What, exactly, has Senator Obama done to use his race as a novelty act? Are you saying that just being black and trying to win a political race is using one’s race as a novelty act? Because as long as we’re throwing accusations of racism around, that’s about as blatant as it gets.
Black voters were quite well disposed towards HRC during her race against Senator Obama. I ask you once again (I believe this is the third time; I don’t understand what’s so difficult about this question): Has Senator Obama gotten darker since that time, or has something else changed?
Which is utter bullshit, and still doesn’t account for the fact that Hillary Clinton enjoyed the lion’s share of the black vote until very, very late in this race. She lost it over time, as voters became more familiar with the person Barack Obama, not more aware of the color of his skin. He has always been black, but he has not always enjoyed the support of the black community.
The notion that he has benefited from being black is so patently absurd that it’s offensive that major media outlets are still being allowed to spew it. If there were any truth to it, then every other black candidate who’s ever run would also have garnered 80-90% of the black vote, and they haven’t.
That’s because a) black people don’t have a hive mind, and b) there’s substance to Barack Obama that people are responding to in ways they’ve never responded to any other black candidate before.
To ignore these basic facts and stick with the allegation that his blackness is what’s allowing him to beat Hillary Clinton is racist, notwithstanding Barack Obama’s personal rejection of the use of that term in this regard.
No, it’s because he’s seen as having a real shot after Iowa unlike previous black candidates. And once it seemed possible, the AA community went with him largely based on race (as self-reported, in fact, in MS exit polls). Just the way it is. Also, as I stated above, he got ‘blacker’ as time went on in his mannerisms, invoking of MLK, etc. It’s pretty rich, really, for a guy that was in Indonesia and 6 years old at the time. In terms of acting on things that helped people, Hillary has more MLK to her than Obama does in my view. She’s certainly done more for AAs – as has Bill – than Obama ever has.
More racist crap. Whites gave the blacks permission to go ahead and change their support, so they did. In huge numbers. Hive-like. No other reason. Nope. Couldn’t possibly be because the man had something to offer besides his skin color. Blacks needed to know whites approved first, and only then would they have the nerve to step up and say, “me too!”
Either you’re dismissing the question offhand, or you’re actually saying that being metaphorically dark is the way to the black voters’ heart, which (a) should mean that HRC should have maintained the black vote and (b) would be a new winner for “about as blatant[ly racist] as it gets”. For charity’s sake, I’ll assume it’s the former: you’re just dismissing the question offhand.
But why? That question is at the core of the entire debate: if Senator Obama were guaranteed the black vote simply for being black, then he would have had the black vote at the beginning of the race–but he didn’t. So, I ask you for the fourth time, since this question is simply too central to this debate to let it go unanswered: Has Senator Obama gotten darker since that time, or has something else changed?
Thanks for the charity. But no, I wasn’t dismissing it. Obama got more metaphorically black at the expense of HRC. Once again, you can choose to call pointing that out racist but crying wolf on racism is getting kind of old now.
He started channeling MLK, adjusting his mannerisms, speech patterns, etc. and when you combine that with the fact that he – unlike previous black candidates – looked to have a real shot, you’ve got Obamamania. White liberal guilt + racial pride + a real shot of winning due to being the ABC (Anybody But Clinton) that was wanted anyway. He has Hillary-hating, Bush-hating, and racism to thank.
This has been said again and again in OP Ed. pieces, articles, and by Ferraro in part. It’s not a new thought and one I trust you’re already familiar with that you conveniently dismiss as ‘racism.’
The idea that you would diminish millions of black people’s votes as nothing more than waiting until they had permission from guilt-ridden whitey is so fucking offensive and contemptible that I simply have to excuse myself from any further interaction with you.
Having “permission” from “guilt-ridden whitey” isn’t at all what I said. I said a confluence of white liberal guilt + racial pride. You added the permission shit.
I wonder why you’d see things in such racist terms?
Whatever makes you feel morally superior, I guess.
I’m amused that Hillary supporters are so convinced in Hillary’s superiority that they grasp at straws like this to explain why she’s losing. It couldn’t possibly be because she’s just not all that superior to begin with. I mean, when it gets to the point when folks are seriously suggesting that Obama is winning because he is “acting more black”, what can one do except laugh? Only desperation and delusion could lead someone to say this with a straight face. I guess all Obama has to do at the next debate is show up speaking Ebonics wearing a fro and he’ll have this election tied up, right?
Obama has not made himself more “metaphorically” black. His speech patterns are the same as they were back in 2004 when he first came on the scene. He’s always sounded slightly ministerial; believe it or not, that is why he is so riverting at the podium. And I have no idea what mannerisms you could possibly be talking about. What is a black mannerism and when has Obama shown one?
But in a sense, you’re right: Obama did become “blacker”. Let me break it down for you. ** He became “blacker” when Bill attempted to take the wind out of his sails by comparing him to Jesse Jackson.** Seems like small thing, but it really wasn’t. The media fanned the flames by playing up the racial implications of Bill’s comment and relating it to the little bruhaha made over the way Bill dismissed Obama’s presidential aspirations as a “fairy tale” a few days earlier. A lot of black folks became convinced that the Clintons were not only ganging up on Obama in a disrespectful way, but were also attempting to belittle him using his race as a convenient target. The Clintons’ self-entitled attitudes also seemed to come to the fore, which doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with race but it does have a lot to do with privilege…something that blacks are generally sensitive to because of the way it correlates with race. And so the Clintons lost a lot of black support at that time that Obama picked up. The Clintons haven’t regained that support because they haven’t given black folks a reason to change their minds, and likewise, Obama hasn’t fucked up enough to cause him to lose that support. Things are so solid right now that I don’t think that anything will change.
What keeps getting overlooked by those who want to think Obama is winning this thing only because he’s black is that Obama has earned support from blacks and others. I’ll be the first to say that blacks as a group are going to be more biased towards the black candidate, but the unprecedented percentage of support that we’re seeing says there a lot more going on than bias. Black folks are just like other Americans: they don’t want to hitch their wagons to anyone who they know is going to fuck up and embarrass them. I sure as hell wouldn’t.
The sooner that Hillary supporters realize this one fact the better: the Clintons’ attempt to marginalize Obama as The Black Candidate backfired in their faces. That’s all there is too it. It changed the momentum of the race, and caused black folks to seriously question who they were supporting and why. That’s not Obama’s fault. That’s theirs.
What I can’t figure out is how any Hillary supporter thinks dissing Obama in the manner we’ve seen and craping on the intelligence and perceptivenesses of all his supporters is any kind of reasonable argument for Hillary’s superiority as a candidate.
There are valid comparisons to be made and argued but I see very few here.
I actually agree with most of your last 3 paragraphs there. That’s an astute and succinct synopsis of what went down. I’d add the MLK issue where Hillary pointed out Lyndon Johnson’s role that also pissed off the AA community and led to Ted Kennedy’s endorsement as well.
I don’t think Obama is ahead ONLY because he’s black, but the fact that it plays any role at all is something that’s been denied by Obama supporters on this board and that’s just absurd. It is a factor – even a self-reported factor; even a overtly espoused factor in fact if you read Andrew Sullivan’s article on Obama in the Atlantic where he literally says that “his face” is one reason to vote for him, referring to his race – and to suggest otherwise (you haven’t done so though) is part of the white liberal guilt of which I speak.
Given that things went down as they did with regards to SC and onwards, I find that to be racial and to the extent that the support of the AA community went up due to being offended by perceived racism is unfortunate. Especially since it doesn’t make Obama any more qualified just because he gets supported on the rebound from what’s perceived as offensive comments.
As to whether or not the race card was played by the Clintons at all in that regard, Charlie Rangel doesn’t think so and I agree with him. The suggestion, in fact, has been made that if anyone played it the Obama camp did it by baiting HRC with Obama outrageously comparing himself to MLK, inducing a response that would offend the black community. Whether or not that was an actual game plan I have no way of knowing what’s in Obama’s mind but given that his campaign is run by mostly old Clintonite folks from Bill’s campaigns, I don’t find it hard to believe. But regardless of whose to blame, that is how it played out. Boneheaded move on the HRC campaign’s part to deal with the MLK thing the way they did. And that is their fault and she’s paid for it ever since.
None of which makes me feel Obama would make a better president and frankly I think supporting Obama even partly due to being offended by perceived racism is somewhat embarrassing for those that do so.
When Bill spoke (before these racially charged issues) on behalf of Hillary early on when Obama was at 17% he cried foul and said it wasn’t fair for Hillary to invoke him because he was “after all” (as he put it) the President. Maybe likewise it wasn’t exactly fair for a black candidate to invoke the dead MLK on his behalf; it’s rather cynical to pit that against a fellow Democrat especially the Clintons of all people. But the way HRC handled that backfired and really there should have been a way to do it similar to when Obama jumped on HRC for her speech at Wellesley and said “I sure hope Hillary isn’t going to try to use her gender.” There was probably a civil way at a debate of Hillary saying “I sure hope my opponent isn’t going to invoke the great MLK on his campaign’s behalf in this contest; he’s someone whose speeches and good deeds are part of the rightful legacy of all of us who fought for those principles, as I did.” Obama would have replied that of course he’s not wanting to “hog” MLK (because that’s the “right” answer) and that would have been that. Instead, she misplayed that move.
I’m hoping the ‘offense’ rebound support thing for Obama will thaw. It’s not a good argument for supporting Obama. It makes him a good politician (and/or a good campaign team), not a good President.
Well, there’s two things going on. Obama himself, at least initially, didn’t do much different on the stump with a Black crowd, or a White crowd, or a mixed crowd. But Michelle Obama has certainly worked to strengthen his appeal and connection to Black crowds. And recently, I’ve noticed the rhetorical use of the “hoodwinked… bamboozled” line when he’s in Black crowds (Mississippi) but I haven’t heard those lines in Pennsylvania, for example.
See, I think this analysis is pretty far off. It’s certainly correct in some regard, but I still feel that Obama’s support intensified with his win in Iowa. That made him a legitimate contender, and Black folks previously intrigued and hopeful about his candidacy started to believe. Two problems with your analysis, ywtf: why did Jesse Jackson himself make a point of saying that he did not see racism or denigration in Clinton’s comments? Jackson is hardly one ever intimidated to call these things as he sees them. Second, it has been proven that Clinton’s “fairy tale” comment was specifically referencing his position on the Iraq War - the full tape of his comments has been shown many times. It was the Obama campaign that floated the memo and (cleverly) framed it as being about Obama’s candidacy. It was a brilliant, if not calculated and below the belt political move. Hardly being evidence of “a new kind of politics,” it was actually an old school political haymaker.
When I was at Harvard I had the opportunity to meet, talk with, and even get to know a lot of people who worked in the Clinton administration. One thing was clear - Clinton’s commitment to opening and diversifying the highest levels of his administration was real. Hazel O’Leary, David Satcher, Fernando Pena, Henry Cisneros, Mike Espy, Ron Brown, Norm Mineta, Alexis Herman, Rodney Slater, Bill Richardson, Jocelyn Elder, and Audrey Manley were all among the first people of color to occupy their cabinet positions. And with those appointees, their undersecretaries and staffs, as a colleague of mine stated, one could go to White House functions and see a reflection of America - a commitment that came from the top. If Bill Clinton, with years of commitment to diversifying government at the highest levels, can be tarred with the brush of “racist,” without even being given the benefit of the doubt, I guess everybody’s suspect.
Sure, some Black folks put Bill Clinton in the racist category, but I don’t think it is as widespread as some folks think. Black people I know here in Texas certainly didn’t feel that way about Clinton; rather, it was the idea that in our lifetimes, we had a viable African-American candidate with momentum. And yes, his ideas and speeches were strong. I do know some people who voted for Obama primarily (or largely) because of his race. So what? Some people voted for Clinton primarily (or largely) because of her gender.
But Mississippi has to be troubling for Obama; the Black vote was solidly in Obama’s camp, but the White vote returned to Clinton in large numbers. Pennsylvania will probably look a great deal like Ohio, if not more so. Hillary has a champion in Philadelphia mayor Michael Nutter, who is immensely popular and respected. Some things have definitely changed.
I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree, because while this might have been a factor, I think it is much more about Obama proving his viability as a candidate to Black, and all Americans.
These are reasonable discussions to have - how have racial issues factored into this election cycle? Clearly they have, there is no denying that. Discussing racial issues (which includes the appeal of a candidate who appears to transcend those issues) was not the problem. The problem was Ferraro’s dismissing him by way of using those as the reason for his success.
Obama is not “the Black candidate”, that is not “the” reason for his success and attempts to make that the crucial issue of the campaign are perhaps not racist but they are racially divisive.
It will be interesting to see how his speech goes today…
From what I am garnering from friends in the campaign and from his website I’m going to go out on a limb here and say Obama’s speech tonight will solidify his camp, his campaign, his stance as a candidate and ultimately his role as president.
This speech is as much about the state of the nation as it is the state of the divisions within our own party. Obama has consistantly transcended gender, race, creed, and class he has consistently taken the straight edge approach to Washington and I don’t see any of that changing tonight. For those who put stock in polls, watch them closely this evening and tomorrow, we are going to see a sharp change in Obama’s appeal.
Don’t anyone be fooled that superdelegates won’t be watching tonight, this is Obama’s full on free press moment, and I’ll venture campaign solidifier. He knows all eyes will be watching tonight and he knows every word will be scrutinized: there is no better time to solidify his campaign and he will take full advantage.
If he knocks it out of the park,[which I bet he does] we may even see a stark turn in the campaign and HRC’s approach. Obama has given me no reason to think he won’t take full advantage of tonights press and deliver a speech that folks will remember through November.
