Superville Review

Incredible. Stunning. Stupefying. Ralph Nader your green party candidate. Upon watching the current political news cycle from poll to poll, pundit to pundit, CNN to MSNBC to Fox a funny thing happened on the merry-go-round. Ralph Nader accused Barack Obama of talking white and not focusing on exploitation of the "ghetto." Wow on whatever level one wants to choose.

A white Presidential candidate, fringe and independent as he wants to be accusing a black Presidential candidate of a major party, who happens to be of African descent of being white is uncharted territory. It seems that Barack Obama cannot win whichever way he turns and this has played out slowly over the course of the past three months. Reverend Wright; he should not distance himself from Reverend Wright, his mentor, his crazy old uncle. But when the good Reverends dog and pony show at the National Press Club made any affiliation with Wright impossible Obama saved his candidacy and rightly distanced himself from a man he would not outright abandon six weeks prior. Some in the media wondered what it meant about Obama and not in a good way. Those same people wondered why Obama did not leave Trinity United years ago. Obama was damned if he did and damned if he didn't.

As the first African-American nominee of a major political party Obama has been credited with running a "post racial" campaign that focused on issues of broad concern and avoiding race based speak. Which isn't entirely true because his speech on race in Philadelphia was necessary and the first of it's kind for a Presidential candidate. But Obama has little choice. He doesn't visit a Mosque he's said by Minnesota's Muslim Congressman, Keith Ellison to have abandoned the Muslim community. However, if Obama goes to a Mosque the aforementioned news outlets would make it 24 hour news and that would feed the fire of internet innuendo claiming Obama to be anything, but a child of God. Some of his staffers have gone overboard, like removing head-scarf wearing Muslim women from behind the podium during one of Mr. Obama's speeches, but he is a candidate that is fighting a unique game perception that no other candidate has had to navigate. Why? Because Obama is a first of his kind for the stage he now sweeps across so charismatically.

Obama has to present himself as a man running for President of the entire United States, not, to borrow an associates line, block captain of Martin Luther King Boulevard. So here comes Mr. Nader, who has not shown himself to effectively enact any policy or tangible action in the past decade regarding issues affecting the "ghetto" he blames Obama for abandoning; and not only abandoning, but doing it in an appeal to white guilt with white ways of speaking at least figuratively if not literally. Obama's past career as a community organizer in the roughness of South Chicago must not give him enough negro points in Ralph Nader's view. But Obama's very presence on the national stage gives him more clout in any ghetto than Ralph Nader will ever be given or can ever earn. Stealing votes from Democratic nominees in the past two Presidential elections that has lead to the Republican rule of the past several years was a bald faced stake in the heart to ghetto's domestic and international. Dig that campaign strategy.

So Ralph Nader posits an old argument that black nationalists have espoused against the black middle class for several decades. A chastisement for not being "black enough." Obama or at least his surrogates have been accused, with some legitimate reasons, of allowing race to be floated in an attempt to knock Hillary Clinton out the box in Dixieland, USA. Obama has no choice but to tell the truth of race while at the same time distancing himself from the same racial hope and resentment that draws itself to him throughout the diverse communities of America. Either way Obama is damned by someone for doing or not doing a racial dance that no other candidate running for President has been made to endure. But that person should not be Ralph Nader.

Labels: 2008 Presidential Campaign, Barack Obama, Race and the 2008 Presidential Campaign, Ralph Nader

(AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)

2025. That is not a science-fiction number from some made up galaxy where the future of man will be at stake. 2025 is the number of delegates needed to win the Democratic Presidential nomination. And some would argue that number is related very intimately with the future of the United States. Barack Obama 1307. Hillary Clinton 1175. Despite her latest resurrection, the New York Senator still trails Mr. Obama in pledged delegates and her lead amongst Superdelegates is narrowing. All this indicates trouble for the DNC in November.

Hillary Clinton, at this point, is well within her rights to stay in the race. Things are tight between her and Senator Obama and too much money has been spent and too much heart has been expended from her to simply walk away now. But there is a problem that Howard Dean, DNC Chairman, has to foresee. In America, race has always played a pivotal position in the national landscape, allowing Americans to be their best and alternately their worst in any given moment in time. To be inspired and bitter. Barack Obama has wisely done his best to preclude the issue of race from his campaign. However, it is sure to make an appearance if the Democratic nomination comes down to a brokered convention in Denver. Should Obama continue to have a lead in delegates, and all mathematical indications point to this probability, then by the rules of the party he should win the nomination. If the Superdelegates for some reason choose to back Hillary Clinton and award her the nomination race jumps center stage, live and on fire. Black America, one of the staunchest supporters of Democratic platforms will be smacked in the face. There would be no way around seeing this occurrence for anything but a qualified black man who played by the rules, being pushed aside to prop up a white American. It is what it is and this is the last thing the DNC or Hillary Clinton should want.

The Republican party does not need nor count on African-American votes to win elections. The Democratic party, at this point in time, does count on that voting block to win office. Hillary Clinton is already losing the black vote by substantial margins in every state with a serious black population; a trend that began in South Carolina after perceived "race talk" from Bill Clinton. How much support could Mrs. Clinton count on from the black electorate if her nomination comes in a back room at the expense of a Mr. Obama who will have more delegates? How much support could Mrs. Clinton procure from Obama supporters of every denomination if she were to receive the Democratic nomination in this way? A vote for Obama is more about wanting a change in political operations than about voting for a black man.

If one truly supports Obama because they believe in his message of changing the ways of doing business in Washington is a vote for Hillary Clinton against John McCain really a vote well spent? Clinton and McCain, lifelong politicians, who based on their current campaigns are well versed in playing the "game" of politics would really be a choice between the lesser of two evils for Obama supporters. In other words, the election in November would be the same election Americans have lived with for decades and would be a bellweather election for black America as well as Obama supporters of all backgrounds.

For African-American's a Superdelegate nominated Clinton would be a clear indicator that a change in political affiliation from Demcorat to Independent is in order. The Democratic party, whose history has origins on the wrong side of slavery and equal rights, would have once again, taken the vote of African-American's for granted by producing a candidate not based on their vote and expecting black support. It would be an indication that black American's must separate from sentiment and embrace a proving of the question, "what will you do for me" from the Democratic Party. For Obama supporters it would be an even clearer indication that change, even though Clinton will no doubt use the term during a possible acceptance speech at the convention, is not what they will be getting. Do they vote, in good conscience, for a candidate nominated by the will of political insiders, because she is better than McCain who has promised a continuation of George Bush's economic and foreign policies? Or do these Obama supporters cast protesting votes for the only candidate of change in the race, Ralph Nader or worse stay home altogether to prove a point. That point being change or else? After eight years of George Bush and the current crisis' America finds itself in, why not sacrifice four more years to McCain? And what about the youth vote that Obama has successfully mined into political engagement? Do they ever return or recover from a brokered convention?

There are many questions for Howard Dean. He had better have the answers or the yellow brick road Democrats were supposed to enjoy on the way to the White House will become a potholed nightmare.

Labels: Barack Obama, Delegates, Democratic Convention, DNC, Hillary Clinton, Howard Dean, John McCain, Race and the 2008 Presidential Campaign, Ralph Nader, Repulicans, Superdeleagtes

And here we go. Politricks as usual. On Meet the Press with Tim Russert, Hillary Clinton defended her comments about Lyndon Johnson and Martin Luther King by saying that obviously Barack Obama's camp had put out the undue criticism that followed. That this criticism had injected race into a campaign that desperately needed to avoid the issue of race or gender. Politically, this is a good strategy on Clinton's part; if it weren't so transparent. No one from the Obama campaign had commented on Clinton saying that the Civil Rights dream of Dr. King would not have been realized without President Lyndon Johnson. That was Congressman James Clyburn from South Carolina, a man with a long history in the civil rights movement, who came out on the record as saying he and others in the black community were offended.

Now for the record, as a black man, I didn't take offense to her comments. Dr. King's influence and impact on American and world society is unrefuteable. However, for the issues that were pressing the black community at the time the movement needed a strong voice in the executive branch. Dr. King, by himself, could not pass legislation. He had no vote in the congress or the senate. Bill Clinton's comments were also misconstrued. Clinton's Fairytale view of Obama's record on the Iraq war very different from him saying that Obama's candidacy itself is a fairytale. Neither of these comments were "racial." However, Mrs. Clinton has now injected the issue of race, purposely. The waters are muddied and won't get any clearer.

Barack Obama's admission to drug use in his earlier years was a pre-emptive strike against what the country is seeing now. Direct questioning from Clinton campaign workers and sneaky assertions from supporters such as Bob Johnson. The same Bob Johnson who lorded over a BET network that single handedly contributed to the exploitation of half naked black and brown women in ninety percent of the music
videos that ran on his network. The same network that at one time offered the black community an array of programming from world news, talk shows, youth programming and entertainment shows that did not solely rely on various strains of rap music.

Bob Johnson is a smart man. He built an empire despite the fact that he allowed it to crumble from bad programming. He is too smart to tell us his veiled reference about Obama "doing whatever he was doing in the neighborhood..." was not a direct inference to Obama's past drug use. He seemingly was saying Obama's past drug use separates him from Clinton's ability to lead the United States. This from a man who has one of the only film company in Hollywood, Our Voices, where black American's can greenlight a project and its first offering is the stupifying comedy, "Who's Your Caddy." A film that is no better than the least of what "white Hollywood" has given to its black constituents. How irresponsible is that? Socially, very irresponsible. Financially, a smart move. Draw in kids with loud characters, loud clothes, loud music under a supposed theme of being misunderstood. The bigger coup is that these kids are the ones who advertisers covet; which leads us back to Mr. Johnson's true interests. Money.

There's an old expression about like birds flocking together. Johnson is out for money. Hillary Clinton is out for the power. And some muddied water is fine as long as their bottom lines are met. I would advise Mr. Johnson and Mrs. Clinton to watch the company they keep because soon, they could be the ones with mud in their eye.

Labels: Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Bob Johnson, Hillary Clinton, James Clyburn, Lyndon Johnson, Martin Luther King, Obama's Fairytale, Race and the 2008 Presidential Campaign, Tim Russert