Clinton Backs Up Obama On Race, Says Prez Wants To Win “On The Merits”

Pretty interesting: President Obama got some important backing from Bill Clinton last night on the question of whether race is driving anti-Obama rage, with Clinton deftly remaining on message and amplifying Obama’s position that race is only a minor factor.

Clinton also added a pretty slick rhetorical flourish of his own, claiming twice that Obama wants to win the big policy fights “on the merits,” a reminder that Clinton knows a thing or two about navigating racial politics. Here’s Clinton’s answer to the race question on Larry King, worth quoting at length:

I believe that some of the right-wing extremists which oppose President Obama are also racially prejudiced and would prefer not to have an African-American president. But I don’t believe that all the people that oppose him on health care and all the conservatives are racist.

And I believe if he were white, every single person who opposes him now would be opposing him then.

We have to win this health care fight on the merits. And that’s what the president said. He’s absolutely right about it. I respect President Carter for his concern about this. But this is a fight about whether we are going to basically keep making excuses for being the only wealthy country in the world that can’t figure out how to ensure everybody…

Let me put it this way. If Barak Obama were a white president, I believe virtually 100 percent of the people who oppose him on health care today would oppose him on health care anyway…

So, I don’t want to say that President Carter is wrong about there being some still racial prejudice involved in the opponents of President Obama, but this fight is a fight which would exist no matter the color of his skin…He wants to fight this on the merits.

The White House suggests folks in the media are looking for any excuse they can find to keep the race conversation going. If that’s true, then Clinton did Obama a big solid by refusing to disagree with Carter — which would have made news — while deftly helping downplay the notion that Obama harbors even a hint of racial grievance about his critics.