The general election race-baiting has begun. Obama is charging that Republicans will use his race to “scare voters.”
“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?”
Perhaps Obama needs to understand that his race is obvious to anyone who sees him or a picture of him. Obama’s comments are not only ridiculous, but they’re insulting. But, I guess to Obama, the Republican Party is just full of “typical white people” like his grandmother. How can Obama make such a claim, which essentially says that he thinks the American people are racist?
I think it’s obvious from his comment that Barack Obama is trying to insulate himself from criticisms by making it appear as if any attack against him is an attack on his race. Obama should be ashamed himself. If there’s anything we learned from the Democratic Primary is that race, gender and class warfare are DNC territory. Another thing we can expect from the Obama campaign, as evidenced by this racist implication he made, is that there will be subtle hints from the Obama campaign that if you don’t vote for Obama then you’re a racist. See, Obama wants this election to be about his race. He’ll wants to guilt voters into voting for him in the same way he claims Republicans wants to scare voters into voting against him. It’ll be a repeat of Deval Patrick’s gubernatorial campaign in Massachusetts.
Obama is going to attack, attack, attack John McCain from all angles. Yet, should the McCain campaign release an ad that either (a) shows a picture or video of Barack Obama or (b) mentions his name, the Obama campaign will accuse McCain, or whatever organization puts out any such ads, of attacking his race.
Issues will decide this election… Not Obama’s desire to play the race card at every turn. Obama’s desire to raise taxes, have tea and toast with terrorists organizations, socialize healthcare. Issues alone will guide voters to vote for John McCain over Barack Obama in November.
UPDATE: A real example of using race to scare voters.
Tags: Barack Obama, race baiting, race card, race/gender politics, racism
June 22nd, 2008
Sherman Frederick in the Las Vegas Review-Journal figures it cuts both ways for the Democratics:
Democrats bristle at talking about this in plainer terms. They say Sen. Hillary Clinton has found her base — the “working class.” That’s why she won in the Rust Belt primaries. That’s her great hope in Kentucky and West Virginia.
But calling Clinton’s strategy one of kowtowing to the “working class” doesn’t quite say it, does it? Isn’t this just old-fashioned racism within the Democratic Party?
When Hillary strategists say they are winning the “working class,” they don’t mean they are winning working people with a household income of, say, less than $50,000. All the exit polls show quite clearly that lower middle-class people who work split between Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Clinton. The difference is generally skin color. Hillary wins the lion’s share of the “working-class” white Democrats. And, sadly, as Hillary’s campaign has become meaner and more to the point, that margin has become bigger.
The Clinton racism strategy first became apparent in Nevada, when her struggling campaign began to publicly talk about her “Hispanic firewall” against Obama among the rank-and-file in the Culinary union. It hit the national consciousness soon thereafter when former President Bill Clinton, after Hillary lost the South Carolina primary, dismissed Obama’s big win as a race-inspired victory akin to Jesse Jackson’s success in that state years ago.
The record clearly shows that Hillary’s campaign was the first to use Obama’s race against him. The strategy gained an unexpected boost when Sen. Obama’s former pastor, the egomaniacal Rev. Jeremiah Wright, cribbed the Obama spotlight only to show the world that racism could be a black thing, too. The opportunistic Clinton campaign shamelessly took full advantage of the tension. They not only raised questions about what the Wright debacle meant for an Obama presidency, they slyly positioned Hillary, like a latter-day George Wallace (the Alabama governor, not the very funny Las Vegas comedian), as the “working-class” candidate…
…The “superdelegate” whisper campaign goes something like this: Hillary is better built to win in November. Obama is soft and elitist. He’s a dangerous unknown quantity. But most importantly, Mr. and Mrs. Democratic Insider Superdelegate, look at the voter numbers in key states. Forget about pledged delegates, wins and losses and overall popular vote. Look deep into the numbers of the key states Democrats must win in November.
Do you see those “working-class” numbers? Those are Hillary people. Those are the people who will win the White House for Democrats this fall. Those are the people who count because, faced with a choice between Obama and Sen. John McCain, “working-class” Democrats will vote for McCain.
It’s a disgusting display for which Democrats ought to be alarmed and ashamed. The remedy is this: Stop calling Hillary’s base the “working class” and start calling it what it is.
I’m not so sure about this - about the concept that Hillary’s appeal to working class white voters is evidence of lingering racism, or Hillary’s playing up to it. I believe that Obama would be one of the very worst Presidents we’ve ever had - he might even redeem Jimmy Carter from the basement of Presidential legacies…but I don’t go telling black friends that they are fools for voting Obama. I understand it - its akin to the way Catholics went nuts for JFK in 1960, even though JFK (a) wasn’t much of a Catholic and (b) even though he wasn’t a very good candidate as far as actual qualifications for office go. But white support for Obama amongst black Americans can be traced in large measure to pride over one of their own doing well, opposition to Obama doesn’t necessarily stem from racial animosity, overt or covert. Opposition to Obama stems from, in my view, his elitism and his arrogant condescension to average Americans - Wright was damaging to Obama, but “bitter” was far more so…what Wright said was what Wright said, and thus Obama could distance himself, at least to a degree, form it…but Obama’s comment about bitter Americans clinging to God and guns, that was out of his own mouth, and let all of us know what he really thinks about us.
Sherman’s view - that Hillary has played an ugly, race-based political calculation - may be true in the narrow sense; for all we know, Hillary did decide to make a covert play to race, but even if Hillary hadn’t done so, I think that working class white people - who are a lot smarter than most political elites - especially liberal elites - give them credit for - would have been turned off to Obama by Obama’s own words.
Tags: black vote, blue collar vote, Democratic Nomination, HillBama, race card
May 12th, 2008
Wow, when I heard this clip on the radio today, I was shocked. Absolutely shocked:
On Philadelphia radio station WIP 610, Obama explained why he cited his white grandmother’s fear of black men in a speech Tuesday. He wasn’t saying that she holds racial animosity, but that “she is a typical white person,” Obama said, adding: “If she sees somebody on the street that she doesn’t know, there’s a reaction that’s been bred into our experiences that don’t go away and that sometimes come out in the wrong way.”
A “typical white person?”
Obamaniacs can try to claim that Jeremiah Wright’s sermons are irrelevant, but this comment, Obama’s own words, cannot be written off. Obama essentially implied that white people are racists. As a white person, Obama must have meant me as well when he suggested that white people are immediately afraid when they see a black person walking down the street. All I can say is “wow.” What an incredibly bad thing for Obama to say.
Tags: Barack Obama, Jeremiah Wright, race card, reverse racism, typical white person
March 21st, 2008
