Elections

Harris-Perry: Democratic Presidential Field Is ‘Whiter Than The Oscars’ [VIDEO]

Derek Draplin Associate Editor
Font Size:

MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry criticized the Democratic field for being anemic, old, and “whiter than the Oscars” during a panel discussion Saturday about the Democratic race for president.

“I would argue that for me, Thursday night, watching Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, already this early — we are in New Hampshire — and our party is so anemic, we are down to two candidates,” Harris-Perry said. “Say what you want to say about the mad house going on on the Republican side.”

Nina Turner, a Bernie Sanders surrogate, chimed in: “I’m with you on that, they’ve got diversity.”

“They got all kinds of folks, [who] still want the Republican nomination,” Harris-Perry said, gaining agreement from Turner. “We have two folks who are advanced in age, who have been in government for a long time.” (RELATED: Levin: The ‘Browning Of America’ Does Not Include The ‘Browning Of Democrat Leadership’)

Turner and Harris-Perry also agreed that both candidates are of the same generation.

“I am very critical about my party when it comes to where the heck is the diversity — where is the diversity? And you’re right. We can say whatever we want to say about our Republican brothers and sisters, but they’ve got something for everybody,” Turner, a former Ohio state senator, added.

“It’s whiter than the Oscars up in here!” Harris-Perry then exclaimed.

“The Republican Party as a whole has moved to the right, electorately, politically, and they might have more people on the stage,” Julian Zelizer, a Princeton University historian, said. “But I’m not sure it’s so politically diverse.”

“I just mean a robustness of the party,” Harris-Perry responded. “I just mean the idea that when there was an open seat race after two years of an incumbent president, that a bunch of people threw their hat in and said ‘I’m ready to run, I’m ready to go ahead and go for this’.”

Follow Derek Draplin on Twitter.