January 16, 2008
In Contrast to Obama, Hillary Plays the Race Card
By Dick Morris
On the evening of Jan. 3, it became clear that Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) was going to be a serious candidate for president with a viable chance of winning. The Clintons decided that he was going, inevitably, to win a virtually unanimous vote from the black community. Their own reputation for support for civil rights would make no difference.
With a black candidate within striking distance of the White House, a coalescing of black voters behind his candidacy became inevitable.
Frustratingly for the Clintons, Obama had achieved this likely solidarity among black voters without, himself, summoning racial emotions. He had gone out of his way to avoid mentioning race -- quite a contrast with Hillary, whose every speech talks about her becoming the first female president. But precisely to distinguish himself from the Jesse Jacksons and Al Sharptons of American politics, Obama resisted any racial appeal or even reference. His rhetoric, argumentation, and presentation was indistinguishable from a skilled white candidate's.
So the Clintons faced a problem: With Obama winning the black vote, how were they to win a sufficient proportion of the white electorate to offset his advantage?
Not racists themselves, they decided, nonetheless, to play the race card in order to achieve the polarization of the white vote that they needed to offset that among blacks.
They embarked on a strategy of talking about race -- mentioning Martin Luther King Jr., for example -- and asking their surrogates to do so as well. They have succeeded in making an election that was about gender and age into one that is increasingly about race.
According to the Rasmussen poll of Monday, Jan. 14, Obama leads among blacks by 66-16 while Hillary is ahead among whites by 41-27. The overall head to head is 37-30 in favor of Hillary.
It does not matter which specific reference to race can be traced to whom. Obama's campaign has resisted any temptation to campaign on race and, for an entire year, kept the issue off the front pages. Now, at the very moment that the crucial voting looms, the election is suddenly about race. Obviously, it is the Clintons' doing. Remember the adage: Who benefits?
As Super Tuesday nears, the Clintons will likely take their campaign to a new level, charging that Obama can't win.
They will never cite his skin color in this formulation, but it will be obvious to all voters what they mean: that a black cannot get elected.
The Clintons are far from above using race to win an election. Running for president in the aftermath of the 1992 Los Angeles race riots, Clinton seized on a comment made by rapper Sister Souljah in an interview with her published on May 13, 1992 in The Washington Post. She said, "If black people kill black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people?"
Clinton pounced, eager to show moderates that he was not a radical and was willing to defy the political correctness imposed on the Democratic Party by the civil rights leadership. In a speech to the Rainbow Coalition he said, "If you took the words 'white' and 'black' and you reversed them, you might think David Duke was giving that speech," an allusion to the former Klansman then running for public office in Louisiana.
The Clintons will be very careful about how they go about injecting race into the campaign. Part of their strategy will be to provoke discussion of whether race is becoming a factor in the election. Anything that portrays Obama as black and asks about the role of race in the contest will serve their political interest. And you can bet that there is nothing they won't do ... if they can get away with it.
Morris, a former political adviser to Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and President Bill Clinton, is the author of “Outrage.” To get all of Dick Morris’s and Eileen McGann’s columns for free by email, go to www.dickmorris.com.
www.ruffcommunications.com
Showing posts with label Obama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Obama. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Sunday, December 9, 2007
The Republicans Find Their Obama
The Republicans Find Their Obama
By FRANK RICH
Published: December 9, 2007
COULD 2008 actually end up being a showdown between the author of "The Audacity of Hope" and the new Man from Hope, Ark.?
It sounds preposterous, but Washington’s shock over Mike Huckabee’s sudden rise in the polls — he "came from nowhere," Robert Novak huffed last week — makes you wonder. Having failed to anticipate so much else, including the Barack Obama polling surge of days earlier, the press pack has proved an unreliable guide to election 2008. What the Beltway calls unthinkable today keeps turning out to be front-page news tomorrow.
The prevailing Huckabee narrative maintains that he’s benefiting strictly from the loyalty of the religious right. Evangelical Christians are belatedly rallying around one of their own, a Baptist preacher, rather than settling for a Mormon who until recently supported abortion rights or a thrice-married New Yorker who still does. But that doesn’t explain Mr. Huckabee’s abrupt ascent to first place in some polling nationwide, where Christian conservatives account for a far smaller slice of the Republican pie than in Iowa. Indeed, this theory doesn’t entirely explain Mr.
Huckabee’s steep rise in Iowa, where Mitt Romney has outspent him 20 to 1, a financial advantage that Mr. Romney leveraged to crush him in the state’s straw poll just four months ago.
What really may be going on here is a mirror image of the phenomenon that has upended Hillary Clinton’s "inevitability" among Democrats. Like Senator Obama, Mr. Huckabee is the youngest in his party’s field. (At 52, he’s also younger than every Democratic contender except Mr. Obama, who is 46.) Both men have a history of speaking across party and racial lines. Both men possess that rarest of commodities in American public life: wit. Most important, both men aspire (not always successfully) to avoid the hyper-partisanship of the Clinton-Bush era.
Though their views on issues are often antithetical, Mr. Huckabee and Mr. Obama may be united in catching the wave of an emerging zeitgeist that is larger than either party’s ideology.
An exhausted and disillusioned public may be ready for a replay of the New Frontier pitch of 1960. That pitch won’t come from Mr. Romney, a glib salesman who seems a dead ringer for Don Draper, a Madison Avenue ad man of no known core convictions who works on the Nixon campaign in the TV series, "Mad Men." Mr. Romney’s effort to channel J.F.K. last week, in which he mentioned the word Mormon exactly once, was hardly a profile in courage.
The fact to remember about Mr. Huckabee’s polling spike is that it occurred just after the G.O.P. YouTube debate on CNN, where Mr. Romney and Rudy Giuliani vied to spray the most spittle at illegal immigrants. Congressman Tom Tancredo of Colorado, the fringe candidate whose most recent ads accuse the invading hordes of "pushing drugs, raping kids, destroying lives," accurately accused his opponents of trying to "out-Tancredo Tancredo."
Next to this mean-spiritedness, Mr. Huckabee’s tone leapt off the screen. Attacked by Mr. Romney for supporting an Arkansas program aiding the children of illegal immigrants, he replied, "In all due respect, we’re a better country than to punish children for what their parents did." It was a winning moment, politically as well as morally. And a no-brainer at that. Given that Mr. Tancredo polls at 4 percent among Iowan Republicans and zero nationally, it’s hard to see why Rudy-Romney thought it was smart to try to out-Tancredo Tancredo.
Mr. Huckabee’s humane stand wasn’t an election-year flip-flop. As governor, he decried a bill denying health services to illegal immigrants as "race-baiting" even though its legislator sponsor was a fellow Baptist preacher. Mr. Huckabee’s record on race in general (and in attracting African-American votes) is dramatically at odds with much of his party. Only last year Republicans brought us both "macaca" and a television ad portraying the black Democratic Senate candidate in Tennessee, Harold Ford Jr., as a potential despoiler of white women.
Unlike Rudy-Romney, Mr. Huckabee showed up for the PBS presidential debate held at the historically black Morgan State University in September. Afterward, he met Cornel West, an Obama supporter who deeply disagrees with Mr. Huckabee about abortion and much else. I asked Dr. West for his take last week. After effusively praising Mr. Huckabee as unique among the G.O.P. contenders, Dr. West said: "I told him, ‘You are for real.’ Black voters in Arkansas aren’t stupid. They know he’s sincere about fighting racism and poverty."
Though Mr. Romney’s hastily scheduled speech last week has been greeted by Washington as an essential antidote to the religious bigotry that’s supposedly doing him in, this entire issue may be a red herring. Mr. Romney’s Mormonism has hardly been a secret until now, and Mr.
Huckabee’s eagerness to milk his status as a certified "Christian leader" has been equally transparent from the campaign’s start. Was there really a rising tide of anti-Mormon sentiment in Iowa over the past month, or is Mr. Romney just playing victim?
The real reason for Mr. Huckabee’s ascendance may be that his message is simply more uplifting — and, in the ethical rather than theological sense, more Christian — than that of rivals whose main calling cards of fear, torture and nativism have become more strident with every debate. The fresh-faced politics of joy may be trumping the five-o’clock-shadow of Nixonian gloom and paranoia favored by the entire G.O.P. field with the sometime exception of John McCain.
On the same day of Mr. Romney’s speech, two new polls found Mr. Huckabee with a substantial lead over him and Mr. Giuliani in South Carolina, a stunning reversal from a month ago. Don’t be surprised if a desperate Mitt, who has "accidentally" referred to Mr. Obama as "Osama," does desperate things. South Carolina’s 2000 Republican primary was a jamboree of race-baiting that included a whispering campaign branding Senator McCain as the father of an illegitimate black child. The local political operative who worked for George W. Bush in that race and engineered the infamous Bush visit to Bob Jones University is now in Mr. Romney’s employ.
Mr. Huckabee may well be doomed in the long term. He has little money or organization. He’s so ignorant of foreign affairs that he hadn’t heard of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran a day after its release. His sometimes wacky economic populism riles his party’s most important constituency, Wall Street. And who knows how many other Arkansas scandals will be disinterred along with the paroled serial rapist who popped out last week? That Mr. Huckabee has gotten as far as he has shows just how in sync his benign style is with the cultural moment.
To understand why he can’t be completely dismissed, consider last month’s Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll. Peter Hart, the Democratic half of the bipartisan team that conducts the survey, told me in an interview last week that an overwhelming majority of voters of both parties not only want change but also regard "reducing the partisan fighting in government" as high on their agenda. To his surprise, Mr. Hart found that there’s even a majority (59 percent) seeking a president who would help America in "regaining respect around the world."
This climate, of course, favors the Democrats, especially if the Republicans choose a candidate who brands them as the party of rage and fear — and even more especially if their Tancredo-ism drives a large Hispanic turnout for the national Democratic ticket in Florida, Nevada,
Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona. But a Democratic victory is not guaranteed. The huge spread in the Journal-NBC poll between an unnamed Democrat and Republican in the presidential race — 50 to 35 percent — shrank to a 1 percent lead when Mrs. Clinton was pitted against Mr. Giuliani.
Mr. Obama’s campaign, though hardly the long shot of Mr. Huckabee’s, could also fall short. But the Clinton camp’s panic over his rise in the Iowa polls shows that he’s on the right tactical track.
The more polarizing and negative a candidate turns in style, the more that candidate risks playing Nixon to Mr. Obama’s Kennedy. That Mrs. Clinton’s minions would attack Mr. Obama for unseemly ambition because he wrote a kindergarten report called "I Want to Become President" — and then snidely belittle the press for falling for "a joke" once this gambit backfired — is Rudy-Romneyesque in its vituperative folly.
Experience, like nastiness, may also prove a dead end in the year ahead. In 1960, the experience card was played by all comers against the young upstart senator from Massachusetts. In Iowa, L.B.J. went so far as to tell voters that they should vote for "a man with a little gray in his hair." But experience, Kennedy would memorably counter, "is like taillights on a boat which illuminate where we have been when we should be focusing on where we should be going."
The most experienced candidate in 2008 is not Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Giuliani or Mr. Romney in any case. It’s Mr. McCain, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd and Bill Richardson who have the longest résumés. Mr. Huckabee and Mr. Obama, meanwhile, are both betting that this is another crossroads, like 1960, when Americans are hungry for a leader who will refocus the nation on the path ahead.
www.ruffcommunications.com
By FRANK RICH
Published: December 9, 2007
COULD 2008 actually end up being a showdown between the author of "The Audacity of Hope" and the new Man from Hope, Ark.?
It sounds preposterous, but Washington’s shock over Mike Huckabee’s sudden rise in the polls — he "came from nowhere," Robert Novak huffed last week — makes you wonder. Having failed to anticipate so much else, including the Barack Obama polling surge of days earlier, the press pack has proved an unreliable guide to election 2008. What the Beltway calls unthinkable today keeps turning out to be front-page news tomorrow.
The prevailing Huckabee narrative maintains that he’s benefiting strictly from the loyalty of the religious right. Evangelical Christians are belatedly rallying around one of their own, a Baptist preacher, rather than settling for a Mormon who until recently supported abortion rights or a thrice-married New Yorker who still does. But that doesn’t explain Mr. Huckabee’s abrupt ascent to first place in some polling nationwide, where Christian conservatives account for a far smaller slice of the Republican pie than in Iowa. Indeed, this theory doesn’t entirely explain Mr.
Huckabee’s steep rise in Iowa, where Mitt Romney has outspent him 20 to 1, a financial advantage that Mr. Romney leveraged to crush him in the state’s straw poll just four months ago.
What really may be going on here is a mirror image of the phenomenon that has upended Hillary Clinton’s "inevitability" among Democrats. Like Senator Obama, Mr. Huckabee is the youngest in his party’s field. (At 52, he’s also younger than every Democratic contender except Mr. Obama, who is 46.) Both men have a history of speaking across party and racial lines. Both men possess that rarest of commodities in American public life: wit. Most important, both men aspire (not always successfully) to avoid the hyper-partisanship of the Clinton-Bush era.
Though their views on issues are often antithetical, Mr. Huckabee and Mr. Obama may be united in catching the wave of an emerging zeitgeist that is larger than either party’s ideology.
An exhausted and disillusioned public may be ready for a replay of the New Frontier pitch of 1960. That pitch won’t come from Mr. Romney, a glib salesman who seems a dead ringer for Don Draper, a Madison Avenue ad man of no known core convictions who works on the Nixon campaign in the TV series, "Mad Men." Mr. Romney’s effort to channel J.F.K. last week, in which he mentioned the word Mormon exactly once, was hardly a profile in courage.
The fact to remember about Mr. Huckabee’s polling spike is that it occurred just after the G.O.P. YouTube debate on CNN, where Mr. Romney and Rudy Giuliani vied to spray the most spittle at illegal immigrants. Congressman Tom Tancredo of Colorado, the fringe candidate whose most recent ads accuse the invading hordes of "pushing drugs, raping kids, destroying lives," accurately accused his opponents of trying to "out-Tancredo Tancredo."
Next to this mean-spiritedness, Mr. Huckabee’s tone leapt off the screen. Attacked by Mr. Romney for supporting an Arkansas program aiding the children of illegal immigrants, he replied, "In all due respect, we’re a better country than to punish children for what their parents did." It was a winning moment, politically as well as morally. And a no-brainer at that. Given that Mr. Tancredo polls at 4 percent among Iowan Republicans and zero nationally, it’s hard to see why Rudy-Romney thought it was smart to try to out-Tancredo Tancredo.
Mr. Huckabee’s humane stand wasn’t an election-year flip-flop. As governor, he decried a bill denying health services to illegal immigrants as "race-baiting" even though its legislator sponsor was a fellow Baptist preacher. Mr. Huckabee’s record on race in general (and in attracting African-American votes) is dramatically at odds with much of his party. Only last year Republicans brought us both "macaca" and a television ad portraying the black Democratic Senate candidate in Tennessee, Harold Ford Jr., as a potential despoiler of white women.
Unlike Rudy-Romney, Mr. Huckabee showed up for the PBS presidential debate held at the historically black Morgan State University in September. Afterward, he met Cornel West, an Obama supporter who deeply disagrees with Mr. Huckabee about abortion and much else. I asked Dr. West for his take last week. After effusively praising Mr. Huckabee as unique among the G.O.P. contenders, Dr. West said: "I told him, ‘You are for real.’ Black voters in Arkansas aren’t stupid. They know he’s sincere about fighting racism and poverty."
Though Mr. Romney’s hastily scheduled speech last week has been greeted by Washington as an essential antidote to the religious bigotry that’s supposedly doing him in, this entire issue may be a red herring. Mr. Romney’s Mormonism has hardly been a secret until now, and Mr.
Huckabee’s eagerness to milk his status as a certified "Christian leader" has been equally transparent from the campaign’s start. Was there really a rising tide of anti-Mormon sentiment in Iowa over the past month, or is Mr. Romney just playing victim?
The real reason for Mr. Huckabee’s ascendance may be that his message is simply more uplifting — and, in the ethical rather than theological sense, more Christian — than that of rivals whose main calling cards of fear, torture and nativism have become more strident with every debate. The fresh-faced politics of joy may be trumping the five-o’clock-shadow of Nixonian gloom and paranoia favored by the entire G.O.P. field with the sometime exception of John McCain.
On the same day of Mr. Romney’s speech, two new polls found Mr. Huckabee with a substantial lead over him and Mr. Giuliani in South Carolina, a stunning reversal from a month ago. Don’t be surprised if a desperate Mitt, who has "accidentally" referred to Mr. Obama as "Osama," does desperate things. South Carolina’s 2000 Republican primary was a jamboree of race-baiting that included a whispering campaign branding Senator McCain as the father of an illegitimate black child. The local political operative who worked for George W. Bush in that race and engineered the infamous Bush visit to Bob Jones University is now in Mr. Romney’s employ.
Mr. Huckabee may well be doomed in the long term. He has little money or organization. He’s so ignorant of foreign affairs that he hadn’t heard of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran a day after its release. His sometimes wacky economic populism riles his party’s most important constituency, Wall Street. And who knows how many other Arkansas scandals will be disinterred along with the paroled serial rapist who popped out last week? That Mr. Huckabee has gotten as far as he has shows just how in sync his benign style is with the cultural moment.
To understand why he can’t be completely dismissed, consider last month’s Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll. Peter Hart, the Democratic half of the bipartisan team that conducts the survey, told me in an interview last week that an overwhelming majority of voters of both parties not only want change but also regard "reducing the partisan fighting in government" as high on their agenda. To his surprise, Mr. Hart found that there’s even a majority (59 percent) seeking a president who would help America in "regaining respect around the world."
This climate, of course, favors the Democrats, especially if the Republicans choose a candidate who brands them as the party of rage and fear — and even more especially if their Tancredo-ism drives a large Hispanic turnout for the national Democratic ticket in Florida, Nevada,
Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona. But a Democratic victory is not guaranteed. The huge spread in the Journal-NBC poll between an unnamed Democrat and Republican in the presidential race — 50 to 35 percent — shrank to a 1 percent lead when Mrs. Clinton was pitted against Mr. Giuliani.
Mr. Obama’s campaign, though hardly the long shot of Mr. Huckabee’s, could also fall short. But the Clinton camp’s panic over his rise in the Iowa polls shows that he’s on the right tactical track.
The more polarizing and negative a candidate turns in style, the more that candidate risks playing Nixon to Mr. Obama’s Kennedy. That Mrs. Clinton’s minions would attack Mr. Obama for unseemly ambition because he wrote a kindergarten report called "I Want to Become President" — and then snidely belittle the press for falling for "a joke" once this gambit backfired — is Rudy-Romneyesque in its vituperative folly.
Experience, like nastiness, may also prove a dead end in the year ahead. In 1960, the experience card was played by all comers against the young upstart senator from Massachusetts. In Iowa, L.B.J. went so far as to tell voters that they should vote for "a man with a little gray in his hair." But experience, Kennedy would memorably counter, "is like taillights on a boat which illuminate where we have been when we should be focusing on where we should be going."
The most experienced candidate in 2008 is not Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Giuliani or Mr. Romney in any case. It’s Mr. McCain, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd and Bill Richardson who have the longest résumés. Mr. Huckabee and Mr. Obama, meanwhile, are both betting that this is another crossroads, like 1960, when Americans are hungry for a leader who will refocus the nation on the path ahead.
www.ruffcommunications.com
State GOP making overtures to African-Americans
State GOP making overtures to African-Americans
December 9, 2007
By Fran Eaton, SouthtownStar columnist
A few years ago, a Republican running for state representative in Harvey told me he was "pissed off to the height of pissivity" when the Illinois House Republican organization told him they couldn't financially help his campaign.
Such is a common complaint from so-called Tier 3 candidates running in strong Democratic districts or challenging solid incumbents. Republicans in Illinois learned long ago to pick their battles carefully. But J.R. Jordan really was irritated to discover thousands of those precious GOP funds being funneled to incumbent GOP House members facing no opposition that year.
I really couldn't blame J.R., nor the other black south suburbanites who voluntarily sought petition signatures for the 2002 GOP ballot, for being so angry.
Then in 2004, a black man from Maryland ran as a Republican for a U.S. Senate seat from Illinois. His last-minute entry was a colossal gamble, and no one who supported the scheme for former U.N. Ambassador Alan Keyes to substitute for the abruptly-toppled GOP nominee Jack Ryan had any idea what a disaster it would be. Indeed, Keyes was so awful that he propelled Barack Obama into the national spotlight, and today the former Chicago state senator is a major contender for the Democrats' 2008 presidential nomination.
In 2006, two black Republicans challenged longtime area incumbents, and both struggled to get out their messages of education reform and family values. They also couldn't get any support from the GOP they wanted so badly to represent in Springfield.
So, you might wonder, what's the big surprise? Republicans are white-collar corporate moguls who take advantage of the middle class and abuse the poor, right? Why would they invest in Cook County minority voting blocs, where Democrats rule and reign?
Michael Zak, author of "Back to Basics for the Republican Party," says Republicans haven't always been perceived as so antagonistic toward minorities.
As a matter of fact, Zak writes, 150 years ago, "Radical Republican" U.S. Senator Charles Sumner starkly defined the difference between the newly-founded Republican Party and the Democrats in this way:
"The Republicans inculcate, with whatever of ability they can, that the negro is a man, that his bondage is cruelly wrong and that the field of his oppression ought not to be enlarged. The Democrats deny his manhood, deny, or dwarf to insignificance, the wrong of his bondage as 'a sacred right of self-government.' "
Republicans led the fight against slavery.
Indeed, every Democrat in Congress voted against the 1863 D.C. Emancipation Act, which freed 3,100 blacks enslaved in the nation's capital.
Throughout the past few years, these hidden Republican roots have cultivated an array of minority conservative political leaders. Nationally-prominent blacks, such as former Maryland U.S. Senate candidate Michael Steele, as well as renowned football player Lynn Swann, former Oklahoma Congressman J.C. Watts and former Ohio Attorney General Ken Blackwell, encourage others to follow.
The Illinois GOP will be kicking off its new minority outreach council this weekend. Matteson resident Dr. Eric Wallace - on the February primary ballot as 2nd Congressional District delegate for Fred Thompson - has been asked to serve. Others representing Latino- and Asian- Americans will join minority voices in the Illinois GOP.
Like Illinois, Florida is a major Republican state in the upcoming Super Tuesday primaries. Florida GOP spokesperson Erin VanSickle said her state's Republican outreach to minorities is just beginning to flourish.
"We are finding that the Republican message of lower taxes, small business tax incentives, less government interference and more freedom appeals to minority communities," she said.
The Florida GOP recently held its first African-American party convention and was delighted with the enthusiastic response.
One Republican presidential candidate is particularly focused upon nabbing the black community's vote. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Southern Baptist preacher, credits black church members in gaining 48 percent of the black vote during his gubernatorial re-election.
While that figure is questioned by many, one political consultant says Huckabee approaches minority voters the right way:
"He breaks the traditional mold of the Republicans in trying to persuade African-Americans to vote for him, and that's what he did in Arkansas," Little Rock-based Stacy Williams told an Arkansas reporter. "African-Americans are pretty much like anybody else; if you advertise to them or target them and solicit their support, you're going to be successful."
While that's not a earth-shattering political revelation, Huckabee now appears to be leading in Iowa polls. His Illinois supporters slid him in as the last choice listed on the Feb. 5 Republican ballot.
The chances of getting the Chicago area's black community to vote for anyone but Barack Obama in the upcoming primary seems remote, and voters will need to ask for either a Republican or a Democratic ballot that day; that's something those coveted independent voters are hesitant to do.
But whether or not the new life among black conservatives will spring forth this election cycle, there's hope minorities will return to their alive-and-well Republican roots. It will be up to the Illinois GOP powers-that-be to nurture those tender roots to fruition once again.
One of the first people the state's GOP should contact in their minority outreach is that aggravated and disappointed Jordan in Harvey.
Last time I talked to J.R., he'd gone back to promoting a Democrat.
Fran Eaton is a south suburban resident, a conservative activist in state and national politics and an online journalist. She can be reached at featon@illinoisreview.com
www.ruffcommunications.com
December 9, 2007
By Fran Eaton, SouthtownStar columnist
A few years ago, a Republican running for state representative in Harvey told me he was "pissed off to the height of pissivity" when the Illinois House Republican organization told him they couldn't financially help his campaign.
Such is a common complaint from so-called Tier 3 candidates running in strong Democratic districts or challenging solid incumbents. Republicans in Illinois learned long ago to pick their battles carefully. But J.R. Jordan really was irritated to discover thousands of those precious GOP funds being funneled to incumbent GOP House members facing no opposition that year.
I really couldn't blame J.R., nor the other black south suburbanites who voluntarily sought petition signatures for the 2002 GOP ballot, for being so angry.
Then in 2004, a black man from Maryland ran as a Republican for a U.S. Senate seat from Illinois. His last-minute entry was a colossal gamble, and no one who supported the scheme for former U.N. Ambassador Alan Keyes to substitute for the abruptly-toppled GOP nominee Jack Ryan had any idea what a disaster it would be. Indeed, Keyes was so awful that he propelled Barack Obama into the national spotlight, and today the former Chicago state senator is a major contender for the Democrats' 2008 presidential nomination.
In 2006, two black Republicans challenged longtime area incumbents, and both struggled to get out their messages of education reform and family values. They also couldn't get any support from the GOP they wanted so badly to represent in Springfield.
So, you might wonder, what's the big surprise? Republicans are white-collar corporate moguls who take advantage of the middle class and abuse the poor, right? Why would they invest in Cook County minority voting blocs, where Democrats rule and reign?
Michael Zak, author of "Back to Basics for the Republican Party," says Republicans haven't always been perceived as so antagonistic toward minorities.
As a matter of fact, Zak writes, 150 years ago, "Radical Republican" U.S. Senator Charles Sumner starkly defined the difference between the newly-founded Republican Party and the Democrats in this way:
"The Republicans inculcate, with whatever of ability they can, that the negro is a man, that his bondage is cruelly wrong and that the field of his oppression ought not to be enlarged. The Democrats deny his manhood, deny, or dwarf to insignificance, the wrong of his bondage as 'a sacred right of self-government.' "
Republicans led the fight against slavery.
Indeed, every Democrat in Congress voted against the 1863 D.C. Emancipation Act, which freed 3,100 blacks enslaved in the nation's capital.
Throughout the past few years, these hidden Republican roots have cultivated an array of minority conservative political leaders. Nationally-prominent blacks, such as former Maryland U.S. Senate candidate Michael Steele, as well as renowned football player Lynn Swann, former Oklahoma Congressman J.C. Watts and former Ohio Attorney General Ken Blackwell, encourage others to follow.
The Illinois GOP will be kicking off its new minority outreach council this weekend. Matteson resident Dr. Eric Wallace - on the February primary ballot as 2nd Congressional District delegate for Fred Thompson - has been asked to serve. Others representing Latino- and Asian- Americans will join minority voices in the Illinois GOP.
Like Illinois, Florida is a major Republican state in the upcoming Super Tuesday primaries. Florida GOP spokesperson Erin VanSickle said her state's Republican outreach to minorities is just beginning to flourish.
"We are finding that the Republican message of lower taxes, small business tax incentives, less government interference and more freedom appeals to minority communities," she said.
The Florida GOP recently held its first African-American party convention and was delighted with the enthusiastic response.
One Republican presidential candidate is particularly focused upon nabbing the black community's vote. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Southern Baptist preacher, credits black church members in gaining 48 percent of the black vote during his gubernatorial re-election.
While that figure is questioned by many, one political consultant says Huckabee approaches minority voters the right way:
"He breaks the traditional mold of the Republicans in trying to persuade African-Americans to vote for him, and that's what he did in Arkansas," Little Rock-based Stacy Williams told an Arkansas reporter. "African-Americans are pretty much like anybody else; if you advertise to them or target them and solicit their support, you're going to be successful."
While that's not a earth-shattering political revelation, Huckabee now appears to be leading in Iowa polls. His Illinois supporters slid him in as the last choice listed on the Feb. 5 Republican ballot.
The chances of getting the Chicago area's black community to vote for anyone but Barack Obama in the upcoming primary seems remote, and voters will need to ask for either a Republican or a Democratic ballot that day; that's something those coveted independent voters are hesitant to do.
But whether or not the new life among black conservatives will spring forth this election cycle, there's hope minorities will return to their alive-and-well Republican roots. It will be up to the Illinois GOP powers-that-be to nurture those tender roots to fruition once again.
One of the first people the state's GOP should contact in their minority outreach is that aggravated and disappointed Jordan in Harvey.
Last time I talked to J.R., he'd gone back to promoting a Democrat.
Fran Eaton is a south suburban resident, a conservative activist in state and national politics and an online journalist. She can be reached at featon@illinoisreview.com
www.ruffcommunications.com
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Obama, the Gospel Singer and Gays by Mike Dorning, and updated October 23, 2007
Obama, the Gospel Singer and Gays
by Mike Dorning, and updated
A Gospel concert tour that the Barack Obama campaign has organized for this weekend is stirring controversy among some gay activists.
Grammy Award-winning gospel artist Donnie McClurkin, who has offended gay rights groups by promoting the view that homosexuality is a choice and that gays can be "cured," is among several gospel singers scheduled to campaign on behalf of Obama in South Carolina. McClurkin is one of the singers featured in the tour's finale on Sunday.
McClurkin, who is also a Pentecostal minister, has said he struggled with homosexual "demons" for 20 years--which he attributes to molestation as a child by male relatives--but is now straight.
McClurkin's involvement in the tour has stirred a flurry of heated commentary on the web from gay activists and liberal bloggers.
Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt said Monday evening that the campaign has no plans to drop McClurkin from the concert series, though Obama did issue a written statement late Monday distancing himself from McClurkin's views on homosexuality.
“I have clearly stated my belief that gays and lesbians are our brothers and sisters and should be provided the respect, dignity, and rights of all other citizens. I have consistently spoken directly to African-American religious leaders about the need to overcome the homophobia that persists in some parts our community so that we can confront issues like HIV/AIDS and broaden the reach of equal rights in this country," Obama said in the written statement.
"I strongly believe that African Americans and the LGBT community must stand together in the fight for equal rights. And so I strongly disagree with Reverend McClurkin’s views and will continue to fight for these rights as President of the United States to ensure that America is a country that spreads tolerance instead of division," the statement added.
The Huffington Post's Earl Ofari Hutchinson helped stoke the controversy on the web with a post that argues featuring McClurkin in a campaign-backed concert series amounts to an "ala Bush pander to anti-gay mania" that he calls "shameless and reprehensible."
Ameriblog's John Aravosis lambasted Obama: "Yes, sucking up to anti-gay bigots and joining them on stage - no, giving them a stage - is certainly defying conventional wisdom as to how a Democrat becomes president."
Open Left's Matt Stoller accused Obama of "hanging out with ex-gays crusading against the 'curse of homosexuality', further cementing his strong record of giving no one any reason to vote for him."
The gay-oriented blog Towleroad also has taken up the controversy, saying it "surely looks to be a huge misstep in terms of his LGBT support." The Gospel music tour through South Carolina culminates a "Forty Days of Faith and Family" initiative in which the Obama campaign has highlighted the role of faith in the candidate's politics. African-American church-goers are an important voting segment in the state's Democratic primary, a crucial early contest in the presidential campaign.
One gay activist involved with the Obama campaign said the situation puts the candidate in a bind, since he risks offending evangelicals in South Carolina if he cancels McClurkin's appearance but could alienate gay supporters if the performance proceeds as planned.
“This story is quickly turning into a disaster for Barack,” said the supporter who is active on gay and lesbian issues. “He’s screwed if he goes through with the trip with Donnie McClurkin….But he's also screwed in South Carolina if he dumps McClurkin. I hope that the staffer who set this up has already been fired.”
Oct. 23, 2007 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
www.ruffcommunications.com
by Mike Dorning, and updated
A Gospel concert tour that the Barack Obama campaign has organized for this weekend is stirring controversy among some gay activists.
Grammy Award-winning gospel artist Donnie McClurkin, who has offended gay rights groups by promoting the view that homosexuality is a choice and that gays can be "cured," is among several gospel singers scheduled to campaign on behalf of Obama in South Carolina. McClurkin is one of the singers featured in the tour's finale on Sunday.
McClurkin, who is also a Pentecostal minister, has said he struggled with homosexual "demons" for 20 years--which he attributes to molestation as a child by male relatives--but is now straight.
McClurkin's involvement in the tour has stirred a flurry of heated commentary on the web from gay activists and liberal bloggers.
Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt said Monday evening that the campaign has no plans to drop McClurkin from the concert series, though Obama did issue a written statement late Monday distancing himself from McClurkin's views on homosexuality.
“I have clearly stated my belief that gays and lesbians are our brothers and sisters and should be provided the respect, dignity, and rights of all other citizens. I have consistently spoken directly to African-American religious leaders about the need to overcome the homophobia that persists in some parts our community so that we can confront issues like HIV/AIDS and broaden the reach of equal rights in this country," Obama said in the written statement.
"I strongly believe that African Americans and the LGBT community must stand together in the fight for equal rights. And so I strongly disagree with Reverend McClurkin’s views and will continue to fight for these rights as President of the United States to ensure that America is a country that spreads tolerance instead of division," the statement added.
The Huffington Post's Earl Ofari Hutchinson helped stoke the controversy on the web with a post that argues featuring McClurkin in a campaign-backed concert series amounts to an "ala Bush pander to anti-gay mania" that he calls "shameless and reprehensible."
Ameriblog's John Aravosis lambasted Obama: "Yes, sucking up to anti-gay bigots and joining them on stage - no, giving them a stage - is certainly defying conventional wisdom as to how a Democrat becomes president."
Open Left's Matt Stoller accused Obama of "hanging out with ex-gays crusading against the 'curse of homosexuality', further cementing his strong record of giving no one any reason to vote for him."
The gay-oriented blog Towleroad also has taken up the controversy, saying it "surely looks to be a huge misstep in terms of his LGBT support." The Gospel music tour through South Carolina culminates a "Forty Days of Faith and Family" initiative in which the Obama campaign has highlighted the role of faith in the candidate's politics. African-American church-goers are an important voting segment in the state's Democratic primary, a crucial early contest in the presidential campaign.
One gay activist involved with the Obama campaign said the situation puts the candidate in a bind, since he risks offending evangelicals in South Carolina if he cancels McClurkin's appearance but could alienate gay supporters if the performance proceeds as planned.
“This story is quickly turning into a disaster for Barack,” said the supporter who is active on gay and lesbian issues. “He’s screwed if he goes through with the trip with Donnie McClurkin….But he's also screwed in South Carolina if he dumps McClurkin. I hope that the staffer who set this up has already been fired.”
Oct. 23, 2007 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
www.ruffcommunications.com
We're just two lifetimes removed from ugly history of slavery March 7, 2007
We're just two lifetimes removed from ugly history of slavery
March 7, 2007
BY MARK BROWN Sun-Times Columnist
When I was a kid, I thought that anything that happened before I was born was ancient history. It didn't matter if it was five years before I was born or 500 years. The year 1955 was the cutoff point. Events before then might be interesting but couldn't possibly have any real-world connection to my life, or so I thought.
As I get older, my time perspective keeps changing. Despite the passage of all those additional years, I now feel closer than ever to the events of World War II -- Hitler's extermination of six million Jews and our dropping of the atomic bomb now looming frighteningly large in life's rear-view mirror.
Even the Civil War stopped seeming so far in the past after I visited Gettysburg a few years back and saw the photos from the 75th anniversary reunion of the famous battle, held in 1938 and attended by 1,918 Civil War veterans, many of whom were pictured participating in a re-enactment of Pickett's Charge.
I guess that's why I'm not so quick to shrug off the discovery that my ancestors owned slaves as something that happened "a long time ago," just because it was more than a century before my birth.
No longer abstract
If you missed Sunday's column, I told the story of learning from my mom last week that some of my forebears were slaveowners.
This resulted from my calling her to make inquiries after the story hit the news Friday that one of Sen. Barack Obama's white ancestors owned slaves.
My mom's always trying to tell me about her genealogical research, but I've never paid much attention.
It came as something of a surprise then when she produced documentation showing how her great-great grandfather David E. Richardson (my great-great-great grandfather) sold off the last of the family slaves to his brother in 1853 for $170.
David Richardson and his brothers had inherited slaves from their father, Charles, my great-great-great-great grandfather.
As I explained, it's not entirely clear from the records how many total slaves were involved, but the 1853 documents make specific reference to "one Negro boy named Tom about 17 years old of yellow complexion," as well as a 5-year-old girl named Sarah and 7-year-old boy named Patrick, "both of black complexion."
I suppose none of this should have been very surprising. White Americans whose roots in this country date back a couple of centuries are quite likely to have slave owners in their ancestry. I'd always assumed my family didn't have enough money to own slaves, although I must have known in the back of my mind that it was still a possibility.
But there's something about seeing it confirmed right there on paper that puts everything in a different light. It's no longer abstract and theoretical for me.
'White liberal guilt'?
The people in my family owned other people. Black people. They passed on these black people in their wills as inheritance. They recorded this ownership in official records the same as if the black people were parcels of land.
It's not exactly lost on me that this is the same type of finding that Ald. Dorothy Tillman has used to demand reparations from investment banking firms doing business with the City of Chicago.
Do I think I owe anybody financial reparations? No.
Do I feel some personal sense of obligation that I didn't feel a week ago?
Yes, I think so. I'm not sure what form it should take, but at the very least, I think I have an even greater responsibility to be sensitive to racial issues.
Some people want to dismiss this as "white liberal guilt."
While I can't say I received an outpouring of response to Sunday's column, much of what I did get was along those lines. A lot of whites don't like to be reminded of slavery.
I'm not telling anybody they should feel guilty.
I don't personally feel guilty. But I'm not particularly comfortable with this new knowledge, either.
Not such a long time ago
The way I look at it, 1853 isn't so long ago. That's just two lifetimes.
Let's take that 5-year-old slave girl Sarah. It's possible that she lived to be 82 years old. In her later years, she might have met and had some impact on some other little 5-year-old girl, who is now 82 herself. That brings you right up to today.
That 82-year-old could be somebody whose life has intersected with mine -- or with my children's -- without my knowing it.
Maybe that's too esoteric for your taste, but it seems pretty straightforward to me.
We're just two lifetimes removed from the ugliest chapter in our history. No wonder slavery's legacy of racism and dysfunction is so hard to sweep away.
And I used to think it was such a long, long time ago
www.ruffcommunications.com
March 7, 2007
BY MARK BROWN Sun-Times Columnist
When I was a kid, I thought that anything that happened before I was born was ancient history. It didn't matter if it was five years before I was born or 500 years. The year 1955 was the cutoff point. Events before then might be interesting but couldn't possibly have any real-world connection to my life, or so I thought.
As I get older, my time perspective keeps changing. Despite the passage of all those additional years, I now feel closer than ever to the events of World War II -- Hitler's extermination of six million Jews and our dropping of the atomic bomb now looming frighteningly large in life's rear-view mirror.
Even the Civil War stopped seeming so far in the past after I visited Gettysburg a few years back and saw the photos from the 75th anniversary reunion of the famous battle, held in 1938 and attended by 1,918 Civil War veterans, many of whom were pictured participating in a re-enactment of Pickett's Charge.
I guess that's why I'm not so quick to shrug off the discovery that my ancestors owned slaves as something that happened "a long time ago," just because it was more than a century before my birth.
No longer abstract
If you missed Sunday's column, I told the story of learning from my mom last week that some of my forebears were slaveowners.
This resulted from my calling her to make inquiries after the story hit the news Friday that one of Sen. Barack Obama's white ancestors owned slaves.
My mom's always trying to tell me about her genealogical research, but I've never paid much attention.
It came as something of a surprise then when she produced documentation showing how her great-great grandfather David E. Richardson (my great-great-great grandfather) sold off the last of the family slaves to his brother in 1853 for $170.
David Richardson and his brothers had inherited slaves from their father, Charles, my great-great-great-great grandfather.
As I explained, it's not entirely clear from the records how many total slaves were involved, but the 1853 documents make specific reference to "one Negro boy named Tom about 17 years old of yellow complexion," as well as a 5-year-old girl named Sarah and 7-year-old boy named Patrick, "both of black complexion."
I suppose none of this should have been very surprising. White Americans whose roots in this country date back a couple of centuries are quite likely to have slave owners in their ancestry. I'd always assumed my family didn't have enough money to own slaves, although I must have known in the back of my mind that it was still a possibility.
But there's something about seeing it confirmed right there on paper that puts everything in a different light. It's no longer abstract and theoretical for me.
'White liberal guilt'?
The people in my family owned other people. Black people. They passed on these black people in their wills as inheritance. They recorded this ownership in official records the same as if the black people were parcels of land.
It's not exactly lost on me that this is the same type of finding that Ald. Dorothy Tillman has used to demand reparations from investment banking firms doing business with the City of Chicago.
Do I think I owe anybody financial reparations? No.
Do I feel some personal sense of obligation that I didn't feel a week ago?
Yes, I think so. I'm not sure what form it should take, but at the very least, I think I have an even greater responsibility to be sensitive to racial issues.
Some people want to dismiss this as "white liberal guilt."
While I can't say I received an outpouring of response to Sunday's column, much of what I did get was along those lines. A lot of whites don't like to be reminded of slavery.
I'm not telling anybody they should feel guilty.
I don't personally feel guilty. But I'm not particularly comfortable with this new knowledge, either.
Not such a long time ago
The way I look at it, 1853 isn't so long ago. That's just two lifetimes.
Let's take that 5-year-old slave girl Sarah. It's possible that she lived to be 82 years old. In her later years, she might have met and had some impact on some other little 5-year-old girl, who is now 82 herself. That brings you right up to today.
That 82-year-old could be somebody whose life has intersected with mine -- or with my children's -- without my knowing it.
Maybe that's too esoteric for your taste, but it seems pretty straightforward to me.
We're just two lifetimes removed from the ugliest chapter in our history. No wonder slavery's legacy of racism and dysfunction is so hard to sweep away.
And I used to think it was such a long, long time ago
www.ruffcommunications.com
Clintons, Obama pay homage to civil rights March 4, 2007
Clintons, Obama pay homage to civil rights
March 4, 2007
FROM THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SELMA, Ala. -- Barack Obama reached across a generation to link arms with the civil rights activists whose hard-fought fight of the 1960s made his presidential bid possible today.
Standing in the way of his success were his chief rival for the nomination, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and her husband, former President Clinton, who enjoy widespread affection in the black community. All three took part in a symbolic show of unity Sunday in the churches and streets of Selma -- one that belied the fierce political struggle for the support of a critical Democratic constituency.
''I'm here because somebody marched for our freedom,'' Obama, who would become the first black president, said from the Brown Chapel AME Church where the march began on March 7, 1965. ''I'm here because you all sacrificed for me. I stand on the shoulders of giants.''
The church was where the march began on March 7, 1965, a bloody walk for voting rights as police attacked activists with billyclubs. ''Bloody Sunday'' shocked the nation and helped bring attention to the racist voting practices that kept blacks from the polls.
Sen. Clinton said the Voting Rights Act and the Selma march made possible her presidential campaign, as well as those of Obama and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who would be the first Hispanic to occupy the Oval Office.
''After all the hard work getting rid of literacy tests and poll taxes, we've got to stay awake because we've got a march to continue,'' Clinton said in a speech interrupted numerous times by applause and shouts of approval. ''How can we rest while poverty and inequality continue to rise?''
Not to be outdone in the hunt for black votes, Hillary Clinton spoke in Selma at a church three blocks away and brought a secret weapon -- her husband. Three days before the march anniversary, her campaign announced that the former president who is so popular among blacks would accompany her for his induction into Selma's Voting Rights Hall of Fame.
Clinton and Obama both appeared outside Brown Chapel for a pre-march rally, but came from opposite sides of the podium and did not interact. Despite the intense rivalry between their campaigns, the two praised each other.
''It's excellent that we have a candidate like Barack Obama who embodies what all of you fought for here 42 years ago,'' Clinton said. Obama said Clinton is ''doing an excellent job for this country and we're going to be marching arm-in-arm.''
But they did not join arms when the commemorative march attended by thousands got under way. Instead, Clinton held hands with her husband and Obama was several people down the line. Obama, who shed his coat and tie for the march, approached Hillary Clinton at one point and the two chatted for a few seconds before moving back to opposite sides of the street.
The two candidates sounded similar themes in their speeches. Both said the civil rights movement is not over because inequality still exists in education, health care and the economy. Both criticized the Bush administration for failing to return Hurricane Katrina victims to their homes.
But Obama, who was three years old on Bloody Sunday, delivered a call to action that would be politically unfeasible for Clinton or any of his other white rivals. He said the current generation of blacks does not always honor the civil rights movement and needs to take responsibility for improving their lives by rejecting violence; cleaning up ''40-ounce bottles'' and other trash that litters urban neighborhoods; and voting instead of complaining that the government is not helping them.
''How can it be that our voting rates dropped down to 30, 40, 50 percent when people shed their blood to allow us to vote?'' Obama asked at a unity breakfast with community leaders.
At the breakfast, Obama got a key to the city and another to surrounding Dallas County from a probate judge, Kim Ballard. ''Forty-two years ago he might would have needed it because I understand it would open the jail cells,'' Ballard said. ''But not today.''
Obama said the fight for civil rights reverberated across the globe and inspired his father to aspire to something beyond his job herding goats in Kenya. His father moved to Hawaii to get an education under a program for African students and met Obama's mother, a fellow student from Kansas.
Obama said he was not surprised when it was reported this week that his white ancestors on his mother's side owned slaves. ''That's no surprise in America,'' he said and added that the civil rights struggle made it possible for such a diverse couple to fall in love.
''If it hasn't been for Selma, I wouldn't be here,'' Obama said. ''This is the site of my conception. I am the fruits of your labor. I am the offspring of the movement. When people ask me whether I've been to Selma before, I tell them I'm coming home.''
But the former president stole the show from the two candidates. The audience cheered loudest for him when the three took the stage at the end of the march and the crowd mobbed him as he tried to make it to his limousine, delaying his departure.
Speaking at his induction, Clinton said the 2008 campaign features ''a rainbow coalition running for president.''
''If it hadn't been for the Voting Rights Act, the South would have never recovered and two white southerners -- Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton -- never could have become president,'' Clinton said.
Other Democratic candidates are not leaving the black vote to Obama and Clinton. John Edwards, the 2004 vice presidential nominee, was speaking about Selma and civil rights at the University of California, Berkeley.
''The fight for civil rights and equal rights and economic and social justice is more than just going to celebrations, even as wonderful as the one in Selma,'' Edwards said in remarks prepared for delivery as he referred to Berkeley janitors' fight for a wage increase. ''The fight is going on right here, right now.''
Associated Press writers Phillip Rawls and Bob Johnson contributed to this report.
Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
www.ruffcommunications.com
March 4, 2007
FROM THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SELMA, Ala. -- Barack Obama reached across a generation to link arms with the civil rights activists whose hard-fought fight of the 1960s made his presidential bid possible today.
Standing in the way of his success were his chief rival for the nomination, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and her husband, former President Clinton, who enjoy widespread affection in the black community. All three took part in a symbolic show of unity Sunday in the churches and streets of Selma -- one that belied the fierce political struggle for the support of a critical Democratic constituency.
''I'm here because somebody marched for our freedom,'' Obama, who would become the first black president, said from the Brown Chapel AME Church where the march began on March 7, 1965. ''I'm here because you all sacrificed for me. I stand on the shoulders of giants.''
The church was where the march began on March 7, 1965, a bloody walk for voting rights as police attacked activists with billyclubs. ''Bloody Sunday'' shocked the nation and helped bring attention to the racist voting practices that kept blacks from the polls.
Sen. Clinton said the Voting Rights Act and the Selma march made possible her presidential campaign, as well as those of Obama and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who would be the first Hispanic to occupy the Oval Office.
''After all the hard work getting rid of literacy tests and poll taxes, we've got to stay awake because we've got a march to continue,'' Clinton said in a speech interrupted numerous times by applause and shouts of approval. ''How can we rest while poverty and inequality continue to rise?''
Not to be outdone in the hunt for black votes, Hillary Clinton spoke in Selma at a church three blocks away and brought a secret weapon -- her husband. Three days before the march anniversary, her campaign announced that the former president who is so popular among blacks would accompany her for his induction into Selma's Voting Rights Hall of Fame.
Clinton and Obama both appeared outside Brown Chapel for a pre-march rally, but came from opposite sides of the podium and did not interact. Despite the intense rivalry between their campaigns, the two praised each other.
''It's excellent that we have a candidate like Barack Obama who embodies what all of you fought for here 42 years ago,'' Clinton said. Obama said Clinton is ''doing an excellent job for this country and we're going to be marching arm-in-arm.''
But they did not join arms when the commemorative march attended by thousands got under way. Instead, Clinton held hands with her husband and Obama was several people down the line. Obama, who shed his coat and tie for the march, approached Hillary Clinton at one point and the two chatted for a few seconds before moving back to opposite sides of the street.
The two candidates sounded similar themes in their speeches. Both said the civil rights movement is not over because inequality still exists in education, health care and the economy. Both criticized the Bush administration for failing to return Hurricane Katrina victims to their homes.
But Obama, who was three years old on Bloody Sunday, delivered a call to action that would be politically unfeasible for Clinton or any of his other white rivals. He said the current generation of blacks does not always honor the civil rights movement and needs to take responsibility for improving their lives by rejecting violence; cleaning up ''40-ounce bottles'' and other trash that litters urban neighborhoods; and voting instead of complaining that the government is not helping them.
''How can it be that our voting rates dropped down to 30, 40, 50 percent when people shed their blood to allow us to vote?'' Obama asked at a unity breakfast with community leaders.
At the breakfast, Obama got a key to the city and another to surrounding Dallas County from a probate judge, Kim Ballard. ''Forty-two years ago he might would have needed it because I understand it would open the jail cells,'' Ballard said. ''But not today.''
Obama said the fight for civil rights reverberated across the globe and inspired his father to aspire to something beyond his job herding goats in Kenya. His father moved to Hawaii to get an education under a program for African students and met Obama's mother, a fellow student from Kansas.
Obama said he was not surprised when it was reported this week that his white ancestors on his mother's side owned slaves. ''That's no surprise in America,'' he said and added that the civil rights struggle made it possible for such a diverse couple to fall in love.
''If it hasn't been for Selma, I wouldn't be here,'' Obama said. ''This is the site of my conception. I am the fruits of your labor. I am the offspring of the movement. When people ask me whether I've been to Selma before, I tell them I'm coming home.''
But the former president stole the show from the two candidates. The audience cheered loudest for him when the three took the stage at the end of the march and the crowd mobbed him as he tried to make it to his limousine, delaying his departure.
Speaking at his induction, Clinton said the 2008 campaign features ''a rainbow coalition running for president.''
''If it hadn't been for the Voting Rights Act, the South would have never recovered and two white southerners -- Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton -- never could have become president,'' Clinton said.
Other Democratic candidates are not leaving the black vote to Obama and Clinton. John Edwards, the 2004 vice presidential nominee, was speaking about Selma and civil rights at the University of California, Berkeley.
''The fight for civil rights and equal rights and economic and social justice is more than just going to celebrations, even as wonderful as the one in Selma,'' Edwards said in remarks prepared for delivery as he referred to Berkeley janitors' fight for a wage increase. ''The fight is going on right here, right now.''
Associated Press writers Phillip Rawls and Bob Johnson contributed to this report.
Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
www.ruffcommunications.com
Jones' Obama pitch to black Democrats stirs controversy February 6 2007
Jones' Obama pitch to black Democrats stirs controversy
February 6, 2007
BY LYNN SWEET Sun-Times Columnist
ASHINGTON -- Seeking to solidify African-American backing for Barack Obama's presidential bid, Illinois Senate President Emil Jones Jr. told black Democrats meeting here last week they don't "owe" anyone, alluding to, but not mentioning by name, Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Obama, said Jones, "is our son."
In a Monday telephone interview, Jones, Obama's political godfather, told me, "How long do we have to owe before we have an opportunity to support our son?
"And I know that Barack Obama is our son and he deserves our support."
He made a similar race-based appeal to a group of black Democratic activists Friday at a closed Democratic National Committee winter meeting.
"Nobody in that room had any doubt that he was speaking about the Clintons," said Jamal Simmons, a Democratic consultant who was there.
President Clinton enjoyed tremendous support from black voters; it will not be automatically transferred to Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Obama, who would be the first African-American nominee, will have to work for some black endorsements. Jones' pitch for Obama, Simmons added, "exposed internal conflicts" within the African-American political community.
'Could offend people'
Jones said his comments, first reported in Monday's the Politico, were not that different than when he stumped for black votes during Obama's contested 2004 Illinois Senate Democratic primary.
Jones said he was moved to try to recruit Obama backers when he realized senior Clinton adviser Minyon Moore -- who is a Chicago native -- was at the meeting.
The controversy triggered by Jones was picked up by CNN Monday, and the Rev. Al Sharpton told CNN that Jones "could offend people by saying you got to unite just because someone is your race."
Sharpton noted that Obama endorsed Mayor Daley for re-election over two black candidates, so it would not follow to ask blacks "to do something for Obama that he himself is not doing at home."
www.ruffcommunications.com
February 6, 2007
BY LYNN SWEET Sun-Times Columnist
ASHINGTON -- Seeking to solidify African-American backing for Barack Obama's presidential bid, Illinois Senate President Emil Jones Jr. told black Democrats meeting here last week they don't "owe" anyone, alluding to, but not mentioning by name, Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Obama, said Jones, "is our son."
In a Monday telephone interview, Jones, Obama's political godfather, told me, "How long do we have to owe before we have an opportunity to support our son?
"And I know that Barack Obama is our son and he deserves our support."
He made a similar race-based appeal to a group of black Democratic activists Friday at a closed Democratic National Committee winter meeting.
"Nobody in that room had any doubt that he was speaking about the Clintons," said Jamal Simmons, a Democratic consultant who was there.
President Clinton enjoyed tremendous support from black voters; it will not be automatically transferred to Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Obama, who would be the first African-American nominee, will have to work for some black endorsements. Jones' pitch for Obama, Simmons added, "exposed internal conflicts" within the African-American political community.
'Could offend people'
Jones said his comments, first reported in Monday's the Politico, were not that different than when he stumped for black votes during Obama's contested 2004 Illinois Senate Democratic primary.
Jones said he was moved to try to recruit Obama backers when he realized senior Clinton adviser Minyon Moore -- who is a Chicago native -- was at the meeting.
The controversy triggered by Jones was picked up by CNN Monday, and the Rev. Al Sharpton told CNN that Jones "could offend people by saying you got to unite just because someone is your race."
Sharpton noted that Obama endorsed Mayor Daley for re-election over two black candidates, so it would not follow to ask blacks "to do something for Obama that he himself is not doing at home."
www.ruffcommunications.com
Obama's Black Problem: Part 1 January 2007
Obama's Black Problem: Part 1
There is little doubt that Illinois Sen. Barack Obama is going to aggressively pursue the Democratic nomination for president in 2008.
The forming of his exploratory committee is simply the foundation to what will be a campaign that many are saying will be a formidable challenge to Democratic rivals such as Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.
While Democrats across the country fall over themselves just to touch the man, he is being eyed suspiciously by the nation's black leadership.
For the first time in history, America will have an African American seeking the world's most powerful position — one who actually has a shot at winning, and you would think that black politicians, civil rights and religious leaders would be the loudest voices calling for him to run. But, no! We have folks playing coy, whispering behind the scenes, questioning his blackness, and in some cases, complete silence.
This is nothing more than black-on-black hate at its best.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, who offered nothing more than a few great quotes in his 2004 presidential bid, told the Chicago Defender: "I think that Obama brings to the race a fresh face with an impressive background. I think that all of us around the country will be assessing all of the candidates and seeing what they have to offer. It is then that we will be able to make more solid comments about Obama and other possible candidates and what they will bring to the table."
He added: "My own thing is that I don't know him that well, but I seek to get to know him," Sharpton said. "Then I can give you better impressions about him and I will be able to grasp what it is he is seeking and trying to do."
Grasp what he is trying to do? Rev. Al, he's trying to become the president of the United States!
On my talk show on WVON-AM/1690 in Chicago, the Rev. Jesse Jackson said he supports Obama, but added that many black leaders nationwide don't know the junior senator from Illinois.
"He will have to take time to build relationships," he said.
The Rev. James Meeks, who served in the Illinois Senate with Obama, told the Defender that ego and envy has a lot to do with the lukewarm response from black leadership.
?"I only hope that African American elected officials and other African American leaders do not become jealous and force Barack Obama to kiss their rings before getting their support," he said.
"Black people are going to have to be fair enough to let him campaign in the United States, and not just in the African American communities and on African American issues. This is the United States, and not the United States of African Americans."
?Yet Dr. Ron Walters, one of the nation's pre-eminent political science professors from the University of Maryland, College Park, said the feelings about Obama have nothing to do with jealousy.
"It's clear that Barack Obama is ascending to the pantheon of black leadership, and the problem that we always have had historically is whites sort of picking African American leaders and then importing the paradigm that they represent in our community," he said on WVON-AM. "That was the old Booker T. Washington problem. There is a reticence on the part of some of our leaders to accept Barack Obama until he comes full force in terms of his program. I think that's fair. I want to see ?where he stands on the critical issues that black people face before I give him carte blanche."
Here is the rub for me: Obama is entering his third year as a U.S. senator. Prior to that he served seven years in the Illinois Senate. By the time the first primary rolls around, he will have double the legislative experience that George W. Bush had when he was elected. The man has been speaking on black issues for years. So why force a litmus test on him that is not being established for Sen. Clinton and other candidates?
Frankly, the real problem black leadership has is that Obama didn't come through "the civil rights system." And like it or not, there is tremendous jealousy that he has been able to do what so many others have not done: First, he actually got elected to something. Second, he launched a campaign that people actually believe can win.
Lastly, Obama's rise as the top black political voice in America supplants others who have served as the arbiters of black thought.
This is nothing but the old lion flexing his muscle in order to try to scare off the fearless young lion. But as with life in the jungle, the only way a species keeps surviving is if the young take the place of the old.
People like Obama and Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick represent 21st century black leadership, and it's time for the men and women who have been on the scene for years to stop fighting change, and rest on the fact that they are seeing their labor come to fruition. If not, they will look like old fighters embarrassing themselves in search of glory days.
Roland S. Martin is the author of "Listening to the Spirit Within: 50 Perspectives On Faith." Please visit his Web site at www.rolandsmartin.com. To find out more about Roland Martin and read his past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2007 CREATORS SYNDICATE
Originally Published on Friday January 19, 2007 Roland Martin's column is released once a week.
www.ruffcommunications.com
There is little doubt that Illinois Sen. Barack Obama is going to aggressively pursue the Democratic nomination for president in 2008.
The forming of his exploratory committee is simply the foundation to what will be a campaign that many are saying will be a formidable challenge to Democratic rivals such as Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.
While Democrats across the country fall over themselves just to touch the man, he is being eyed suspiciously by the nation's black leadership.
For the first time in history, America will have an African American seeking the world's most powerful position — one who actually has a shot at winning, and you would think that black politicians, civil rights and religious leaders would be the loudest voices calling for him to run. But, no! We have folks playing coy, whispering behind the scenes, questioning his blackness, and in some cases, complete silence.
This is nothing more than black-on-black hate at its best.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, who offered nothing more than a few great quotes in his 2004 presidential bid, told the Chicago Defender: "I think that Obama brings to the race a fresh face with an impressive background. I think that all of us around the country will be assessing all of the candidates and seeing what they have to offer. It is then that we will be able to make more solid comments about Obama and other possible candidates and what they will bring to the table."
He added: "My own thing is that I don't know him that well, but I seek to get to know him," Sharpton said. "Then I can give you better impressions about him and I will be able to grasp what it is he is seeking and trying to do."
Grasp what he is trying to do? Rev. Al, he's trying to become the president of the United States!
On my talk show on WVON-AM/1690 in Chicago, the Rev. Jesse Jackson said he supports Obama, but added that many black leaders nationwide don't know the junior senator from Illinois.
"He will have to take time to build relationships," he said.
The Rev. James Meeks, who served in the Illinois Senate with Obama, told the Defender that ego and envy has a lot to do with the lukewarm response from black leadership.
?"I only hope that African American elected officials and other African American leaders do not become jealous and force Barack Obama to kiss their rings before getting their support," he said.
"Black people are going to have to be fair enough to let him campaign in the United States, and not just in the African American communities and on African American issues. This is the United States, and not the United States of African Americans."
?Yet Dr. Ron Walters, one of the nation's pre-eminent political science professors from the University of Maryland, College Park, said the feelings about Obama have nothing to do with jealousy.
"It's clear that Barack Obama is ascending to the pantheon of black leadership, and the problem that we always have had historically is whites sort of picking African American leaders and then importing the paradigm that they represent in our community," he said on WVON-AM. "That was the old Booker T. Washington problem. There is a reticence on the part of some of our leaders to accept Barack Obama until he comes full force in terms of his program. I think that's fair. I want to see ?where he stands on the critical issues that black people face before I give him carte blanche."
Here is the rub for me: Obama is entering his third year as a U.S. senator. Prior to that he served seven years in the Illinois Senate. By the time the first primary rolls around, he will have double the legislative experience that George W. Bush had when he was elected. The man has been speaking on black issues for years. So why force a litmus test on him that is not being established for Sen. Clinton and other candidates?
Frankly, the real problem black leadership has is that Obama didn't come through "the civil rights system." And like it or not, there is tremendous jealousy that he has been able to do what so many others have not done: First, he actually got elected to something. Second, he launched a campaign that people actually believe can win.
Lastly, Obama's rise as the top black political voice in America supplants others who have served as the arbiters of black thought.
This is nothing but the old lion flexing his muscle in order to try to scare off the fearless young lion. But as with life in the jungle, the only way a species keeps surviving is if the young take the place of the old.
People like Obama and Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick represent 21st century black leadership, and it's time for the men and women who have been on the scene for years to stop fighting change, and rest on the fact that they are seeing their labor come to fruition. If not, they will look like old fighters embarrassing themselves in search of glory days.
Roland S. Martin is the author of "Listening to the Spirit Within: 50 Perspectives On Faith." Please visit his Web site at www.rolandsmartin.com. To find out more about Roland Martin and read his past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2007 CREATORS SYNDICATE
Originally Published on Friday January 19, 2007 Roland Martin's column is released once a week.
www.ruffcommunications.com
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