Obama Just Got Less “Brown” Friendly

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[UPDATE: Obama has now distanced himself from this memo. See Anna’s post from 6/18/07 for more details]

Today’s New York Times has a story (thanks, anonymous tipster) about the Clintons’ recent financial disclosures, and their decision to liquidate all their stock holdings. Fine; makes sense.

But what’s really remarkable about this story is the questionable anonymous memo issued by the Obama campaign in response to the Clinton disclosures. The memo amounts attempts to smear Clinton as being too friendly to India, and is laced with xenophobic sentiments and insinuations.It starts with the title of the memo itself: “HILLARY CLINTON (D-PUNJAB)’S PERSONAL FINANCIAL AND POLITICAL TIES TO INDIA.”

And it goes downhill from there. Obama’s campaign memo (read the whole thing) accuses the Clintons of a number of things:

  • They start out by stating that the Clintons own stock in an Indian company called “Easy Bill,” which is actually just a company that allows Indians to automate their bill payments. This is not a BPO type company, but a service for Indians within India, so one wonders why is this even included.

  • They then go after the Clintons for accepting speaking fees from Cisco (this is Bill) and campaign donations from Cisco employees (Hillary). Cisco may be more guilty than many software companies of dumping its U.S. based workforce in favor of cheaper Indian engineers in the early 2000s, but it’s nevertheless the case that U.S. high tech job market is in pretty good shape again overall — outsourcing hasn’t created the apocalypse that was feared. So this accusation is a little bit strange: I doubt that many Americans outside of Silicon Valley actively think of Cisco as an evil outsourcer.

  • They find fault with Clinton’s relationship with the hotel tycoon Sant Singh Chatwal, whose family has been discussed many times here at SM. Chatwal has organized two big fundraisers for her, netting a total of $1 million in donations. Chatwal also started “Indian Americans for Hillary 2008,” which ought not to be an issue (doesn’t Obama have South Asians for Obama hosted on his campaign website?). The Obama campaign’s memo underlines Chatwal’s various legal difficulties, general financial shadiness, and pending court cases, to make it all look like some kind of shady back-room deal. This accusation seems strange to me, since the fundraisers are completely legit, even if Chatwal himself is in trouble.

  • Finally, they quote Lou “Keep Em Out” Dobbs several times, as he mocked Hillary in 2004 for saying that “outsourcing cuts both ways” (as in, it creates some American jobs as well as sending others overseas). In fact, though her particular example of “10 new jobs in Buffalo” was a bit weak, Hillary was right about this: companies like TCS are opening up a number of U.S. offices, and more generally, the greater efficiency enabled by BPO helps keep American companies competitive on a global scale, and has, in my view, actually helped the U.S. economy. (All of Hillary’s quotes about “outsourcing cutting both ways” are from the 2004 campaign season, incidentally.)

So now the question is, how aware was Obama himself of the contents of this “anonymous” memo? If Obama doesn’t distance himself from the memo immediately, this macaca is going to be sending his moolah to “Hillary Clinton, D-Punjab.”

[UPDATE: Obama has now distanced himself from this memo. See Anna’s post from 6/18]

151 thoughts on “Obama Just Got Less “Brown” Friendly”

  1. If Obama doesn’t distance himself from the memo immediately, this macaca is going to be sending his moolah to “Hillary Clinton, D-Punjab.”

    Wow, Amardeep…if true, this is massively disappointing. For shame.

    On a separate note, news like this is exactly why SM was born, so it’s gratifying to experience a moment like this, when I’m mindful of what we’re trying to accomplish. 🙂

  2. At the end of the Times article, Bill Burton, an Obama spokesman, more or less concedes that the Obama campaign wrote the memo:

    Asked about the document, Bill Burton, a spokesman for Mr. Obama, said: “We did give reporters a series of comments she made on the record and other things that are publicly available to anyone who has access to the Internet. I don’t see why anyone would take umbrage with that.”

    Asked why the Obama campaign had initially insisted that it not be connected to the document, Mr. Burton replied, “I’m going to leave my comment at that.”

    Besides being a dangerous game for a candidate who has thus far made “Cleaning Up Washington” one of his primary campaign planks, this is actually just flat-out strange coming from Obama, who is himself highly susceptible to various kinds of xenophobic attacks (i.e., his early education in Indonesia, as well as his name).

  3. Is this a sign of desperation from Barry HUSEIN OSAMA?

    And maybe “Easy Bill” was just for the cheap laughs? 🙂

  4. As I suggested earlier, for most candidates, it’s only a short drive to macaca-ville.

    I’m disappointed that Obama has maybe made India (and Indians) into the great bogeyman, but given Hillary’s earlier (if surreptitious) allusions to Obama’s background, it’s all par for the course.

  5. the D-Punjab line is a reference to a joke CLinton said herself. Namely, that she could run and win in Punjab, India. So the actual line is one Hillary has used. the ny times fails to note this but other papers on this story have.

    Nevertheless, it was dumb and I wish it hadn’t bee done.

  7. Did I forget to list my donations from Mahatma Gandhi, proprietor of 7-11, St. Louis?

  8. Nevertheless, it was dumb and I wish it hadn’t bee done.

    I do, too. So what if she made the “Punjab” joke herself– this incident toppled Obama from the mini-pedestal I had him on…there’s a way to release facts about your opponenet without being a douchebag. Just what the voters want, more politics as usual. Maybe it’s my fault for misreading him and thinking that part of his charm was how he was above this shit.

  9. I am not sure if calling Hillary Clinton (D-Punjab) is that offensive. Its one thing to pick on desis in America or desi Americans and quite another thing to pick on a country. IMO its perfectly legitimate to challenge the proposed policies of a presidential candidate if you perceive them as benefitting India or whatever country at the cost of compromising American, human rights or whatever interest you fancy.

    I guess Amardeep is concerned with the disingenuousness of the Barack Campaign in so far as they dont believe in what they are insinuating and are cynically raising these issues to build up phantom economic enemies. I do agree with Amardeep if this in indeed the case with the Barack Campaign people.

  10. I was going to make some comment before I realized that I am so alienated from this cute game they call presidential elections between putatively “two(sic)parties”, that I no longer give a damn (I do regularly vote in local elections though). so I guess I just wanted to register my frustrations (hence this comment)…

  11. this incident toppled Obama from the mini-pedestal I had him on

    Kucinich is the one who is really on a mini-pedestal.

  12. Following on the heels of her Gandhi 7/11 gaffe, here’s another recent Hillary foul up:

    The Clinton campaign removed a photograph of Hillary Clinton with Mother Teresa from a campaign video after a complaint from the late nun’s religious order, a Clinton spokesman said. The head of a politically conservative Catholic group, Fidelis, said he brought the video to the attention of Sister Nirmala, Teresa’s successor at the Superior General of the India-based Missionaries of Charity. Fidelis president Joseph Cella called it “wholly inappropriate, disrespectful and disturbing that Hillary Clinton shamelessly exploited Mother’s image as a political tool.” “Hillary in effect, was the face of America, in Africa, in India…” the ad says; the original version used the picture as the words “in India” were narrated. link

  13. I guess Amardeep is concerned with the disingenuousness of the Barack Campaign in so far as they dont believe in what they are insinuating and are cynically raising these issues to build up phantom economic enemies.

    call me a cynic, but isn’t this just politics? i guess i never expected obama to be all that different.

    companies like TCS are opening up a number of U.S. offices, and more generally, the greater efficiency enabled by BPO helps keep American companies competitive on a global scale, and has, in my view, actually helped the U.S. economy.

    ;=) wow, for a second i thought that was v-man being channeled! also, if the democrats are going for downscale voters this might still be a rational tack, after all the efficiencies tend to accrue to the top half of the skills & income distribution (i.e., american companies move up the complexity & value added chain, which isn’t usually the best for low skilled workers even if it is good for “the economy” as a whole).

  14. Well, in addition to the obvious offensiveness, how about the breathtaking stupidity? Obama basically handed Hillary his George Allen moment in a shiny gift-wrapped box with a ribbon on top. And she’s no fool, I’ll be surprised if she doesn’t make as much hay as she possibly can out of this.

    Realistically it probably won’t be a career-ender for him, but I agree that it’s very disillusioning in many respects.

  15. I guess Amardeep is concerned with the disingenuousness of the Barack Campaign in so far as they dont believe in what they are insinuating and are cynically raising these issues to build up phantom economic enemies. I do agree with Amardeep if this in indeed the case with the Barack Campaign people.

    Yes, that’s exactly it. Obama has more than his fair share of friends who work on Wall Street: he knows perfectly well that this is how modern business works.

    And even though Hillary herself made the joke, the way the Obama campaign has used it in this memo has turned it into a bit of a slur.

  16. Even though BO has sought to change the tone in DC, many in his campaign come from the DC establishment and are likely to continue their old habits. It comes down to how much leadership he exerts over his campaign and sets the tone.

    I am not looking forward to a long summer of crap.

  17. i have to agree with sigh. i rarely pay attention to presidential campaigns, and even then, only in the few months leading up to it, because by then we know most of the shit about the candidates that usually puts them in a far different light than the one which they tried to project at the time of their announcement. anyway, almost every candidate is too good to be true. the game itself dictates that.

    do the clintons – or any other candidates – have similarly close ties with other foreign countries or their natives in the states? if so, it might put this more into a perspective of strengthening the US economy than being xenophobic (though i don’t foresee the campaign being so stupid as to continue with this sort of thing for other countries/candidates). on the other hand – some of the points were neither here nor there, like the chatwal fundraisers. isn’t obama also trying to seek out money from desis as a group?

  18. I am not looking forward to a long summer of crap.

    hence take a 3 month vacation–no tv, no news, no nothing… it will be good for anyone.

  19. I don’t see anything wrong with D-Punjab. It’s nothing like the Maccaca moment. That showed Allen’S ugly, mean, bullying streak.

    D-Punjab is like calling George Bush R-Saudi Arabia. Or George W. Al-Saud. It’s not insulting South Asian Americans, or even Punjabi-Americans. It’s highlighting Hilarys ties to a foreign country. Why should Brown-Americans be in the business of defending India (or Pakistan, B-Desh, etc)?

    The Chatwal huilt-by-association is more troubling. It’s par for the course in American politics, but pretty rich from a guy claiming to ‘raise the tone’.

  20. Chatwal also started “Indian Americans for Hillary 2008,” which ought not to be an issue (doesn’t Obama have South Asians for Obama hosted on his campaign website?).

    Even though SAFO is on his site, it’s a grassroots effort which is NOT an official part of his campaign, AFAIK. Almost any group can get listed there, within reason.

  21. It sounds like you already decided you preferred Hillary and are using this to bash Obama unfairly. That just makes me want to support Obama more than Hillary. There is nothing about it that is xenophobic. Calling her Hillary Clinton (D-Punjab) is not a slur in any way. The only thing I find offensive is that the Hillary people are trying to make this into something more than it is.

  22. Why should Brown-Americans be in the business of defending India (or Pakistan, B-Desh, etc)?

    I think this question is predicated on the assumption that when a US citizen is concerned about a particular country, its a concern which is unlike the concern that a citizen might have for saving ferrets from Guiliani or global warming and thus this particular concern for a foreign country should be given extra scrutiny and the citizen made to defend himself.

  23. Not surprising, Dems take the Indian vote for granted. I’ll probably still vote for Obama because anti-India sentiment is pretty much a given in the U.S. The masses seem to believe India produces terrorists, organized labor on the left believes it is stealing their jobs, the rest just find it to be a punchline to a joke

  24. Why is anybody surprised by this? It’s a political calculation of the highest order. What does Obama have to lose? He’s playing to the Union interest at the expense of the desis. How many indians are there? 2-3 million? How influential is our vote? Obama could care less if he were “brown friendly” or not. We’re not like the black or hispanic demographic. They have built in political advocacy based on population and voting clout. We should stop identifying with these minorities because other than the racial component we have very little in common. In terms of education, income, and socio-economic status we are much more like the white population. The indian and white interests coincide much more closely.

  26. The Chatwal guilt-by-association is not any different from the Rezko guilt-by-association that Obama has been attacked with. Obama ended up returning all the money connected to Rezko. This kind of thing happens all the time in campaigns. Even if your association with the shady character was innocent, you still have to make sure that you break all ties.

  27. The Chatwal huilt-by-association is more troubling. It’s par for the course in American politics, but pretty rich from a guy claiming to ‘raise the tone’.

    What’s sad is that Obama should be aware by now that the media can just as easily play the “guilt by association” and “dubious investments” games with his own record: the Chicago Sun-Times, on Obama’s connections to a powerful Chicago slum-lord now under indictment; the New York Times, on Obama’s possible conflict-of-interest investments in a Biotech company.

  28. In terms of education, income, and socio-economic status we are much more like the white population. The indian and white interests coincide much more closely.

    Uh-Oh…

    M. Nam

  29. Oh, Bharat. I was really hoping that you would value a global community and see it’s importance. The US cultivates ties to other countries, why are ties to India viewed as bad?

  30. “Why should Brown-Americans be in the business of defending India (or Pakistan, B-Desh, etc)?”

    do you mean brown-americans of south asian descent or brown americans in general?

    it’s good to see the mask slip from all these airbrushed plastic candidates (clinton included) from both parties. when they stand on stage at those debates and waffle on about how they really respect one another and work together and congratulate one another on what truly good people they all are, and then their “slimy”, “seamy” sides are exposed, it’s too funny.

  31. In terms of education, income, and socio-economic status we are much more like the white population. The indian and white interests coincide much more closely.

    Uh oh prepare for a Prema “truth explosion”…

    I have sometimes voted repub, but this time (as in the last election) I am a one issue voter (i.e. anti-Iraq war). McCain has succumbed to the dark side and I’m not a libertarian so anti-war Ron Paul is out of the question. I suspect that many other upper middleclass desi voters, maybe even the AAPI set, will end up voting Dem over the same issue.

    I do find the Punjab reference insulting. What if I called Ted Kennedy “D-Dublin” for his advocacy in favor of Irish illegals ? The difference here is that Ireland is inherently reputable in the American psyche and India is not.

  32. it’s good to see the mask slip from all these airbrushed plastic candidates (clinton included) from both parties. when they stand on stage at those debates and waffle on about how they really respect one another and work together and congratulate one another on what truly good people they all are, and then their “slimy”, “seamy” sides are exposed, it’s too funny.

    Look the problem is that they basically agree on most of the fundamental political-economic issues (level of defense spending, spending priorities, health care, tax code; for a libertarian, the status of the Fed and its economic function). In fact most fundamental political-economic issues are not even on the voters’ agenda, since they are never brought up, and so most people think that such issues are like “laws of nature”, that they are given and are to be taken for granted. However somehow you have to create the appearance of intense competition. Hence these stupid, third rate, completely inconsequential issues (personality, private life etc). True there are issues that such candidates debate on the margins, such as how to better “manage” the Iraq mess, and true that sometimes these marginal debates have larger effects on the international scene. So that is the most that individuals can hope out of this damn charade.

  33. I recommend that sigh!, blah, and why do we bother?? run as a third-party ennui front. Might be a welcome relief from the same old, same old that these candidates are different shades of.

  34. What if I called Ted Kennedy “D-Dublin” for his advocacy in favor of Irish illegals ?

    For that matter, try calling Joe Lieberman or Barbara Boxer as D-Jerusalem/ D-Tel Aviv

    Jewish Americans, and the lobby will make sure that person who wrote such memo will be history, and the national candidate will be firing the author of the memo ASAP.

  35. Why should Brown-Americans be in the business of defending India (or Pakistan, B-Desh, etc)?

    As goes Desh, so goes mainstream perception of desis in their various adapted lands.

    Has there already been a discussion on this theory on SM?

  36. I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to say that it’s far worse to twist facts and attribute intentions to politicians than to write and issue an anonymous memo that has pure facts. I read that memo. Regardless of whether I knew where it came from, I’d say hey, Hillary’s got quite a bit of brown support. And I’d be cool with that. Knowing that it was something ANONYMOUS from the Obama camp doesn’t change my opinion of the facts, or of the character of Clinton or Obama or their ability to lead the country and represent somewhat the interests of brown folks like us.

    At first I thought the D-Punjab thing was kinda insulting. Then I read the memo, and I found it funny instead. She’s got a sense of humor! From the memo- “Sen. Clinton (D-Punjab) Joked That She Was Senator From The Punjab Region In India. “At the fundraiser hosted by Dr Rajwant Singh at his Potomac, Maryland, home, and which raised nearly $50,000 for her re-election campaign, Clinton began by joking that, ‘’I can certainly run for the Senate seat in Punjab and win easily,’ after being introduced by Singh as the Senator not only from New York but also Punjab.””

  37. I guess the point of that last thing is that this memo is far more Pro-Hillary based on facts alone than it is Anti-Obama. The title of this post shouldn’t be Obama got less “brown” friendly. It should hilight that Mrs. Clinton is in fact, very brown friendly.

  38. eh, and since I’ve never really posted here, I’ll just add that I’m an independent that voted for Bush last time, Kaine and Webb the last two elections in Virginia, and hasn’t really made up his mind about ’08 (has anyone?).

  39. American Citizen with OCI privileges and coconut sensibilities mostly confused about continuing to sing sa re ga ma over things desi or start aligning your cheers with middle class America and sing hosannas with fatso joe sixpacks while enrolling failing kids with Tutors in India, seeks Desi Federalist papers to sort out the mess. Bristling indignation at attacks on Hillary’s cuddlepuddle with browns seems a bit like treason.

  40. SR, you seem not to have noticed that the whole point of the memo is to whip up a hysterical response from readers.

    For us it’s not politically compromising in the least to say, “Hillary has strong support in the Indian American community.” But what Obama’s campaign is trying to say is, “Hillary cares more about her wealthy Indian donors who are stealing your jobs than she does about you.”

    BTW, see the interesting discussion of this story on DailyKOS. The Kos readers are internally divided about the significance of this, just as SM readers seem to be thus far.

  41. 15 – I think where this post misses its mark is that Obama has lotsa pals on Wall Street but Wall St is still entirely in USA. Hillary & her husband otoh have lotsa pals in Bangalore tech firms whose front sales offices are incidentally in USA but the real work and millions of employees are definitely back in Bangalore.

  42. Hillary & her husband otoh have lotsa pals in Bangalore tech firms whose front sales offices are incidentally in USA but the real work and millions of employees are definitely back in Bangalore.

    The stockholders of those firms trade in Wall St. and want their stock values to increase (off shoring therefore generally increases stock value) ; so the difference is not that stark.

  43. I personally dont think this has anything to do with ANTI INDIAN Sentiment. Feel free to disagree with him on protectionist pandering. But I see nothing where this smacks of Anti Indian bias. It could be India as any other foreign country that does business with a politican or an american Corp.

    This memo doesnt bother me that much. I am more worried by Hillary’s refusal to admit that she actually knew more than she admits to knowing back then and misrepresents the IRaq war vote as “if I knew then what we know now”. Well this is what I tell Hillary “Look you two faced woman. You knew back then what we all know now. And if you didn’t , then you are a dumbass of the first order because the NIE had the information you needed to call bullshit on Bush. Scott Ritter was making the rounds telling anyone who would listen what the reality was. Bushy boy wasn’t the only guy conflating 9-11 with Saddam. You did it too to a smaller extent. “

    If I had to decide between a guy whose campaign has some protectionist pandering rhetoric versus a woman who for the sake of political expediency took part in sending 3000 plus soldiers to their deaths and was responsible for a lot more collateral damage, I am choosing Obama. Actually I am not that thrilled with Obama either as he plays it too safe at times despite having good ideas. I still don’t understand why this guy was so chummy with a shlub like Lieberman – one of the biggest fearmongerers in the war on terror. That bothers me more than this letter.

  44. Hah! I hope Obama distances himself from the memo, or he loses my vote. Message to delusional “model minority” Indian-Americans – you can still be fucked with rather easily, stop trying to pretend that you can’t be used and abused by any party at any time!

  45. I recommend that sigh!, blah, and why do we bother?? run as a third-party ennui front.

    ;0) thank you dear. I’m all about ennui

  47. Maybe it’s me, but I get the feeling that in the grand scheme of things, one memo distributed by someone anonymous campaign worker to the press of publically available information, whose facts and framing can be interpretted anywhere between pro-Indian to protectionist to nativist to racist… is not that important. Certainly not as important as a candidate picking one person out of a crown on camera and telling him essentially he doesn’t belong here (Allen).

    I learned maybe two things. Clinton’s got more brown back than I know, and she’s far more pro-trade than I thought she might be. I also know that if Obama approved this, he’s got to come up with a smear campaign that actually smears, and get rid of some of the idiots/bigots working on his campaign.

  48. 42 – We are talking about elections for USA President, not elections for board-members of companies held by certain stockholders.

    What percentage of 300 million Americans hold significant equity in Bangalore tech companies traded on the big board ? There are less than a handful of ADRs, and even if you include closed mutual funds & hedge funds, I will be very surpised if you can conclusively prove that more than 1% of the 300 million make significant income holding equity in infy,tcs,wipro etc. Efficiencies accrue on top, not across the board.

    40 “But what Obama’s campaign is trying to say is, “Hillary cares more about her wealthy Indian donors who are stealing your jobs than she does about you.”

    Yeah that’s obvious. But what is Obama really trying to say ? Obama is saying “Wealthy Indian Donors ( codeword for Bangalore tech-giants & their beneficiaries) , don’t give all your wealth to Hillary, give me some too otherwise I won’t shut up.”

    Once Obama’s check clears, he will backpedal on outsourcing & this snarky memo will not even be found in google archives, he will bury it that deep.

  49. Several points:

    (1) The original post on this topic obscures, to some extent, the distinction between a legitimate debate about offshoring and gratuitous xenophobia. The memo intermingles both, but an attack on Clinton’s pro-offshoring views is not an attack on Indian-Americans or even Indians. So I don’t see what’s so objectionable about bullet point four. (Not to get into a full-blown substantive debate on offshoring, but noting that it tends to benefit Americans overall ignores the meaningful distributive consequences.)

    (2) Where the memo is deeply disconcerting is in its random attacks on “connections” to India/Indian-Americans: (a) the reference to Hillary’s fundraising strength among Indian-Americans; (b) the reference to Hillary’s co-founding the Senate India Caucus; and (c) the reference to ownership of stock in a company that is Indian (apparently objectionable simply because it is Indian). All of these, despite SR’s naive protestations, are meant to cast Hillary in a negative light.

    (3) The memo doesn’t tell us much about Obama, but his response to the memo will. No major Presidential candidate controls each and every aspect of his campaign operation, so using the memo to draw some overarching conclusions about his character or politics is unfair. No doubt it’s been brought to his attention, however, and how he handles it from here will be more telling.

    (4) Somewhat of a tangent, but since it came up: I would have thought that the consequences of the 2000 election would have fully discredited the lazy criticism that all politicians are the same. Yes, all campaigns sling mud to some degree, but that is hardly enough to write off the meaningful differences between various candidates in both substance and style.

  50. Seriously, while it is great to discuss what different candidates did or said about the Iraq war 5 years ago, do people find any of the candidates credible about their plan for the situation we are in now? I honestly don’t see an answer in either of the alternatives – stay on for a while, or leave in 6 months to a year.

    As for this memo, does it reflect desperation on the part of Obama given Hillary’s strong performance in the debates, and her current status as the leading candidate?