RE: BET founder says Obama owes his candidacy to his race
No one seemed to point out to ol' Gerry that very few reps in Congress get placed on the national ticket. She wasn't in the vice presidential race because of her leadership standing in the House. Otherwise Mondale would've picked Gephardt.
Obama's credentials are not just that he is black -- he has touched a nerve in this country. After all, at least six other black people have made presidential runs which were no where near as successful. Folks like Gary Bauer, Dennis Kucinich and Jimmy Carter all had to come from nowhere to raise a national posture for a national campaign.
Yes, Obama has great support among black people, but, as shown by Bob Johnson and others, this support is not universal. And it is not racist. When all those Italians in NYC voted for Giuliani over Dave Dinkins those folks were not called racist, even by the blacks who supported Dinkins.
Saying Obama got where he is just because he is black ignores his winning a seat in the IL senate and his successful run for the US senate. Its not a racist remark -- it is just mistaken.
RE: BET founder says Obama owes his candidacy to his race
His race is part of it. It isn't the totality of it. He's well-spoken, and he's black. And he's a liberal. Another well-spoken black man " Alan Keyes " has been unsuccessful in his bids for the White House and he didn't receive nearly the attention that Obama has received. His politics were wrong. He was a conservative. So, the question is: Would Obama be where he is right now in this race if he were white? The answer, I believe, is no. But you could also pose the question a different way: Would Obama be where he is right now in this race if he were conservative? And the answer would still be no. So there are multiple reasons, but race does play a big part of it.
There are those who will say that Obama is where he is because of his stance on the issues. But often times, when asked what separates Obama from other presidential candidates in terms of policy and political stature, those same folks take pause. He has a bunch of catchy phrases " "Yes we can" and "It's time for a change" " and he delivers them powerfully in stump speeches. But when you boil right down to political stature, Obama is the same as any other politician, including McCain and Clinton. Once the mainstream media decided to take off the gloves and stop sparing Obama from the critical second-guessing, we've seen him caught in mistruths and outright lies . . . just like the other candidates. Meanwhile, when you boil right down to policy, let's face it: Obama isn't so much unlike Clinton. And on more than one occasion in this campaign, we've seen Clinton make proposals that received little press time only to see Obama come out later with proposals that seemed remarkably similar and receive much more press time.
So if he's such a . . . well, a Washington politician . . . why all the hype? Simple. And not all, but a big part, of that simplicity is his race. Does that matter? Not really. Does it matter if folks vote for him because of his race? Not really. Does it matter that folks DON'T vote for him because of his race? Not really. But I do wonder about the folks " and we've seen at least one right here on this forum " who say that they will vote for Obama because "Yes we can" is a great phrase and embodies the American spirit, but can't really tell you where he stands on most issues. There will be some who would wake up 2 or 3 years into an Obama presidency, I believe, and say "What the heck?" By the same token, I feel sorry for those whose ideology identifies closely with Obama but they refuse to vote for him because he's black.
(Incidentally, for anyone who would deny that Obama got to where he is simply because of this combination of race and eloquent speaking, think back to the fall of 2004 when Obama captured 70% of the vote and won the U.S. Senate race. Here was a guy who had essentially come out of no where to capture the Senate seat. Folks outside Illinois really had no clue where he stood on any issue, let alone what issues he would make a part of a presidential platform. And, yet, as the cable news networks aired his victory speech across the nation that night, remember how many " knowing virtually nothing about him " predicted that he'd be a serious contender for the presidency in 2008?)
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Politics, it seems to me, all too long, has been concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong. ~Richard Armour
RE: BET founder says Obama owes his candidacy to his race
Actually, it was not a victory speech which captured the public -- it was his speech at the 2004 Democratic convention when Tereza Heinz Kerry said he'd be the first black US president. Two weeks later he was on the cover of Newsweek. So he didn't come out of nowhere. And he had not yet been elected to the US Senate.
Alan Keyes is not a conservative version of Obama. To my knowledge he's never won any election and only maybe one primary. Keyes has the distinction of being called a nut by both Dick Cheney and the head of the IL GOP when he was running for the US senate in IL. He has played the race card when his low numbers kept him out of debates, citicized Hillary for moving to NY to run and then moved to IL to do the same thing. Keyes is not articulate, he's just glib and runs his mouth.
Biden ran for president in 1984 when he was how many terms into his senatorial career? If George Bush's name was George Baker do you think someone who had been a partying wastrel until his thirties would have become governor of Texas? If Obama were white he could be a partner in a large law firm like his Harvard classmates, or, like his opponent Jack Ryan in the run for the senate in IL, in the US senate.
Saying Obama is where he is because he is black really is an insult to his accomplishments. He's there and he's black. Its a whole package.
RE: BET founder says Obama owes his candidacy to his race
Quote:
ORIGINAL: Beau Ouiville
Actually, it was not a victory speech which captured the public -- it was his speech at the 2004 Democratic convention when Tereza Heinz Kerry said he'd be the first black US president.Β* Two weeks later he was on the cover of Newsweek.Β* So he didn't come out of nowhere.Β* And he had not yet been elected to the US Senate.
I may have had the speech wrong, but the point is the same. At the time of the speech, he was a virtual unknown.
Quote:
Its a whole package.
Which is exactly what I said. But to insinuate that a big part of that package isn't his race is to ignore the simple basics of this entire picture.
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Politics, it seems to me, all too long, has been concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong. ~Richard Armour
Location: land of the Lilliputians, In the state of insanity
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RE: BET founder says Obama owes his candidacy to his race
No politicion should run for any race, other than the human race. I dont care what color you are, if you want to run the country, it better be for reasons beyond race. Didnt Thurman try that once?
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kaafir mushrik
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RE: BET founder says Obama owes his candidacy to his race
Obama was on my radar a long time before lots of folks on here. That's because a lot of the hard core Dems, including some of my friends,had pretty much annointed him as the chosen one ten minutes after that 2004 (or whenever it was) speech. At the time i was mystified as to how one could be literally ready to hand the presidency to a young, untested guy. I think thatthere was a racial component to it in terms of him even making it to the podium, but the candidacywouldnt have happened if he hadn't knocked them dead with that speech.
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RE: BET founder says Obama owes his candidacy to his race
Quote:
ORIGINAL: burniegoeasily
No politicion should run for any race, other than the human race. I dont care what color you are, if you want to run the country, it better be for reasons beyond race. Didnt Thurman try that once?
... and George Wallace rose to prominence and two presidential runsbecause of his skillful handling of the AL economy?
BET founder says Obama owes his candidacy to his race
