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Photograph of Barack Obama with an Obama basketball jersey given to him by University of Oregon Men's basketball coach Ernie Kent, right, at a University of Oregon rally by Ryan Gardner/AP
Senator Barack Obama's campaign got a huge boost yesterday as nine superdelegates pledged support for him. Now, for the first time, Obama leads Senator Hillary Clinton in the number of superdelegates, according to the NY Times' calculations (the Times has a good graphic), while the AP says that Clinton still leads by half a superdelegate.
With Clinton's presidential hopes waning, there's debate over a Obama-Clinton ticket. Politco gives both sides (why it's nuts/not nuts) Senator Ted Kennedy doesn't think much of that paring. In an interview with Bloomberg Television, he said he hoped Obama's VP would be "in tune with his appeal for the nobler aspirations of the American people" and that Clinton as number two would be unlikely: "I think if we had real leadership - as we do with Barack Obama - in the number-two spot as well, it'd be enormously helpful."
Still, Clinton is expected to win the West Virginia primary by a large margin--even Obama acknowledged that she would win W.V. and Kentucky. But the NY Times' Bob Herbert takes both Hillary and Bill Clinton to task for trying to take down Obama with subliminally racist messages (especially after her remarks to USA Today):
I don’t know if Senator Obama can win the White House. No one knows. But to deliberately convey the idea that most white people — or most working-class white people — are unwilling to give an African-American candidate a fair hearing in a presidential election is a slur against whites.And the Washington Post looks at how the black community has become "increasingly protective of Obama," leaving those who have criticized Obama, like Bill Clinton, Tavis Smiley and the Reverend Wright, under fire.
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"Still, Clinton is expected to win the West Virginia primaryn by a large margin"
Primaryn, Longon, what wonderful use of the spell check button
Isn't that kind of racist giving him a basketball shirt?
I'm voting for Obama but the fact that 91% of black people vote for him without question freaks me the fuck out! it's the same with bibe thumping rednecks for Bush
It should freak you out that 91% of black people have voted for Democratic candidates without question for a long time. The only reason that this is an issue now (if, indeed all of those blacks are actually voting for him without question) is that the candidate is black.
Interestingly, Sharpton barely received any black votes - let alone, votes period, when he tried to run. Recall that he didn't get the nomination.
Also note that large numbers of blacks did not support him early on in his candidacy. So, it's not as scary as one might suppose.
Originally they didn't, according to what I read. However, the Clinton camp seems to have gone out of its way to frost them off, the latest being the remark about hard-working White people, and like Bible-thumping rednecks they're pretty sensitive to people liking and respecting them or not. I suppose the theory might have been that Black voters have nowhere to go, and so could be disparaged and scorned in order to go after lower-class presumptively racist Whites. Of coure, no Clintonista is ever going to admit to such a strategy, so we'll never know. It does not seem to have been a successful strategy, in any case.
Yep, there's nothing racist at all about insinuating that whites won't support a black president. In fact, Hillary is racist for insinuating that anyone who isn't white could be racist. Right.
Fuck the New York Bleeding Heart Times. They should rename it the Honky McGuilty Times and just get it over with.
bernie, you sound like you're losing your bearings.
Just stopped drinking the koolaid is all.
Too late, apparently.
Okay, I can't take it. I really need to fit in around here. The nail that sticks up gets hammered back down. Okay. Okay. Racism against whites is good and is totally different than racism against blacks which is bad, bad, bad. Now will one of you self-loathing crackers point me to the nearest self-flogging station so I can do my daily penance?
Pipe dreams. Look at what Dinkens did to New York after he was elected. The guy was a total asshole and was directed by other assholes. Blacks looking to blacks to free their ass is just asinine.
Actually the guy is half black, and where is his father? Typical of a black father might I say.
Actually, half-whites like Mariah Carey, Halle Berry, Alicia Keyes, Barry Obama are
"blacker" than your generic unknown black guy or gal.
91% of blacks support obama because he's promised to eliminate their capital gains taxes.
Yeah, but then look what happened: Italians voted for Giuliani to free their ass, something like 7:1 out where I was living, and then we all got the wonderful, exquisite, delightful Mr. Giuliani for eight years and just kicked up our heels in absolute paradise. So it's all right to vote for your ethnic kin if you're White. In fact, no one will even notice, as has just been demonstrated.
Starry I don't know if you noticed, but Giuliani was re-elected. And there ain't that many Italians in New York to have done it all by themselves.
Dinkens on the other hand wasn't re-elected and all he did was get a tennis stadium built out in Queens. He was a whiter version of Al Sharpton. How about the Korean deli incident (was it in Brooklyn or Queens?) that he so calmly walked away from? The guy was an asshole from the get go.
David Dinkins was just this ooze. Patches of him are still visible in alleyways off Park Row.
Ethnic voting is always stupid. But sometimes stupid people being stupid luck out anyway. In the case of Giuliani, those Italians probably got not only one of their own but the kind of administration they wanted: a tough, thuggy, authoritarian one which beat up on rival eths.
Now, the case of the Black voters is more complex. Contrary to what's been written here, they didn't start out being 91% Obamaphiles. Even with one of their own in the running, the plurality, maybe the majority, were for Clinton. However, Clinton and her henchpersons were dazzled by the idea of getting back the "Reagan Democrats" and pointedly distanced themselves from Blacks. They were ignored by the other candidates as well. Result: they had nowhere to go but with the fellow who was one of them. That 91% represents rejection, not ethnic voting -- at least if you go by the published evidence.
Several years ago P. J. O'Rourke observed a similarity between Bible-beating rednecks and Blacks: politically, they will associate themselves with a party that doesn't reject and despise them. It doesn't have to be controlled by them; it just has to accept them. But Clinton -- I should say the Clintons -- kept trying to rerun the Sister Souljah moment long after its time had passed.
Look on the bright side: we may be entering an era when stupidity will be temporarily out of fashion.
Ethnic voting is always stupid. But sometimes stupid people being stupid luck out anyway. In the case of Giuliani, those Italians probably got not only one of their own but the kind of administration they wanted: a tough, thuggy, authoritarian one which beat up on rival eths.
Now, the case of the Black voters is more complex. Contrary to what's been written here, they didn't start out being 91% Obamaphiles. Even with one of their own in the running, the plurality, maybe the majority, were for Clinton. However, Clinton and her henchpersons were dazzled by the idea of getting back the "Reagan Democrats" and pointedly distanced themselves from Blacks. They were ignored by the other candidates as well. Result: they had nowhere to go but with the fellow who was one of them. That 91% represents rejection, not ethnic voting -- at least if you go by the published evidence.
Several years ago P. J. O'Rourke observed a similarity between Bible-beating rednecks and Blacks: politically, they will associate themselves with a party that doesn't reject and despise them. It doesn't have to be controlled by them; it just has to accept them. But Clinton -- I should say the Clintons -- kept trying to rerun the Sister Souljah moment long after its time had passed.
Look on the bright side: we may be entering an era when stupidity will be temporarily out of fashion.