Barack Obama and the Race Card: Tread Carefully
Here we go with the "loose lips" segment of the 2008 presidential campaign. Sen. Barack Obama, campaigning Wednesday in Missouri, was reported to argue that President Bush and presumptive GOP nominee John McCain, lacking a compelling positive argument, would use scare tactics to keep the White House:
"Nobody thinks that Bush and McCain have a real answer to the challenges we face. So what they're going to try to do is make you scared of me," Obama said. "You know, 'He's not patriotic enough, he's got a funny name,' you know, 'he doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills."
The McCain campaign demonstrated that it is not completely incompetent at rapid response. Campaign manager Rick Davis issued a statement saying Senator Obama "played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck." Davis called Obama's remarks "divisive, negative, shameful, and wrong."
While Obama's comments may not have been quite as horrific as Davis described them, they certainly play into charges that the Illinois Democrat is not quite the race-neutral uniter he's been claiming to be. They are the kind of remarks that are better not made. They are typical of Obama's loose, free-floating style, but when they appear in print, they can be interpreted as off-putting.
The kind of voters who are likely to be turned off by Obama's remarks are precisely those his campaign should be targeting. A new Rasmussen Reports survey shows twice as many voters say they are undecided as said they were four years ago:
When given a choice between Barack Obama and John McCain for President, 14% of voters are uncommitted. That figure includes 6% who say they'd vote for some other candidate and 8% who are undecided.
But, while much has been made of John McCain's struggles with his party's conservative base, 33% of the uncommitted voters are Democrats while only 19% are Republicans. Forty-eight percent (48%) are not affiliated with either major political party. These results are from national telephone survey interviews conducted with 14,000 Likely Voters during the two weeks ending July 24. The sample includes 2,028 uncommitted voters.
If Senator Obama gives any hint of racial divisiveness, he can send these uncommitted voters running in the opposite direction.
Tags: presidential election 2008 | Barack Obama | John McCain | race
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Reader Comments
It's 2008, not 1960. Skin color doesn't matter.
I have heard some support Obama because they think his election will unify the country. But everytime someone is critical of Obama, the charge of racism is soon pulled out. The charges of racism appear even when no one has mentioned his skin color. So what happens if he is elected? Will we get accusations of racism for the next four years? Constantly hearing "racism racism racism" won't unite the country. It will tear it apart.
Lead from above and act like a President if you can
When Obama disgraced his Pastor no matter what he said showed that Obama didn't beleive in the constitutional rights of free speech. Instead in Obama played the true card and went back to his roots or his old enemy relgion that has been our pain from the start. Obama needs someone to help him and what color can he call on, its not a qualified question of whom but where will he support. Its about race, a race to the white house, get it. It was built to intimidate foreign governements and show power and comes with that responsibility is respect. Respect is earned, not given, comes with this is intergrity and with this comes morals. Remember this, no matter what color you are, some veteran fought for the rights of all Americans to RUN YOUR MOUTH. The vets are white, black, hispanic, asisan, korean, indian, and others so the next time you want to play the race card and call some body trailer trash or poor white something, lets see your house and remember when you point your fingers at someone look at your hand closely, you have 3 fingers pointing back at you! Obama will need a white candidate to make to the white house so pray he makes the white choice, get use to it. Its history. He won't make it, the American people aren't that stupid yet, but we'll humor him. Have you notice Oprah has backed off, doesn't this tell you something wizzard!
American has a constition that states all people are equal and until that changes remember that not one person can change that, crooked polticians will always be crooked no matter who they are, they makes deals with the devil everyday to keep there office seat. Your and my vote is just a symbol of doing something that makes us feel better. You want to make a difference than get out and be the difference.
Don't blame the world because these two guys know how to make millions on tax payers expense. Its the system.
They blames each other to avoid the real problems because we're to stupid to make them answer to real problems we have.
Are you really stupid enough to thing Obama is going to give us $1,000.00 for fuel, thats private enterprise raping us not the governement, its Exxon and Shell. Obama is lying to get your vote.
He's a racist. he's proud of it and he's going to the bank everyday with it because people are giving him money. What is his race, has anyone seen his birth certificate?
He's a mix breed like my dog. That makes him an American like the rest of us. There are no full blooded anything in this country so get over the race card issue. We're 200 plus years old and that makes us the youngest country in the world and we're turning out like the rest of the world and we will be just like them if we don't get our head out of our back side.
Wake up America. God Bless the USA! God bless America!
Obama as victim
Obama has used the race card many, many times, "preemptively" accusing his opponents of usig it. He played it on Hillary, and now he is playing it on McCain.
Obama is also the one to compared himself to Paris Hilton:
http://newsbusters.org/stories/mccain_not_first_compare_obama_paris_hilton.html?q=blogs/seton-motley/2008/08/04/first-person-compare-sen-obama-paris-hilton-was-not-sen-mccain
As African-American Lt. Col. Allen West, running for Congress in FL said, "My advice to Senator Obama is to run as a Man and Leader, and the American people will evaluate you as such, not as a victim. This is a Presidential race, based solely on a capacity to lead the United States of America. It is not about skin tone...however, perhaps we should come to expect these immature statements."
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