….but back enough to urge Obama supporters to check out this article. I’ve noted before that I don’t plan on voting for Clinton because her politics are too conservative. This was before she began to race bait Obama. I’m even less sure about Obama than what I was.Shouts out to the folks who looked out for me when I was in L.A. Good food, good pictures, good times, combined with an excellent critique of my work.
Interesting Take on Obama (formerly: Not Quite Back on the Block)
by admin | Mar 5, 2008 | Campaigns and Elections, Obama, Racial Politics | 17 comments
Hi, great work.
Looking at your blog, I thought you might be interested in checking out our research collection on Youth Media. It intersects with many interesting topics–urban education, digital disparity among races, youth utilizing media to partake in electoral politics, etc.
http://www.issuelab.org/closeup
thanks sarah. i hadn’t heard about you all before. good work.
thank you for posting this. While I’m not sure that I agree with the author’s analysis (well at least not his perspective on all the issues he itemized), its was refreshing to read something that was about dirty politics, personalities, race vs. gender or other somewhat extraneous/distracting stuff.
The article seems very slanted to me. The sentiment seems to be “why vote for Obama, he’s just like every other (or most other) politicians.” But that argument is flawed. He IS a politician. Politicians pander, they change their mind, they allow politics to affect their votes, they tell their constituents what they want to hear. Granted, Obama is talking about change and hope and his past records, according to this article, seems to indicate otherwise but he can’t do anything if he isn’t elected or electable. For all (or some) of their good ideas Kucinich and others are simply not electable. Barack is not the messiah, he’s a politician… and still the best candidate running at this point.
Gonzalez is Ralph Nader’s running mate for POTUS. There’s some solid stuff in there – however, I remain dismayed at the inability of even the most left-oriented candidates to tell the truth about the war and its relationship to the weak dollar, the historic exportation of jobs, and such.
America made a faustian bargain a long time ago…and continues to keep its head buried deep under the sand. Gonzalez is to be commended for his analysis – and still, he leaves something wanting.
This, not electability, not the fact that he’s a “politician” is the point. We’ve got to get to a place where we are actively pushing OUR INTERESTS. And that requires a different type of thinking. I think it begins with pushing platforms and policies that reflect our interests and then withholding our vote from people who don’t support them.
I’m trying to get a handle on why this might be. I can’t call it…
Spence,
Sorry to interrupt, Bro., but here, on a different note:
I think it is time to gather all the black bloggers around a statement. Namely this:
(1) The Democratic party base has spoken. The numbers show that Mrs. Clinton has lost this race for the nomination.
(2) Mrs. Clinton’s increasingly shrill attacks against Mr. Obama have taken on the airs of racism.
(3) That is regrettable because via the candidacy of Mr. Obama for the first time in the electoral history of this nation, the vast majority of African-American stand united with untold millions of white Americans and Americans of all colors.
(4) It appears that Mrs. Clinton is about to shatter this historic unity.
(5) We therefore call on Mrs. Clinton to face the reality of the numbers, concede defeat and thereby heal this wound which she has opened and continues to widen.
(6) It is clear that Mrs. Clinton can not be considered for the Vice-Presidential slot on the Democratic ticket. Mrs. Clinton has denigrated Mr. Obama to the point that any possible praise she would heap on him as a member of the Democratic ticket would ring hollow and hypocritical.
(7) If the Democratic Party leadership were to nullify our votes by giving Mrs. Clinton the nomination despite the popular vote, we call on all African-Americans to withdraw their support from the Democratic Party and to stay at home. We have survived eight years under President Bush, we will survive four years under a President McCain. We will NOT survive the nullification of our most hard-fought for right – our votes.
Pass it on…
I have spoken about much of this slanted article, but at this point we as a nation need vision and leadership. We need truth and an ability to find dipomatic solution instead of the same old people doing the same old thing the same old way. We have 2 wars going on at the same time, how barbaric,our only option to gain the respect of the world is Barack. It is sad to see liberal looking for imperfections in Barack. It is like football coaches, Rod Turner, fail miserably 2 times and get a third shout, How about Dennis Green? Who dug this deep on George W Bush? What was his experience? Oh that is right, it did not matter!
JD I understand where you are coming from. But I think it was on your website that I argued that what we needed to focus on was policy rather than on the promises embedded in descriptive representation. And what we need to do here is separate Obama from Clinton and Bush and take him on his own merits. Sure when we compare Obama to Bush, Obama is the better candidate. But so is Clinton. This isn’t the question. The question is, what does Obama stand for, besides the rhetoric of hope? Is he just a blacker version of the DLC candidates we’ve been getting for the last 20 years, or is there something else going on?
I don’t know anyone yet that has told me that they are voting based on a policy. I think a lot of people are just tired of the same and are voting based on a feeling that one candidate is better, instead of policies. We are an emotional society. We make decisions on feelings and emotions. I am not saying all people are doing this, but I have yet to hear/read that someone is supporting Obama because of his policies. Perhaps they just don’t talk about it.
I agree that people are voting based on personalities rather than policy right now, but that is because there is not that much difference between Obama and Clinton on most key issues. Look at their websites— look at the debates.
They both want healthcare, they both *claim* that they will get the troops out etc. If you watch the debates its nothing but “I agree with Hilary” and “I agree with Barack.” (With some personal/ish attacks thrown in for good measure).
compound this with the first female/first black man thing and the discussions around this ( that side-track more pertinent discourses) and you end up with a race against personalites, essences and auras.
That’s how I see it anyway.
there aren’t that many substantial differences between them. on the other hand there WERE substantial differences between the both of them and sen. edwards. but most media coverage of the campaign hasn’t focused on issues. what they’ve focused on is personality, so those are the foremost elements that are on people’s minds.
Media coverage of the earlier part of the primaries was a bit slanted, but isn’t that to be expected especially early on when there were so many people/hopefuls vying for the position? Who remembers the top 24 on American idol? I must admit I wasn’t keeping track of this race until it got down the final three.
Maybe there should have been more focus then, but Clinton was the all but ordained frontrunner up until Iowa. Correct me if I’m wrong, but people weren’t talking about him being a sure thing/strong candidate seriously before then.
The point is simply this, Edwards was never going to be more than a second place candidate (because of the Clinton buzz) and the only reason Obama got to be recognized as a strong contender was when voters finally got their say at Iowa and subsequent caucuses. Which to me suggests that they did a little homework, i.e. did a little more than just blindly follow the media’s projections. And surely not all of them were standing outside in the freezing cold listening to his speeches.
Maybe he’s not going to push through some monumental change. The lack of significant differences between him and Clinton point to this. But frankly, any candidate is virtually untested and he’s never put himself as the leader of the black man’s interest.
Who is “him”? Obama or Edwards?
I disagree. Edwards polled better than Clinton against McCain and other potential candidates.
You’re correct to argue that people are making their decision based on more than emotion. However, given that there are not significant differences between the two remaining candidates policy wise you’d be hard pressed to make a policy-based argument as to why we should support one over the other. I’ve yet to see a sustained argument for why Clinton would be so good for women.
I sorry, I meant to say that Clinton was the ordained front-runner until the Iowa caucuses. He may have polled better, against republicans, but the media was pushing the idea of Clinton as THE candidate.
I don’t see either candidate pushing their “identity” from a policy perspective, so I’m not sure if it’s fair to ask what either one will do for women/black people.
If we look at other women heads of state, they tended to be pretty forceful and probably not the ideal to push the “female agenda” Thatcher , Bhutto and Golda meyer come to mind. And as for black folk, Rice and Powell, and I know that their roles weren’t really focused on domestic policy, didn’t really change much except make me proud that the glass ceiling has been broken.
Actually, I am unclear about the topic /question you are posing. Are you saying you don’t know what Obama’s policy will be towards black people and so therefore you are not sure about him?
If the implicit argument of a candidate is that his/her candidacy will make history based on identity-related considerations, it is fair and reasonable to actually see whether there is any “there” there beyond descriptive identity.
My central concern is that we’ve projected a wide variety of motives, policy considerations, and ideas to Obama based on the idealistic wrapper his campaign comes in, without actually looking at his record. I linked to a substantive leftist critique of Obama that people concerned about the black poor and working class should be interested in.