What Did He Do to be So Black and Blue? Obama and the Race Card
This year should be a perfect storm for a Democratic presidential candidate, particularly one with the rhetorical gifts of Barack Obama. McCain has literally every indicator political scientists enter into their models to predict electoral success or defeat working against him: He has repeatedly allied himself with the most unpopular president since the history of modern polling, describing Bush in 2006 as one of our greatest presidents and musing about having Dick Cheney in a McCain cabinet (two facts the Obama campaign has failed to advertise). He has embraced the most unpopular war since Vietnam. And in the summer before the election, the economy is arguably in its worst shape since the Great Depression, with American families spending a greater percentage of their income on basic necessities, home foreclosures at their zenith, and the ratio of job loss to job creation at its highest since the 1930s.
And those are just the beginning of McCain's problems. Every time he panders to the right he turns off moderates, and every time he takes a moderate position he reinforces the view on the right that he is not a "true conservative" and depresses voter turnout from his base And finally, whether the stress of tacking right and left so many times over the last two years has taken the wind out of his sails or whether he's just gotten too old and tired to take on the rigors of a presidential campaign, he has lost the sparkle that once drew many moderates and even many liberals to him, while running against the most charismatic leader to emerge on the political scene since Bill Clinton.
Yet now John McCain is tied with Obama in the Gallup polls, in a dead heat in the mid 40s for the third consecutive day.
McCain's Only Road to Victory
As I argued several weeks ago in The New Republic, with the winds so strongly blowing against him, the only road John McCain can take to Pennsylvania Avenue is one of the few pieces of infrastructure left in good repair by the Bush administration: the low road. And in the intervening weeks he has made precisely the staff changes in his campaign necessary to turn that road into a superhighway, by hiring a team of Rove acolytes, and has begun to implement exactly the strategies characteristic of a Rove campaign. And they are working.
1. Attack his opponent's great strength. For Kerry, it was his military heroism. For Obama, it is his charisma. This week McCain, with a strong assist from the media and an Obama campaign apparently on vacation, turned an extraordinary foreign success into Paris Hilton celebrity and an illustration of how Obama is arrogant, cocky, and too big for his britches, acting like a president when he's just a nominee. (The fact is, of course, that he did exactly what McCain did, but for Obama, people showed up.)
2. Identify a wedge issue. Now that gays have lost their luster and Republicans have started to worry that too much immigrant-bashing will lead to a permanent Democratic majority as the country becomes increasingly brown, Republicans found a perfect issue in an election year in which the Democratic presidential candidate is black: affirmative action. The GOP has gotten the issue on the ballot in a handful of states, including McCain's home state of Arizona, and McCain suddenly last weekend "saw the light" and changed his position, now supporting the initiative banning affirmative action in Arizona, having previously called such efforts divisive. No one called him on it as far as I know. Now today's New York Times reports that Obama wrote as a law student in the Harvard Law Review that he was a beneficiary of affirmative action.
3. Brand Obama as effete, out of touch, outside the mainstream, different, foreign, not one of "us." This is the same strategy used effectively against every Democrat other than Clinton since Dukakis.
The Ties that Bind, the Ties that Divide
Against the perfect storm of an unpopular incumbent, an unpopular war, and an economy that has led banks to close and millions to lose their jobs and homes, McCain's campaign is creating a perfect counter-storm. Each element described above draws power on its own from the worst in our nature--the prejudice, hate, contempt, and stereotyping that have become the bread and butter of Republican campaigns for four decades, intensified since the entry of Lee Atwater and then Karl Rove onto the national scene. But just beneath the surface of each of these elements--enough below to allow plausible deniability ("there's gambling in this establishment?")--is the tie that binds them: race.
Obama's extraordinary capacity to meet with world leaders on an equal footing wasn't presidential, the story goes, even though McCain goaded him into the trip, assuming he would look and be treated like a novice. Instead, his confidence, competence, and Kennedy-like star-power became an example of his not knowing his place. (Does the term "uppity" come to mind?)
The focus on affirmative action divides the nation along racial lines by combining prejudice with legitimate grievances about the way affirmative action was implemented over the years (e.g., through quotas) and by the disastrous tendency of many on the left to drive white working class men out of the Democratic Party since 1964 (the last time white men voted Democratic nationally) by referring to them universally as privileged, when their experience of punching a timecard or working in a coal mine or an assembly plant belies that epithet and rightfully enrages them. But affirmative action is a particularly powerful tool in this election year as a stealth attack, because it activates unconscious sentiments that will likely come to an occasional conscious boil: Is Obama an affirmative action candidate, who didn't really earn his place on the ticket but was just placed there by zealous liberals (an idea unfortunately voiced consciously in the primary season by Geraldine Ferraro, and no by the words penned by his own hand as a law student)? Is he going to favor black people as president, or as described "colorfully" in a message circulating on the Internet, "paint the White House black?"
And branding Obama as different, "unknown" (despite two years of intense scrutiny and two books that reveal his inner thoughts, some of them very personal--and hardly what a 33-year-old black man aspiring to the presidency would reveal), outside the mainstream, and "not sharing our values" keeps his blackness at a heightened state of unconscious activation in the mind and brain of the voter. The purpose of the Muslim smear that began nearly two years ago on the Internet, like the purpose of conservative commentators' constantly using his middle name and Fox's repeated confusions of "Obama" and "Osama," was surely never to convince voters that he was Muslim, which its purveyors had to know would eventually be exposed as untrue (although the Obama campaign's choice to read from the Democratic playbook and let insidious attacks fester for as long as possible rather than addressing them head on didn't help with the plurality of voters convinced by them by February or the 10 percent of the population who believe them to this day, even after watching the "endless loop" of clips of Reverend Wright).
The purpose of that smear was to lay the groundwork for making Obama "them" instead of "us" (with the added benefit of connecting the unconscious dots between black and Muslim, reminding an older generation of a different kind of Muslim terrorist threat from within). And it has succeeded, creating a large percentage of the population, including many traditionally Democratic voters, who voice sentiments such as "something about him just makes me uneasy," or "I don't feel like I really know him," that bind together these nagging doubts about him with unconscious negative attitudes toward African-Americans they may consciously eschew--and mean it. The data from psychology and neuroscience are clear that even people who are consciously opposed to discrimination--which is most Americans--may hold negative unconscious attitudes toward African-Americans, reflecting the images they see on television, personal encounters, or the residues of an era past in which the only role for blacks was in low-level service jobs, and that make the image of a black president difficult, if largely unconsciously, for older white voters.
The Architecture of a Stealth Campaign
Recent history--as recent as the midterm election of 2006, when Congressman Harold Ford went down to defeat in a race-baited campaign for Senate in Tennessee against a white candidate whose stump speech and advertising centered on the question, "Who's the real Tennessean?"--suggests that Democratic "politics as usual" (i.e., when something unpleasant comes up, avoid it and talk about Social Security and Medicare) does not disarm these kinds of stealth racial appeals. Nor do facts. We can expect conservative 527 groups to unleash a series of ads that use Obama's own words and voice from his extraordinary autobiography, Dreams from my Father, against him to drive home both his differentness and his blackness. Television listeners will hear passages describing the pilgrimage he made to Africa to solidify his identity as a young man, or the fact that his father was a polygamist (perhaps that will make Mitt Romney an acceptable running mate for McCain), or that his grandfather in Africa was a convert to Islam. This is the stuff of great superficial media coverage, as each new ad unfolds, drawing endless discussions from pundits about how it will affect the average white American.
It is in this context that the McCain campaign made its impressive tactical strike this week, accusing Obama of "playing the race card" when he began inoculating voters against the racially tinged attacks that have been coming his way for two years and that right-wing media consultants have already telegraphed will be coming in full force at the appropriate moment (say, October, or during the Democratic Convention). The McCain campaign's move was intended to put Obama's campaign on the defensive, allow McCain to cry foul in the future (and win votes from incredulous and indignant whites about a black man in a position of power complaining about racism) anytime McCain brings up a racially divisive issue like affirmative action, and to "remind" voters that it was Obama who injected race into the campaign as he denounces the inevitable 527 ads to come that will play on Obama's blackness. McCain's new team has some very good chess players, and they thought several moves ahead. They were obviously waiting for this chance since Obama successfully inoculated against and foreshadowed future stealth attacks with his humorous remark a few weeks ago that "They're going to try to make you afraid of me. He's young and inexperienced and he's got a funny name. And did I mention he's black?"
McCain and his advisors know that McCain can't be the one to run ads that cross the race line, at least not blatantly the way George H.W. Bush did with the infamous Willie Horton ad. But he can lay the groundwork for those attacks, and he already has. His first ad of the general election, a biographical spot called "The American President," had all the trappings of a positive, inspirational piece. But both its name and its final line--"John McCain: The American president Americans have been waiting for"--suggest a more insidious subtext. What other kind of president is there? An un-American president? An anti-American president? An African-American president?
When you hear unusual syntax in a Republican ad, you know the goal is something other than the conscious text. Why didn't the ad end with the grammatically expectable tagline, "John McCain: The president Americans have been waiting for"? For the same reason that the "Harold, Call Me Ad" (whose creator McCain hired within weeks of the successful race-baiting ad against Harold Ford in Tennessee) ended that ad with the syntactically peculiar words (written in white against a black screen): "Harold Ford. He's just not right." (Figure out what the brain alternatives the brain is activating as it is trying to process that sentence.)
McCain's campaign has recently followed this "positive" ad with a series of attacks ads with a similar theme: "Country First," which now appears not only in his ads (which end, "John McCain: Country First") but also in his stump speeches, letters exhorting conservatives to give to his campaign, and the banners behind him as he speaks. On the surface, of course, only a paranoid could see something insidious about his advertising that he puts his country first, right? But half of branding is identifying a tagline that differentiates a "product" from its competitors, and a political campaign run by understudies of Karl Rove does not select its taglines without maximizing bang for the buck. How does that tagline distinguish the two candidates? What is the implicit contrast with Obama? Who or what would he put first as president?
Only a few weeks have passed since McCain substituted Rove operatives for the campaign team that gave him a small speech with a small audience against a putrid green background as Obama prepared to deliver a larger than life speech with a larger than life audience as the backdrop on the evening he clinched the nomination. The change is obvious, and it has yielded dividends. After an extraordinary week abroad that led Obama to surge to a 9-point lead in the polls, McCain's team managed, with the help of a relentlessly carping media (bending over backward not to be "biased" by showing people responding to Obama in ways they do not respond to McCain), to convince voters that they hadn't seen what they'd just seen with their own eyes, that everyone from European, Arab, and Israeli leaders to our own troops in Iraq were embracing Barack Obama as the breath of fresh American air that he is after eight years of bully diplomacy and revolving door military service--and to belittle the trip as mere "celebrity." Within days, Obama's lead evaporated, even though he had just answered the main question voters have consciously had about him, voiced in Hillary's 3am ad and McCain's relentless and often condescending taunts: Does he have the right stuff to be the leader of the free world?
Is There an Antidote?
The question, of course, is whether there is an antidote to what has come and what lies ahead in the racial minefield of the 2008 election. I believe there is, but it runs against the instincts of most Democratic consultants, which is to duck for cover and change the subject when uncomfortable elephants are in the room. What Obama and his team need to do more than all else is to resist the temptation to run away from talking honestly about race or speak about issues related to it euphemistically.
Most Americans are not overt racists. But virtually all of us have internalized images and ideas that we may consciously disavow--as when our hearts beat a little faster when a young black man is approaching us on a dark street. Our better angels on race are our conscious values. Most Americans consciously detest racism, and they aren't simply lying to themselves or to pollsters. The more Barack Obama can fight this battle on the conscious battlefield, where virtually all Americans oppose discrimination on the basis of arbitrary characteristics such as race, the more he will win the hearts and minds of the American people and the more they will feel they know and can trust him. The more he shows white rural voters and white working class males that he isn't afraid to talk about his color, that he isn't afraid to talk about what it was like to grow up with a white mom and white working class grandparents but to have a black face, that he understands what it's like to feel tough economic times because he's lived through those times and because he worked for years to help workers who'd seen their plant doors shutter, that he isn't afraid to talk about both affirmative action and extending it to kids from poor rural schools regardless of their color, that he isn't afraid to talk about his values and his hopes for his two children because they're the same values and hopes most Americans share for their kids, that he isn't afraid to take stands that are unpopular but is willing to talk about why he is taking them, the more he will earn their trust.
And he needs to make clear to those same voters that he understands that if they want to know who he is and wonder whether he understands people like them, that's perfectly reasonable. Sure, he may have a higher bar to cross for some because of his color--just as a white politician might at first have to prove himself to black people he wants to represent--but that that doesn't make them racists with KKK hoods in the back of their cars. He needs to learn the lessons of his own magnificent speech in Philadelphia, which, as poll number showed (contrary to media chatter), was not "over the heads" of the millions of Americans who saw an American politician, and an African-American one at that, speak openly about both prejudice and legitimate grievances on both sides, like the fear and anger of white parents whose children were bused to parts of town that would make any reasonable parent afraid, including the parents who have to rear their children there.
So how could Obama have responded to McCain's claim that his warning that the Republicans were going to try to make him out to be different, scary, and not like the faces on our currency (a great line, if you ask me) constituted "playing the race card" and "dealing from the bottom of the deck"? I won't presume to speak in Barack Obama's voice. Only he can do that, and God knows, he has an extraordinary voice, especially on this issue, as anyone knows who has read Dreams from My Father. But suppose he said something like this:
Senator McCain, I don't presume to know what's in your heart. I don't presume to know why you were in the minority even in your party in voting against the Martin Luther King holiday, any more than I presume to know what you were thinking when you and President Bush were eating birthday cake at your home in Arizona when people were hanging from the rooftops--not just black people--in New Orleans during Katrina. I don't presume to know what was in your heart when you suddenly reversed course this week from supporting affirmative action programs aimed at giving people who are willing to work hard a hand up and not a handout, to suddenly supporting a ballot initiative in your home state that would set the clock back 40 years, when you had previously described those ballot initiatives as thinly veiled efforts to divide American against American.
But I'll tell you what I do know. Your party has used race to try to divide us in every election since 1968. You have personally attacked my patriotism, and you're not going to do it again. You've spoken to me in patronizing ways that frankly a man of your limited knowledge of the issues that confront the American people--who can't even keep straight who the warring factions are in the Middle East, which is supposedly your strong suit, and who is so out of touch on the economy that his first response to the mortgage crisis was to blame it on the victims of unscrupulous lenders--has no business doing, and you will not speak to me that way again. You and your wife have attacked my character and the character of my wife, and I suggest you not try that again, because that is a road you do not want to go down. I have always assumed that you were a man of honor, but frankly, your relentlessly negative attacks on me and your indifference to the truth is starting to make a lot of Americans wonder. For a man who said he wanted to run an honorable campaign, how many weeks and how many phone calls from Karl Rove did it take you to find the low road?My comments were intended simply to warn the American people not to be taken in by efforts to paint me as different, as outside the mainstream, as not like them, as not sharing their values, because they are attempts to divide Americans in a way that is un-American. No more, no less. Do I think you or your Republican allies will use my race to try to drive that point home? It's already been done. Did Fox News ever refer to your wife as your "Baby Mama?" And what exactly did your surrogate, Terry Hill, mean last week when he described me on national television as "more politician than he is American"?
Senator, I believe we are one nation, under God, indivisible, and I will do everything in my power as president, and in this campaign, to keep it that way. I suggest you aspire to the same standard. That's what I believe it means to be an American.
The goal of a response like this is not to answer a charge that is nothing but a smokescreen for an attempt to inject race into the race under the guise of attacking such tactics. It makes McCain and the fire he is lighting the issue, and it changes the focus of media attention from Obama's statement to McCain's statement, record, and history.
It has been 40 years since such an eloquent voice has emerged on race as the voice of Barack Obama. He and his campaign should have more faith in his capacity to use it.
Drew Westen, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at Emory University, founder of Westen Strategies, and author of "The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation," recently released in paperback with a new postscript on the 2008 primaries.
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I am convinced that Barack will win the popular vote and lose the electoral college like Gore in 2000. He will take the urban population centers in he Northeast, California, New York, his homestate. But McCain will run up the electoral votes in the South and the West. With a racist campaign, you can't win in Montana, the Dakota's, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado and so on.
Barack WILL WIN the presidency and it won't be close. Count on it!
The reality of it is it does not matter what Obama says about himself you will have people who want to believe the bad about him because it just makes them feel better. What Obama needs too do is stick with the issues and let McCain waddle in the mud. Because all of this negativity will back fire on him. The louder he speaks of negative Obama should speak louder about the issues. That is what's going to be McCain's downfall. Don't let McCain disctate the debate.
Unfortunately, Obama's best strategy is out of his hands. The best case scenario for him would be for the MSM and MSB(Main stream blogosphere, like you) would refuse to take the bait, if they would choose to cover issues and policy instead of turning this into a low brow charade as they have every campaign since the sixties. But they, and you, won't. It's way easier to talk about race, scandal, and gossip, and being the laziest most self-promoting people on earth, that is where they will go.
Both candidates are talking about the issues, it is the press, and too often yellow blogs like this who could be so much more, that choose to focus the debate on trivia.
Like Orangutans in to small a space, they throw feces at each other for hours and then wonder how the cage got so dirty.
How about your next article be a comparison of economic, social, energy, or foreign policy positions taken by candidates,(Leave your opinion out please.)
That, would be Mr. Obama's best strategy!
The situation is a little complicated, but not that unpredictable. McCain, the guy who voted against MLK Day being a national holiday, cries crocodile tears every time Obama raises the fact that McCain's side is playing the race card. McCain makes sure that neither he, nor those officially tied to his campaign (for the most part) will say anything racist. But at the same time, a withering, dishonest fire of racism is being directed at Obama by those who support McCain. Everything from Obama being a Moslem to his supporting reparations to his having a Black radical history just gets repeated everywhere, over and over and over again. And when Obama responds that attack is coming at him from supporters of McCain, McCain cries the crocodile tears, trying to play to Whites who believe they've been "reverse discriminated" against by Blacks. So if Obama defends himselrf, McCain attacks him for playing the race card and if he doesn't defend himself he gets attacked dishonestly everywhere.
The answer -- ignore the Scarboroughs, Buchanan's and other Dixiecrat pundit vermin (including even people like Barnicle who's generally better on most things, but is still transparently racist). Obama should make the economic points he's making and he'll win the Reagan Democrats who are worried more about economics than they are racist, but lose the Dixiecrats (whom he won't get anyway) who are more racist than worried about their hard times.
People get it.
It is no great bit of wisdom to say that most people search out information that supports their already established views rather than struggle with information that does not. For Obama not to respond to the McCain charge of playing the race card leaves people to rest easy with the views they already hold and not to disturb themselves with the challenge for change the history of our racial attitudes require. Obama's comment about not looking like the people on our paper currency was taken by most to have a racial component to it. The McCain people booed it, the Obama people defended it. But the plain truth sitting there for all to see is the fact that there is a long list of groups whose faces are not represented on those bills of exchange: no women, no Asians, no Latinos, no Native Americans, no Jews. So why do the McCain people try and keep our attention limited to African-Americans as indicative of a race card being played? The answer: the McCain people really dont want change except as they can control it for their own purposes. People dont just get it. It would not have taken us so long to where we are as a country (Civil War, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, lynchings, affiirmative action etc) if all we had to do was rely on people to draw their own just (Constitutional) conclusions. Obama has to make the arguments for people to understand change they can believe in.
In reading your comment, I realize mine was weaker than I meant it to be. I agree with you the anti-racism arguments have to be made vigorously -- I meant he needn't worry about how people like Scarborough and Buchanan paint it.
Wallace in 1972 tried to unite white working class voters in the North with Dixiecrat Whties in the South and had a fair amont of success doing so. Nixon, Reagan and the Republicans capitalized on that and expanded it into the Southern strategy. But northern and mid-Western White workers, though still having deep racist feelings, react more to the assault on their living conditions the Republicans have visited on them than on their feelings of racism. They know Blacks are not what caused the deterioration of their living conditions. The majority of Southern Whites are another story. They'are still defending the slavery flag and doing the bidding of Southern bosses who benefit from racism. They switched from Democrats (actually Dixiecrats) to Republcans as a result of the civil rights movement and continued to vote stupid. Not enough of them have changed yet.
But it shouldn't only be Obama challenging McCain's racist campaign. There should be other White Dems out there pointing out all of the racist things being dishonestly broadcast everywhere about Obama. Obama's campaign should be primarily economic, with a defense similar to the one he made about the dollar bills every once in awhile.
What is the problem here? The Republicans have only one playbook and they use it every four years. Attack your opponent on his/her strength and make that opponent totally unacceptable to the public. When is the last time they won a national election based on their ability to deliver a better life for average Americans? Has everyone been living through the past 8 years as I have? Are we really so afraid of a President Obama that we would implausibly vote to continue the road we're on with a no idea McCain?
Democrats knew what was coming. We have right on our side. Now we need some guts. And a little objectivity from the media. The myth is that the media won't attack or criticize Obama. The truth is that the media retains a hands-off policy on anything that reflects negatively on McCain.
This article is absolutely excellent, and I hope it crosses the desk of Obama and his advisors. This campaign is going to be a brutal fight, and Obama is not going to be able to "rise above it" and ignore McCain's attacks. He's going to have to anticipate them and address them head on. Some of his staff should closely study the last two elections and the failed strategies of Gore and Kerry.
He should also study Clinton's successes. And Obama needs to stick close to home on the issues of the economy and health care. "I am one of you, I care about you, and I am going to fight for you" is the message Obama must get across--to every American. By the way--go ahead and call them liars. Take the attack to them and call them liars. They are liars. Call them "liars", Obama. And attack Bush! Take the fight to them!
I expect some nasty, disgusting, blatantly racist ads and comments from McCain, his campaign, and his supporters to come real soon...lot
A very thoughtful and forward thinking comment.
I thought the author made solid points. The Rovian tactic being pointed out is based on using a subtle code, crafted to elicit an emotional response that the listener thinks comes from a rational basis, but in fact plays on racial fears. These guys are good, far too skilled to get caught saying something obvious about race. Attempts to characterize Obama as somehow "less American" than McCain would never work if he were a WASP.
What I find most troublesome about the recent back and forth with McCain and Obama is the statement that McCain released about "playing the race card" and "dealing from the bottom of the deck".
Why hasn't anyone in the media picked up on this?
"Not only did we play the race card, but we dealt from the bottom of the deck" was how Robert Shapiro described the O.J. Simpson trial. This was a very famous quote of his.
So, McCain's people are quoting the O.J. Simpson trial to describe Obama?
I'd say it was a coincidence, but who knows.
omg, i wish the msm would state this when they discuss the ad, although, thankfully, i think the prattle on this is almost over.
Talk about stirring the pot. Thanks for that information--I wasn't even aware that McCain's campaign was linking Obama with OJ, the symbol of black racism for most white people. And to think that no reporters in the MSM noticed that or thought it newsworthy.
Bill Clinton is an intelligently brilliant politician who anticipates the outcome of his words before they are spoken. Consequently, in light of John McCain’s recent accusation that Barack Obama played the race card- President Clinton’s re-injection of the topic is a calculated ploy to paint Obama as having a penchant for exploiting the race card against his Opponents.
Clinton’s comment was intended to inflict willful harm to Obama’s campaign and it highlights a festering ill will harbored by the ex-President towards the Democratic nominee. No wonder the Illinois Senator’s supporters reject the idea of Hillary Clinton as the Vice President. Clearly such a move can be argued as the equivalent of hiring an arsonist in the fire department.
Uh . . . so you are blaming Clinton because the Republicans are using a whispering and innuendo campaign against a half-African candidate with almost no national experience whose name is a compound of Hussein and something that sounds like Osama? This was so predictable--in fact I recall saying to a member of my family that his name would be a huge problem for him. If you think of it, the candidate with the more normal, American, solid-sounding name usually wins. Doesn't hurt if it has a tough Clint-like "t" in it. So Clinton beat Bush and Carter beat Ford. By this standard Dukakis's loss was almost preordained. Basically, despite his fan club--and he still could win by that alone--Obama is a very weak candidate, even by Democratic standards. I like the guy, and he's very smooth, but he doesn't really seem to stand for anything except cave-ins on FISA and nuclear power. He out-triangulated Hillary! Anyway, he needs to speak soon and plainly on energy policy. Right now he's being flat-footed badly, of course with the help of the media.
What are you posting about? I'm curious.
Flying charges of racism are so bad for our national dialogue. America needs to grow up and get ready for Obama to be president; which means accepting criticism of Obama without retorting with charges of racism.
I refuse to believe Ed Rendell, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, and others are racists. What seems to be more likely is the traditional attacks on politicians (weak, inexperience, naive, etc) have all become racial "code-words".
I don't want a president I can’t criticize because of his race. Obama will brush off these attacks - we dont need to over react and start labeling everyone racists. I mean seriously, Clinton is in Africa this week --- but he's a racist. Cool it down.
Great point. If Obama loses, the Clintons must shoulder a fair share of the blame, from Hillary's convincing her supporters that it would be dangerous to support him to Bill's bringing racism up in this context.
The msm keeps saying how she's doing everything she should, but it doesn't look that way to many Americans.
saltysea: "If Obama loses, the Clintons must shoulder a fair share of the blame ..."
This is absolute nonsense. Don't you rabid Obama supporters accept responsibility when Obama screws up major as he did with FISA, not to mention off-shore drilling and death for rape in "certain circumstances" etc etc etc? Obama did play the race card with his remarks about presidents and dollar bills. His ego was flying too high and he believed he could get away with it and now it's come back to slap him in the face. Maybe he's received that good dose of reality check he deserves.
Sure, Bill Clinton made some remarks that could be perceived as racist but Obama's surrpogates played the sexist card against Hillary Clinton and many of his supporters, like you, continue to flay her as if she's responsible for all of Obama's woes, when in fact he has no one to blame but himself. If he loses, it's Obama's fault and not Clinton's and no one elses', He's made a mess of his campaign and especially with his turn-around on FISA which he promised to filibuster but instead voted for. Now FISA is with us to stay! It's forever and we can thank the likes of Obama and all those who voted for it. When are alledged progressives going to realize that Obama is not one of them. To even vote in this election makes me ill.
Several times a day I waver as to whether O will win in a blow out or actually lose. My problem is the older I get the more I realize just how stupid so many of my fellow Americans really are. Racism is a problem, but it isn't the only problem. Voters will fall for any lying attack ad, they'll listen to rumors and will never do any research to find out if it's true or not. It's scary. We think we're so advanced and educated, yet we vote but won't use any intelligent reasoning when we elect our President.
I identify with your sentiments completely. Campaign workers here in Easton PA area are trying hard to provide information in a cohesive, comprehensive, but compact way. It's not easy getting people to actually read! I continue to be flabbergasted by people who - especially NOW - are willing to believe whatever is convenient to their preconceived notions.
Don't worry ... most Americans will come to their senses and vote for McCain.
so will Checkoslovakians
What I heard Obama say is "they" not "McCain" when dealing with the race issue. "They are going to try and make you afraid....
It is a fact being African American makes you a target more then anyone else that is white. Many look for an excuse so they say color has nothing to do with there vote .
I am proud of the many people who look beyond color beyond voting. There is alot of them today that are tired of the thousands of years of racism and have changed.
I asked my brother about Mc Cain and asked him what he really liked about him? He did not like his imagration policy in fact my brother hated.
My brother believe it is laughable how Mc Cain forgets boarders and often makes mistakes speaking
He does not like the fact that Mc Cain would be good visiting other countries because his skills as a speaker are very limited.
He does not like the face we may be involved in more wars.
The bottom line is i said to my brother you are racist and i am not mad at you. He said it is not true but when i repeated all these items to him and asked what he did like the only answer he came up with was experiance.
More young voters then in any election will be voting
More African Americans in any election will be voting.
More white american have put race behind them in any election
I believe this election will be a blowout by Obama
they is the GOP propaganda machine, with the talk radio monopoly doing the groundwork, and limbaugh leading there- so the obama dems need to make it clear- limbaugh is the king of 'they"
Who are "THEY"?
it is mostly the media that brings race up, then they turn around and ask "who keeps bringing up race?" the Main stream media is so stupid!
post, post, post, as you say, and e-mail the msm.
If Sen. Obama delivered a statement that in any way approached what you have just written I feel it would be as final as Joseph Nye Welch asking Joseph McCarthy: "Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?" The effect would be similar.
This is news to anyone? Obama is not a WASP and the West in general has grappled with racism for centuries. Of course the GOP, which fell in love with the gutter during Reagan's run , will exploit every advantage they think they have. Crying foul won't change that. Right now the Obama campaign faces a test: Can it come up with something that galvanizes voters (a principled stand on several issues, perhaps?) and simultaneously demonstrates the empty cynicism of the GOP strategy? Simply complaining about the unfairness of the world is not an effective political strategy.I would suggest that a frank discussion of pocketbook issues could turn the tables for the Dems, And I hope someone's working on that. We can't afford to blow this election.
Obama could win if he just hammers home on two issues. 1. Do you want universal health care? McCains does not believe in the government having ANY role in health care. He wants the private sector to continue much as it is today even though it is obvious how broken the system has become. Americans want universal health care. 2. Obama will not privatize social security. McCain wants to put social security on the table. This should scare the hell out of every one of those "older voters" that currently support McCain. He could loose older voters overnight if Obama would talk about this everyday over and over. Even low information voters are worried about health care and social security. These are basis pocket book issues that could decide the election.
Good idea.
"Of course the GOP, which fell in love with the gutter during Reagan's run ..."
Actually they started playing the race card way back in 1968 (Nixon's "Southern strategy").
there is a chain email being circulated talking about how 0bama blew off the troops while in Afghanistan
here is the Reply
http://www
My husband & I sent the same reply out to relatives who are determined to hate Obama. They refused to believe it and accused us of being duped. The Republicans are doing what they do every election - they are defining the Democratic candidates and forcing them to go on the defensive. I hope Obama and campaign remain on the high road but hit back hard. And he has to define himself - not let the Republicans do it. Drew Westen's response is an excellent example of how to do that. Anyone have suggestions for a short TV spot?
It sounds like your relatives are brain-dead hard-core Republican zombies. I wouldn't waste any time and effort on them -- they're hopeless. Concentrate on friends, neighbors and relatives who still have functioning minds.
One way for Sen. Obama to effectively fight back is to not fight back.
When he tries to analyze events (including attacks by his opponents) he gets into trouble (he gets off message and occasionally paints himself into unintended corners).
He'd be better off letting respected supporters defend him, express "outrage" etc. while he continues "being Obama" - listening, laying out programs, making friends, visiting the hinterlands, being a good guy etc.
Barack is who he is (and many of us feel that's pretty darned good).
So let him "be Barack" and let the American voter figure it out, because in the end, that's how democracy works.
Obama has repeatedly observed that "this election is more about the American people than it is about him or Sen. McCain. I think he just may be right.
I agree - if he lowers himself to answer back to all of McCain's garbage then McCain will keep delivering more garbage. The school yard bully who thinks that this campaign is all about having "fun". I don't think the American people are having so much fun. If this is the way McCain handles his campaign it gives us pretty clear look at how he would handle a presidency. In addition to much of the world hating us - they would be laughing at us, too, for having the stupidity to elect him. And also - his riding on his POW laurels - which he has used in every campaign he has fought for is just a little old - worn out - and who gives a crap this time around. I'm not dissing vets - I'm dissing him for "using" his POW time for personal gain and benefit over and over and over again. Although I am for Obama, I can understand that not everyone is. But I don't understand how people can be "for" McCain given the way he is handling himself during what is basicially his twilight years. He can't keep his thoughts together and gets muddled. That's a fact. He isn't sharp anymore and he shouldn't be in control of anything of magnitude for that reason.
"So let him 'be Barack' and let the American voter figure it out..." and there's the rub. I really don't think the American voter is capable of figuring it out primarily because he isn't willing to spend the time needed to finally figure it out. (Can't forget that Rove didn't elect Bush in '04, the American people did.)
I feel like I did when that dreadful 'Titanic' movie won an all-time record 12 Oscars - a death knell had sounded for any future movies ever again being works of art. The re-election of Bush in '04 sounded a death knell for the possibility that the American voter might ever elect anyone other than a Rove-created cipher.
What!?
What in the world makes you think so?
Is it working now?
Yeah, "many of us" think just being Barack is great.
But "many of us" are apparently going to need a lot of help come November.
ATTACK, BARACK!
START ATTACKING THE OLD SUMBITCH TODAY!
Maybe you should go into the Democratic consultant business, Jeff, where everybody seems to agree that "taking the high road" will win this election, and that being "swift-boated" oughta be a one-way street. Just like it was for John Kerry.
I agree. By remaining above the fray while letting McBush wallow in the gutter Obama looks more presidential. Also, responding to McBush's smears only keeps them in the headlines longer.
exactly
Thank you, John Kerry.
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