This story has a number of implications. Barack Obama is endorsing the white Cardin (D) over the black Steele (R) and telling black voters to vote on issues, not race.
The first important aspect is that Obama finally broke and played the race card: “Listen, I think it’s great that the Republican Party has discovered black people.” Excuse me? The Republican Party was, uh, founded as part of the anti-slavery movement (remember that dude Abraham Lincoln?). And more Republicans than Democrats supported civil rights legislation in the ’60s. Re-discovered, maybe, but not discovered.
Obama has, heretofore, been known as a racial reconciler – someone who, as Shelby Steele put it, doesn’t rub white people’s noses in racial guilt. That’s over now. Before I argued he was likeable but too liberal; now he’s making steps toward the Jesse Jackson crowd.
The other question is, why do blacks vote for Democrats in such large numbers? Many argue that Democratic policies have destroyed black families, and that blacks are socially conservative. I agree on both counts.
But (A) blacks’ stated policy goals (affirmative action, poverty programs) are consistent with the Democrats if harmful to themselves and (B) they tend to vote on those policy goals, not on their social conservatism. Republican inroads, including Steele’s, are great, but I’m not sure how successful they can be in the long run.
Robert VerBruggen blogs at http://robertsrationale.blogspot.com.
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Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackSpeaking of Barack Obama:
Barack Obama is a racial-minority individual, and in his heart and mind he inevitably does not endorse hate crimes committed by George W. Bush.
George W. Bush committed hate crimes of epic proportions and with the stench of terrorism (indicated in my blog).
George W. Bush did in fact commit innumerable hate crimes.
And I do solemnly swear by Almighty God that George W. Bush committed other hate crimes of epic proportions and with the stench of terrorism which I am not at liberty to mention.
Many people know what Bush did.
And many people will know what Bush did—even to the end of the world.
Bush was absolute evil.
Bush is now like a fugitive from justice.
Bush is a psychological prisoner.
Bush has a lot to worry about.
Bush can technically be prosecuted for hate crimes at any time.
In any case, Bush will go down in history in infamy.
Submitted by Andrew Yu-Jen Wang
B.S., Summa Cum Laude, 1996
Messiah College, Grantham, PA
Lower Merion High School, Ardmore, PA, 1993
“GEORGE W. BUSH IS THE WORST PRESIDENT IN U.S. HISTORY” BLOG OF ANDREW YU-JEN WANG
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I am not sure where I had read it before, but anyway, it is a linguistically excellent statement, and it goes kind of like this: “If only it were possible to ban invention that bottled up memories so they never got stale and faded.” Oh wait—off the top of my head—I think the quotation came from my Lower Merion High School yearbook.
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