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#92266 - 04/23/08 08:11 PM
Re: President " OBAMA" it's possible......"OBAMA--08"
[Re: truetrini]
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pressafoot
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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/anatole_kaletsky/article3803520.ece
The Democrats must admit it: Obama would lose to McCain
Anatole Kaletsky
American Presidential elections have been compared with reality TV series or game shows, in which a gaggle of jumped-up nonentities aspiring to be celebrities are ritually humiliated in public and offered entertaining opportunities to self-destruct, until only one survivor remains. But this time round, a much more elevated analogy is sadly apposite.
The 2008 US election has all the makings of a Greek tragedy, in which noble heroes and heroines are forced to follow a course to catastrophe, divinely preordained as punishment for sins and blunders committed by their forefathers in the dim and distant past. In acting out their ineluctable doom, the eloquent protagonists do not just destroy themselves but also their cities, their nations and even their entire civilisations.
If this description sounds too grandiose, consider yesterday's results from the Pennsylvania primary. The outcome seemed to be precisely calibrated by the gods to maximise the agony of the Democrats. It gave Hillary Clinton just the support she needed to stay firmly in contention, but not quite enough to turn the tide in her favour.
Worse still, this result underlined the fear that senior Democrats have long been aware of, but have never dared to express in public: America may not yet be ready to elect a black President. Worst of all, it has created conditions for the possible election victory of a militarily belligerent and economically unqualified Republican candidate who supports many of President Bush's worst policies. Given the Bush Administration's domestic and foreign failures, the disasters in Iraq and Afghanistan and, most recently, the slump in the economy, the possibility of a Republican victory in November would seem to overturn every principle of proper democracy - and also the hope of America and its system of government being rehabilitated in the eyes of the world after the Bush years. The fact that Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton are both such impressive candidates, intelligent, sincere, articulate and in command of the issues, while John McCain does not qualify on any of these criteria only makes matters worse.
That Mrs Clinton will now carry on with her campaign is not just probable but essential. For the voting in Pennsylvania confirms that she has a much better chance than Mr Obama of winning the White House for the Democrats. According to the Associated Press exit polls published yesterday, 16 per cent of white Democratic voters considered race an important factor in the Presidential election and 43 per cent of these said they would either vote Republican or not vote at all, if Mr Obama were the Democratic nominee.
Given that Mrs Clinton's clear victory over Mr Obama in Pennsylvania followed similar results in other “must-win” states with large working-class constituencies, such as Ohio, Florida, New Jersey, Michigan and even New York and California, the conclusion would be fairly obvious, were it not for the political correctness makes it almost impossible for American politicians or commentators to express such a view: Mr Obama may by unable to carry large industrial states with socially conservative white working-class populations simply because of his race. This is especially true now that the televised rantings of Rev Jeremiah Wright and Mr Obama's own gaffe about the “bitter” white working-class culture of “guns and God”, have reminded Americans that race is not just a matter of skin colour. Rev Wright embarrassingly revealed in his “God damn America” and “Chickens come home to roost” sermons that his African-American vision of America is be profoundly at odds with the white majority view.
The latest polls in the two most important swing states show Mr McCain easily beating Mr Obama in both Florida and Ohio, while Mrs Clinton comfortably beats the Republican in Ohio and is neck and neck in Florida.
Mr Obama has, of course, apologised for his condescension towards working-class church-goers and hunters - probably the most important group of floating voters in the electorally critical mid-Western states. He has tried even harder to dissociate himself from Rev Wright's anti-American tirades, which really have to be seen (on YouTube) to be believed. And Mr Obama's supporters have chastised Mrs Clinton for turning to “negative campaigning” and “scorched-earth” strategies in her desperation to stay in contention.
The trouble is that Mr Obama's efforts to suppress the race issue are doomed to failure. For the influence of Rev Wright on him is a matter of public record. Indeed, the phrase “Audacity of Hope”, which is the title of Mr Obama's political autobiography as well as his presidential leitmotif, is attributed in that book to a sermon by “my pastor, Rev Jeremiah Wright”. The Republican political machine, which demonstrated its mastery of the arts of character assassination in the two Bush presidential contests, will have no compunction in exploiting the Wright relationship and portraying Mr Obama as an anti-American in the general election, even if the Clinton campaign and the media observe a self-denying ordinance on the race and patriotism issues, as they broadly have so far.
The certainty of a no-holds-barred attacks by the Republicans brings us to the potentially most tragic aspect of this election. If ever there was an election the Democrats ought to win this is the one. Yet on the basis of the primary results so far, they are all too likely to lose it. Mr Obama may be marginally ahead of Mrs Clinton in the popular vote but the Democrats seem to have forgotten that all the votes cast so far have been by their own supporters. In the general election their candidate will have win over Republicans and right-leaning floating voters. Most of the evidence so far suggests that the Repulicans will find it much easier to frighten voters about the prospect of a President Obama than a President Clinton.
Professional Democratic politicians now have the casting vote in their party's nomination and could yet force the two candidates into a “dream ticket” led by Mrs Clinton with Mr Obama as Vice President which would sweep all before it and would probable make Mr Obama unbeatable as a presidential candidate in 2012 or 2016. Yet the Democratic superdelegates who could now secure years of hegemony for their party seem to consider it “unfair” to use their professional judgment to overturn the “democratic” verdict of primary voters.
The Republicans will have no such compunctions about the fairness of launching personal attacks against a potentially vulnerable Democratic candidate. In this respect this Presidential contest may again manifest the tragedy of left-wing politics through the ages. Parties which care more about fairness than about power, end up achieving neither.
Have your say
Neither Clinton nor Obama can win without the other? Really? Do you think two Marxists are more electable than one Marxist against a genuine experienced leader like McCain?
Sara, Pennsylvania, USA
People ask whether America is ready for a black President, but the question that America will answer is whether it will elect a particular politician. Who in modern history has been elected to that office with such a meager resume? Who has been elected with such a liberal viewpoint? No one.
David Jackson, Des Moines, USA
Mr kaletsky, could you please explain how Obama will be'' unbeatable candidat in 2012 '' will he hasn't any chance in 2008(according to you) because of his race? wil America change in between and only in 4 years time?!!!
mr K you need to convince yours valuable readers.
thanks
ossy, birmingham, w. midland
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#92270 - 04/23/08 08:39 PM
Re: President " OBAMA" it's possible......"OBAMA--08"
[Re: pressafoot]
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gizmo
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Registered: 05/28/03
Posts: 507
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I hear the race argument. It is a reality that the democratic party must consider. The question is where do you draw the line: do you send him in there to heal racial wounds at the irsk of possibly loosing the election or do you send another "white" candiate in there b/c he/she won't be susceptible to this particular weakness. On the other hand, HRC claims that there is a sexist bias...is this a weakness that should give the party pause. I think that a white woman is more palitable to racist America but even so HRC is no ordinary woman. She is divisive and filled with more scandals that the Republican smear machine can manufacture. She has not been vetted...Bill has...he's not running. (Checkout againsthillary.com) HRC may also be doing this to ransom Obama into making her VP or have him run as her VP. I believe that this is really her last chance. She's even more likely to loose in 2012 if she looses now.
Another problem for the democrats is that they may loose the black vote for a generation if they steal the nomination from Obama. Black folk is their most relaible base. Sometimes winning can be even more costly in the long run. If blacks stay home the democrats will probably not win this election or any other in the near future. So its a tough question and I am beging to feel that every day she continues her Clintonite tactics, is the more likely that she will have to be Obama's VP and that they will have to work together to stop the republican vultures from attaining victory by default.
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#92272 - 04/23/08 09:23 PM
Re: President " OBAMA" it's possible......"OBAMA--08"
[Re: gizmo]
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truetrini
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Loc: Smithfield, Virginia, U.S.A.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tU55BarQsMQ
_________________________
Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.
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#92287 - 04/24/08 05:19 AM
Re: President " OBAMA" it's possible......"OBAMA--08"
[Re: truetrini]
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pressafoot
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Another thing that the demographers suggest is that he will not get much white Roman Catholic vote.
Not sure of the Latin vote.
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#92292 - 04/24/08 06:31 AM
Re: President " OBAMA" it's possible......"OBAMA--08"
[Re: pressafoot]
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Big Mountain
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Registered: 03/26/01
Posts: 1826
Loc: Pittsburgh, PA
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The main problem is Hillary, not White folks! The last survey indicated that Americans are more ready for a Black President than a woman. The media is just starting to stir up this race issue to put doubts in the minds of the White folks. The more this race issue is mentioned, the more bleak it is for Obama. These writers and journalist are camouflaging their intentions into well written scripts with racial undertones. I hope America is smart enough to find these wolf in sheep clothing.
Hillary won racist PA & Ohio and all of a sudden Obama is in trouble? Once again, the powerful media machine is at work. Don't believe the hype!
He is leading Hillary in ALL the Polls!
He is leading McCain in ALL the Polls!
I don't think the racist old folks & dumb $hits in PA should determine this race!
_________________________
"Go tell it on the Mountain!"
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#92298 - 04/24/08 07:36 AM
Re: President " OBAMA" it's possible......"OBAMA--08"
[Re: Big Mountain]
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gizmo
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Assessing Strength in Swing States
Reflecting on her victory in the Pennsylvania primary, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday neatly summed up the chief political rationale of her enduring candidacy. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton on a flight to Washington on Tuesday after re-energizing her Democratic presidential primary campaign by beating Senator Barack Obama in Pennsylvania.
Mrs. Clinton said on CNN about her successes over Senator Barack Obama, in one of her six appearances on morning news shows. “It’s very hard to imagine a Democrat getting to the White House without winning those states.”
Mrs. Clinton says her popularity among blue-collar workers, women and Hispanics makes her the candidate to beat Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, in the swing states that decide presidential races. Along with Ohio and Pennsylvania, she also cites her success in Michigan and Florida — even though the Democratic Party disqualified those contests, and Mr. Obama was not on the Michigan ballot — to claim an edge in crucial battlegrounds.
Yet for all of her primary night celebrations in the populous states, exit polling and independent political analysts offer evidence that Mr. Obama could do just as well as Mrs. Clinton among blocs of voters with whom he now runs behind. Obama advisers say he also appears well-positioned to win swing states and believe he would have a strong shot at winning traditional Republican states like Virginia.
According to surveys of Pennsylvania voters leaving the polls on Tuesday, Mr. Obama would draw majorities of support from lower-income voters and less-educated ones — just as Mrs. Clinton would against Mr. McCain, even though those voters have favored her over Mr. Obama in the primaries.
And national polls suggest Mr. Obama would also do slightly better among groups that have gravitated to Republican in the past, like men, the more affluent and independents, while she would do slightly better among women.
Mr. Obama may lead in the national popular vote and among delegates needed to win the nomination, but his inability to “close the deal” with voters — a phrase Mrs. Clinton skewered him with Tuesday — has been widely discussed in light of the Pennsylvania results. Mr. Obama found himself on the defensive over the issue Wednesday, and he countered that the governors of Ohio and Pennsylvania had worked their political networks on behalf of Mrs. Clinton.
“Among all these groups that people have been focused on — blue-collar workers, white working-class folks — we did better in Pennsylvania than we did in Ohio, so we’re continually making progress,” Mr. Obama told reporters in Indiana, which holds its primary on May 6. “If you look at these states that I’m supposed to win, if you look at the polling, I actually do if not as well then better than Senator Clinton relative to Senator McCain.”
In recent weeks, Clinton advisers have been challenging Mr. Obama’s electability in a general election, and her victories in Ohio and Pennsylvania are perhaps her best evidence yet to argue that she is better suited to build a coalition across income, education and racial lines in closely contested states.
But the Pennsylvania exit polls, conducted by Edison/Mitofsky for five television networks and The Associated Press, underscore a point that political analysts made on Wednesday: that state primary results do not necessarily translate into general election victories.
“I think it differs state to state, and I think either Democrat will have a good chance of appealing to many Democrats who didn’t vote for them the first time,” said Peter Hart, a Democratic pollster not affiliated with either campaign. “Take Michigan. It has a Democratic governor, two Democratic senators, and many Democratic congressmen, so it’s probably going to be a pretty good state for the Democrats in a recession year.”
Mr. Hart, as well as Obama advisers, also say that Mr. Obama appears better poised than Mrs. Clinton to pick up states that Democrats struggle to carry, or rarely do, in a general election, like Colorado, Iowa, Missouri and Virginia, all of which he carried in the primaries. Obama advisers say their polling indicates he is more popular with independents, and far less divisive than Mrs. Clinton, in those states.
“Hillary goes deeper and stronger in the Democratic base than Obama, but her challenge is that she doesn’t go as wide,” Mr. Hart said. “Obama goes much further reaching into the independent and Republican vote, and has a greater chance of creating a new electoral map for the Democrats.”
Indeed, if Mr. Obama does become the first African-American nominee of a major party, the electoral landscape of the South could be transformed with the likelihood of strong turnout of black voters in Republican-leaning states like Georgia and Louisiana, which Mr. Obama carried this winter. (Mrs. Clinton has also argued that, given the Clinton roots, she could put at least Arkansas in play in the fall.)
Obama advisers have also argued that swing states like Ohio are winnable this fall because they have been increasingly leaning Democratic and have been struggling economically under President Bush. Indeed, some Obama allies hope he will pick Ohio’s popular governor, Ted Strickland, as his running mate if he wins the nomination, both to help carry Ohio and to unify the party (Mr. Strickland is supporting Mrs. Clinton).
And the record-setting voter registrations among both Democrats and independents across the nation also suggest that each candidate is capable of stirring excitement among voters in the fall and would be positioned to defend their bases of support against Mr. McCain, who is a popular figure among many independents and some Democrats.
Representative Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, a strong backer of Mr. Obama, said she believed that the thousands of new voters being drawn into the primaries would coalesce around the Democratic nominee once the candidate and the party begin to define Mr. McCain better on issues like the war.
“I think that will turn the tide for the people who are going in that direction,” Ms. DeLauro said of Democrats who have said they could not vote for Mr. Obama or Mrs. Clinton.
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#92309 - 04/24/08 10:00 AM
Re: President " OBAMA" it's possible......"OBAMA--08"
[Re: Big Mountain]
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pressafoot
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Registered: 01/13/03
Posts: 894
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Racial issues are a fact of daily life in America.
It is perhaps the most sensitive topic for public discussion in America.
White Americans are uncomfortable with it.
A couple or so generations ago in the United States there were public torture an eventual killing of mainly black men by church going folks. These were publicised in newspapers ahead of time to ensure a big crowd. People would take their family along and some would slice off an ear, a finger, a toe etc. for momento. This was then displayed in glass jars in their homes. Get in couple licks while he was tied up, jab a knife in the thigh, laugh while watching him squirm in agony.
Successive law making bodies declined to make it illegal. As recent as 1955(last century, yes) a teenaged black youth was tortured(castrated) and murdered. The charge - whisling at a white woman.
Laws were made to keep black people in their place. By design, America was set up for white men. It is written.
Why did it take so much pain and suffering by black people, to show the world their plight before Race laws were changed in America? Who benefited the most?
In some parts of India, depending on your caste you will not be allowed into certain temple to pray to the same god as the upper case.
Look at Tulsa
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#92700 - 04/29/08 12:01 PM
Re: President " OBAMA" it's possible......"OBAMA--08"
[Re: Yardman]
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ATU
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Obama says he's outraged by former pastor's comments By MIKE GLOVER, Associated Press Writer
8 minutes ago
Democrat Barack Obama said Tuesday he was outraged and appalled by the latest comments from his former pastor, who asserted that criticism of his fiery sermons is an attack on the black church and the U.S. government was responsible for the creation of the AIDS virus.
The presidential candidate is seeking to tamp down the growing fury over Rev. Jeremiah Wright and his incendiary remarks that threaten to undermine his campaign.
"I am outraged by the comments that were made and saddened by the spectacle that we saw yesterday," Obama told reporters at a news conference.
After weeks of staying out of the public eye while critics lambasted his sermons, Wright made three public appearances in four days to defend himself. The former pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago has been combative, providing colorful commentary and feeding the story Obama had hoped was dying down.
"This is not an attack on Jeremiah Wright," Wright told the Washington media Monday. "It has nothing to do with Senator Obama. It is an attack on the black church launched by people who know nothing about the African-American religious tradition."
Obama told reporters Tuesday that Wright's comments do not accurately portray the perspective of the black church.
"The person I saw yesterday was not the person that I met 20 years ago," Obama said of the man who married him.
Wright criticized the U.S. government as imperialist and stood by his suggestion that the United States invented the HIV virus as a means of genocide against minorities. "Based on this Tuskegee experiment and based on what has happened to Africans in this country, I believe our government is capable of doing anything," he said.
Obama said he heard that Wright had given "a performance" and when he watched tapes, he realized that it more than just a case of the former pastor defending himself.
"What became clear to me was that he was presenting a world view that contradicts what I am and what I stand for," Obama said.
In a highly publicized speech last month, Obama sharply condemned Wright's remarks. But he did not leave the church or repudiate the minister himself, who he said was like a family member.
On Tuesday, Obama sought to distance himself further from Wright.
"I gave him the benefit of the doubt in my speech in Philadelphia explaining that he's done enormous good. ... But when he states and then amplifies such ridiculous propositions as the U.S. government somehow being involved in AIDS. ... There are no excuses. They offended me. They rightly offend all Americans and they should be denounced."
Wright recently retired from the church. He became an issue in Obama's presidential bid when videos circulated of Wright condemning the U.S. government for allegedly racist and genocidal acts. In the videos, some several years old, Wright called on God to "damn America." He also said the government created the AIDS virus to destroy "people of color."
Obama said he didn't vet his pastor before deciding to seek the presidency. He said he was particularly distressed that the furor has been a distraction to the purpose of a campaign
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#92705 - 04/29/08 12:28 PM
Re: President " OBAMA" it's possible......"OBAMA--08"
[Re: ATU]
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pelepapa
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Registered: 07/24/03
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Wright said what he said and Obama responded that he is offended and that Wright's comments are false.
The question I ask which Wright should've asked himself is where does that leave all those black folks that were standing and applauding while Wright was making his comments? And what about the other black folks who were not there but agree with Wright? We know how black folks quick to talk bout sellout. Poor Obama, I felt sorry for him when it was Hillary and McCain ganging up on him, now he has to contend with Wright and his misguided supporters also. We know a fight is coming, the media is not going to let this die so. Who would have thunk it? Here I was thinking it was going to be a Sharpton or Jackson who were going to interject themself somehow and derail Obama's campaign.
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#92750 - 04/29/08 02:08 PM
Re: President " OBAMA" it's possible......"OBAMA--08"
[Re: pelepapa]
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ATU
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BLACK on BLACK...wow WRIGHT caught in a TRAP....
That why we need BLACK UNITY...Worldwide......
SOLIDARITY now Black Uhuru....AFRICANS UNITE...Bob Marley...
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#93206 - 05/03/08 07:00 PM
Re: President " OBAMA" it's possible......"OBAMA--08"
[Re: ATU]
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pressafoot
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Registered: 01/13/03
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White Flight!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopi...-suburb%27.html
Rev Jeremiah Wright to retire in 'white suburb'
By Philip Sherwell in New York
Last Updated: 11:40PM BST 03/05/2008
The fiery African-American pastor whose incendiary outbursts on race have dented the prospects of Barack Obama becoming the first black US president is to retire to an upmarket suburb where almost all of the residents are white.
The property will boast four bedrooms, a whirlpool, butler's pantry, elevator and four-car garage.
Grateful parishioners of Rev Jeremiah Wright, 66, are building him a $1 million, 10,400 sq ft mansion, next to a country club and golf course in the prosperous Chicago suburb of Tinley Park. In the 2000 census, just two per cent of Tinley Park’s 48,400 residents were black and 93 per cent were white.
Rev Wright built up his Chicago mega-church over 36 years on the principles of black liberation theology under the bold slogan, “Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian”, and Mr Obama was among his most enthusiastic parishioners - until he was forced to disavow him completely last week.
The Trinity United Church of Christ is located in the heart of the city’s rundown and predominantly African-American South Side, and worshippers are instructed to live by its self-proclaimed Black Value System. Among the tenets is “Disavowal of the Pursuit of 'Middleclassness’.”
But Rev Wright will not be living among his flock following his recent retirement. Instead, he is leaving them in pursuit of distinctly middle class - indeed upper-middle class - environs.
According to building plans reviewed by Chicago newspapers, Mr Wright and his wife Ramah will not be the poor relations in their new and overwhelmingly white neighbourhood. The property will boast four bedrooms, a whirlpool, butler’s pantry, elevator, exercise room, circular driveway and four-car garage.
Real estate records show that Rev Wright bought the empty land in 2004 and sold it two years later to Trinity, the current owner, which later took out a $1.6 million mortgage on the property.
During his 36 years at its helm, Rev Wright built up Trinity from a church with 87 members to a congregation of 10,000 that includes many of the most influential figures in black Chicago. By joining its ranks, Mr Obama overcame some of the local doubts he faced as the Harvard-educated son of a white woman and Kenyan man who had been brought up in Hawaii.
But his former spiritual mentor’s rants against white America are dogging his campaign. Video clips of Rev Wright bellowing “God Damn America” are expected to feature prominently in Republican attack ads if, as expected, Mr Obama secures the Democratic nomination.
Rev Wright turned Trinity into one of the most powerful and well-funded institutions in Chicago’s South Side with the help of contributions from adherents such as the Obamas who gave the church $26,000, according to their 2007 tax returns.
And in America, it is not unusual for pastors of such financially successful churches to be rewarded for their accomplishments with rather more than a carriage clock or wristwatch at retirement. It is the ethnic/racial breakdown of Rev Wright’s preferred home for his retirement years that has caused surprise.
Trinity did not respond to a request for comment by The Sunday Telegraph. The national United Church of Christ has said that it is for local congregations to decide how to spend their funds and that it is appropriate for local churches to provide housing for long-time pastors when they retire.
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#93379 - 05/05/08 11:02 AM
Re: President " OBAMA" it's possible......"OBAMA--08"
[Re: ATU]
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pressafoot
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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/opinion/04rich.html
The All-White Elephant in the Room
By FRANK RICH
Published: May 4, 2008
BORED by those endless replays of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright? If so, go directly to YouTube, search for “John Hagee Roman Church Hitler,” and be recharged by a fresh jolt of clerical jive.
Frank Rich
What you’ll find is a white televangelist, the Rev. John Hagee, lecturing in front of an enormous diorama. Wielding a pointer, he pokes at the image of a woman with Pamela Anderson-sized breasts, her hand raising a golden chalice. The woman is “the Great Whore,” Mr. Hagee explains, and she is drinking “the blood of the Jewish people.” That’s because the Great Whore represents “the Roman Church,” which, in his view, has thirsted for Jewish blood throughout history, from the Crusades to the Holocaust.
Mr. Hagee is not a fringe kook but the pastor of a Texas megachurch. On Feb. 27, he stood with John McCain and endorsed him over the religious conservatives’ favorite, Mike Huckabee, who was then still in the race.
Are we really to believe that neither Mr. McCain nor his camp knew anything then about Mr. Hagee’s views? This particular YouTube video — far from the only one — was posted on Jan. 1, nearly two months before the Hagee-McCain press conference. Mr. Hagee appears on multiple religious networks, including twice daily on the largest, Trinity Broadcasting, which reaches 75 million homes. Any 12-year-old with a laptop could have vetted this preacher in 30 seconds, tops.
Since then, Mr. McCain has been shocked to learn that his clerical ally has made many other outrageous statements. Mr. Hagee, it’s true, did not blame the American government for concocting AIDS. But he did say that God created Hurricane Katrina to punish New Orleans for its sins, particularly a scheduled “homosexual parade there on the Monday that Katrina came.”
Mr. Hagee didn’t make that claim in obscure circumstances, either. He broadcast it on one of America’s most widely heard radio programs, “Fresh Air” on NPR, back in September 2006. He reaffirmed it in a radio interview less than two weeks ago. Only after a reporter asked Mr. McCain about this Katrina homily on April 24 did the candidate brand it as “nonsense” and the preacher retract it.
Mr. McCain says he does not endorse any of Mr. Hagee’s calumnies, any more than Barack Obama endorses Mr. Wright’s. But those who try to give Mr. McCain a pass for his embrace of a problematic preacher have a thin case. It boils down to this: Mr. McCain was not a parishioner for 20 years at Mr. Hagee’s church.
That defense implies, incorrectly, that Mr. McCain was a passive recipient of this bigot’s endorsement. In fact, by his own account, Mr. McCain sought out Mr. Hagee, who is perhaps best known for trying to drum up a pre-emptive “holy war” with Iran. (This preacher’s rantings may tell us more about Mr. McCain’s policy views than Mr. Wright’s tell us about Mr. Obama’s.) Even after Mr. Hagee’s Catholic bashing bubbled up in the mainstream media, Mr. McCain still did not reject and denounce him, as Mr. Obama did an unsolicited endorser, Louis Farrakhan, at the urging of Tim Russert and Hillary Clinton. Mr. McCain instead told George Stephanopoulos two Sundays ago that while he condemns any “anti-anything” remarks by Mr. Hagee, he is still “glad to have his endorsement.”
I wonder if Mr. McCain would have given the same answer had Mr. Stephanopoulos confronted him with the graphic video of the pastor in full “Great Whore” glory. But Mr. McCain didn’t have to fear so rude a transgression. Mr. Hagee’s videos have never had the same circulation on television as Mr. Wright’s. A sonorous white preacher spouting venom just doesn’t have the telegenic zing of a theatrical black man.
Perhaps that’s why virtually no one has rebroadcast the highly relevant prototype for Mr. Wright’s fiery claim that 9/11 was America’s chickens “coming home to roost.” That would be the Sept. 13, 2001, televised exchange between Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, who blamed the attacks on America’s abortionists, feminists, gays and A.C.L.U. lawyers. (Mr. Wright blamed the attacks on America’s foreign policy.) Had that video re-emerged in the frenzied cable-news rotation, Mr. McCain might have been asked to explain why he no longer calls these preachers “agents of intolerance” and chose to cozy up to Mr. Falwell by speaking at his Liberty University in 2006.
None of this is to say that two wacky white preachers make a Wright right. It is entirely fair for any voter to weigh Mr. Obama’s long relationship with his pastor in assessing his fitness for office. It is also fair to weigh Mr. Obama’s judgment in handling this personal and political crisis as it has repeatedly boiled over. But whatever that verdict, it is disingenuous to pretend that there isn’t a double standard operating here. If we’re to judge black candidates on their most controversial associates — and how quickly, sternly and completely they disown them — we must judge white politicians by the same yardstick.
When Rudy Giuliani, still a viable candidate, successfully courted Pat Robertson for an endorsement last year, few replayed Mr. Robertson’s greatest past insanities. Among them is his best-selling 1991 tome, “The New World Order,” which peddled some of the same old dark conspiracy theories about “European bankers” (who just happened to be named Warburg, Schiff and Rothschild) that Mr. Farrakhan has trafficked in. Nor was Mr. Giuliani ever seriously pressed to explain why his cronies on the payroll at Giuliani Partners included a priest barred from the ministry by his Long Island diocese in 2002 following allegations of sexual abuse. Much as Mr. Wright officiated at the Obamas’ wedding, so this priest officiated at (one of) Mr. Giuliani’s. Did you even hear about it?
There is not just a double standard for black and white politicians at play in too much of the news media and political establishment, but there is also a glaring double standard for our political parties. The Clintons and Mr. Obama are always held accountable for their racial stands, as they should be, but the elephant in the room of our politics is rarely acknowledged: In the 21st century, the so-called party of Lincoln does not have a single African-American among its collective 247 senators and representatives in Washington. Yes, there are appointees like Clarence Thomas and Condi Rice, but, as we learned during the Mark Foley scandal, even gay men may hold more G.O.P. positions of power than blacks.
A near half-century after the civil rights acts of the 1960s, this is quite an achievement. Yet the holier-than-thou politicians and pundits on the right passing shrill moral judgment over every Democratic racial skirmish are almost never asked to confront or even acknowledge the racial dysfunction in their own house. In our mainstream political culture, this de facto apartheid is simply accepted as an intractable given, unworthy of notice, and just too embarrassing to mention aloud in polite Beltway company. Those who dare are instantly accused of “political correctness” or “reverse racism.”
An all-white Congressional delegation doesn’t happen by accident. It’s the legacy of race cards that have been dealt since the birth of the Southern strategy in the Nixon era. No one knows this better than Mr. McCain, whose own adopted daughter of color was the subject of a vicious smear in his party’s South Carolina primary of 2000.
This year Mr. McCain has called for a respectful (i.e., non-race-baiting) campaign and has gone so far as to criticize (ineffectually) North Carolina’s Republican Party for running a Wright-demonizing ad in that state’s current primary. Mr. McCain has been posing (awkwardly) with black people in his tour of “forgotten” America. Speaking of Katrina in New Orleans, he promised that “never again” would a federal recovery effort be botched on so grand a scale.
This is all surely sincere, and a big improvement over Mitt Romney’s dreams of his father marching with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Up to a point. Here, too, there’s a double standard. Mr. McCain is graded on a curve because the G.O.P. bar is set so low. But at a time when the latest Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll shows that President Bush is an even greater drag on his popularity than Mr. Wright is on Mr. Obama’s, Mr. McCain’s New Orleans visit is more about the self-interested politics of distancing himself from Mr. Bush than the recalibration of policy.
Mr. McCain took his party’s stingier line on Katrina aid and twice opposed an independent commission to investigate the failed government response. Asked on his tour what should happen to the Ninth Ward now, he called for “a conversation” about whether anyone should “rebuild it, tear it down, you know, whatever it is.” Whatever, whenever, never mind.
For all this primary season’s obsession with the single (and declining) demographic of white working-class men in Rust Belt states, America is changing rapidly across all racial, generational and ethnic lines. The Census Bureau announced last week that half the country’s population growth since 2000 is due to Hispanics, another group understandably alienated from the G.O.P.
Anyone who does the math knows that America is on track to become a white-minority nation in three to four decades. Yet if there’s any coherent message to be gleaned from the hypocrisy whipped up by Hurricane Jeremiah, it’s that this nation’s perennially promised candid conversation on race has yet to begin.
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#93459 - 05/06/08 03:37 AM
Re: President " OBAMA" it's possible......"OBAMA--08"
[Re: pressafoot]
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ATU
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Registered: 10/27/00
Posts: 3185
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Today's primary could finally see the candidate for the Democratic party for President ........
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#93538 - 05/06/08 05:32 PM
Re: President " OBAMA" it's possible......"OBAMA--08"
[Re: Yardman]
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ATU
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Registered: 10/27/00
Posts: 3185
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By DAVID ESPO and LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writers 12 minutes ago
INDIANAPOLIS - Barack Obama swept to victory in the North Carolina primary on Tuesday but fell behind Hillary Rodham Clinton in Indiana, the last big-delegate prizes left in their long race for the Democratic presidential nomination. Obama's win mirrored earlier triumphs in Southern states with large black populations, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana and South Carolina among them.
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That made Indiana a virtual must-win Midwestern state for the former first lady, who was hoping to counter Obama's persistent delegate advantage with a strong run through the late primaries.
Returns from 40 percent of Indiana precincts showed Clinton with 56 percent of the vote to 44 percent for Obama.
In North Carolina, Obama was gaining 64 percent of the vote.
The economy was the top issue by far in both states, according to interviews with voters as they left their polling places.
Indiana exit polls charted a racial divide that has become familiar in a long, historic campaign pitting a black man against a white woman.
Obama was gaining more than 90 percent of the black vote in Indiana, while Clinton was winning an estimated 61 percent of the white vote there, running ahead of her rival among white men as well as women.
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#93539 - 05/06/08 05:49 PM
Re: President " OBAMA" it's possible......"OBAMA--08"
[Re: ATU]
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ATU
Member
Registered: 10/27/00
Posts: 3185
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WASHINGTON - Race again played a pivotal role in Tuesday's Democratic presidential clashes, as whites in Indiana and North Carolina leaned solidly toward Hillary Rodham Clinton and blacks voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama, exit polls showed. Half the voters said they were influenced by the focus on Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
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Obama, the Illinois senator who is battling to become the first black president, again failed to make an appreciable dent in a crucial voting bloc that has consistently eluded him — working-class whites.
According to preliminary results from the exit polls, two-thirds of whites in both states who have not completed college were supporting Clinton, which the New York senator can use to fortify her argument that she would be the stronger Democratic candidate in the November general election. Of 28 states that have held primaries in which she and Obama competed before Tuesday, Clinton has prevailed with working-class white voters in 25 of them.
Wright was a looming factor in the voting, with half in each state saying he was important in choosing a candidate. Of that group, seven in 10 in Indiana and six in 10 in North Carolina backed Clinton, including eight in 10 whites. Those discounting him as a factor heavily favored Obama.
Wright has said the U.S. government may have developed the AIDS virus to infect blacks and that the U.S. invited the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Obama has denounced the remarks.
Overall, six in 10 whites in both Indiana and North Carolina were supporting Clinton — similar to her margin over Obama among whites nationally so far.
Obama's poor performances among working-class whites could prove troubling for him as he attempts to win over top Democratic officials, the superdelegates, who may decide who gets the party's nomination. Clinton has argued that her strength with this group makes her the stronger candidate for the fall campaign. Obama's campaign argues he will do well with those voters in the fall.
Nine in 10 blacks in both states were backing Obama — a typical margin for him. That proved decisive in North Carolina, where they comprised about a third of voters — double their proportion in Indiana.
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#93630 - 05/07/08 07:45 PM
Re: President " OBAMA" it's possible......"OBAMA--08"
[Re: ATU]
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pressafoot
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Registered: 01/13/03
Posts: 894
Loc: NYC, NY, USA
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Dow Jones down <1.5% today ..
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#93634 - 05/07/08 07:54 PM
Re: President " OBAMA" it's possible......"OBAMA--08"
[Re: pressafoot]
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Big Mountain
Member
Registered: 03/26/01
Posts: 1826
Loc: Pittsburgh, PA
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I am not sure why there is such a big focus on working class white voters. These dumb hilly billies always vote republican anyway so why should Obama's electability be measured by these conservative racists who would never vote for a democrat anyway. These are the typical red state voters!
_________________________
"Go tell it on the Mountain!"
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#93636 - 05/07/08 07:58 PM
Re: President " OBAMA" it's possible......"OBAMA--08"
[Re: pressafoot]
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G.
Member
Registered: 07/13/01
Posts: 2969
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and Hill out by $6.4M
Is she giving her accountant some money to wind things down, payoff bills and layoff staff?
That would be a good move since I expect a woleep a super delegates declaring for Obama soon soon
In other news crude near $124
GoldSachs seh look for $200/barrel
gas $4+ a gallon now, $5 come July?
and a looking a 3rd job jus fi grocery money
PS
Mi 2nd job is jus fi gas money
_________________________
The ites dem wanna tek di Ras to rehab but im seh noo noo noo
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#93642 - 05/07/08 09:30 PM
Re: President " OBAMA" it's possible......"OBAMA--08"
[Re: Big Mountain]
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cruyff14
Member
Registered: 07/23/00
Posts: 5720
Loc: Mandeville
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I am not sure why there is such a big focus on working class white voters. These dumb hilly billies always vote republican anyway so why should Obama's electability be measured by these conservative racists who would never vote for a democrat anyway. These are the typical red state voters!
. . .what a 'dumb' analysis  . You do realize that your hero won more 'working class whites' than Daddy-Bush or Dole did right?
_________________________
Sic Luceat Lux
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