Lambasted for Not Drinking the Obama Kool-Aid
It's hard out here for Black pundits/analysts/commentators who haven't come around to drinking the Democratic presidential nomination front-runner Barack Obama is the best-thing-since-sliced-bread-how-did-we-ever-exist-as-a-nation-without-him-this-is-our-last- best-chance-to-elect-a-Black-president-so-we-better-support-him-see-I-told-you-racism-is-dead Kool-Aid. I have learned an unfortunate lesson in observing the Democratic presidential nomination fight: In too many segments of the country -- black and white -- to express any skepticism about Barack Obama is considered political heresy. I'm blown away by this discovery, because it suggests a dangerous group think: Obama is the only agent of change and to not praise him at every opportunity is to support the status quo (And, oh, by the way, Hillary is the devil!).
This is a strange position for me to be in, as I think he has the instincts to be a really good president. I don't consider myself an Obama critic, just someone willing to critically analyze his candidacy. I am a progressive registered as an Independent and my preferred candidate is not in the race, so I get a little touchy when callers and blog respondents assume that because I'm not yet ready to drink the Obama Kool-Aid, that I must be in the tank for Hillary Clinton. Not true. I think it's narrow-minded to think that just because one is lukewarm to Obama that they must want Hillary to win. Between you and me: I'll take Al Gore over either of them in a heartbeat.
I realized all this during a radio interview in Atlanta the day before the New Hampshire primary. I had the temerity to suggest that we shouldn't overreact to his Iowa win. I reminded listeners that Jesse Jackson won Vermont -- a state every bit as white as Iowa -- 20 years ago and that many white Democrats have been voting for Black candidates for years, so we shouldn't jump up and down over Obama's caucus win. I knew I was in trouble, though, when the music bump before the interview began featured a caller who said she supports Obama "100 percent" and would vote for a black man over a white woman every time. I thought: "wow, by that logic, you'd vote for Ike Turner, Alan Keyes, and Clarence Thomas over Hillary Clinton." How ridiculous.
While I got slapped around by a few callers (and gently by the host, an Obama supporter), one caller was particularly unhinged. He called himself an "Obama Republican," which struck me as oxymoronic (or maybe just moronic), and went on about how Obama showed leadership in the Illinois legislature in opposing the war and that I was out of line for not giving him credit for this. I reminded the caller that Obama has not opposed one nickel of Bush spending to continue this travesty, but, alas, I was deemed unduly critical of "the Brother," not to be taken seriously. By the way caller: Do you know how easy it is to oppose something when you have no skin in the game? Can anyone say for sure that he would not have voted to authorize Bush's foolishness in Iraq if he were a member of the Senate in 2002? I'm willing to bet that Obama would have done as all the Senate Democrats who wanted to be president did: vote to support Bush so that their Republican general election opponent couldn't say they were soft on terrorism.
All I've tried to do is add some reason and caution to the over-the-top response that many voters have for Obama. And I'll keep doing it. I have thick skin, so it's no big deal to me.
Michael K. Fauntroy is an assistant professor of public policy at George Mason University and author of Republicans and the Black Vote. A registered Independent, he blogs at: MichaelFauntroy.com.
Follow Michael Fauntroy on Twitter: www.twitter.com/MikeFauntroy
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What does Obama ever say?
It's just mom and apple pie.
His specific ideas suck:
His Patent reform Ideas created a disastrous patent reform bill that would have legalized big corps harassment of individual inventors and small companies. It would have made it much more expensive for individuals to patent, and take much longer. It eliminates one of Americas greatest patent advantages:
In the USA, you can have your patent witnessed and set a invention date. This allows the inventor time to refine the idea and get investors, before getting on the patent treadmill. Once you get your patent, you have to pay big fees to keep it in force. These fees and the patent lawyers fees required are a severe hardship for individuals and small companies, in the 1-3 years while they are trying to get sales going. Monopolistic big companies often shortsightedly like the way this keeps down the upstarts.
The reform allows big companies to send fleets of lawyers to shoot down your patent before you even get it! Now you have to spend big bucks on lawyers before you even start!
This is Obama's “Gold Plated Patent”. No thanks.
Say bye bye to the individual inventor.
A pro big corp, DLC, anti little guy bill if ever there was one.
Fortunately some responsible big business objections and inventors outcry combined to stop the bill the day before it would have gone into effect.
The biggest problem with the patent system now, is the insane decision to allow the patenting of software, business models etc... Regular patents on hardware for instance are usually less then 25 pages. Software patents can be thousands of pages. Most of it written in code that doesn't work and probably doesn't even compile. Software needs it's own seperate system, NOT patents.
All the other Patent Office problems are just budget and management.
We all know how screwed up the media is. It never questioned Bush and rushed us into war. It's more interested in Anna Nicole Smith than death in Iraq. We saw the effects of incomptence with Katrina and what lack of experience can do. American have the attention span of a fruit fly. So let's pick our President like we pick American Idol. It's pathetic.
That said if Obama is the nominee I have my yard sign up the next day.
Drink the Kool-Aid?
That must be a great view sitting there "above" all those common folks who have fallen under the spell. I don't mind that you want to see more. I don't mind that you have questions are cautious. Your thougts would seem a little more genuine if not wrapped in what seems like some superior sense of insight. Perhaps people have not drank the "Kool-Aid" perhaps they found a figure who they have "connected" with. I am still undecided but would never place myself higher than those who seem to have found their canidate. Thanks but us po common folk don't need the clearly superior like you to protect us anymore.
Who is Michael Fauntroy? Does any candidate need his support?
Carter was elected with NO Washington experience to clean up Nixons' Watergate mess.
He had good intentions just as Obama does today, However, Speaker Tip set him straight. You need friends if you want to get things done in Congress. How many of those 535 are friends of Obama?
Name 3 pieces of legislation that Obama has proposed to the Senate. You can't because he hasn't. And the reason he hasn't is because ever since he was elected, he has been campaigning. He has no track record. He has not even conviened his sub-committie. All talk and no action. That is not what we need. But it damn sure is what the Republicans need. Nuff said.
Why can't you just be happy that finally racism is solved?
Professor Fauntroy,
I sympathize with your reservations regarding Obama. Hillary does not own my vote simply because we share both a gender and ethnic heritage. In fact, she does not own my vote at all, but that's an Iraq war thing.
I _am_ an Obama supporter, and a strong one. I live in rural Kansas, and what his Blueprint for Change has to say about our situation here is both succinct and informed. Please do not lump all Obama supporters in the convinient, media-supplied bins. I am not voting for a black man. As other people have said, I am voting for a man whose vision inspires and whose efforts are demonstrable. Oh, and who happens to be black.
"Republicans do not play well with others".
In fact, they are unfit to participate in a healthy democracy, but here they are. The only real hope for change will come if Obama proves to have big coattails, thereby enlarging the Congressional majorities to the point where Republicans are rendered impotent. Republicans will not honor any mandate otherwise.
Hello Professor Fauntroy,
Thank you for a thoughtful, introspective and thought-provoking column.
P.S. Since Big Al no longer wants to interview for this position, and you have not yet drunk the ClintonAid nor the ObamaAid, what are your opinions on Governor Richardson as a candidate?
Senator Clinton has been positioning herself as the candidate of experience, but I'd say his swamps hers...
Thanks again.
Obama supporters to everyone else: "If you're not with us you're against us." Now where have I heard that before?
What's even more annoying is that all the political pundits seem to think Hillary is drawing dead in this election because Black people will automatically vote for Obama, an assumption almost as faulty as "you're either with Obama or against him". This is why the extremists in the party always win because they make the issues too black and white. How dare you point out the flaws of Obama, or Clinton for that matter!
I'm not an Obama or Hillary supporter but I am an admirer of them both. My ultimate concern is who will be able to get things done, and I think right now it just might be Edwards. Expectations are too high for Obama and Clinton to NOT pull a Bush in office. Obama is too green and Hillary is too embedded in the system to change anything unless Congress somehow gives Dems an overwhelming majority..
Bravo to tbe author. Finally an article that is clear, well-written and examines the candidates as human beings and not idols. These are men and women - not saints or demons. The infantile press makes these people out to be saints or demons and this is corrupting the democratic process.
I notice in Mr. Fauntroy's article that he compares Jesse Jackson's win in Vermont back in the '80s to Barack Obama's win in Iowa. That is a very faulty comparison. Vermont is now and was in the '80s a very liberal/progressive state, whereas Iowa has always been a very conservati
It's sad. In a campaign that, for the first time, offers us a black man and a woman, the only one qualified for the job is the white, middle-aged, Christian male. Sad, but true.
Edwards is the only candidate who is anti-corporate, the only candidate who has not succumbed to the waving of greenbacks under his nose. That alone is reason enough for me to cast my vote for him.
Frankly, Obama is far too inexperienced to handle the complex issues that face us at present. And, for me, Clinton is too right of center in her platform. Both seem to be in the race more for self-glorification than anything else.
I would dearly love to see a woman President. I would dearly love to see a President from a racial "minority.
We MUST vote for the candidate who will break the stranglehold that corporations have on American, who will end this senseless war once and for all, who will offer a truly universal health care plan, who will return our Constitutional freedoms, who will work to restore good will toward us, etc. That candidate is Edwards.
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