Yesterday an Obama worker in Portland, OR was talking to a nice old lady who said she wouldn't vote for Obama because he was too young. No younger than Kennedy, said the worker. Oh, um, well, Obama didn't have enough experience. He's held elected office longer than Clinton and passed more legislation, replied the worker. Oh. Well. The old lady sighed and leaned in a bit. The fact was, she just could not see her way clear to vote for a Negro. And there it was: a nice, prosperous, reasonable lady in a middle-class neighborhood who just could not see her way clear. She seemed embarrassed by this, as if she knew full well that her reservations were irrational; but that was how she felt; and in the privacy of the envelope (we vote by mail) that was how she would vote. In later conversations with other canvassers, the Obama worker found that the old lady's attitude was distressingly common. For no explainable reason, a significant number of Oregonians just could not see their way clear. Well, if so many of our Nike-wearing, bike-riding, trash-recycling voters in this progressive state feel that way, how must folks feel in Indiana and West Virginia? Progressives, we have a problem. The sad fact is that race is not just a feeling to be aroused, a card to be played (though is Clinton is playing it as if she had a hand full of jokers); it's a stubborn microbe that infected voters long ago and will not go away. As Senator Obama has pointed out, we can't be expected to cure this illness in a few months. We must at least treat it however – control its symptoms enough to keep the patient functional – like an airline pilot medicating a head cold. How? One way would be to take the route John Kennedy did in1960, when a significant number of potential voters just could not see their way clear to vote for a Catholic. He asserted forcefully that Rome had nothing whatever to say about the governance of America, period, so the Catholic card was a non-issue. Then he treated this non-issue as if it didn't exist. By definition, a non-issue is not an actual problem and therefore will evaporate by itself. It did and Kennedy won. Obama has already made a similar declaration of independence in his historic Philadelphia speech. So far, he's following Kennedy's strategy by ignoring the non-issue of race. Unfortunately, the Clinton camp persists in treating race as if the issue were real (and we may be sure McCain will hop gleefully on that bandwagon). Alas, if you harp on a non-issue enough and get the media sheep to bleat about it long and loudly enough, people start believing it's for real. (Remember Weapons of Mass Destruction?) The answer is to remind the electorate that Obama is not about any single group or issue, to say that he's about America and the needs of everyone. And say it again and again and again. Two can play that game, and we can feel good about doing so, knowing that rather than spinning propaganda, we are repeating the truth. If we do it often enough, long enough, loudly enough, the essentially decent voters of America will come to see their way clear.
A career video professional, Jim Stinson is the author of Video: Digital Communication and Production. He lives with his wife in their empty nest in Portland, OR.
Id have to respectfully disagree with you. It seems every no vote for Obama is a race issue and its Clintons fault for being racist. Thats a pretty misleading picture your painting.
In politics (as with sports teams) people have all sorts of reasons for gravitating towards a candidate. Some voters just cast their ballot on a gut reaction, they just dont like something about the guy (or girl). It could be the way they speak, their haircut or any other insignifigant thing. Are all these voters now racist? Do we have to vote for a candidate because he gets pushed down our throats? Are we racist if we dont tow the line? When you set up conditions like that, exactly WHO is playing the race card?
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Alycha Green (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 7 comments)
on Thursday, May 15, 2008 at 8:53:17 AM
I don't claim that every vote not for Obama was racist or even tinged by racism. I simply said that for too many voters, racism is the prejudice that Dare Not Speak Its Name. Remember: this campaign is not for the presidency, but for the nomination, and Democrats are choosing as much for ability to win as for competence in office. Clinton's position is not, I'm better than Obama; it's I can win and he can't. Clearly, her argument is, Hey, Democrats: I'm not racist, as my public record proves; but I have a better chance of winning in November because "hard-working, decent" (read "white") voters will vote for me who would not vote for Obama because they are racist. So nominate me, not because I'm white but because only a white candidate can win.
I pray (and believe) that she's undeestimating both the decency and the common sense of American voters.
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Jim Stinson (7 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 50 comments)
on Thursday, May 15, 2008 at 1:56:51 PM
I guess all of her qualifications are about race, just like you say.
SEXISM - NOT SPOKEN ABOUT SINCE THE 70's BUT STILL ALIVE AND WELL! (as shown by my respectful response to your thoughtless article in which your headline read - Im glad you agree with me. Why dont you throw a "sweetie""in there while your at it?)
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Alycha Green (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 7 comments)
on Thursday, May 15, 2008 at 2:03:27 PM
Alycha Green asks WHO is playing the race card after she challenges:
"It seems every no vote for Obama is a race issue and its Clintons fault for being racist
In politics (as with sports teams) people have all sorts of reasons for gravitating towards a candidate. Are all these voters now racist?"
Her challenge ignores that Jim Stinson did not speak false conclusions, like her language suggests. He spoke facts.
Jim Stinson said, as a matter of fact, that a senior woman in Oregon said "she just could not see her way clear to vote for a Negro." He also said, as a matter of fact, "later conversations with other canvassers, revealed that they encountered voters with the same perspective.
Hence he did not make a determination that people who did not vote for Barack did so because of his race. He only accepted that race was the reason, when the voter said that race was the reason . . .
If you can't make a case for race as a motive, when the actor admits that race was the motive, how can you ever make a case for race?
Quiet as it is kept, the Clintons did unleash the racial dyanamic on this primary race. After African Americans (AA) deserted them for playing the race card on Barack and disparaging Martin Luther King, the Clintons aggressively sought to divide the vote racially and by gender. Instead of admitting that the AA favored the Clintons in the beginning, Bill Clinton sought to create the impression that the AA vote for Barack was racial "for pride." After there was some critcism of that characterization, Bill Clinton developed another racial characterization of the AA vote, and went to the press with it. This time the AA vote was for "the first AA with a real chance to win."
After the Clintons staged the advent of sexism, with two guys, 1 of whom had a Hillary sticker on his book bag, to chant "iron our shirts," just before Hillary declared, what Alycha said in her comment, "sexism is alive and well, they introduced race, through images of Barack's African grandmother, and combined that with racial division, by characterizing the black vote as racial, and sending out Geraldine Ferraro and Bob Johnson to fan that flame.
Hillary's declaration of the "white advantage," contains an admission. She admitted that Barack's disadvantage with white voters was recent, "Obama's support among hardworking Americans, white Americans is weakening." Hence, while race is an issue, it becomes more of an issue when someone stirs it up.
The Clintons have played the AA community, and they've played women too. They have women believing their progress is tied to the political success of a multimillionair, wife of a two-term president, who has not accomplished anything that her husband didn't facilitate. Her husband's role in her ambition is so significant until she uses his resume to advance her "qualifications," and many voters are relying on it, like the man who says he's voting for, "the both of them 'Billary'," or the woman who said, "she has her husband to help her . . ." Is this what women want as their presidential legacy? I sure don't.
Alycha says Hillary is a superior candidate because:
SHE can out- debate him (that's a matter of opinion)
SHE is a consistant candidate (like when she sought to get NAFTA approved and then claimed she's always been against it, like when she told that pathological lie about moving through sniper fire, like when she talked to Barack like her was an underling " Shame on you, Barack Obama – it is time you ran a campaign consistent with your messages in public. That’s what I expect from you."
SHE knows more about the job.(Because she slept with someone who did the job? Consider what Chris Rock said about that, "I've been with my wife for 8 years, and she's not funny"
As for their real qualifications: Barack had better grades and graduated with the highest status (editory and chief of Harvard Law Review), Hillary didn't; Barack passed the bar first time out, Hillary didn't. Barack's first major project - to developed the voters in a section of Illinois was praised as a brilliant success. Hillary's first major project, to establish universal health care failed. Barack built his own political machine, Hillary didn't. Barack has participated in more campaigns and was in elected office longer. Barack's passed more legislation . . . Then there's the campaign, Starting at a disadvantage, he's won more states, more delegates, more popular votes, and raised more money and brough in more new voters than anyone in the history of our elective system. And he did it all while maintaining the integrity of his staff. By contrast, Hillary's organization repeatedly fell apart, and after starting out rich, she ended up poor . . . Just the fact that this can be true, and we're having this conversation, gives some insight into the impact of race . .
Alycha, I belong to both devalued groups, race and gender, and I can say that, as between race and gender, I could do gender standing on my head . . .
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Hargrove (7 articles, 2 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 13 comments)
on Saturday, May 17, 2008 at 12:30:37 AM
