Can We Please Acknowledge the Obvious?

So I was listening to one of my favorite NPR programs on WAMU in Washington, DC and the guests were discussing race and the Democratic presidential campaign in light of the comments of Geraldine Ferraro and the embattled Mayor of Detroit, Kwame Kilpatrick. In particular, a guest that day on the Kojo Nnamdi Show posited that Geraldine Ferraro's now infamous quote was meant as code to white voters like some of those in Pennsylvania who might look at Obama as an affirmative action presidential candidate, and, resentful of blacks who've benefited from the perceived lack of fairness in affirmative action in general, might actually reject Obama as just another black guy who's gotten ahead (of themselves) because of his race. Whew! That's a lot to read into one quote from a newspaper that serves a community in southern California "from LAX to L.A. Harbor!"

There are many ways to pick apart this whole flap and my finger would first point at the Obama campaign itself and their crackerjack opposition researchers who were no doubt scouring the web for some quote to be used out of context to make Clinton's supporters (and by extension, Mrs. Clinton herself) look bad. That this story got so much attention unfortunately proves that the Obama campaign has not transcended race and is all too willing to play the race card to score political points. They certainly hit paydirt with Ferraro and the Daily Breeze, but come now, it's not as if she'd spoken on Meet the Press and said what she said. A reading of the original article shows plainly what happended: ahead of a paid political speech to be given in Torrance, CA, a reporter from Torrance's hometown paper, the Daily Breeze, called Ms. Ferraro to get an advance story on what her talk would cover, which naturally included her take on how the Democratic primary race is progressing as well as her role in the Clinton campaign.

While it's true that Obama has not closed the sale with white voters (see this Washington Post Story on the subject) whose support he will definitely need to win the presidency, it is not true that Ms. Ferraro was acting as a campaign surrogate in making her remarks. She was giving her own political analysis of the Democratic race and naturally expressed some frustration that the candidate she supports is not the frontrunner. One might think that someone steeped in Democratic politics who is also a Fox News Contributor would have been more mindful of her remarks. While inartfully expressed, hers were not anywhere near the level of coded language that President Bill Clinton used in trying to marginalize Obama as a Black candidate following Obama's decisive victory in South Carolina. In fact if President Bill had stuck to the script, Hillary might have clinched the nomination on Super Tuesday. But instead the media spotlight on Bill's reckless comments moved Black voters (including this one) en masse to supporting Obama, who just a year ago was perceived as "not black enough" by many.

Let me say that as a 42 year old African-American male, I take NO offense at Ferraro's comment. It is a statement out of context that ignores her political record. And shame on the Obama campaign for injecting race into the campaign only to imply that Ferraro is racially insensitive. The Obama campaign played the media like a fiddle as the story reverberated for three days, thanks in large part to Ferraro having the temerity to defend herself in the same race-baiting media outlets that were happy to have a controversy to cover. But for anyone to believe that Ferraro--who has acknowledged that her gender was a principle factor in being chosen as a vice presidential candidate--meant that Obama's race is the ONLY reason that he has gotten so far is laughable. It is obvious that part of Obama's appeal is the very positive view of race that his candidacy represents. A reconciling of our past, ugly racial history with the potential of a post civil rights candidacy of this highly qualified African-American is embodied in Obama. Rather than suppose that Ferraro's comment was anti-affirmative action code directed at whites suspicious of Obama as a black candidate, let those voters speak for themselves. If Obama is as gifted and sincere as his supporters believe, then he should be able convince those voters that he is the genuine article. Merely to discount their votes as somehow impure or racially tinged is irrelevant. Our man needs to make the sale to all voters. That's what campaigns are for and if Obama can't convince his detractors to vote for him (how many weeks until the Pennsylvania primary?), then perhaps Democrats and superdelegates should pause and consider which of our two highly qualified choices is the one more likely to WIN in the fall.