Posted by Frank James at 3:36 pm CST
The question of whether Sen. Barack Obama, the child of a black Kenyan father and a white Kansas mother who was raised by his white grandparents in Hawaii, is authentically black enough to excite enough African-American voters to win the big prize, won’t go away.
That's largely because journalists like me keep asking it.
Still, I thought I’d find some experts on black voters and put the question to them. So I hung outside the door of where the Congressional Black Caucus was having its weekly meeting today. It just so happened that Obama was at the meeting though he must’ve left through a different door than the one at which I posted myself.
But Speaker Nancy Pelosi popped through my doorway. (Who knew she was black?) She was paying a courtesy call to one of her most important House constituencies.
It was also an auspicious day for her to appear at the black caucus meeting since she had just appointed the first African-American to be House Clerk in the nation’s history. She and her security detail were on the move and were out of sight within seconds.
Rep. Bobby Rush, who soundly spanked Obama in 2000 at the ballot box when the self-described “skinny guy with the funny name” went after Rush’s South Side Chicago congressional seat, gave me a read-out at what Obama talked with other CBC members at the meeting which was closed to the press.
“We gave him a special opportunity to discuss whatever was on his mind,” Rush said. “He talked about legislation he had just dropped. Asked for House sponsors to get behind the legislation and to sponsor it in the House. So, you know, routine business.” Among Obama's just dropped legislation: his Iraq bill calling for phased withdrawal from Iraq and a bill that would make it a federal crime to conduct deceptive practices meant to keep some voters away from the polls.
So how should Obama do with African-American voters? “He’s going to be all right,” said Rush who has announced his support for Obama’s presidential run. “His challenge is to be himself and speak to the African-American community. We have a way of discerning those who are genuine in their appeal. And I don’t think Obama will have a problem appealing to the broad cross-section of the African American community, So I think he will be eminently successful in his outreach to the African American community.”
Another member of the Illinois delegation and Obama man, Rep. Danny Davis of the sonorous voice, said Obama had won over CBC skeptics.
Today, Obama was being “just a regular member of the caucus. Which has surprised some people because they thought he might not have responded and acted that way… the same people thought that they could peg him and they could determine what his political actions and activities were going to be.
“Since he had broad appeal, that he might run away from black issues and African American issues and issues that relate to poor people and issues that relate to those at the bottom of the economic scale. And quite frankly he’s been very good on all of those. He has not deviated. And of course I’ve been obviously very pleased…. Barack has a way of kind of cutting through a lot of the manure and getting to the minutiae of issues…”
On the issue of whether African Americans will support Obama in the numbers he would need to win the nomination, Davis characterized all that as stuff and nonsense, “just conversation.”
“I think Barack has a uniqueness that many people have not been able to define or identify. And in reality it probably will not matter relative to origin, relative to how did he get his views, how they were shaped. The fact is that he’s got them. He is what he is, he is who he is. This may be the time in American history when the country is ready to do something it’s never done before.
“You see if you’re a possibility thinker, than you think the Super Bowl is coming up Sunday. First time in history of the game two black coaches are in the Super Bowl. If could very well be for the first time in the history of the country an African American, a woman, have real chances of becoming president of the U.S. Who’s to say it cannot happen, will not happen?”
Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, who chairs the House Ethics Committee, is certainly not one who to say it can’t happen though is supporting the woman in the race, Sen. Hillary Clinton, not her fellow CBC member.
“I personally am already committed. I committed to Sen. Clinton more than a year ago… My support for Sen. Clinton arises as a result of a long-term relationship. I started campaigning for the Clintons back in ’92 when… the president first ran and have worked with Hillary on some voting rights issues, a piece of legislation called Count Every Vote and she’s been in my district talking about that issue, in Ohio where we’ve had a lot of trouble.”
As to the question of whether Obama will get strong support from African-Americans given his atypical life story, which has caused some people to question whether he’s an authentically black American, she said: “I don’t know what people will say about authenticity or non-authenticity. He is an African-American senator from the state of Illinois. And people who support his position and believe that he would be a great president will support him.” She's just not among them.
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Comments
I don't care what they say. I'm voting for him because he's articulate and clean.
He is sure to make me feel better.
Posted by: Guilty White Male | January 31, 2007 4:16 PM
Of course he'll be all right with blacks. And he'll be all right with whites in the blue states. It's the "Earls" in the south where he'll face problems.
CLEMSON, S.C. -- Clemson University and the NAACP said Tuesday they are investigating an off-campus party held during the Martin Luther King Jr. weekend that some considered offensive because white students drank malt liquor and at least one partygoer wore black face.
Pictures from the party were posted online, and Clemson officials learned of the Jan. 14 party this past weekend. The school is probing whether students were harassed or whether there was underage drinking.
Posted by: Raving Loon | January 31, 2007 4:20 PM
Ah, the fourth Obama posting of the day in the "Swamp" (and it's not even 5:00 p.m. yet). More in one day on Obama than the entire postings for the last month on all the candidates that are ahead of him in the polls. And the reporter's hopelessly feeble excuse for this posting is that there is a "question that won't go away"--mainly (he admits) because reporters like him keep asking it.
These "Swamp" excuses to publicize Saint Barack are becoming feebler and feebler.
Posted by: bruce | January 31, 2007 4:48 PM
Much as I enjoy this little look into Frank's day of shmoozing with his democrat buddies, isn't there something more important to report? Like that Joe Biden thinks Barack Obama's the first good-looking African-American he's ever seen in congress.
Posted by: Jeff | January 31, 2007 5:56 PM
I'm glad Illinois machine political hacks like Danny Davis can speak so authoritatively for all African-Americans. We know he at least speaks for terrorist groups like the Tamil Tigers who fund his trips.
Obama's upbringing was one of privilege, vastly different than the majority of African-Americans. His ancestors were never slaves and he's lived largely insulated from the poverty and struggle that the average African-American faces, despite how oppressed he might've felt in his $10,000 a year private school.
It's up to the individual voter; black, white, asian, hispanic or otherwise; if he or she really thinks this novice represents him or her.
Posted by: Jeff | January 31, 2007 6:02 PM
I am in the middle of reading barack obama's first book, "dreams of my father" and I am very moved by his deep investigation of himself and who he is as not only a black man in america, but a man and a human. He is very honest and he is not ashamed of who he is and I think what he stands for is integrity and a strength that blows any of these doubts about "being black enough" or going to a "private school" or "didn't suffer any hardships" out of the water. The fact is that we all "as humans" suffer our own private hardships whether poor or rich, black or white or green. I think the fact that he is "real" is what has brought him thus far and it will take him to a leading position in the most powerful country in the world. Who knows if he'll be president, but I do know that I want to hear more of his words and more of his message because what he shares of himself makes me go deeper as a person and makes me a better human.
Posted by: shawna | January 31, 2007 7:06 PM
I notice that one poster on here (Jeff/Bill) thinks that Obama's experience is a big deal.
Let's see,Lincoln served TWO YEARS in the House of Reps before becoming President.
Republican Presidential candidate Angry Old Man McCain celebrated becoming a member of Congress by saddleing up to a big time corrupt banker whom he covered up for and nearly got kicked out of Congress as a result of.
His stellar school record includes finishing 895th out of 900 in his class at Annapolis.
No,I don't think we need anymore of the "experience" that the Republicans have been giving us,we've had enough of that already.
Posted by: John E. | January 31, 2007 9:29 PM
I don't think that Barak Obama will have a problem attracting Black voters. But I do have a problem with him not even acknowledging (except as a matter of historical reference) that his mother is Caucasian. I have never understood why Mr. Obama has found it necessary to remove any direct reference to being half Caucasian. What is even stranger is that he would choose to solely identify with the African part of his genetics when that part is the one that abandoned him. Perhaps not the most politically correct thing to say.
Posted by: RJC | January 31, 2007 10:45 PM
Lincoln founded a new political party and overthrew the common political process before he became president. That counts as experience. Obama has been handed all his political victories by the media and the Illinois democrat machine. You can almost see Richie Daley's lips moving whenever he speaks.
Don't take my word for it. Take Jon Zimmerman's. Remember, Bush supposedly was going to surround himself with experienced advisors, too.
Posted by: Jeff | January 31, 2007 11:52 PM
Read "Faith of My Fathers," McCain'll be the first to admit it's what he's accomplished since he graduated the Naval Academy, not what he did there, that distinguishes him. However, he never once broke the honor code and graduated when most people never gave him a chance. In fact, it was McCain's strict adherence to his Naval Code of Honor that gave him the strength of will to withstand six years of torture. This devotion to personal ethics is in sharp contrast to Obama who wrote this of his choices during his formative years:
"Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it. Not smack, though," he wrote, about having used illegal drugs when he was a high school student.
Give me the D student with an unblemished ethics record over the private school-educated son of diplomats who casually dismisses illegal drug use any day.
Posted by: Jeff | February 1, 2007 12:25 AM
"it was McCain's strict adherence to his Naval Code of Honor that gave him the strength of will to withstand six years of torture. "
It's too bad his Naval Code of Honor hasn't kicked in to stop him from being the strongest supporter of an administration that condones torture.
Posted by: Tony | February 1, 2007 7:57 AM
Jeff,
I bet John McCain has taken more amphetamines in his lifetime. Live and let live. Did anyone's drug use ever hurt you?
PS Unblemished ethics record?? Your are kidding right? Keating Five was a scandal and McCain was right in the thick of it. Give me a break. You are casually dismissing that part of McCain's record.
Posted by: jethro | February 1, 2007 8:25 AM
Pulllllleeeeeease, can we get off of the black/white thing? What is the point? When can Americans start voting for the country and not their narrow little realms of self interest?
Posted by: DD | February 1, 2007 10:34 AM
Give me the D student with an unblemished ethics record over the private school-educated son of diplomats who casually dismisses illegal drug use any day.
Posted by: Jeff | Feb 1, 2007 12:25:55 AM
So you prefer a C/D student from exclusive high school and colleges, who had an extremely priviliged upbringing, who did illegal drugs into his mid 30s, but doesn't have the backbone to admit to doing so, as your president instead?
Posted by: BC | February 1, 2007 10:41 AM
Nope BC, never once voted for Bush in my life. I voted for McCain in the primaries and wrote in McCain in the general in 2000 and voted for nobody in 2004 because the choice was so odious. But if that's your opinion of Bush, surely you must be consistent and apply those same standards to Obama, right?
McCain's involvement in Keating Five is something that could've happened to any senator at the time because the campaign finance process was such a wild west environment that invited itself to impropriety.
In August 1991, the committee investigating the five senators concluded that Alan Cranston, Dennis DeConcini, and Don Riegle's conduct (not McCain's and John Glenn's) constituted substantial interference with the FHLBB's enforcement efforts and that they had done so at the behest of Charles Keating. The committee recommended censure for Cranston and criticized the other four for "questionable conduct." That's right, McCain was never censured and he and Glenn went on to reelection while the other three more grievous offenders retired.
I do hope that the democrats keep up the Keating thing, though. It shows how little they've got on McCain. McCain's experience with the Keating scandal is what prompted him to co-author the greatest campaign finance overhaul in more than 30 years, McCain-Feingold, the law of the land as passed by congress, signed by the President and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. That's McCain's ethics showing through. He turned what would have been a sorry chapter in any politician's career into the foundation for the greatest reform of campaign-finance law that we're likely to see in our lifetime. And, more importantly, he got it passed. Keating will continue to give him a platform to show how he's made sure something like it can never happen again.
I'd say the debt has been more than repaid.
Posted by: Jeff | February 1, 2007 1:48 PM