Can Barack Obama get a fair hearing from the American people?

Bill Clinton's age when elected president: 46
Barack Obama's age at Nov. '08 election: 47

 

Now that's funny. I do, believe it or not, have a sense of humor.

 

Barack Obama's best hope may be if he doesn't get any real hearing from the American people at all.

If you can embrace the "Magic Negro" theory -- the writer's phrase, not mine -- put forth in the L.A. Times a while back, Obama's greatest strength as a candidate is that he's a blank slate that guilty whites can invest in to assuage their own luck-of-birth successes in this horrible, racist nation.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-ehrenstein19mar19,0,5335087.story?coll=la-opinion-center

Start filling in all those blank places with details and maybe he doesn't seem so appealing.

My wife, an unapologetic Blue Dot who held her nose and voted for Kerry, has read Obama's books and went from intrigued about his candidacy to really puzzled how he has positioned himself as a national candidate so quickly. And, more importantly, not at all interested in voting for him. His blackness ain't the issue for her.

Spinning probably explains that part as well as I could.

 

And compare the resumes.

I hate hearing people talk about how America is not ready for a black or woman president. Nonsense. It may not want Hillary or Obama, but it will be for reasons exclusive to themselves (Mr. Obama may want to actually say something of substance ebetween now and the general election). Their race/gender will help more than hurt.

 

Bill Clinton had been a governor for more than a decade.

 

I disagree.
This country is still not ready to elect a black man as president as it is a woman of any color -- regardless of their plans or views.
"Guilty whites" can say what they want in public; in the privacy of a voting booth, it's another story. A parallel is Michigan's vote last year on ending affirmative action at some levels. Polls said the measure would be sounded defeated; it passed by a very healthy margin.
And along those lines, neither Obama or Hillary Clinton is an electable option for the Democrats next year.

 

The one thing they have in their favor is the pile of horse manure known as the GOP's current field of candidates.

 

true dat... but Clinton and Obama still lack that mass appeal to swing voters or to those who traditionally vote Republican, but are looking for a change.
Clinton and Obama have starpower to a narrow group of Democrats. How they will play to the masses is a different story.

 

One of the things that I find most interesting is that none -- and I mean none -- of my black friends think Obama has a chance of getting elected. When I say that I think America might be ready for a black president, they find it laughable. And they shake their heads and call me naive.

 

I had not seen that article, but it was very much on point. A couple passages here are crucial and essentially mirror my views on Obama:

"The senator's famously stem-winding stump speeches have been drawing huge crowds to hear him talk of uniting rather than dividing. A praiseworthy goal. Consequently, even the mild criticisms thrown his way have been waved away, "magically." He used to smoke, but now he doesn't; he racked up a bunch of delinquent parking tickets, but he paid them all back with an apology. And hey, is looking good in a bathing suit a bad thing?"

....

"Obama's fame right now has little to do with his political record or what he's written in his two (count 'em) books, or even what he's actually said in those stem-winders. It's the way he's said it that counts the most. It's his manner, which, as presidential hopeful Sen. Joe Biden ham-fistedly reminded us, is "articulate." His tone is always genial, his voice warm and unthreatening, and he hasn't called his opponents names (despite being baited by the media).

Like a comic-book superhero, Obama is there to help, out of the sheer goodness of a heart we need not know or understand. For as with all Magic Negroes, the less real he seems, the more desirable he becomes. If he were real, white America couldn't project all its fantasies of curative black benevolence on him."

 

The brothers you are friends with would be right in that general assessment that Black America has of Barack. In most eyes in the black community, he's "not black enough" seems to be the prevalent term that has been bandied about it. No, it doesn't mean the color of his skin. The interpretation comes off like this: "he's transparent, too likable, and more suburban moms would vote for him than a black voter. There is no way in hell everyone in America loves this guy because he's black and idealistic." It's ridiculous, but realisitically, we'll (I'm saying this in general, because I'm black as well) hitch our wagons to Hillary because of one factor: we love the shit out of Bill and most consider him as "one of our own" though he's white.

There is a lot of messed up thinking and conceptualizations being made in the black community about black candidates running for national office. To clarify that they find it laughable to have a black president is spot on. My old man, grandpa, and my Duke-educated uncle jokingly think that if he (or Jesse, Al, or Condi) is elected on Election night, someone in the C.I.A. or some kook will smoke his ass out, just to make sure he will never be sworn in.

It would be nice to think Pollyanna and hope that we can turn the corner on this issue, because it is great topic to discuss since it isn't publicly talked about, but if Iowa never elects a woman to be governor, don't expect America to finally elect a woman or a minority to the Presidency. It's too damn hard for many, including Black America, to imagine that it could happen.

P.S.: leave it to Spike Lee to come up with "magic negro."

I have to tell my uncle that. He'll get a big laugh out of it.

 

I think the majority of Americans would love to vote for an African American candidate, male or female, whom they deemed competent. I have an extremely conservative pal of Irish background who is closely watching Obama in hopes of being able to vote for him. Prediction: it ain't gonna happen, because Obama is to the left of most everyone in the race.

Edwards, for example, is a populist, but to the right of Obama on most issues (see voting records) in my opinion.