immediately blames racism.
Former housing secretary Julián Castro said Sen. Kamala Harris’s bid for president was hampered by the media treating candidates of color differently
How?
“To me, they held her to a different standard, a double standard, to other campaigns. And I don’t know if it impacted her decision to withdraw from the race or not, but I’m sure it didn’t help,” Castro, the only Latino candidate running for president, told BuzzFeed News on Tuesday night.
How so? Please explain.
“This was a narrative from very early on. … From the earliest critique that she has no black support, the [Congressional Black Caucus] is going other directions. It’s just holding people to different standards,” he said.
Castro’s example of media racism was reporting on Kamala’s failure to secure the support of the black voters her campaign had been banking on.
Where is the double standard here? The media has reported on Buttigieg’s failure to score with black voters and efforts by Sanders and Warren to woo black voters.
It gets dumber from here.
Castro specifically criticized recent reporting which revealed disarray and grievances within Harris’s campaign, citing several staffers’ own criticisms of how the campaign was being run, including with on-record comments from close supporters.
“I was disappointed by the treatment her campaign got especially during the last seven days, when you had the Washington Post, New York Times, and Politico writing very gossipy sounding big articles trashing the campaign,” Castro said.
Those stories are standard. They commonly pop up in faltering campaigns. And they were being pushed by allies of Harris’ Latino campaign manager.
Asked why he thought those stories were unfair, given that dozens of Harris staffers spoke out about the state of the campaign, he said, “Sourcing in journalism, just because somebody is willing to talk doesn’t mean that reflects a reality or that necessarily gives it front page coverage in your publication,” he said.
So Castro is arguing that the media shouldn’t report on staffers from a minority candidate’s campaign trying to talk to them about problems with the campaign? Sounds like someone might be trying to head off negative stories.
Anyway this is obviously less about Harris than it is about Castro trying to weasel his way onto the debate stage.
“I hope that the DNC will reevaluate its threshold,” Castro said of the debates on Tuesday. “What it’s resulting in is a lack of diversity on the debate stage.”
There are no moderates on the debate stage. And thus no diversity.
There are white candidates playing identity politics, and candidates of all races playing identity politics. There’s a diversity of racial and ethnic backgrounds, not views or character.
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