Earnest Eboo at the Washington Post pens another bromide on "how bad" the country is becoming, in Will McCain Stand Up to Prejudice?
What if Mr. McCain put on his homepage tomorrow that he doesn’t want the votes of people like Mr. Fasano who proudly proclaim that they are not voting for Mr. Obama because they don’t like his name or the religion of his grandfather?After all, it is America’s openness and tolerance that is allowing McCain and his wife to raise an adopted daughter from Bangladesh in this great country. It is an open and tolerant America that McCain has fought for as both a warrior and a statesman.
Hillary Clinton was similarly exhorted (notably by David Gergen) to come forward and reject any voters who might be against Obama because of his race.
No candidate has received more votes because of his race than Barack Obama. Blacks voted overwhelmingly for the candidate who shared their race. Their support handed him the nomination; without it he would have just been another liberal candidate grabbing 30% of the vote.
Instead of acknowledging this reality, the media pretends that Clinton alienated black voters, that the African American vote was in play before Bill Clinton compared Barack Obama to (horrors!) Jesse Jackson during the South Carolina primary. At that point, Obama had already won 80% of the black vote in Nevada, and 75% of black voters had gone for "Uncommitted" in Michigan.
Even some black conservatives are now considering voting for Obama.
"I don’t necessarily like his policies; I don’t like much that he advocates, but for the first time in my life, history thrusts me to really seriously think about [voting for Obama]."--Armstrong Williams
That's not "history". That's race. Williams, Colin Powell, J. C. Watts have all said they are considering a vote for Obama. (Michael Steele and Thomas Sowell, to name two others, will still be pulling the lever for McCain.)
DBAGD stipulates that minorities voting on the basis of race has an emotionally acceptable resonance that doesn't hold true for whites, and that while the double standard is hard for many to take seriously, there's not much point to arguing about it.
However, Obama's (largely unearned) status as the "post-racial" candidate demands some level of consistency, doesn't it?
So how about we make a deal:
Obama makes a speech in which he rejects all black voters who are only interested in a black president.
OR
Everyone stops lecturing McCain about the trivial percentage of whites who might prefer a white President.
Otherwise, post-racial my ass.
Jun 29, 08 02:42 PM