The failure of Obama's racially transcending campaign will be traced to the MLK -LBJ story

[Proud2BAmurkin]

When Obama surrogates went out and accused Clinton of making a racial comment and Obama waited what, a week to come out and say something?

Nobody should read it as "Ameria isn't ready for a black president" because the fact that it is dividing on racial lines is about a candidate who didn't know how to rise above or didn't want to because he saw some short term gain.

[rodeodance]

1. I do think it showed lack of leadership for waiting so long but I do not know why he waited.

[Rydz777]

8. From being a unity candidate, Obama is now in danger of simply

becoming the African-American candidate. Meantime, Hillary is gathering the women, the Hispanics, and the lunch pail Democrats.

[Skwmom]

15. Of course. According to the Clinton campaign, Hispanics won't

vote for a black candidate (I guess they should have told that to the Hispanic representatives that endorsed him, and to the Hispanic endorsers in Iowa - one was even on CSPAN explaining why Obama received Hispanic endorsements in Iowa). The Clintons have name recognition with Hispanics and have been working that vote for quite some time. I think they made a calculated estimate that the could lose some of the black vote and still win in the general election. But I think they seriously miscalculated. In addition, because of his stance on immigration, McCain will get Hispanic support and they will push McCain as more likely to actually get something done on their behalf versus Gridlock Hillary (while D.C. is locked in partisan gridlock the country goes down the tubes).

[Occam Bandage]

2. I thought it would be traced to the "Obama played Jay-Z" story. Or maybe the

"Crazy fucker in a mismatched jacket and hat talks about crack orgies on YouTube" story.

[jackson_dem]

3. Two polls from today reveal a huge racial divide

South Carolina

Blacks: Obama 70%, Hillary 15%, Edwards 1%
Whites: Hillary 43%, Edwards 30%, Obama 17%

Florida

Whites: Hillary 63%, Edwards 17%, Obama 15%
Blacks: 75%, Hillary 19%
Hispanics: Hillary 72%, Obama 11%, Edwards 9%

This gives some context to your post P2BA.

[Quixote1818]

13. It gives context to this not the OP

http://goleft.tv/viewer.asp?pg=5&v=928&c=1

[jackson_dem]

14. That is part of it. I have always blamed both the Clinton and Obama campaigns for this

[Fredda Weinberg]

4. When Obama surrogates published opinion pieces misquoting

the Clintons regarding MLK & JFK, this unity campaign was sunk. Sorry, but guilt only goes so far in America.

[rodeodance]

5. That is when Obama should have stepped up--instead he let the toxic stew fester.

[Fredda Weinberg]

6. That's what I posted here. I waited ... declaring I would change my

opinion of him if he intervened. After all, I have yet to forgive him for running against our Nancy Skinner.

[DURHAM D]

7. Clearly Obama (or his camp) decided to really bring it on race.

Why they thought that would be helpful is puzzling except that perhaps they were throwing it all down to win South Carolina because they knew they could not do well in Nevada.

But, I always like to look for what did not happen. When Obama's National Co-Chair Jesse Jackson Jr. went on tv two days after Obama's N.H. loss and launched a nasty sexist attack on Hillary there was no response from the Clinton camp. What JJ did was far more ugly, direct and indefensible then anything that had been directed at Obama. Had Clinton decided to go after it there is no way Obama could have put that vomit back in the bottle. But Hillary didn't say a word. They could have very easily done what Obama did by screaming in outrage and could have easily whipped the media into a frenzy over that incident (plus the Iron My Shirt thing) but the Clinton camp remained silent. Clearly Hillary and her strategist decided not to take Jackson's bait (as was the Obama hope) and make her gender a bigger issue.

The result is that Hillary just decided to be the candidate and not the "female candidate" - unlike Obama who decided to be not just the candidate but the "black candidate".

[book_worm]

9. Failure? Hillary won two competitive contests and by Saturday Obama will have won two

come on, get real. There is a long way to go.

[Skwmom]

10. You can repeat this a thousand times but it will not change history. Clinton

and their surrogates were playing the race card before and after those comments. Clinton understands how comment will be perceived by the black community but is willing to do anything to get back in the Whitehouse.

[nancyharris]

16. I agree

Whether it was intentional, I am not sure.

It did come across (quite obviously) that she was saying that it was all well and good that MLK was a man of great ideas but it took a white president to actually sign the civil rights act into law. I don't see how it could be interpreted any other way. Obama is running for president just as she is. He would be able to sign into law any epic legislation just as well as she could. What other point could she possibly have been making?

[alcibiades_mystery]

11. Origin of Proud2bAmurkan's spam campaign to be traced to

lack of friends in high school.

[Quixote1818]

12. I think this video is more on the money

http://goleft.tv/viewer.asp?pg=5&v=928&c=1

[BlackmanX]

17. it's not simple

You can tell alot of non-black people post here. Obama took a while to answer back because he was trying to stay positive and not be racial (because that's the only way a black person can win an election in this country). The Clinton's attacks really just reflect the weakness of their campaign because if they were really serious about the issues and the expearience question they'd stick to that instead of attacking Obama. They know hillary is unlikeable and lacks any charisma which is why they have to bring Obama down. But Obama is doing well in the campaign he won Iowa and Nevada plus he's going to win SC on saturday.