Obama has had trouble getting the BLACK working-class vote (not just a problem with white voters)

[highplainsdem]

Okay, I FINALLY found an answer to something I've been asking about in two topics today, one the topic I started about how Hillary's recent remark was disastrously misunderstood (partly because it turned out to be a mistake for her to use "hard working" consistently to mean "working class").

I am so very tired of having people suggest that merely because Obama has not been doing as well with working-class white voters, that proves they're racist, or that Hillary's reference to an AP story that mentioned this voting demographic shows she's racist.

I explained that I thought what was going on was the perception that Obama is elitist.

And I asked whether he'd had trouble getting support from working-class black voters initially.

I didn't have any statistics on this, but my recollection of some news stories I'd read about black voters who'd initially planned to vote for Hillary, but had switched to Obama, had left me with that impression.

So I did some checking, and discovered the perception of elitism wasn't just in this campaign. It's been an ongoing problem for him.

I just found a NY Times article making it clear that Obama had a VERY hard time with black working-class voters when he first tried to get into national politics by running for a Congressional seat in 2000, the seat held by former Black Panther Bobby Rush.

This article, and I hope the link works:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/09/us/politics/09obama.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

September 9, 2007
The Long Run

In 2000, a Streetwise Veteran Schooled a Bold Young Obama

By JANNY SCOTT

-snip-

The episode revealed a lot about Senator Obama — now running for president, against the odds again and with a relatively slim résumé. It showed his impatience with the frustrations of his state Senate job; his outsize confidence; his fund-raising powers; his broad appeal; and his willingness to be what Abner J. Mikva, a former congressman and supporter, calls “a very apt student of his own mistakes.”

It also shed light on the complicated ways that class has played out in Mr. Obama’s political career as a factor entangled with his race. Class emerged as a subtext in the Congressional campaign, along with generational differences that separate Mr. Obama from older black politicians.

He might have fared better if he had jumped into the race sooner, campaigned even harder and found a way to speak more effectively to working-class black voters, people involved with that campaign say. But most say they doubt he could have won. It is hard to take out an incumbent, and though Mr. Rush may have looked vulnerable after losing a lackluster campaign against Mayor Richard M. Daley in early 1999, he was not vulnerable enough.

“He was blinded by his ambition,” Mr. Rush said. “Obama has never suffered from a lack of believing that he can accomplish whatever it is he decides to try. Obama believes in Obama. And, frankly, that has its good side but it also has its negative side.”

-snip-

There's much, much more to this article which sheds light on what's happening now.

Including that the district Obama was trying to win in then, though 65% black, contained plenty of the college-educated white "latte liberals" Obama does well with, but he just couldn't connect with enough working-class black voters.

This is what the article says Obama's opponent, incumbent Congressman Bobby Rush, told the Chicago Reader about him: "He went to Harvard and became an educated fool. We're not impressed with these folks with these Eastern elite degrees."

So let's get this straight.

Obama has ALWAYS had a problem being perceived as an elitist.

He has had problems with BLACK working class voters.

And since those were BLACK voters, his problem currently with white working-class voters is NOT due to racism.

This is due to an impression Obama himself gives many people of being an elitist.

If you want to argue that he isn't really an elitist, fine. I'm not saying he is. I'm merely saying that he gives that impression, and it turns off many working-class voters. Black voters' pride in his success in this campaign has overcome that now, apparently, but the same dynamic doesn't exist to offset the impression of elitism and how it affects many white working-class voters.

[Sparkly]

1. I didn't see your other posts but

I was thinking of posting a thread as well about "hard-working" being a long-standing phrase for "working class," a long-standing phrase for lower and lower-middle economic classes.

(Because evidently, people here took her comment about "hard-working white people" as the EXACT same thing as saying, "No black people are hard-working." :crazy:)

(I still say there is a lot of discomfort HERE about Obama's race! The twists and turns are remarkable.)

[highplainsdem]

2. Which is how Hillary used those words, consistently. I checked her old speeches.

Here's a link to the topic I posted about that:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x5896190

[Sparkly]

3. And she isn't the only one.

It's a very common phrase to refer to an economic class!!

[Number23]

4. I didn't get what you got from the article

but he just couldn't connect with enough working-class black voters.

What I got was that this Harvard educated College professor decided to do political battle in a predominantly black neighborhood against a widely known black man who was a legend in the black community for fighting for black rights.

They could have put a homeless man up against Bobby Rush and he probably would have been branded as "out of touch" by many of the locals. It was both naive and brave of Obama to go up against Bobby Rush in that type of context. Looks like he learned his lesson from it though, to an extent.

[Window]

12. Exactly. Also, that's one person's opinion of what was happening

in Chicago in 2000. Big difference in 2008 and, believe me, if Black working class voters didn't think highly of Sen. Obama the man, they wouldn't vote for him.

[Renaissance Man]

5. False

This entire post is patently false, and contrary to what many may think, Senator Obama had more of a name recognition problem with Black voters (of all economic backgrounds) rather than an "elitist" problem. After viewing him objectively, many voters realized that he was just as qualified, had more legislative experience than the only remaining Democratic contender, and overall, was just a better candidate.

This notion that somehow working class Black voters aren't informed about the candidates' positions, and that there is some form of disconnect between working class Black voters and Sen. Obama is false. Also, you can't base the body politic of less affluent black voters with what happens in a state Congressional election with campaigning in a Presidential primary.

His race against Bobby Rush was his first time attempting to get elected (and he lost), and since then, he hasn't lost an election yet.

[highplainsdem]

6. The Times story is very explicit about class being a factor.

Another small snippet:

The implication was not exactly that Mr. Obama was “not black enough,” as some blacks have suggested more recently; his credentials were suspect. “It was much more a function of class, not race,” Mr. Adelstein said. “Nobody said he’s ‘not black enough.’ They said he’s a professor, a Harvard elite who lives in Hyde Park.”


The person quoted there, Eric Adelstein, is a media consultant in Chicago who worked on the Rush campaign.

[Renaissance Man]

7. Right

..but that's socioeconomic status/class being a factor in a state-wide campaign, not a race for the US Senate or the Presidency. I don't discount it being an issue in that specific race, but what happens in one area in Illinois doesn't speak for his appeal nationwide. Bobby Rush is well-known (not only in the Chicago area, but he's known nation-wide as a co-founder of the Panthers).

He was literally going up against a stronger machine.

<--- from rural America, currently residing in a metropolitan area, in law school, black male.

[Indenturedebtor]

11. Yes many politicians have trouble connecting with voters

Some of them overcome that and win... a very select number of them can't bridge the gap and lose their primaries :eyes:

[Exilednight]

19. You're trying to push opinion as fact. Just because Adelstein said it doesn't make it true. n/t

[highplainsdem]

38. Check reply #27, the link to the Salon article by a journalist who met Obama

during that 2000 race.

[AllentownJake]

8. Funny thing about that race

Bill Clinton campaigned for Bobby Rush...Bill wishes he could have taken that back. Obama would be a congressman instead of the Democratic Nominee :rofl:

[Warren Stupidity]

9. He does? Hmmm...

I guess North Carolina must be full of non-working class blacks.

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/epolls/#NCDEM

You go find me the trouble getting the BLACK working-class vote Obama had in that primary. I'll be waiting right here.

[EFerrari]

10. Bill Clinton was a Rhodes Scholar.

lmfao

This isn't about "elitism".

[highplainsdem]

62. See reply #54

[sudopod]

13. I'm sorry, but

I'm not impressed with people who think a college degree is somehow a disqualification.

I've got enough of them in my family, thank you very much. :p

[Exilednight]

20. People that believe that are usually called republicans and refer to schools as liberal institutes.

[goletian]

44. hahaha, isnt that about the saddest thing ever? i hear that A LOT from conservatives

schools are liberal. anything that educates people is liberal. anything that makes sense, is liberal. anything objective is liberal. well, i guess thats all true... lol

[sudopod]

45. hahaha, no joke! nt

[VotesForWomen]

14. some people claim everything hill does is racist. wait till they try that in the GE against mccain.

[Hippo_Tron]

15. Oye, more "Obama is an elitist" crap

[rhett o rick]

16. My my my. Here's the deal. Obama is the nominee. If you don't like it, bite it. He has more

support than Sen Clinton. Don't matter who the hell you think are doing the supporting or not. He has more support than Sen Clinton. That means he wins the nomination. Read my lips, Obama is the nominee. It is time for Sen Clinton supporters to stop trying to stir up trouble in the party. I don't give a damn if they sign on to support the Democratic Party nominee or not. It's time to go after McCain.

[LWolf]

17. This one paragraph highlights one of the reasons I don't support Obama:

<snip>

Mr. Shomon said, “There was a gradual progression of Barack Obama from thoughtful, earnest policy wonk/civil rights lawyer/constitutional law expert to Barack Obama the politician, the inspirer, the speaker.” Denny Jacobs, a friend of Mr. Obama and a former state senator, agreed. “He stumbled on the fact that instead of running on all the issues, quote unquote, that hope is the real key,” he said. “Not only the black community but less privileged people are looking for that hope. You don’t have to talk about health care, you have to talk about ‘the promise’ of health care. Hope is a pretty inclusive word. I think he is very good at selling that.”

I'm an issues voter. I'm inspired by concrete, aggressive, passionate, persistent, consistent work to move issues forward.

I'm not impressed with empty rhetoric.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

18. I agree

[roseBudd]

23. You do realize that POTUS is just one of 3 coequal branches and congress actually legislates?

POTUS is a veto pen and a bully pulpit

So HRC can bully all she wants, Does not mean policies she favors will be enacted. Bush had both the Senate & House & did not get his way on Social Security.

Day one. Does she think we are dumb?

[LWolf]

25. Of course I realize that.

That's exactly why my biggest focus is on going after my vulnerable republican senator, and my not-so-vulnerable republican congressman.

That doesn't change the fact that I don't like Obama's use of empty rhetoric and "inspiration" to hide a flawed agenda.

[Emit]

29. Can you elaborate on what is flawed about his agenda?

[LWolf]

49. Sure. I've done exactly that so many times on DU

that it's kind of like blinking and breathing at this point.

1. He's too republican. He admires Ronald Reagan' transformative efforts to move us away from the "excesses" of the 60s and 70s. Excesses which I supported then, and support now. He wants to reach across the aisle while alienating certain portions of the base. Not the "latte liberals," for the most part; The teachers, definitely. I would never support him for public office based on his ideas about education alone. I'm a teacher. I will not vote for someone who champions rw republican ideas like merit pay, charter schools, and other ways to further privatize public ed. The GLBT section. Some of labor. The poor working class.

2. He's too corporate. His bundling, his ties to Rezko, his willingness to leave the private pharmaceutical and health insurance industries "at the table" on health care policy....

3. He's a hawk. An inconsistent hawk, at that. He was "against the war from the beginning," but not later. Not in later remarks, and not with his votes when he got to congress, until he began running in the primaries. He's not "anti-war," but "anti-dumb war," but he doesn't recognize a "dumb war" when it smacks him in the face. He can't make up his mind if Iraq is a "dumb war" or not; either that, or he's simply a hypocrite with his "against it from the beginning" remarks. He DOES support the "war on terror," which has to be the DUMBEST war the U.S. has ever engaged in. He is willing to take unilateral military action in other nations to pursue that "war on terror."

There's more, but those three are enough to make his agenda too flawed for my support.

[atufal1c]

28. Even if Obama really is "running" on hope...

he's still a "thoughtful, earnest policy wonk/civil rights lawyer/constitutional law expert".

That can still be "the politician, the inspirer, the speaker".

Your quote not mine.

Sounds like a dream candidate to me.

And I live in the area. It is ridiculous to wonder why nobody Barack Obama lost to famous incumbent Bobby Rush in a local election nearly a decade ago.

Wonder if Rush wants to go double or nothin'?

Didn't think so.

[LWolf]

53. That's all fine

if that "thoughtful, earnest policy wonk" is actually has worthy ideas, and formulates worthy policy.

Obama's ideas are too republican, and too corporatist, to be worthy of my support.

Obama's "politician, inspirer, speaker," role reminds me too much of a preacher in the pulpit, with the flock nodding and shouting "amen" and feeling good, regardless of whether there is any substance at all in the message.

All that inspiration, built on emotional response, with no foundation in substance to support it, is not a "dream candidate." That's the wizard of Oz. There is no wizard behind the screen.

[bvar22]

57. I agree with you in principle.

As a DK supporter myself, Obama is far to the right of what I would prefer as POTUS,
BUT, we ARE faced with a direct choice.
Since Hillary is no longer in the equation, we can either support Obama, or through omission support McCain. There is a chance that Obama will work with Progressive coalitions. At least he hasn't directly attacked the Left Wing like other candidates who shall remain nameless.

You are entirely correct in supporting Progressive Congressional candidates, and I join you in that effort. THEY are more important in setting the legislative agenda.

For the reasons you cited, Obama was my 2nd to last choice. At this point, our only viable path is to support him for POTUS, and work our asses off to hold his feet to the fire by eliminating the influence of DLC and other conservative elements of the Democratic Party.

*Send $MONEY$ directly to Progressive candidates

*Support Progressive organizations like MoveOn that allow our collective voices to be heard, and combine our financial resources to target the more offensive conservative elements of the Democratic Party.

*Selectively support Progressive 3rd Parties when doing so does NOT help elect Republicans.

I hate our rigged two party system, but the reality is that we will either have McCain or Obama as president in 2009.
Please choose wisely.


"There are forces within the Democratic Party who want us to sound like kinder, gentler Republicans. I want us to compete for that great mass of voters that want a party that will stand up for working Americans, family farmers, and people who haven't felt the benefits of the economic upturn."---Paul Wellstone

[LWolf]

63. That's the voice of reason, and I appreciate it.

I have been struggling with choosing wisely for quite some time now.

My primary is this month, and I'll probably vote tomorrow. We vote by mail in Oregon, and get our ballots with a few weeks to spare.

I have bounced around like a pinball since everyone else dropped out. From writing in a better democrat, to supporting whichever candidate is behind in the hopes of helping to force a brokered convention; that might get a candidate that is not tied for last place with me. That's where I had Clinton and Obama from the very beginning. So far below the rest that they weren't really a possible consideration.

I'll probably bounce just like that all the way until November, since there won't be a candidate that I can honestly support, and say I WANT to vote for.

Right now I'm leaning towards a Clinton vote tomorrow, for two reasons.

The first being the "balancing act," as mentioned above.

The second being that, I'm stunned...literally stunned, and not at all pleased, to find that, if I have to hold my nose for either one of them, I'd prefer her.

I KNOW all the reasons not to support her. I've known them all along, and they haven't changed. It is overwhelmingly APPALLING to me that I find her better on at least one key issue than Obama.

Both are hawks, so war and peace aren't deciding issues. Both have bad health plans. Both support NAFTA. I find them both equally BAD on all my key issues. Except one.

Hillary trumps Obama on education. He supports merit pay, charter schools, and other conservative weapons of public education destruction. Clinton has said, several times, that she is now against NCLB. I take that with more than a few grains of salt, coming from Clinton. But, as a teacher who thinks public education should be a much larger issue with voters than it has been, and as an educator who adamantly opposes NCLB, that's got to be the deciding issue. It's one I take personally, and it's one of the few areas I can find a significant difference between the two.

I probably won't make up my mind what to do until I've marked the rest of the ballot and come to the bottom line.

At least that part of it will be over, and I can start to struggle with the non-choices in November.

[Imagevision]

21. Anyone with a smidgeon of common sense will switch over to Obama, including some repugs...

[BlooInBloo]

22. Pfft. Black people don't work. Everybody knows that.

[mikekohr]

24. Senator Obama Is Pulling 92% of The Black Vote

Are you trying to suggest only 8% of Blacks are working class? Are the 92% of Blacks that are supporting Senator Obama latte drinking, cheese eating, Gucci wearing, yuppy elitists?

mike kohr

[bunnies]

26. Yep.

92% of African-Americans are filthy-stinking rich. The other 8% were left to die in New Orleans.

[highplainsdem]

27. If you don't believe the NY Times, maybe you'll believe Salon,

which had a story on that 2000 race written by a journalist who covered it and met Obama then:

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/02/12/obama_natural/

First page of a three page story, which points out that Obama was even more wooden than John Kerry in 2000 -- he dramatically changed his voice and style later, an amazing makeover. The point of the article is that he's no natural, and that he did not connect with the voters in that race.

This is part of what the reporter wrote about Obama in that 2000 race:

How Obama learned to be a natural

Today he drips with charisma and inspires fawning admiration from all quarters. But Obama began his journey as a smug young man with little political future.

By Edward McClelland

Feb. 12, 2007

-snip-

Obama just couldn't -- or wouldn't -- loosen up. The dignified demeanor that had won him a state Senate seat in the university community of Hyde Park did not translate to the district's inner-city precincts. His internal rhythm was set to "Pomp and Circumstance." "Arrogant," scoffed a South Side radio host. Even his body language signaled he was slumming.

The story points out that he worked hard on his image, and on getting more involved in legislation, after that fiasco.

But it also had some paragraphs about how openly ambitious and arrogant he was then -- this is not a "humble" man who would have had to be urged by others to run for president.

This is the way he was talking in 2000, while busy losing a Congressional race:

Back in 2000, when I interviewed Obama in his cubicle-size office at a downtown law firm, he started the meeting by checking his watch. Then he dissed his congressional district, half-joking that he was more committed to the South Side than his opponents, because, number one, he'd moved there from Hawaii, and number two, he could have been raking it in on Wall Street.

"I really have to want to live here," he said. "I'm like a salmon swimming upstream on the South Side of Chicago. At every juncture of my life, I could have taken the path of least resistance but much higher pay. Being the president of the Harvard Law Review is a big deal. The typical path for someone like myself is to clerk for the Supreme Court, and then basically you have your pick of any law firm in the country."

McClelland also wrote, of how he felt about Obama running for the Senate later:

I'd thought Obama had campaigned like an ass, but I expected him to run for the U.S. Senate. And I expected him to win. His white upbringing would appeal to suburbanites, while South Siders might figure that Obama was as black a senator as they were going to get, after the Carol Moseley Braun debacle. His braininess, his haughtiness, his sense of entitlement -- they could only be pluses in a Senate campaign. They don't call that place Ego Mountain for nothing.

...his haughtiness, his sense of entitlement...

His image has definitely improved. But I think there are still glimpses of the haughtiness and the sense of entitlement from time to time, and I believe that's what white working-class voters are reacting to.

McClelland asks toward the end of the story whether Obama has just learned to be himself now, or whether he's putting on an act. He believes it's a mix of the two. And he quotes Donne Trotter, an Illinois state senator, on what a fast learner Obama is (though Trotter doesn't consider Obama charismatic; I don't, either, though I'm willing to accept that others do).

It's been an amazing transformation, apparently. And I have to applaud Obama for it.

But the way he talked in 2000 that conveyed the haughtiness and sense of entitlement concerns me.

He wasn't a kid then, someone who just had some growing up to do. He was 36.

And to me that suggests that the haughtiness and sense of entitlement are probably still there, but hidden better.

As I said, there are still hints of that attitude.

[atufal1c]

34. Yet another swing and a miss...

From the Salon article:

"He didn't lose because he was "too white." He lost because he was a presumptuous young man challenging a popular incumbent.

"Trotter, who is plenty black, got 7 percent."

(Trotter represented the South Side in the Illinois House from 1988 to 1993 and the Illinois Senate since 1993.)

I'm sure a lot of people would just love from Obama to start rhyming like Jesse Jackson, but (thankfully) it's not going to happen.

It's like all of those people who suggested that people would like Hillary if she would just cry more....

[lumpy]

55. And they say Hillary is only about Hillary.

If he makes it I do hope he gets over his ego and has a substancial agenda and works hard for the good of this country. After the mess Bushco has left us swimming in, it will take lots of hard work on the part of the POTUS and the cooperation of Congress. Wussiness won't cut.

[atufal1c]

30. Your article stinks!. For You.

Let me also add to my comments above that your NY Times article not only makes it abundantly clear that Obama probably never stood a chance--UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES--to be elected what with Rush being endorsed by everyone from Bill Clinton to Father Pfleger.

Bobby Rush himself admits that they played Obama cheap, that they engaged in "chest-beating, signifying". They didn't WIN based on that, that is just the tact they took.

But they didn't need it.

Rush was a well-known, well-liked *incumbent*. The argument that Obama lost because blue-collar black people saw him as elitist does not hold up.

[highplainsdem]

31. Look at the article from Salon posted just above your reply.

[Bread and Circus]

32. Just STFU with the elitism bullshit. It's a Republlican frame and it doesn't need echoing here.

[beachmom]

33. And then he won them over. This also is under the category of "Not black enough".

His problem with "working class voters" seems to toggle between "Too black" and "Not black enough". Sorry, but it is different in the black community on this -- haven't you heard of black kids calling studious black kids "acting white"? I just don't think it is the same thing. You are dealing with apples and oranges. And, it seems that "elitist" just means SMART. Which I will take. Any day of the week.

[highplainsdem]

36. Read the Salon article I mentioned - refers to "his haughtiness, his sense of entitlement"

From a journalist who met him during that 2000 campaign.

[walldude]

35. Yeah.. thats why he's winning.

If Hillary is so good and Obama so bad, why is she losing?

[bluetrain]

37. Obama has trouble getting the DEMOCRATIC vote.

[EFerrari]

39. Right. That's why he's winning the DEMOCRATIC primary

by every metric.

[AllentownJake]

51. You miss the point

Read the entire article...Obama lost an election and he learned alot from losing the race...just like Bill Clinton was a better candidate after he lost re-election in 82 in Arkansas.

[ShortnFiery]

40. Wow, just when I think the bigotry couldn't get more VULGAR, there it is: another filthy rock layer.

:puke: :nuke:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oRwZQLdhEw

[highplainsdem]

41. ?????? How is this "bigotry"?

This is about voter demographics, Obama and working-class voters.

I'm simply pointing out that the perception of elitism caused problems for him with black working-class voters in the past. Both the NY Times article and the Salon article agree on that. It's clear this is not a new problem for him, and not something his opponents invented.

It has been interesting finding out more about that 2000 race.

The Salon article is especially interesting, with what it says about how much he set out to transform his image after that failed campaign, and how very different he seems now.

[bluetrain]

42. Don't you get it yet? Reality is anathema to Obama supporters and any mention of him, regardless of

facts, tone or context, which isn't frothing with adulation is ... RACIST. The ones who, actually, do have two or more brain cells to rub together realize that the man is neither electable in the GE nor is he a progressive nor does he have any accomplishments and are trying to fend off reality with their little fists because they're smitten with an illusion that "makes them feel good." The others are just transparent operatives here to cause planned chaos.

[McCamy Taylor]

47. Everything that anyone says about Obama is racist? This wont work in the GE.

Because only Democrats care about the charge. Only Democrats will stop what they are doing and sit back and reflect to see whether what they have just said is racist.

In the GE, Independents and esp Republicans will tell you to blow it out your ass unless they really did say something that was 100% racist.

So, you had better find a better telfon strategy for the GE.

[highplainsdem]

54. No, it won't. This sort of tactic from Obama supporters will alienate Dems, too.

Both articles make it very clear that Obama has come across as elitist in the past, that this is a real problem for him.

He's obviously worked on his image a lot since 2000. But it's clear from the quote in the Salon article where Obama was talking about himself in 2000 that he really was showing the "haughtiness" and "sense of entitlement" that the reporter described, and that Bobby Rush commented on in that quote in the NY Times article. And this was only 8 years ago, and he was already in his thirties when he was still showing that attitude, dissing the Congressional district he was running in and talking about where his academic achievements could have taken him. This elitist attitude of his was not something invented by Republicans, as another DUer tried to suggest.

These were Obama's words about himself, to that reporter -- the quote in the Salon article -- which most clearly conveyed the elitist attitude:

"At every juncture of my life, I could have taken the path of least resistance but much higher pay. Being the president of the Harvard Law Review is a big deal. The typical path for someone like myself is..."

I can't imagine Bill Clinton sitting around, especially in his 30s, and saying something like, "Being a Rhodes scholar is a big deal. The typical path for someone like myself is..." I can't picture him even keeping a straight face if someone asked him to recite those words. He'd be laughing his head off.

So the fact that Obama could talk about himself that way only 8 years ago is worrisome.

Obama has done a lot of work on his image. And I give him credit for that. But his own words about himself, his own attitude during that 2000 campaign, created the "elitist" image his supporters want to pretend doesn't exist and never existed.

And it has everything to do with his not appealing to more working-class voters.

[Name removed]

43. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Evergreen Emerald]

52. Stop with the false accusations. The op is talking demographics

a conversation about demographics is not racist.

[intaglio]

46. Ah, so who is voting for him?

Seems like no-one .......... if the Clinton campaign is right. Funny how he keeps winning then

[Leopolds Ghost]

48. Was Obama recruited by Daley to run against Bobby Rush because Rush challenged Daley?

I take it Rush is still in office.

[AllentownJake]

50. No

Daley told Obama not to do it because there is no way he could win.

[Freedom Train]

56. Very interesting. Good find and good post.

I'm kicking you up to the Greatest Page with my recommendation #5. :patriot:

[Lerkfish]

58. LET'S HAVE A MORATORIUM TO RACE BAITING ANTI OBAMA THREADS

since he is the nominee. Can we lay off the dogwhistling, the racebaiting, the rationalizations, the apologist justifications, the wink wink he's a black man after all, covert and overt bigoted or appeal to bigots threads by clinton supporters?

can we do that, in the interest of harmony? Can we?

thanks.

[highplainsdem]

59. This isn't race-baiting. Let's have a moratorium on threads and posts

unthinkingly accusing people of race-baiting if they mention voter demographics or, God forbid, problems Obama had in past campaigns, even if those problems still appear to be affecting him to some extent.

If criticism of Obama is automatically race-baiting, then what is this article about him by Glen Ford of the Black Agenda Report? This is a REALLY scathing critique of him, from a black man. I ran across it this morning by accident while checking on what various sites had to say about Obama's appeal to male voters.

http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=537

By the way, with your request for a "moratorium" that targets only people who aren't Obama supporters, you're not asking for "harmony." You're asking for groupthink and an end to free speech.

I've already said I'll vote for him. I just don't think he's the strongest candidate we had, and I believe we have less chance of winning in November with him as the nominee.

[Lerkfish]

60. we'll have to disagree, then.

I think your partisan blinders prevent you from seeing the truth, and you think the same of me.
leave it at that.

[highplainsdem]

61. My partian blinders? I'm referring to what other people said and wrote about him.