At first I was willing to give Geraldine Ferraro the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she was clumsily trying to say that a lot of Barack Obama's appeal is because he's a spectacular candidate and he's black and people are hungering for someone who can bridge racial divides and so they turn to him. If she was trying to say that, it would surely make sense. But she kept digging herself in, famously saying that Obama's "lucky" to be black and that that accounts for his leading in the popular vote and delegates. Absurd, I thought, but again I thought maybe she meant something else, something wrong but not malicious. something like if Barack Obama was a white, freshman senator from Illinois, it's unlikely he'd be running for president. Yes, that's possible, I suppose, but it's an absurd conjecture. If Barack Obama was someone else he wouldn't be...Barack Obama. If Ronald Reagan lactated, he wouldn't be Ronald Reagan. If I wasn't Jewish, I might be a Buddhist. So what? If you start stripping away parts of people's biographies and substitute what ifs like it was some science experiment where you graft a human ear on to a mouse, it's just idle banter. As for the "luck" part, please. Let's leave aside centuries of racism, being black is not enough to elevate one to the presidency or President Sharpton would be finishing his second term.
Ferraro seems so unwilling to concede the obvious, that Obama is an exceptionally intelligent, charismatic and winning senator and is leading because he's a great politician and that, while race is surely part of his appeal, it is just one part and hardly sufficient in and of itself to propel him to this exalted place. As Obama keeps saying, if you were to write a handbook on how to become president you wouldn't start by being African-American and having a funny name. Her asinine comments keep getting layered by ugly remarks. Ferraro says she's getting attacked because she's white. No, she's getting attacked because she's stupid.
For more go to http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/capital/2008/03/13/the-ferraro-fallacy