Barack Obama Archives - Page 13 of 14

The Black Candidate

I was shocked – SHOCKED! – to discover that race has actually been integrated into the Democratic Presidential primary race. I kid. I’m only surprised it didn’t come up sooner.

This got me to thinking about the black people who ran for President in my recollection. In all cases except the first, I’ll limit the discussion to the major-party candidates.

1968: I couldn’t vote yet, but my mother and father asked me whether they should vote for Dick Gregory, who was running on the Freedom and Peace Party, or to vote for Democrat Hubert H. Humphrey. Being a pragmatist at the time, I suggested the latter, but I did recognize the attractiveness about the idea of voting for a black man for President.
1972: Or black woman. If Shirley Chisholm had been on the ballot in my district, surely I would have voted for her in the Democratic primary. But getting on the ballot in New York was/is complicated, requiring getting delegates in each of the Congressional districts and evidently, the Congresswoman failed to garner enough support in my upstate New York region.
1984: I was ready to vote for Jesse Jackson in the Democratic primary until I heard about the disparaging remarks he made about Jews and New York City. I guess I was holding a civil rights leader to a higher standard. I didn’t vote for him in 1988, either.
1996: Alan Keyes was running in the Republican primaries, and in New York, there is no crossover voting, as there is in Michigan, e.g. Still, I wouldn’t have voted for him anyway. He ran in 2000 as well, and I understand he’s running again, presumably as an independent.
2004: Both Al Sharpton and Carol Moseley-Braun were running in the Democratic primary. The preacher I didn’t particular trust, though occasionally at the debates, he made the most sense, and the former senator from Illinois never got any traction.

Which brings me to this year. Yeah, I still like Dennis Kucinich, but recognize that a snowball in Hades will get better odds than DK becoming POTUS. Anyway, he’s “transitioning out of” the presidential race. Edwards losing badly in his home state of South Carolina didn’t speak well of his chances, and now he’s done, too.

About a month ago, I took a test here. I’d taken other tests before, with varying results. What I found was that the pencil point touched the bottom left of Barack Obama’s picture.
“What does the pencil indicate?
The point of the pencil is the exact average of your answers. This is YOUR POSITION in the political landscape.”

Of course, Edwards, Clinton and Bill Richardson, who was still in the race at that point, were all in the area around my pencil point.
“What is the ellipse around the pencil?
The ellipse surrounding your position is the standard deviation. The standard deviation indicates to what extent your answers differ mutually. The standard deviation is the average deviation of the mean, one could say.”

I don’t want to vote for “the black candidate” or “the woman candidate”. But, I don’t NOT want to vote for them based on race or gender. The pencil mark across Obama’s face was almost like marking a ballot.

Shelby Steele was instructive. The author of A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can’t Win was on Bill Moyers a few weeks ago. He spoke almost as much about why Obama SHOULDN’T win as why he COULDN’T win – that all things for all people thing he does – but it had the opposite effect on me, making Obama a more attractive candidate.

I think that Osama/Obama spam mail has also solidified my intent. So, even though I have my reservations – that he’s still as beholden to corporate America as most of the others – I’ll vote for Barack Obama in the NYS primary on February 5.
***
From the NYS Board of Elections re: the February 5 (Presidential) and September 9 (unofficial date for other offices) New York State 2008 primaries.

In New York City and the counties of Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, Rockland, Orange, Putnam and Erie, POLLS OPEN AT 6 AM – CLOSE AT 9 PM. In all other counties, POLLS OPEN AT 12 NOON and CLOSE AT 9 PM.

Here’s a list of candidates’ delegates.
***
My friend Dan sent it to me, and it’s also on Boing Boing, but has Hillary Clinton REALLY adopted an obscure Golden Earring song as one of her official campaign songs? If so, as Dan said, “Clearly, she has not seen the video.

ROG

Low Tidings, Indeed

Someone sent me a story called Why I Should Be Our Next President by Yo Mama Bin Barack, which you can find here, and if not, I can e-mail it to you. It’s racist and sexist swill – references to jive talk and especially b-slapping abound – which did not surprise me. What did confound me is that it wasn’t in some right-wing manifesto. It appeared in The Independent, a Pennysaver-type of adzine publication for the east end of Long Island, including the chichi Hamptons. This is the electronic version, of course, but there is a print version every Wednesday.

I was willing to suggest the piece was an aberration – I’d never seen the publication before – until I also found this thing by someone named Karen Fredericks:

In case you can’t read it, the explanatory balloon on the left talks about how some women felt betrayed by Oprah’s support for Barack Obama, rather than the woman, Hillary Clinton. The word balloon on the right reads:
Lord have mercy. I didn’t get this rich by being stupid. A female president might improve the lives of women. Then they might have something better to do than watch my dopey television program.
Oprah no dummy.
Besides that Obama gets my va-jay-jay all tingly.

Within 24 hours, the Barack story, written by publisher Rick Murphy, was replaced by this:
Apology
By Rick Murphy
Our Low Tidings “humor” column that appeared in last week’s issue of The Independent that was supposed to satirically address the increasing hostility between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama was ill conceived and offensive. The Independent, a multicultural employer with a 13-year history of diversity, apologizes for this lapse of judgment. The column has been removed from our website and a complete apology will be printed in next week’s issue.

Except that the original link to the story was still working this morning. We all say things we oughtn’t but this apparent attempt at “humor” seemed egregiously wrong-headed, and not very good business, to boot.

Here’s the Newsday article. It cites Jerry Della Femina as publisher. Ad guru Della Femina also has a regular column, which is more in line with the usual liberal bashing (Alec Baldwin, et al.), but with at least a sense of propriety.

Meanwhile, Channel 7 news (WABC-TV in NYC) was scheduled to carry a segment about the offending article at 5pm yesterday.

Here’s the contact info for the publisher:
The Independent News, 74 Montauk Highway, Suite 19, East Hampton, NY 11937
Phone: 631-324-2500 Business Fax: 631-324-6496 Editorial Fax: 631-324-2351
Rick Murphy, Editor – rmurphy@indyeastend.com
James J. Mackin, Publisher – jim@indyeastend.com
***
Meanwhile, also annoying me is that idiot church group stalking Heath Ledger’s funeral because he was in Brokeback Mountain. These people give Christianity a bad name. But WABC seems to be LOVING covering his death, which they’re running as a local story, which, I suppose, it is.

ROG

November Miscellany

Politics, Race, Comics, Music, Sports, Weather – we do it all

U.S. Thanksgiving Day, we drove from Albany to Oneonta, and saw the temperature rise from 44 and fog to 52 to 68F in a little more than an hour. Then that afternoon, the temperature plummeted, where it’s been ever since.
***
I received this question, as did a number of other bloggers: “I’d be interested in your reaction to this: An effort underway to remove Pelosi as Speaker, and make way for impeachment. Details. What flaws do you see with this plan; and is there a way to block this?”

As I’ve made abundantly clear, I favor the impeachment of Bush and Cheney. But the idea of impeaching Pelosi for her “high crimes and misdemeanors” of NOT impeaching them in order to impeaching them seems a bit surreal. Actually, it reminds me of a maneuver of my former church whereby the associate pastor was removed in order to make way for removing the senior pastor, except that it took 10 years to actually remove the senior pastor.

Regardless, the impeachment of Nancy Pelosi is highly unlikely to happen. And even if it did, impeachment of Bush/Cheney won’t happen. The Democrats are too risk averse. And oddly, from everything I’ve read, impeachment might very well STRENGTHEN the Democrats as it did in 1974, and as it did for the Republicans in 1868.
***
The current TV Guide lists the current Presidential candidates’ favorite television programs. Will Fred Hembeck support Barack Obama, now that Obama’s come out in favor of SponngeBob Squarepants? And speaking of Fred, read Hembeck: Court Jester of Comics, an interview by Peter Sanderson in Publishers’ Weekly.
***
A couple things I learned from ADD, one directly, one indirectly:
Tom Spurgeon’s Holiday Shopping Guide and
an interview with David Michaelis, biographer of Charles Schulz. Oh, and Gordon says nice things about the book about the creator of the Peanuts comic strip.
***
I don’t really follow college football, and don’t like how the polls determine rankings; I’m more of an NFL fan. Still, I prefer the way cthe college game settles ties, with each team getting a chance or two (or three, in the case of Arkansas’ upset of LSU last week) to the randomness of the coin toss to determine who’ll get the ball first, and quite possibly, score and win.
***
Cracked.com shows video clips of 8 of The 9 Most Racist Disney Characters:
#9. The Merchant from Aladdin
#8. Sebastian from The Little Mermaid
#7. The Crows from Dumbo
#6. King Louie from The Jungle Book
#5. The Siamese Twin Gang from Chip n’ Dale Rescue Rangers
#4. Sunflower the Centaur from Fantasia
#3. The Indians from Peter Pan
#2. Uncle Remus from Song of the South
#1. Thursday from Mickey Mouse and the Boy Thursday (Book)
The Little Mermaid clip surprised me, but I see its validity on the list.
Even though I feel uncomfortable with Song of the South – I do remember it in re-release c. 1960, I think, the movement to get Song of the South released on video doesn’t bother me. Not to say that I’ll buy it.
***
Also from Cracked.com: Ridiculous Overseas Rip-Offs of American Films, including a hysterical “Thriller” from India, a cheesy “Star Wars” from Turkey, and this Beatles Indian riff featuring, of all people, Mark Cuban:

ROG

The First Black President?

I was musing about whether the United States was ready for a black President. My initial premise was that we’ve HAD black Presidents already, at least in fiction. Morgan Freeman was Tom Beck, the worried Commander-in-Chief facing Armageddon from above in the 1998 movie Deep Impact. Then, of course, there were Dennis Haysbert (pictured) as the noble David Palmer whose death was mourned, then D.B. Woodside as his brother, and less well-regarded successor, Wayne Palmer, on the TV program 24. (Can you think of others?)

So, I was looking for other examples, but got totally sidetracked.

The best case for Black ancestry is against Warren G. Harding (pictured), our 29th president from 1921 until 1923. Harding himself never denied his ancestry. When Republican leaders called on Harding to deny the “Negro” history, he said, “How should I know whether or not one of my ancestors might have jumped the fence.”

This piece suggests that at least five former Presidents, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Harding, and Calvin Coolidge had black ancestors. This version even has a link to a video, laying out the case. Other pieces, even more speculative than these, suggest George Washington, Dwight Eisenhower, and Bill Clinton also may belong to the tribe.

So, if any of this is really true, then the precedent re: the Presidency has been broken, and electing someone who looks like this guy should not be a problem, eh?

ROG

Presidential QUESTIONS

ADD notes a “website that lists all the major candidates and their stands on the issues; at least, the issues as designated by whoever created the site.”

1. Based solely on the issues, not silly things such as “electability”, which candidate best represents your positions on the issues? For me, wide-eyed liberal that I am, it’s Congressman Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, who I voted for in the 2004 Democratic primary. Second is former U.S. Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska.

2. Yet I’m disinclined to vote for Kucinich, or for that matter, Gravel, because they are unelectable the way the system is set up. Call that a self-fulfilling prophecy, but there it is. Then who? Let’s do this by process of elimination. Not all issues are the same in my mind. Gun background check (in favor), the death penalty (against), the war in Iraq (against), torture (against), and the same-sex constitutional ban (against) provides a pretty good litmus test. By that standard, I disagree at least thrice with Brownback, Cox, Giuliani, Huckabee, Hunter (a perfect 5 for 5), McCain, Romney and Tancredo. Thompson doesn’t have enough known positions, surprise, surprise. Who’s on your “no way, no how” list?

3. So who am I leaning towards? The person who just might have enough money to actually win whose position is closest to mine turns out to be Obama, who I still wonder about, experience-wise. How about you?
***
One of those bizarre political stories involves former Congressman John Sweeney, who represented the Congressional district adjacent to Albany. He was one of those Republican thugs who helped get the 2000 recount in Florida stopped. His 2006 re-election bid was stopped, in no small part, by allegations of domestic violence against his second wife Gayle (or Gaia) in December 2005. The Sweeneys denied it, claiming it was a smear campaign by his opponent, Kirsten Gillibrand. Now, he’s saying that there WAS domestic violence, but that HE was the victim, and that he’s even gotten a judge to give him an order of protection. Gayle, who said in television commercials last fall that there was no violence, now claims she was coerced to say so, and that she was the victim. Now John’s first wife has entered the fray, stating that he was never physically violent towards her.
* John getting a restraining order against Gayle doesn’t prove that Gayle was the aggressor. He’s been a very powerful man, politically.
* Wife #1’s claim that she never experienced domestic violence from John doesn’t mean that wife #2, who was considerably younger and, in her own words, “in awe of him” in the beginning, wasn’t experiencing abuse.
* In most iterations of this story, there’s a lot of alcohol mentioned.
As I said, very bizarre
***
Meanwhile, the new member of Congress, Ms. Gillibrand, had a press conference this week announcing a bill to increase the tax deduction on day care costs. She had it in an Albany daycare that is not even in her district. But then I remember that her district, that runs from Washington County to Delaware County (note to non-New Yorkers: a big chunk of territory) without including any of the cities (Albany, Schenectady, Troy); it was gerrymandered to be a safe Republican district, mostly rural. I’m sure it’s easier to get the Capital District press to come to Albany than the countryside.

ROG