Barack Obama Plays the Race Card
Barack Obama has decided to throw race into the presidential race and make it an issue. Let it be known that Barack Obama was the first to introduce the race issue into the general election on June 20th.
“They’re going to try to make you afraid of me. He’s young and inexperienced and he’s got a funny name. And did I mention he’s black?”
“We know the strategy because they’ve already shown their cards. Ultimately I think the American people recognize that old stuff hasn’t moved us forward. That old stuff just divides us,”
And this type of rhetoric unites us? Barack Obama is dividing us with this type of rhetoric. He is right, the race card has already been played, BY DEMOCRATS! Not Republicans. Wasn’t it the Clinton’s who tried to throw race into the primary? YES! Isn’t it Barack Obama that is now injecting race into the election? Yes!
Barack Obama has not been attacked by John McCain (and I cringe at defending John McCain here) because of his race, McCain has gone after him because of his stance on the issues. There is nothing wrong with saying that you believe your opponent is wrong on certain issues, is there?
Race probably now will be an issue during the campaign, Barack Obama has made sure it will be.
America's Watchtower 
Oh dear, what a piss poor effort to smear Obama in the run up to the contest. From what I’ve read, he’s done nothing of the kind. I see your piece hasn’t backed up your ridiculous claim with any evidence at all. What a surprise.
I think it’s clear that right wing bloggers at you will stop at nothing to drag race into the debate through the back door and basically scaremonger until enough people believe the propaganda.
I’m not saying Obama is the best candidate, but you lads on the raf-Right can do better than this surely? What a low trick, using the race card where it hasn’t been played.
*sigh*
John Demetriou
http://boatangdemetriou.wordpress.com/
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Have you considered the fact that maybe he was not referring to McCain specifically? There are other conservative groups out there trumping against him that are indeed using the “he is black” as an argument. Looks like to me that he’s damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t because he would be called weak if he waited until someone else made race an issue instead of being proactive.
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John, just in case you haven’t noticed I am not supporting McCain either, so this isn’t just a right wing smear. I have written many posts about my disdain for McCain also.Both of these candidates are pathetic, I can’t believe this is thwe best we can do.I just write about the issues as I find them.
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Terrant, honestly I haven’t heard any conservative groups throwing out the race issue. Maybe I just missed this but I peruse the internet quite a bit and I haven’ seen it.
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Would you have expected anything different? I didn’t…
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Mr Pink Eyes: McCain is not right wing and he’s hated by the right wingers in the Rep party, so you are being disingenous to suggest that your piece has some kind of non-partisan impartial ring to it. It doesn’t. I reeks of disdain for anyone who doesn’t fit into the teeny ideal of what a good politician should be – white, married, middle aged, male, straight, church going, right wing.
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You said, “I see your piece hasn’t backed up your ridiculous claim with any evidence at all. What a surprise.”
Below is the link to the article I used.
http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN2040982720080620?feedType=RSS&feedName=politicsNews&rpc=22&sp=true
I usually include a link to my source, but I didn’t this time. Sorry. I didn’t just make it up. Obama was the first to mention race. And he said that Republicans have already shown they would bring up race, they haven’t. That is a lie. Democrats are the one that made race an issue in the primary, no Republican has made any statement about Barack Obama and his race. That is my point.
As for the qualifiers that you suggest I must have in my president, only the last one matters at all to me.
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read your link
yes, I think he was right in what he said. It is obvious to anyone being honest with themselves and eachother than there are sections of the right wing media (Fox) and the Rep party that are chomping at the bit to denigrate Obama on grounds of race and so-called liberalism. It’s called tainting your enemy…tends to work in US politics.
Are you suggesting that Republicans are purely non-racist, in every given example, and that race is not important to them? The stats out lately show otherwise.
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The main example that I was mostly referring to involved the North Carolina ads where the republicans there launched a series of ads featuring Rev. Wright (http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/04/23/politics/horserace/entry4037124.shtml). Now, to McCain’s credit, he called for those ads to be withdrawn which is why I don’t think Obama’s statement was targeted towards him. What purpose does bringing up Wright by North Carolina republicans serve other than to inject race into the minds of the voters?
I see Obama as being proactive here. When it comes to presidential politics, the republicans play dirty pool. For him to even have a chance at winning this thing, he needs to head off any swiftboating that may come his way.
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Absolutely Terrant, I agree emphatically.
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Yeah. I believe McCain is above this kind of thing. It was the republicans, after all, who initiated a whispering campaign about his “black child out of wedlock”. The was in 2000.
It’s wrongheaded either way. But ask that scum bag Karl Rove who started it first.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_mccain#2000_presidential_campaign
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It is SO difficult for us poor, ignorant conservatives to understand these new rules of political decorum. We have learned that it is racist to point out that our Savior In Waiting belonged to a racist church for 20 years, replete with a racist pastor who thoughtfully provided the Chosen One with his signature phrase “The Audacity of Hope”. And we now know that it is racist to question his wife’s many bizarre, bitter remarks, or his association with the corrupt Chicago political machine, or to (horrors!) wonder exactly how to sort out his contradictory statements about most important ally in the Middle East, Israel. Now we have learned that it is racist to bring up the fact that the Obama talks about race.
These are valuable lessons.
As a conservative Polish-American, who grew up on the South Side of Chicago, went to an inner-city high school, tutored kids in the projects and has a bi-racial child, I am always grateful when privileged liberal white suburbanites lecture me about racial issues. (Which is not to say that this reflects the background of any of our commenters here, but you know what I mean). We all look forward to more lessons about race from the left and, most especially, its Fabulous New Candidate, whom none of us here on the right would ever criticize.
That would be racist.
Cheers,
Rich
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Just so long as you understand that
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That’s very nice…
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Your first commentor, John Demetriou, planted the same verbage (almost verbatim however he threw in some swear smears at me) on my blogsite: http://www.exemployee.wordpress.com. He is not even an American citizen. When you look up his name on the internet it comes back as being a United Kingdom IP address. Plus, he is taking it far to personally, but I can only assume that it is because his picture on my site shows a black man. Go figure. They cannot remove themselves from the “race” card.
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Oh my God, how laughably ignorant and bumptious you are!
The picture is Telly Savalas, the American-Greek actor! He’s not black at all, you pillock!
And your insult towards the man who acted the character ‘Kojak; is unforgivable.
No, that;s enough, you insult one of my acting heros and Greek role models and you expect people to read your blog and take you seriously. I’m out!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telly_Savalas
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excuse me! all Obama did was to state a fact, no american should be condeming another american for stating a fact, or for that matter, to state when his country is in error, are you sick!, we are suppose to be americans. When this primary began Obama has come under attack, dealing with issues that had nothing to do with the issues that Obama were expressing, first it was Fox news, then Hillery, then the Local news media tried to stick him with the comments made by rev. Wright, or any one else that might throw a bad light on his campaign.
If anything this news media and people like you loves negative spin and to express your own out of touch views, You think that people don’t see this, this is why some many people are voting for him…
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Worldsight said:
“…tried to stick him with the comments made by rev. Wright”
To quote Jim Carrey: “REAAAAAAA-LY”?
The guy is his pastor for twenty years and, in the end, The Chosen One says “this is not the Jermiah Wright I knew”. He’s old buddies with Tony Rezko, then – when Rezko gets convicted – he’s “not the Tony Rezko I knew”.
I know, I know — we should not infer anything about The Great One’s character or judgment from these things. Apparently there is just something about being friends with Barack Obama that drives people insane after a while.
Perhaps science will find a cure.
By the way Pink — I’m diggin’ the site. You’re going on my blog roll.
Cheers,
Rich
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“It is SO difficult for us poor, ignorant conservatives to understand these new rules of political decorum. We have learned that it is racist to point out that our Savior In Waiting belonged to a racist church for 20 years, replete with a racist pastor who thoughtfully provided the Chosen One with his signature phrase “The Audacity of Hope”.”
The claim was that Obama had played the race card first which I felt was not correct because the North Carolina republicans had used Wright. The problem with using Wright (or in my microcosm, any black minister) is that it is not possible to avoid bringing race into the mix.
“And we now know that it is racist to question his wife’s many bizarre, bitter remarks”
Actually, I’m surprised that they actually let her talk any more because she does more harm than good. However, I believe that some (not all) of her remarks can be attributed to her being a fish out of water. For the others, let’s just say that I feel that Wright is more of a reflection of her than of Barrack. All I can say is thank god that she’s not the one running for office.
“his association with the corrupt Chicago political machine, or to (horrors!) wonder exactly how to sort out his contradictory statements about most important ally in the Middle East, Israel.”
I am assuming that you are being sarcastic here. These certainly are fair game and the merits of these should be debated. As far as I am concerned, if anyone says that it is racist to disagree with Obama on these issues and especially policy issues is the racist.
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Terrant, you are a gentleman in the old spirit of the “loyal opposition”. I salute you sir.
Rich
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John, no I am not stating that all Republicans are non racists, I just get offended when someone makes a statement that implies ALL Republicans are racist. Do you think that no Democrats are racist? I think there are racists on both sides of the isle, but I think we have made great strides in this country, and Obama is proof of that, and I don’t think it should be an issue in this election. I suppose it will be though because this is the closest a minority has come to the presidency. I would be excited about it if only he was on my side of the isle.
Terrant , I guess I can see your point with that ad. But isn’t showing who Obama associates with fair game?
I would also offer that both sides play dirty at times.
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“Terrant , I guess I can see your point with that ad. But isn’t showing who Obama associates with fair game?”
I fully agree that it is fair game but there are IMO better choices that wouldn’t inject race into the equation. They could have used his associations with Rezko and Ayers to make that point for example.
I’ll have to agree both sides do play dirty and I have to keep reminding myself of that. The republican’s tactics annoy me more. The biggest example that comes to my mind is the gay marriage ban amendment. There wasn’t any need to bring that up because it wasn’t a pressing issue. To me, it was designed to drown out debate on actual issues. This is my opinion so I am sure that many will disagree with me.
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Dennis Miller was on O’Reilly’s show talking about this tonight and was just disgusted with Obama over it.
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As was previously stated by Worldsight, the reason Obama’s pastor has been brought up so much is because he was Obama’s pastor for 20 YEARS! You can’t tell me you honestly believe that in 20 years Obama never heard rev. Wright say a racist or otherwise negative remark. As far as the gay marriage ban, @Terrant:Republicans have always been against gay marriage, the same way they are against “seperation of church and state”.
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Does Obama being multiracial make any difference here? I just blogged on it at http://soozah.wordpress.com/2009/10/12/rush-limbough-on-the-banking-queen-and-the-magic-negro/
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