In Reply To

 
Race a huge advantage to Obama? How? 240 Million white people in America, 38 Million blacks of which the Dems usually get a huge percentage as someone else has already pointed out.

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Do you think race was an advantage to Obama in the dem primary?

In Reply To

 
I'll grant that it may have helped in the primary. You said in this election. Are you saying it's an advantage now?

My purpose is to point out a double standard applied to black candidates vs. white candidates and perhaps see where some of this is manifesting in how the campaigns are being run and what has been open to attack vs what hasn't.

Can you think of a white Presidential candidate with an experience resume similar to Sen Obama? In the last dozen presidential elections, I can't think of anyone similar. Is this racism?
No, its a legitimate issue to raise and its color blind. Its also not the issue, though you do touch on it below. White candidates get away with things that would DQ a black man.
I agree that if Sen Obama had any of the negative traits listed for Sen McCain and Gov. Palin, they would be exploited, just as they are being exploited against those two now. Is it racist? I don't know. Does racism exist? Without question.

... if it wasn't negated by the fact that McCain, in a solid governmental career, has time-and-again demonstrated the ability to succeed. His leadership in the country's rapproachment with communist Vietnam (imagine that...a man brutalized and tortured for 5 and a half years is still able to see past his treatment and do what he feels needs to be done), signal and landmark legislation bearing his name and the name of a Senator from the other party (McCain-Feingold), his affirmative votes for Clinton Supreme Court nominees (Ginsburg and Breyer...too bad Obama couldn't show similar evenhandedness in his negative votes for Alito and Roberts), his work with the Gang of Fourteen (a bipartisan group of Republican and Democratic Senators brought together to get judicial nominees through the Senate), his work on comprehensive immigration reform with Senator Ted Kennedy. The list is long...


T.

Then why does he not run on that record? Why are his current policies stances are more like the Bush-Republicans that were kicked to the curb in the primary.

People love heroes that "look like them". I saw it with Larry Bird (among many other examples), and I see it with my 7yo son (Hispanic mom). I REALLY hope that if Obama wins the POTUS, one of his biggest influences is on the expectations of and expectations from within for black males to expect success, or at the very least, minimizing the expectation not to be successful (in the traditional path, ... education), or seemingly asking for permission to succeed.

I think a lot of the perception/expectation stems from the events in American history, and we are experiencing a serious "hangover" from events that didn't happen all that long ago (to events that happened over a century ago). While Obama is not "traditionally black", but biracial (although he does really like basketball ... bad joke, Har Har), I hope that his presence does engage the black community to see itself in a different light, outside of sports and entertainment being their only paths of success. I look forward to the day when black people getting an education are not viewed as "trying to be white" ... especially among their peers.

Or not...as previosuly posted:

Dr. Jack Wheeler Regarding Obama

The O-man, Barack Hussein Obama, is an eloquently tailored empty suit. No resume, no accomplishments, no experience, no original ideas, no understanding of how the economy works, no understanding of how the world works, no balls, nothing but abstract empty rhetoric devoid of real substance.

He has no real identity. He is half-white, which he rejects. The rest of him is mostly Arab, which he hides but is disclosed by his non-African Arabic surname and his Arabic first and middle names as a way to triply proclaim his Arabic parentage to people in Kenya . Only a small part of him is African Black from his Luo grandmother, which he pretends he is exclusively.

What he isn't, not a genetic drop of, is 'African-American,' the descendant of enslaved Africans brought to America chained in slave ships. He hasn't a single ancestor who was a slave. Instead, his Arab ancestors were slave owners. Slave-trading was the main Arab business in East Africa for centuries until the British ended it.

Let that sink in: Obama is not the descendant of slaves, he is the descendant of slave owners Thus he makes the perfect Liberal Messiah.

Ah yes

the old I can't refute what he is saying so he must be gay. What did you say when you were caught?