Is is just me, or does the “20%” still seem without a source? :rolleyes: Oh wait. Sniff. Sniff. I smell poo. That’s it! He pulled it out of his ass! 
Well, I don’t agree. I think it could be argued that Obama captured the public despite his race.
This nasty primary is really pissing me off. Ferraro’s comments are divisive and hurt both candidates. Clinton has effectively managed to take the wind out of Obama’s campaign. Now, I am starting to get nervous about the Dems chances to win this November. A loss to the Republicans will devastate me.
Well, kinda. It’s more like she leaked out on her own. Ewww. Did I just say that in my out loud voice? I need a barfy smiley.
Here’s her resignation letter:
The fact that she’s so belligerent and unapologetic is stunning.
I love this interpretation of it in one of the comments:
And let me tell you something, Gerry dear, the Obama campaign (and his supporters) aren’t attacking you because you’re white or to hurt Hillary. We’re simply speaking the truth about what you are; a racist bitch. Now go crawl back into your hole and get out of my face.
But if she’s already crawled out…Never mind.
And so Geraldine Ferraro departs, having slammed down both the race card and the victim card, hoping that her appeal to the part of Pennsylvania that rests below the Mason-Dixon line bears fruit, and anticipating the reward of a plum job in a future Clinton Administration.
Like Ambassador to Zimbabwe.
Isn’t the southern border of Pennsylvania the Mason-Dixon line, therefore there is no part that rests below it?
I wuz speaking metaphorically, chum.
Travel through western PA sometime and you’ll know what I mean.
Olbermann was going to do one of his Special Comments on the Clinton campaign tonight. When I first heard Ferarro was out of a job I thought he might call it off; after seeing that exit letter, I hope he puts these cunt’s feet to the flames.
Obama is still doing very well. The wind is out of Hillary’s campaign. She had a great opportunity after Ohio and Texas, just a week ago, to act like the leader she wants to be, but she chose to say and act the opposite.
If everything stays the same three months from now, and most are predicting it will, Obama only needs 35% of the remaining super delegates to win the nomination.
I’s much rather be Obama right now, than Hillary.
Since I no longer feel inclined to defend Ferraro I had intended to decline further posting in this thread. The numbers I present were actually more of an exercise to determine the impact of the black vote on the race.
However, your charge that I pulled the 20% out of my ass is just not true. It was there right in front of you and everyone else understands where that number comes from.
I’ll try and make it a simple as I can just for you. I used the conservative figure of 70% for Obama’s black vote. (Its actually much higher). And I used the conservative figure of 50% for Obama’s non black vote.(Its actually a little lower)
What’s 70 minus 20?
Its 50.
You shouldn’t need a cite to figure that out.
So if 20% of the black vote for Obama went to Hillary, the blacks would be in line with the rest of the democratic vote.
For Christ’s sake, man, it’s BARACK. You claim to support him and I’ve seen you misspell his name 20 times just in the last fifteen minutes I’ve been reading the boards.
you do understand that your arithmatic is only accurate if the actual number of black and white voters is the same, right?
No, I don’t understand.
Its an Arabic name. I’ve heard that he was actually christened Baraka which means blessed.
Your math appears based on Obama getting 120% of his votes. Now my head hurts again.
Yes but this is irrelevant to what Ferarro said. You can grab arbitrary isolated voting figures and say what would happen if they were different all you like, but you can’t get from there to Ferarro’s statement without applying certain wild and probably incorrect assumptions.
WHOOOOOOF! Just saw Olbermann’s rant about Ferraro! Most impressive!
Reactions?
I’ll stick my toe in here, against my better judgment.
I’m not exactly sure what Ferraro was trying to communicate. It certainly came out awkwardly at best, and at worst, reveals a disturbing hang up of the former VP nominee. But there is a kernel to truth to what I suspect she was trying to say, though she used pretty reckless language to make a fairly minor point.
In the context of presidential politics, Obama’s unique story - his heritage, his biracial identity, his success - has afforded him some political advantage. He has a compelling narrative that many Americans connect to. His speech at the 2004 DNC referenced this.
But the same is true of Clinton. Her story is compelling as well and her lack of a Y chromosome has netted her significant attention as well. Both she and Obama face significant challenges in life in a society that grants White and male privilege, and both she and Obama have found ways to leverage their difference in the narrow and limited world of running for the Democratic nomination for president.
I thought Obama had a pretty good response at his presser in response to Ferraro’s clumsily presented “commentary.” However, there is another point that for some reason isn’t addressed, and that’s the Obama campaign’s use of race as a wedge issue when it works to their advantage. Jesse Jackson, Jr. famously threatened Black superdelegates with promises of challenges to their presumably “safe” seats. There was the incident of the “race memo” that the Obama campaign assembled with the “fairy tale” comment from Bill Clinton taken out of context. It’s hard to imagine any other Black candidate having these issues come to the fore and not pay a significant political price.
I think most people who’ve been on this board know where I stand on issues of race and racism and thought these two examples were fairly damning… but I don’t recall much discussion in the media about either of these episodes. The more cynical among us note the marked difference between Obama on the stump in Mississippi speaking to Black crowds and his appearances in Pennsylvania (for the most part, it doesn’t bother me - it’s called code switching and I think most Black people who negotiate predominantly White and predominantly Black environments do it quite a bit).
However, I have noticed Obama lifting lines from Malcolm X referring to White people’s efforts to pull a fast one on Black people. You remember the lines made famous by Denzel Washington in the movie… “bamboozle,” “hoodwink.” I don’t know if White people catch this but I certainly caught that… and I don’t recall him talking this way in White or mixed groups.
Now was that what Ferraro was trying to get at? I don’t know, and given a) her awkward phrasing of the issue and b) the fact she’s trotted this line out for 20 years, it would be wise to not make that assumption. But I think this issue has legs, and the Obama campaign needs to be extremely careful because I suspect if many more White folks take a hit, there will be a backlash.
First I want to say, and I know this goes against all ‘The Pit’ stands for, but I’d actually like to denounce, and reject, my own remarks about 10 post up there. I tried to get into the mood of things here and drop the Pit-popular c-bomb, but meh, it just came off sounding flat and a lot harsher and more bitter than I intended it to be. Guess my teeth are a bit too dull for the pit.
Anyway, I liked Olbermann’s rant. I thought he did a good job on focusing on the words of Ferraro, and the meanings behind them, while at the same time being as fair as he could, and not attacking Sen. Clinton personally, as I unfortunately did; and yes, that is partially the reason I felt the need to post paragraph one there.
One line that particularly struck me…
I’ve stated a few times here, and on another board, that I’ve suspected, or at least hoped, the Clintons were intentionally falling on their own swords with the race/religion baiting and fear mongering to somehow ‘battle test’ the seemingly inevitable Democratic candidate Obama, and/or soften the brunt of the inevitable Republican attacks, as well as try, and sometimes even succeeding in, turning the public against such tactics. Of course, I realize that’s more so conspiracy-minded wishful thinking, or simply trying to rationalize(apologize for?) this increasingly disparaging, disappointing, and downright depressing campaign.
All that said, there was once an enormous build up of respect and admiration behind the Clinton name, but it is not a bottomless well. This campaign is draining it all. and fast. Whatever the motives behind the Clinton’s scorched earth politics might be- it all needs to change quickly. For the good of us all. But I don’t even care if it is for purely selfish reasons of trying to save that last shred of dignity-- just please, stop now.
This has nothing to do with race. Anyone selling anything (indeed anyone just getting along with others) changes the way they act to match those they are with. When I’m talking to some self made highschool dropout fishboat owning client I don’t talk the same way I do with a tertiary educated senior executive. It’s not race, it’s basic salesmanship. I don’t say it’s necessarily utterly above reproach, but it’s just ordinary human behaviour. It’s not evil racial manipulation, by any means.