Barack Obama – Page 32

Race and the race

Do not let anyone fool you. While Barack Obama is doing well in the polls, there is a significant portion of the electorate who sees him as nothing more than a black man — not as a Harvard graduate, former community organizer, lawyer, state legislator or U.S. Senator, but as a black man.

That, in their eyes, makes him different than the rest of us, than white America. That’s the subtext of much of what the Clinton campaign’s late strategy was and why we are witnessing a full-out focus on Obama’s middle name, the flag pin, the Muslim rumors.

And we shouldn’t expect it to die off anytime soon.

I was at a barbecue today when the conversation turned to politics. I opted to remain in the background today, mostly because the tenor of the conversation lacked any real substance, building on innuendo and ad hominem attacks to take the discussion nowhere.

On one side were a couple of 18-year-old Obama supporters, who hit all the candidate’s buzzwords — change, McCain’s 100-year war — while on the other side were the generally older McCain supporters touting his experience and Obama’s lack thereof.

It was an amusing display, including a side-argument over abortion and Catholics (I may have been the only non-Catholic there) that featured the canard about falling African-American birth rates due to abortion.

The 18-year-old –I’ve decided not to name anyone because it was just a graduation party and not a political caucus — said that he thought there was a racial element involved, that some McCain supporters were backing the Republican because of his race. He said that many of his family members — erstwhile Democrats — were planning to vote for a Republican.

His uncle chimed in that he would never support Obama because “next thing you know, you’d have Sharpton in the White House,” proving the kid’s point.

The conversation, while amusing, was also disheartening, revealing the undercurrent of racism that remains out there. I’ve not had any illusions about this, but it really hits home when you confront it straight on like this.

What I’m hoping, at this point, is that the racism is out in the open — or at least accounted for in the polling and that we don’t have what is called the Bradley Effect (polls showing a black candidate leading because many respondents were afraid to say they wouldn’t support him; Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, Virginia Gov. Douglas Wilder and New York Mayor David Dinkins all experienced a variation of this). I don’t mean to imply that this is the only way McCain can win but, if it did play out this way, it would be particular divisive and call into question all the progress we’ve made on race relations over the years.

My hope is that the candidate who is most in tune with voters’ beliefs, who best understands their concerns and offers the most forward-looking plan will win and that race won’t be the determining factor.

The return of the Clinton presidency

I don’t have much to add to this post from Jill at Brilliant at Breakfast, except to say that this appears to be part of a troubling trend for the preseumptive Democrtic nominee as he attempts to navigate the rough waters of the general election.

While I expected some movement to the right — it would have been foolish to expect otherwise — but this is ridiculous: First, his comments on Israel to AIPAC, then the FISA capitulation and now his promise to continue the Bush administration’s faith-based initiative.

Obama is looking more and more like Bill Clinton everyday.

A different kind of politician

The title of this post, which is dripping with irony, is written with sadness. Barack Obama has offered himself as that different kind of politician, as someone ready to change the way Washington politics functions.

But his recent actions and statements — on telecom immunity, on the death penalty, on campaign finance — have me perplexed. (I leave out his comments on the court’s gun ruling because I have a similarly nuanced reading of the amendment).

As I wrote yesterday — linking to Greenwald — there has been a disturbing trend of Obama tacking to the right, what this NY Times story calls

a stroll this week away from traditional liberal political positions, his path toward the political center marked by artful leaps and turns.

What disturbs me is the easy manner in which Obama, having dispatched Hillary Clinton during the primaries, can now be compared with her husband:

In the last week, Mr. Obama has taken calibrated positions on issues that include electronic surveillance, campaign finance and the death penalty for child rapists, suggesting a presidential candidate in hot pursuit of what Bill Clinton once lovingly described as “the vital center.”

Don’t get me wrong. Obama is the better of the two remaining candidates and the collection of supporters surrounding him gives me hope that he will, in the end, do the right thing more often than not. But he is no progressive and it will take a lot of effort on the part of progressives to keep him from gravitating toward positions that pundits like David Broder — who is wed to the conventional wisdom — advocate.

Rationalizing for Obama

Greenwald is right — about Obama, about Jonathan Alter and about Olbermann.

What good are Democrats?

Chris Dodd is my new hero. He appears to be Dan Froomkin’s hero, as well, along with Glenn Greenwald of Salon — who called it “one of the most compelling and inspired speeches by a prominent politician that I’ve heard in quite some time.”

The reason is that Dodd has been hammering home the dangers of the Bush approach to surveillance and Congressional Democrats’ willingness to compromise to avoid appearing weak. Dodd’s assault — I think that is fair — on this cynical approach is a reminder in many ways that we will need to apply significant pressure to the Democratic nominee (the Republican nominee is a lost cause on this) if we are to keep him from tacking right.

Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic standard-bearer, has announced that he plans to support the FISA deal — an about-face from his early promise to fillibuster any legislation that included immunity from lawsuits for telecom companies that may have been involved in domestic spying. His reasoning: The bill

“firmly re-establishes basic judicial oversight over all domestic surveillance in the future”

and

“guarantees a thorough review by the Inspectors General of our national security agencies to determine what took place in the past, and ensures that there will be accountability going forward.”

He reaffirmed his position today:

“It is a close call for me,” Obama told reporters. But he said the addition of the “exclusivity” provision giving power to the secret court, along with a new inspector general role and other oversight additions, “met my basic concerns.” He said the bill’s target should not be the phone companies’ culpability, but “can we get to the bottom of what’s taking place, and do we have safeguards?”

That’s just not enough, as Sen. Russ Feingold, the Wisconsin Democrat, makes clear in comments about his Democratic House colleagues:

“That’s a farce and it’s political cover,” Feingold said. “Anybody who claims this is an okay bill, I really question if they’ve even read it. ”

“Democrats enabled [this],” Feingold went on. “Some of the rank-and-file Democrats in the Senate who were elected on this reform platform unfortunately voted with Kit Bond, who’s just giggling, he’s so happy with what he got. We caved in.”

It is up us to to force their hand.