John McCain is our next president!!!
The Republican Party is about to win the White House again, this time with an even lamer candidate than the buffoon that has occupied the office of President for the past eight years. I saw it coming two years ago, I even wrote a column about it.
Two years ago a pair of members of the NC General Assembly, Senator Robert Holloman and Representative Howard Hunter Jr. both passed away within a week of each other, each leaving unfilled terms of service which needed to be filled by new officials. As a reporter for the Roanoke Chowan News Herald in Hertford County NC, I had a front row seat to the debacle and sham which led to two idiotic choices for replacements for Holloman and Hunter. Hertford, Northampton and Bertie counties, all within the coverage area of the News Herald and all within the constituency base for Hunter and Holloman, are all counties with predominantly black, excuse me, African American, population bases and race figured to play heavily into the selection for the two vacant seats. Of course, the replacements, who shall remain nameless less the mere mention of their names devalue the intellectualism of this column, were both indeed African American, no excuse me, black.
Both Holloman and Hunter had at some point during their tenures as public servants fallen under suspicion of improprieties concerning the use of public funds and/or campaign donations. That story is nothing new for politicians, especially black politicians in North Carolina (see: Frank Ballance, Thomas Wright). While black politicians are not the only NC public servants who have been found guilty of illegalities (it doesn’t help that the biggest white politician to get nabbed in recent years was named Jim Black), at least you knew that Holloman and Hunter knew how to play the game. Their replacements had no business on the ballots to begin with. In fact one of the replacements was voted in because several members of the selection committee were her sorority sisters and the other candidate was a sentimental favorite among the over 50 crowd. Essentially two black politicians were replaced with two more black politicians in a popularity vote.
Many blacks who do take the time to vote will always vote for the black candidate in a race against a white candidate regardless of what the black candidate’s position may be on serious political issues and while that may seem short sighted and narrow minded, it’s understandable. Much of black America still harbors deep rooted distrust and disdain for white America because of hundreds of years of racial inequality and violence inflicted on blacks by bigoted whites. Which begs the question; would whites vote for a white candidate running against a black candidate even if the black candidate was better qualified? Probably so, again, that’s understandable. Despite all of the appearances to the contrary, much of the apparent goodwill and fairness displayed by many whites toward blacks is merely a result of today’s media age making politically incorrect thinking in public or the workplace tantamount to slashing your wrists with a butter knife. For the baby boomer generation there’s no love lost (or gained) between the races, everybody just plays it cool.
This brings me to the dynamic we face in the current race for the US Presidency. The Democrats should’ve announced Clinton as their nominee eight years ago, period. Had they done that, this election would be all but over and she could’ve started walking the halls of Congress pushing her agenda a full two years or so ahead of schedule. Instead, Obama has brought his rock star politics in front of the American voting public, most of whom are still white, and as such, the Democrats have now splintered their constituency enough that even McCain, who was really supposed to be nothing more than the next Bob Dole, will squeeze out an eight to ten percentage point victory come November.
How, in the face of what is probably been the most horrendous presidency in the history of our nation, did the Democrats lose this election? I’ll give you two words…Oprah Winfrey. In fact I’ll give you two better words…black people. Barak Obama is a nice guy. He’s intelligent, charming, and media savvy. He’s a great orator, a very handsome man and a very accomplished public servant, but…(you know what’s coming)…there’s no way in hell he’s ready to be President of the United States.
It’s not because Clinton is smarter than Obama, or morally superior to the Illinois Senator, in fact the exact opposite might even be true, but Obama has one major flaw that he cannot overcome, at least not for another couple of years. He’s not crooked enough.
I’m not insinuating that Clinton is a crook, but hey we all know that there are a few skeletons in her closet that she would rather keep under lock and key (see: White Water, Vince Foster, Monicagate).
While most of us see the improprieties of politicians as fodder for cable television and talk radio personalities, politicians at the highest level have another name for skeletons…bargaining chips.
The office of the presidency is a corporate office today. Long gone are the days of war heroes (see: George Washington, Andrew Jackson, Dwight Eisenhower), upstart cultural icons (see: John F. Kennedy) and American darlings (see: Jimmy Carter). With a presidential campaign costing upwards of 100 million dollars it’s safe to assume that huge political contributors are looking for more than a t-shirt and photo-op on the White House lawn if their candidate wins (see: Haliburton, war in Iraq).
It’s not Obama’s skin color that will cause him to send tens of millions of white Americans scurrying to the polls to elect McCain, it’s who Obama’s campaign represents (see: black people). Former Secretary of State Colin Powell would crush both Clinton and McCain in an election, even, Condaleeza Rice would stand a better chance at winning than Obama ever could. The Illinois Senator might have powerful friends in Hollywood, but until those friends start building military weapons, buying banks or inventing new fuel sources, then the little Senator that could is nothing more to the machine that is the American Congress than Jesse Jackson on steroids.
Clinton knows the game, has all the player’s names on speed dial and most importantly somewhere she has a little black book that can be used to dissuade political gridlock if necessary. Obama has Oprah and Tom Joyner. In the grimy take-no-prisoners world of international politics, that’s just not enough and informed voters know it. When white America sees legions of black Americans grinning from ear to ear about their champion who even managed to marry a black woman you can rest assured that across the country there will millions of Fuzzy Zoeller moments.
Black America loves Barak Obama and that is exactly why he cannot win. I’m sorry but like Willie Brown said in the movie Crossroads “It seems like much has changed…then again not much has really changed.” This nation was built brick by brick and inch by inch on racism, genocide and bigoted religious principles, and just because we (blacks) have been allowed to eat at the table with massuh doesn’t mean we get to select what’s on the menu. Unfortunately the overwhelming support that Obama has garnered from the liberal elite of film and television is rapidly causing a divide in the Democratic party as a whole as Democratic voters are now playing the ‘take my ball and go home game’, with Obama voters saying they’ll never vote for Clinton and vice versa.
That is exactly the best thing that could happen for John McCain and the G.O.P. knows it. Did you not notice how quick they were to show Romney and Huckabee the door? The Republicans wasted no time in seizing the opportunity to get their main guy out front and center. Right now McCain is looking like he’s running for President of the United States while Clinton and Obama look like they’re running for president of the Urban League. If there’s one thing you can say about the Republican Party it’s that they do know how to play the game, and to Clinton’s credit, so does she.
If only black people didn’t like Obama, then he might actually have had a shot at winning (see: Clarence Thomas) and so would’ve Clinton (see: Bill Clinton).
Posted By: Curly Morris
Wednesday, August 6th 2008 at 7:03PM
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