Here's Reality: Barack Obama Won't Win Over Everyone
As Dana Milbank points out, Sen. Obama's general positives do not translate into absolute love. To point:
As E.J. Dionne points out, Obama is hard to label...at least in the traditional sense:
I submit that the reason Obama baffles and frustrates so many people -people, who I might add, have most likely not gone to his (or Clinton's or McCain's for that matter) website or called his campaign for information or clarification - is because they are looking at the surface and on the surface they simply see a black man. But even moreso, they see a black man that does not fit the normal stereotypes of black people that they are familiar with.
Dionne would prefer to use analogies to politicians, but that only reinforces the core of Milbank's story: that the average voter does not look at candidates through the prism of politics. Maybe I'm just not politically savvy enough, but I image voters comparing Obama to the likes of Will Smith, Michael Jordan and the black guy who lives in their neighborhood as opposed to JFK, Dukakis, Adlai Stevenson.
Honestly, how many prominent black politicians exist that don't give the connotation of race when they are mentioned or seen? Other than Condi Rice (who mentions race as much as she mentions the economy) there really isn't anyone; for better or for worse, being a black politician and being connected with Civil Rights issues go hand-and-hand.
For many voters who would normally vote Democratic but are struggling with Obama, this is all just too much in-your-face. It wasn't too long ago when there weren't African-Americans as police officers, governors, or even on TV with their own shows. Sadly, these voters will never see Obama as a person but as a black man (much like those voters who will always see Clinton as a white woman). They don't care about his policies, his voting record or his endorsements. They do care about anything negative that comes his way, because with each negative story it gives them more validation for being so hesitant and resistant in supporting (and liking) him.
Than again, no candidate since George Washington has been universally loved (even if his "campaign" was relatively short).
If Hillary Clinton wins Tuesday's Democratic presidential primary -- and polls forecast that she will do just that -- it will be because of white, working-class voters like the Norgrens. Yet the blue-collar voters poised to keep Clinton's candidacy alive are also the reason she is losing the national race to Obama: Though still in charge here, they have lost control of the Democratic Party to the wealthy and better-educated.
The biggest problem here is that it appears that blue-collar voters seem to equate "better-educated" to "wealthy," or rather (the word no one wants to say in this context) elitism. We have a real problem in this country when having a an education level above high school or college is frowned upon.
As E.J. Dionne points out, Obama is hard to label...at least in the traditional sense:
At its most exciting moments, Obama's campaign has been compared to the great crusades for change in our country's history. His appeal to African Americans and the young of all races has led enthusiasts to see his effort as the reincarnation of Robert F. Kennedy's brief, glorious and tragic 1968 run for the presidency.
But when Obama falls into the long pauses he is sometimes given to in debate, the wordy answers he periodically offers to questions, or the visible impatience he exhibits toward the less-elevating aspects of politics, he seems far more the law review editor, the professor, the classic good-government guy whose reach to society's hard-pressed is limited.
Occasionally, these very different Obamas show up at the same time. More precisely, the same words can be heard as ratifying either version of his story, depending on the assumptions a listener brings to them.
I submit that the reason Obama baffles and frustrates so many people -people, who I might add, have most likely not gone to his (or Clinton's or McCain's for that matter) website or called his campaign for information or clarification - is because they are looking at the surface and on the surface they simply see a black man. But even moreso, they see a black man that does not fit the normal stereotypes of black people that they are familiar with.
Dionne would prefer to use analogies to politicians, but that only reinforces the core of Milbank's story: that the average voter does not look at candidates through the prism of politics. Maybe I'm just not politically savvy enough, but I image voters comparing Obama to the likes of Will Smith, Michael Jordan and the black guy who lives in their neighborhood as opposed to JFK, Dukakis, Adlai Stevenson.
Honestly, how many prominent black politicians exist that don't give the connotation of race when they are mentioned or seen? Other than Condi Rice (who mentions race as much as she mentions the economy) there really isn't anyone; for better or for worse, being a black politician and being connected with Civil Rights issues go hand-and-hand.
For many voters who would normally vote Democratic but are struggling with Obama, this is all just too much in-your-face. It wasn't too long ago when there weren't African-Americans as police officers, governors, or even on TV with their own shows. Sadly, these voters will never see Obama as a person but as a black man (much like those voters who will always see Clinton as a white woman). They don't care about his policies, his voting record or his endorsements. They do care about anything negative that comes his way, because with each negative story it gives them more validation for being so hesitant and resistant in supporting (and liking) him.
Than again, no candidate since George Washington has been universally loved (even if his "campaign" was relatively short).
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