New York: A ‘Post-racial’ American vs an Old Coot

June 2008

In the Democratic primaries the fight was personal and demographic. Mrs Clinton attracted older voters, working-class whites. This princess of the New Left — a product of Wellesley College and Yale Law School — had never been known as a lunch-bucket type. But there you had it. Senator Obama, for his part, attracted young people, blacks and “upscale cultural liberals”.

Why did I put that last phrase in quotation marks? It comes from Bill Clinton, who used it in an interview on the radio. The former president was describing a section of Obama’s electorate; and it was an ear-catching phrase, coming from him. Upscale cultural liberals had always been his demographic.

So too had blacks. Mr Clinton has had a bad 2008 campaign, not least because he has damaged himself with black Americans, a great many of whom are annoyed at his occasional criticisms of Senator Obama. He accused Obama of “playing the race card” against him.

It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy, for Bill Clinton is a long-time player of that dirty card.

Biting Senator Obama are some of his associates, specifically Tony Rezko, a shady Chicago operator; Billy Ayers, a former, utterly unrepentant Weather Underground bomber; and the Rev Jeremiah Wright, Senator Obama’s pastor — or “former pastor” as the candidate is at pains to say now.

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Tony Papafilis

June 4th, 2008
7:06 AM

Obama started out presenting as the black man that is beyond race politics. The charade has been exposed and he is now rightly seen as another Jesse Jackson, albeit a smoother version. Obama defends the Reverend because he can "understand" black anger yet can't understand why an elderly white woman (his grandmother) is intimidated by a group of aggresive young black men walking towards her. Doesn't he read the papers or watch the news to see the prevalance of black crime. He has not said anything against the racial political myths that allow black squalor to continue. Obama denies his white heritage except when it suits. He is not a black American but a black Kenyan with a white American mother yet talks of black Americans as his people - does it mean his mother's people are not his people? How racist! Obama is not a post-racial candidate but a Manchurian Candidate. Bring on Bill Crosby if you want a black President that is beyond race politics.

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