Politics 2008:The Caucuses and The Dem/Rep Conventions

[shinerbock]

Originally Posted by mccoyred

Its funny about the double standard that Dems are held to as opposed to the GOP. To this day, I don't see how getting some head in the oval office is more serious than sending thousands of young men and women to their deaths to advance a corporate and personal agenda. Maybe Shinerbock has the answer to this???



^5



Girl, didn't you see Head of State

You must have missed the part where the Democrats voted for the war. From reading your post, this doesn't surprise me. You don't really seem like the kind of person who is really keyed into what happens in the world of government. Why would you be? After all, you could just do what you're doing now, regurgitating talking points regarding things you know nothing about. Yeah, thats a much simpler alternative.

[shinerbock]

Summer, Hillary is going towards the middle because its the only way she can win the general, and currently she has a long way to go. If Obama stays in, she'll probably move back to the left somewhat in an attempt to win the primary, but after that its back to the middle. Hillary/Obama is a dumb ticket for Obama. Hillary will need a lot of help to win, and by help I mean the GOP candidate doing something pretty stupid. Why would Obama want to be a part of a losing ticket? When you become a VP candidate, you end up going to bat for the Presidential candidate (See: John Edwards). Obama has a similar reputation pre-election to what Edwards had, by being a unifying figure, an optimist, etc...Theres absolutely no reason to get into the mud for what will likely be a losing cause.

[Honeykiss1974]

I think Firecracker08 (not that I'm speaking for you ) likes Edwards/Obama because they both are appealing to wide variety of a voting audience. Let's face it...2008 will be more than just your average Dem vs Rep race. A successful candidate will HAVE to be able to appeal to the majority of their party and a good portion of their opposing party.

This is one main reason why I think Hillary can hang it up. She is NOT appealing to the Republican party - not even to moderate Republicans. So even if the Dems used the Iraq war/deaths to play on the heartstrings of America in a "republicans are evil vote for us" sort of way, it still won't be enough. You have got to have crossover appeal plain and simple.

[lovelyivy84]

Originally Posted by Honeykiss1974

I think Firecracker08 (not that I'm speaking for you ) likes Edwards/Obama because they both are appealing to wide variety of a voting audience. Let's face it...2008 will be more than just your average Dem vs Rep race. A successful candidate will HAVE to be able to appeal to the majority of their party and a good portion of their opposing party.

This is one main reason why I think Hillary can hang it up. She is NOT appealing to the Republican party - not even to moderate Republicans. So even if the Dems used the Iraq war/deaths to play on the heartstrings of America in a "republicans are evil vote for us" sort of way, it still won't be enough. You have got to have crossover appeal plain and simple.

I fully agree with this post- if the Democrats actually put up Hillary Clinton for election it would be ridiculous. She is a hugely divisive figure. Not that theyw ouldn't, seeing as how their strategy int he past few years has been sorely lacking, but damn that would be dumb.

As to Edwards being too green, that is probably true, and completely sad. If there is one issue that we should all be taking to heart, regardless of race or class it's what is being done to our planet and the need for conservation to step it up. It won't matter if abortion is ever banned or not if there is no sustainable environment for those children to grow up in.

[shinerbock]

Edwards was golden pre-Kerry. I think Bayh/Obama could be good, but theres absolutely zero chance the Dems let Evan win the primary.

[TonyB06]

Originally Posted by shinerbock

Edwards was golden pre-Kerry. I think Bayh/Obama could be good, but theres absolutely zero chance the Dems let Evan win the primary.

Golden based on what? He was a one-term senator from North Carolina with a nice presentation. Don't recall a major legislative accomplishment, but clearly that's not been a pre-requisite for high national office for some time now.

Don't know much about Bayh....yet.

[shinerbock]

Tony, I'm not judging him on his merits, but his ability to be a successful politician. Before becoming the VP candidate, he was the optimistic, don't-talk-bad-about-anyone candidate. Experience can easily be overcome with such things, this is America.

[mccoyred]

Originally Posted by shinerbock

You must have missed the part where the Democrats voted for the war. From reading your post, this doesn't surprise me. You don't really seem like the kind of person who is really keyed into what happens in the world of government. Why would you be? After all, you could just do what you're doing now, regurgitating talking points regarding things you know nothing about. Yeah, thats a much simpler alternative.

I guess you missed the part where the White House AND the Congress were controlled by the GOP over the last 6 years. Hopefully there is more of a check and balance now.

As far as the kind of person I am, you will never know. I don't put myself out on Front St like some people....


BTW, I guess my insight into the fact that WMD never existed in Iraq the minute the words left GWB's mouth makes me out of tune with the world. Considering I was right on the money....

[shinerbock]

Mccoy, the GOP did control, but that has zero relevance when talking about how democrats also supported the war.

WMD existed in Iraq. Fact. Ask the Kurds.

[BlessedOne04]

I personally cannot wait until Barak announces what he is going to do. I may have to make a trip to Springfield to see that for myself!

[Lady of Pearl]

I am pleased to see Obama running and already the onslaughts and naysayers have come to the forefront, if not him to win the Presidency then at least a DEMOCRAT.We have had enough of the Republican agenda with its uncaring economic and international policies, and the atrocities of soldiers being killed in Iraq.

[Steeltrap]

Thursday, Feb. 08, 2007
The New Black Nativism
By Orlando Patterson

To the surprise of many whites and dismay of his supporters, Barack Obama trailed Hillary Clinton among black Americans by a 40-point margin in a recent Washington Post-ABC poll. It is possible to read this as a positive development: black Americans have transcended racial politics and may now vote for the person they consider the better candidate, regardless of race. The sad truth, however, is that Obama is being rejected because many black Americans don't consider him one of their own and may even feel threatened by what he embodies.

So just what is the nature of black American identity today? Historically, the defining characteristic has been any person born in America who is of African ancestry, however remote. This is the infamous one-drop rule, invented and imposed by white racists until the middle of the 20th century. As with so many other areas of ethno-racial relations, African Americans turned this racist doctrine to their own ends. What to racist whites was a stain of impurity became a badge of pride. More significantly, what for whites was a means of exclusion was transformed by blacks into a glorious principle of inclusion. The absurdity of defining someone as black who to all appearances was white was turned on its head by blacks who used the one-drop rule to enlarge both the black group and its leadership with light-skinned persons who, elsewhere in the Americas, would never dream of identifying with blacks.

Black identity was historically progressive in another important respect: from very early in the 19th century through the civil rights movement, it was strikingly cosmopolitan. Black leaders took a deep interest in oppressed peoples throughout the world. The Pan-African movement and early black nationalism were part of emerging notions of black solidarity. Blacks took deep pride in the Haitian revolution, and black American missionaries played an important role in the Christianization of Jamaican and other West Indian blacks. Black Americans were also open to the inspiration of black immigrants: W.E.B. DuBois's father was Haitian; James Weldon Johnson's mother, Bahamian. One of the first mass movements of African Americans was led by a Jamaican, Marcus Garvey, in the '20s. An impressive number of black leaders and civil rights icons--Stokely Carmichael, Malcolm X, Shirley Chisholm, Louis Farrakhan, Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier, to list a few--were all first- or second-generation immigrants. Before them, West Indian leaders paved the way toward involvement with city politics, especially in New York. And this cosmopolitanism extended also to non-African peoples; Martin Luther King's engagement with Mahatma Gandhi is the most famous example. Like so many other West Indians, I have personally experienced this remarkable inclusiveness in the traditional practice of black identity. Becoming a black American meant simply declaring oneself to be one and engaging in their public and private life, into which I was always welcomed.

In recent years, however, this tradition has been eroded by a thickened form of black identity that, sadly, mirrors some of the worst aspects of American white identity and racism. A streak of nativism rears its ugly head. To be black American, in this view, one's ancestors must have been not simply slaves but American slaves. Furthermore, directly mirroring the traditional definition of whiteness as not being black is the growing tendency to define blackness in negative terms--it is to be not white in upbringing, kinship or manner, to be too not at ease in the intimate ways of white Americans.

Barack is married to a black woman, has spent years doing community work in the ghettos and is by lineage certainly more African than most African Americans. But black America's view of him is clouded by the facts that he is the son of an immigrant and that he was brought up mainly by middle-class whites whose culture is second nature to him. Although the Congressional Black Caucus, still strongly influenced by the civil rights generation, remains surprisingly liberal on immigration issues, the black middle class appears to harbor a hardening anti-immigrant sentiment--a Pew poll last year found that 54% of blacks see immigrants as a burden. More disturbing, however, is what that sentiment reveals about a growing pattern of self-segregation among the black middle class, many of whom, like the residents of Prince George's County, Md., seem to have largely given up on school and social integration.

This is tragic, for like all other once excluded groups before them, black Americans are in need of the social and cultural capital that comes from living with and in the white majority, the value of which is nowhere more powerfully demonstrated than in the enormous achievement and potential of Barack Obama.

Click to Print

[TonyB06]

interesting article, ST. Truthfully, I don't think many AfAms, like many white people, have really focused in yet on the race and its participants. I think most of the reaction or "buzz" is based on the free media wave Obama's been riding to this point.

There will be those who --rightfully so -- don't give Obama a pass because he's AfAm. I think it reaffirms the political sophistication that's always been in our community, regardless of popular media convention.

Obama's policy positions vis-a-vie health care, education, housing, economic policy will make Black America (an ever expanding and diverse collection) take notice of whether he truly has AfAm interests at heart. American politics being what it is, I think he'll probably grade out somewhere slightly left of moderate, which will likely garner him huge AfAm support.

...does that make him "palatable enough" to other minority communities and the majority community? who knows? I think it'll take a few more election cycles before the coalition politics you always hear about actually become a force sufficient enough to tip an election.

....now if you've read all of this thread so far PLEASE REGISTER SO YOU CAN VOTE.

[AKA2D '91]

Democratic Presidential Forum: June 28, 2007
Howard University
Televised: PBS


http://www.blackamericaweb.com/site....americandebate

[Sugar08]

Originally Posted by AKA2D '91

Democratic Presidential Forum: June 28, 2007
Howard University
Televised: PBS


http://www.blackamericaweb.com/site....americandebate

Oh wow, I may have to make a trip down to the Alma Mater for that!