Comments on: Is There Anything That’s Not The Dreaded “Race Card”?

By: David Schraub

David Schraub — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 23:35:55 +0000

Ah, the experience canard. Well, by 2008, Obama will have had 11 years in elected office (4 years US Senate, 7 years Illinois State Senate)

A white person with his lack of experience would not be taken seriously as a presidential candidate.

Two words: Rudy Giuliani (8 years as Mayor of NYC).

Two more: John Edwards (6 years, US Senate).

Two more: George W. Bush (6 years, Governor of Texas)

Two more: Mitt Romney (4 years, Governor of Massachusetts)

Don’t make me laugh.

By: Laura

Laura — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 17:08:54 +0000

Clue me in on where Barack Obama is using his race only in order to win

TSteel, see Superdestroyer’s post above. He hit the nail right on the head.

By: T-Steel

T-Steel — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 16:51:46 +0000

Laura:

Clue me in on where Barack Obama is using his race only in order to win. It is still VERY early in the campaign season and the candidates are being general with alot of the “campaign promises”. I think you are unfair in your assessment of Obama. I’m not behind either one of them yet since I’m not really paying that much attention until 2008.

By: Laura

Laura — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 16:45:55 +0000

Obamaâ€™s bringing down the race by trying to be President because heâ€™s black. Because we all know that black people running for President is wrong because theyâ€™re black. And Iâ€™m black so I know. But vote for me in my next run for State Senator.

This statement happens to be correct in that obama thinks his race is enough to make him president, rather than qualifications. A white person with his lack of experience would not be taken seriously as a presidential candidate. But obama thinks he can simply use his race to get by and he thinks that makes him entitled.

I can tell you this, if Hillary is not the nominee, I will certainly vote GOP.

By: Laura

Laura — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 16:39:56 +0000

Hillary is not obliged to repudiate anything. She isn’t responsible for what someone else says. This pathetic obama and his supporters are nothing more than whiny, petulant children. Go ahead Dems,keep on attacking and bitching about Hillary, the only one of the current batch running who can beat the GOP. Go ahead and nominate the unqualified, clueless barak obama and be prepared to lose bigtime. You can be rest assured the GOP is pulling for an obama victory in the Dem primaries and will do everything in their power to make that happen, if you know what I mean.

By: C Stanley

C Stanley — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 13:02:14 +0000

What Ford said was ridiculous and Obama’s campaign was right to make an issue out of it. I guess since the term “playing the race card” has come to be shorthand for “making an issue out of a non-issue, by playing up racial victimization”, I can see why you are questioning the use of the term here, David. But I think (and this is my interpretation of the Powerline remark, though I could be wrong of course) that there are legitimate uses of the “race card” and then the frequent misuses of it (as in the shorthand use of that comment). I saw the glib remark at Powerline simply as a laugh at the Democratic infighting- that the blows sunk low enough that Obama was forced to respond to a racial attack, and an attack that came from another prominent black politician, no less.

By: superdestroyer

superdestroyer — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 12:38:49 +0000

Of course Senator Obama is playing the race card. Why else does he empahsize his Kenyan father who in reality had little impact on his childhood but never mentions his rich, white grandparents who paid his way to Punahou School in Honolulu. Why else does Seantor Obama talk about being black in United States when Hawaii is probably is easist place in the United State to be the child of a mixed race marriage?

I like the idea that Senatora Obama is getting the support of the coastal elites because he is just like the few blacks that people like Geffen have ever been exposed and not like mainstream urban culture.

By: Gray

Gray — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 07:28:12 +0000

“Conservatives claim that Obama is â€œplaying the race cardâ€? against Clinton.”

Blah.
Next, thing, they’ll say Clinton is playing the gender card against Obama. If those lame arguements are all conservatives can come up with, both candidates seem to be very strong on the issues.

By: Hardliner

Hardliner — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 04:57:24 +0000

Good question, Although, I think both sides do it, to an extent.

Hardliner

By: Marlowecan

Marlowecan — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 04:19:38 +0000

Another argument is that Obama’s candidacy is being propelled by the sheer lack of “sex appeal” “charisma” or whatever you want to call it in the Clinton campaign.

That explains, in large measure I think, the defection of Geffen…Dark Lord of the Hollywood Gay Mafia.

The GOP struggle is a mirror image of this: Guiliani’s gay cred is strong as is his charisma factor, but McCain has the organization and the key party figures.

It will be interesting to see who goes for who. If the Clinton machine is rolling over Obama like this, imagine what they’ll do with Guiliani’s living with gay men after his divorce hahahahaha….

Like Geffen said: the Clinton machine “is going to be very unpleasant and unattractive and effective.”

By: kritter

kritter — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 03:04:29 +0000

Obama is also getting it from the African-Americans on the left who don’t consider him black enough because his father is a Kenyan and his mother was white. He doesn’t have the common experience of the civil rights movement as he is too young. One argument is that his candidacy is being propelled by the white man’s guilt.

By: CaseyL

CaseyL — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 02:44:04 +0000

Who cares what the far Right says? About race or anything else?

What’s interesting to me is that conservatives took Clinton’s side against Obama, given their fanatical hatred for Clinton.

By: AustinRoth

AustinRoth — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 02:17:02 +0000

Come on, let’s be fair (oh, silly me). Only the right plays the ‘race card’?

I would check with Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Justice Clarence Thomas, Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, La Shawn Barber, Shelby Steele, Ward Connerly, J.C Watts, Roy Innis, John McWhorter, and just about any other conservative black to see just how well they get treated by the left, and what is said about them, by both blacks and whites liberals.

By: T-Steel

T-Steel — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 01:58:35 +0000

As a black guy, I’d never thought I’d see the day that one black politician (State Senator Robert Ford) says another black politician (Senator Barack Obama) would “close doors” for future black politicians if he receives the nomination. This is UNBELIEVABLE! State Sen. Ford might as well use another colorful phrase/paragraph like:

Obama’s bringing down the race by trying to be President because he’s black. Because we all know that black people running for President is wrong because they’re black. And I’m black so I know. But vote for me in my next run for State Senator.

I guess we black folks have fully arrived now. Viva la future! :/