The Race Issue, Still
Richard Cohen writes in The Washington Post:
From time to time, Obama is likened to John F. Kennedy -- both charismatic and inexperienced politicians when they launched their presidential campaigns. But Obama could be like Kennedy in another way as well. Kennedy was a Roman Catholic, and no Roman Catholic had ever been elected president. In the 1960 Wisconsin primary, he . . . won the state but did poorly in Protestant areas. A month later, he won in overwhelmingly (95 percent) Protestant West Virginia and did so because he bought a half-hour of TV time and confronted the religion issue head on. It was a landslide.
Maybe Obama's Philadelphia speech on race served the same purpose. The results from the upcoming primaries, particularly Pennsylvania, will tell. My guess is that he still has not put the race issue to rest -- maybe because he failed to do what Kennedy did in West Virginia. In that speech, Kennedy told Protestant West Virginians that when presidents took the oath of office, they were swearing to the separation of church and state. A president who breaks that oath is not only committing an impeachable offense, he said, "but he is committing a sin against God." In other words, he told West Virginians that their major fear was baseless.
Obama in his Philadelphia speech said nothing as dramatic. On the contrary, when it came to the perceived threat posed by young black men (one out of every nine is in criminal custody), Obama built a fence around the issue by citing his grandmother's "fear of black men who passed her by on the street" -- suggesting it was comparable to what his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, had said. He did not confront white fears. Instead, he implied that they were illegitimate.
[I]f the upcoming Pennsylvania primary simply echoes earlier racial divisions, Obama has to give yet another speech -- this one directed not at the pundits he so enthralls but at the very people who have so far rejected him on account of race. Will it matter? John Kennedy proved a long time ago that it might.
From time to time, Obama is likened to John F. Kennedy -- both charismatic and inexperienced politicians when they launched their presidential campaigns. But Obama could be like Kennedy in another way as well. Kennedy was a Roman Catholic, and no Roman Catholic had ever been elected president. In the 1960 Wisconsin primary, he . . . won the state but did poorly in Protestant areas. A month later, he won in overwhelmingly (95 percent) Protestant West Virginia and did so because he bought a half-hour of TV time and confronted the religion issue head on. It was a landslide.
Maybe Obama's Philadelphia speech on race served the same purpose. The results from the upcoming primaries, particularly Pennsylvania, will tell. My guess is that he still has not put the race issue to rest -- maybe because he failed to do what Kennedy did in West Virginia. In that speech, Kennedy told Protestant West Virginians that when presidents took the oath of office, they were swearing to the separation of church and state. A president who breaks that oath is not only committing an impeachable offense, he said, "but he is committing a sin against God." In other words, he told West Virginians that their major fear was baseless.
Obama in his Philadelphia speech said nothing as dramatic. On the contrary, when it came to the perceived threat posed by young black men (one out of every nine is in criminal custody), Obama built a fence around the issue by citing his grandmother's "fear of black men who passed her by on the street" -- suggesting it was comparable to what his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, had said. He did not confront white fears. Instead, he implied that they were illegitimate.
[I]f the upcoming Pennsylvania primary simply echoes earlier racial divisions, Obama has to give yet another speech -- this one directed not at the pundits he so enthralls but at the very people who have so far rejected him on account of race. Will it matter? John Kennedy proved a long time ago that it might.
posted by Sid Cottingham | 6:09 AM
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