The Jewish Press: Race Issue As Political Tool - [Q] - The significance of race in the presidential campaign is undeniable - but not in the manner Barack Obama and his supporters would like us to think. The fact is, it was race that propelled Sen. Obama to the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, as he received more than 90 percent of the African American vote in the primaries.
Yet this level of near unanimous support in the black community has never been characterized by the media as a form of racism, even though it plainly reflects widespread decision-making based solely upon race. In the early going, Sen. Hillary Clinton was running well ahead of Sen. Obama among black voters, but the instant Sen. Obama proved himself to be a viable candidate, the black vote moved en masse to him form Sen. Clinton. That is what it is. What truly matters are the efforts of the Obama camp to thwart legitimate criticism by planting the specter of racism. If Sen. Obama is to be believed, the fact that he is African-American means the very same criticisms that would be deemed legitimate if directed at a white candidate are off limits when it comes to him. Since last week, this effort to immunize Obama has picked up steam. When he was first criticized for his longtime association with Reverend Jeremiah Wright over the latter's cursing from the pulpit the United States, Israel and white people in general, Obama himself made the issue one of race and not his judgment in associating with a virulent America-basher and bigot. In a long speech, he traced the history of race relations in this country and tried to explain away Rev. Wright's rants as a reasonable, if wrongheaded, reaction to it. We can only speak for ourselves, but our revulsion with Rev. Wright and our related criticism of Sen. Obama had nothing to do with race. We were concerned about the content of the message, not the race of the messenger. What mattered to us was that the man who would be president identified someone like Jeremiah Wright as his long-time mentor and confidante [...] - http://www.jewishpress.com/printArticle.cfm?contentid=36649 --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. * Read the latest breaking news, and more. -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
