Bill and Hillary Clinton were accused of racism by a major presidential campaign long before she made a speech to supporters in Reno Thursday, accusing Donald Trump of condoning racism among his own supporters.
MSNBC’s Hardball went after Hillary Clinton during the 2008 primary for boasting that she had more support from uneducated white voters in West Virginia and Kentucky than Barack Obama.
The voiceover to the program begins, “The senator touted an Associated Press article, ‘…that found how Sen. Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.’”
It was not the first time the 2008 Clinton camp was accused of racism during that primary and the issue was not lost on some left-wing news sites like The Huffington Post and The Nation.
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Following the nomination of Obama for his first presidential campaign, ABC’s “Good Morning America” asked Bill Clinton about being blamed for his wife’s 2008 primary loss as a result of baggage from his presidential terms as well as comments he made about Obama that were construed as racist. The post 2008 election book “Game Change” revealed that Sen. Ted Kennedy became angry with Bill Clinton when he took a shot at Obama.
“[Clinton] went on belittling Obama in a manner that deeply offended Kennedy. Recounting the conversation later to a friend, Teddy fumed that Clinton had said a few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee,” the book recalled.
Kennedy went on to endorse and campaign for Obama during the primary and throughout the general. The former president, however, found that he was constantly defending himself of charges of racism during the primary from Obama supporters.