Obama’s race speech-good, but not good enough

Media outlets, online sites, esp. youtube have had explicit sermons of Barack Obama’s pastor Rev Wright looping for several days; a video which has the reverend equating the USA to Alquada , the government inventing the AIDS virus to wipe out the black race, as well as seeming anti-Israeli connections through Louis Farrakhan. For those who were suspicious of Obama’s idelogical allligment with his pastor, the Senators initial response of ‘well I wasn’t there when he said what he said’, didn’t hold much water. The presidential hopeful from Chicago then made a ‘key speech’ on ‘race’, which has been given mixed reviews. So what was wrong with the speech?

As has been said time and time again, Senator Obama has a way with words and in his latest speech, it seems that he believed that, he could say what he liked and that would be enough. His speech was a more or less an exposition of the past and current race issues, he managed to fit himself and his overly told family story-i.e. mother from Kansas, dad from Kenya bio. As a whole, the speech was good-good enough for the campaign trail, good enough for a sympathetic college audience, (and to some beyond his coterie of advisers that sat in the front row in the venue when he spoke). But it wasn’t good enough for those he has been bringing in his ‘rainbow’ coalition, i.e. white middle America.

His speech didn’t resonate as so many of his others have because the issue with rev Wright was an argument wasn’t just about intellect but instinct. When people saw clips of Rev Wright thundering the damnation of America, the intellectual context of what he said was irrelevant-it was frightening to some and appalling to many others on an instinctive level. What they saw and heard, not only fulfilled the stereotype that many do still hold in societies with a sizable amount of black people-i.e. the angry black man- but also crucially, those that Obama has been appealing to, the so-called Regan democrats, independents and a strand of the republican voters. What Obama had been to them , especially to the mainstream media, was a candidate who represented a post-racism and post-racist America. But as seen in Jeremiah Wright and some say Obama’s arrogant-tinged defence of his pastor (who he sees as an uncle), race is still very much an issue to not only America, but to, would you believe it, the great messiah of racial unity himself, Barack Obama.

This incident with Americas next possible pastor, to many, has filled in the blanks concerning Obama in the worst possible way that he and his advisors could even imagine. Now people can say, ‘Oh so that’s who Obama is, we didn’t really know him before, we do now’.

The battle of the third term

Hilary Clinton and John McCain, both candidates for the U.S presidency, (one already has sewn-up the nomination of their party) are both said to not only be fighting to get into the White House, but are also battling for their surrogates; Hilary is fighting for President Bill Clinton’s unofficial third term, and Senator John McCain is fighting for President Bush’s unofficial third term.

Now having a glance over this notion, it can appear quite snide, however, if thought about for than a moment, on some level there appears to be some truth. Personally I don’t believe that either H.R.Clinton’s or McCain’s desire to be in the White House is driven solely for-the-love their surrogates, but there could be a tad more about it than themselves.

Take Senator Clinton for example, her husband Bill, although widely seen to have overseen and in fact took a hands-on approach to a very successful U.S economy in the nineties- making a lot of people well off, plus the relative peace-time feel and other things-he apparently feels, the Lewisnky saga unfairly undercut his legacy concerning the White House. Hilary Clinton as president would then allow him to redress those fears by sewing up an Israeli/Palestinian deal-he arguably, with the Oslo accords and Camp David came closest to closing that deal, and now sorting out the much disliked NAFTA agreement.

On the McCain side, him and Bush, as well ideologue brothers, could help repair damage to the George Bush legacy. Much need not be said, but the Iraq war can be viewed as a minus on the Bush legacy; unresolved immigration issues-border fence etc-and an economy going south are things Bush would quickly like dealt with. Note, John McCain was very quick to (as pointed out by a friend of mine) receive Bush’s ‘endorsement’ at the White House.

Positions that these ideologue brothers are similar on? The key positions are-the Iraq war-Bush started it and Mc Cain is more than happy to finish it-even if it takes ‘one hundred years’, his words not mine. A nice end to the war, what that means, is a stable and democratic Iraq (i.e. less blood-letting) would help tie-up that part of the Bush legacy. Immigration, both are pro-immigration-arguably Mc Cain is more-so than Bush, but again it is an area unfinished under the President so the Senator can again tie that off when he settles into in the Oval Office in January, technically November. And the ‘tax cuts for the rich’ or Bush’s tax cuts, McCain has said that he will make them permanently, again another area where Bush’s theirs term is solidified in a McCain White House.