Whites Fading Fast But Blacks Could Fade Too

Earl Ofari Hutchinson


There were two eye catching things buried in the new Census Bureau projection that America will no longer be a white man’s country in 2042. One is that blacks also will fade in numbers or at least their numbers won’t get much bigger. The other is that the number of Hispanics will soar. They will make up about thirty percent of the country’s population then. That means that not only will America not be a white majority country, it will almost certainly be a bi-lingual nation. In many cities Spanish will as likely be heard on the streets, in schools and workplaces as English. The seismic demographic revolution is already happening in many urban neighborhoods. There been huge growth in Latino owned businesses, media ownership, and employment dominance in retail and manufacturing industries. In years to come the economic shake-up will be colossal in entire areas of the country.

The biggest shake-up will be in politics. That’s the one place that can cause the greatest potential for angst for blacks.

In 2000, the 23 million blacks eligible to vote dwarfed the 13 million eligible Latino voters, even though Latinos had by then virtually reached parity with blacks in the population. More than one-third of the Latino population was less than 18 years old. Forty percent of Latinos who were of eligible voting age were non-citizens. Only 5 percent of blacks that were of voting age were non-citizens.

Those numbers have radically changed. Since the 2000 election the number of Latinos of voting age and who are citizens has jumped. Beyond just eligibility, there are now an estimated 15 million Latino registered voters. That compares more favorably with the 15 million black voters in the 2004 election.

The surge in registered voters is not the only shift that has changed ethnic politics in America. In past elections, the majority of the Latino vote was concentrated in California, Texas, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado. In the 2006 national elections, helped by the sharp increase in the number of legal and illegal immigrants in the Midwest and Northeastern states, the Latino vote will have national impact.

In the next couple of months, presumptive presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain will dump millions into Spanish language ads, pitches, and pleas for votes on Spanish language stations. When, not if, Democrats and Republicans cut an immigration reform deal, one of its features almost certainly will include some form of legalization plan that within a few years will turn thousands more Latino immigrants into vote-casting American citizens. Democrats and Republicans will pour even more time, money, and personnel into courting Latino voters. The potential political gain from a massive outreach effort to Latinos is far greater than putting the same resources into courting black voters.

It's sound political reasoning. That effort worked for Republicans in 2004, when Bush got nearly 40 percent of the Latino vote. The Democrats, meanwhile, maintain a solid lock on the black vote. In every election since 1964, blacks have given more than 80 to 90 percent of their votes to the Democrats. They will give even more of their vote to Obama this election.
With the tantalizing prospect of a small but nonetheless important segment of newly enfranchised Latino voters voting Republican, there's no political incentive for Republicans to try to do more to get the black vote. That even includes its relentless pursuit of the black evangelicals. Hispanic evangelical churches have an estimated 20 million members and those numbers are growing yearly. According to a survey by the Hispanic Churches in American Public Life project, the majority of Latino evangelicals are conservative, pro-family, anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage. Latino evangelicals are GOP-friendly and they have political clout. They got several mainstream evangelical groups to back the Senate compromise immigration reform bill. And while the National Association of Evangelicals stopped short of backing the Senate bill, it still urged "humane" immigration reform.

The leap in Latino voting strength and the likely prospect that Democrats and Republicans can bump up the number of voters from the rising number of legal and illegal immigrants comes at a bad time for black politicians. Though the number of black elected officials has held steady in state offices and in Congress, their spectacular growth of prior years has flattened out. The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies reported after the 2004 elections only a marginal increase in the number of black elected officials. And that was mostly in a handful of Deep South states and Illinois.

There is some evidence that mainstream Democrats are already de-emphasizing traditional black issues. Obama and McCain have been virtually mute on miserably failing inner city schools, soaring black unemployment, prison incarceration, and the HIV/AIDS crisis that has torn black communities.
The new population reality is that immigration, both legal and illegal, has drastically changed Americas' ethnic and political landscape. Whites may be fading fast as the majority the great fear is that blacks could fade just as fast in numbers and more importantly political clout too.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).

McCain and Obama Make Reparations a Campaign Taboo

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and his Republican rival John McCain don’t agree on much. But there’s one thing that they not only agree on, but have made a campaign taboo, and that’s reparations. Obama flatly opposes it, and has repeated his opposition to it every time he’s asked the question about compensation for slavery. McCain doesn’t even bother taking a public position on reparations. In fact, it’s such a foregone conclusion that he would oppose it no one has even bothered to ask him about it on the campaign trail.

The candidates sprint from the issue like the plague for reasons that make good political sense. They both read the opinion polls. A CNN/USA Today poll taken after blacks filed two well-publicized reparations lawsuits in 2002 found that seventy-five percent of Americans said that corporations should not pay reparations for slavery, and a whopping ninety percent said the government should not pay reparations. Informal public opinion surveys show that whites, non-blacks, and many blacks still think that reparations is a bad idea. National Urban League officials won’t even discuss reparations. For them the issue is simply too racially charged and polarizing. The NAACP doesn’t oppose reparations, but it’s an issue that NAACP officials rarely broach in any of their public pronouncements. The few times it comes up they give the politically safe answer that Obama gave when asked about it and that’s that the government should do more to create jobs and educational opportunities for the black poor.

Still, reparations advocates have grabbed at every argument in the book to dent the wall of public resistance to reparations. They insist that black billionaires, corporate presidents, superstar athletes and entertainers won’t et a dime of reparations money, that it will go to programs to aid the black poor, that it won’t guilt trip all whites, and that Japanese-Americans and Holocaust survivors have gotten reparations for the atrocities against them. These arguments fall on deaf ears. The reparations movement just can’t remove the public imprint that it is a movement exclusively of, by, and for blacks.

Despite countless speeches pleading for racial brotherhood and interracial cooperation by Martin Luther King, Jr. and other civil rights leaders, that same tag was imprinted on the civil rights movement in the early 1960s. It took national shock and revulsion over Southern mobs beating, maiming, and killing white civil rights workers, and the massive presence of thousands of white students in Southern backwater towns before the civil rights movement gained widespread public and especially political acceptance as an authentic movement to change laws and public policy that would benefit labor, women, minorities, and even whites.



The reparations movement does not possess the inherent racial egalitarianism of the civil rights movement. It is ensnared by its racial isolationism. The focus is solely to compensate the descendants of black slaves for the wrong of slavery, and whipsaw whites for present-day racism. Most whites almost certainly applaud the fight to improve failing inner city public schools, health care, provide better housing and health care, and to battle drugs and the near pandemic scourge HIV/AIDS affliction among blacks. But they also believe that these are social ills that slam other minorities, the poor, and marginally employed working class whites nearly as hard. Reparations advocates make no mention of this.

As a consequence, reparations comes off as a hustle and scam to most whites that will flush their hard earned tax dollars down a black hole with nothing in return for them. In a time of soaring budget deficits, corporate meltdowns, the stock downslide, and the looming peril of massive layoffs that batter middle-class workers, reparations seems more than ever a frivolous issue that is politically divisive and racially polarizing.

That’s the last thing Obama needs during the campaign. He’s walking on the most fragile racial egg shells, and even the faintest hint that he has made race an issue in his campaign would do mortal damage to his election chances. He got a frightening glimpse of that when McCain jumped all over him for his off hand comment that he doesn’t look like all those other presidents on dollar bills. Unfortunately, any mention of reparations instantly smacks of race.

Despite the colossal resistance to reparations, Obama has made, and McCain if he so chose, could make the argument that it’s in the interest of government and business to pump more funds into specific projects such as AIDS/HIV education and prevention, remedial education, job skills and training, drug and alcohol counseling and rehabilitation, computer access and literacy training programs. They will boost the black poor, not gut public revenues. This will not finger all whites as culpable for slavery.

Obama won’t do that, and McCain can’t do that. And even though the reparations question will from time to time continue to crop up, count on the candidates to keep it a campaign taboo.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).

McCain and Obama Must Break Their Silence on AIDS Crisis in Black Communities

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

A clearly befuddled and flustered presidential contender John McCain stumbled almost laughingly over a question from an audience member during a townhall talk in Iowa in March 2007. The questioner asked what he’d do to combat the AIDS plague. McCain after several stumbles nervously said that he didn’t know enough about the problem and then tossed the ball to his advisors. He said he was confident that they’d come up with some solutions.
The media had a mild field day poking fun at McCains’ AIDS bumble, but the issue is hardly the stuff of a bad comedy routine. A few months after McCain’s wobble, Obama and wife, Michelle, in a widely shown photo were shown getting their AIDS test. Obama followed this with a public pledge to formulate a national AIDS strategy on AIDS, ramp up government spending on testing, education, and treatment, and expand access to generic drugs in Africa and other poor nations.
This was admirable but unfortunately it was a year ago. He hasn’t publicly addressed the issue since. During the campaign, he and McCain have given countless speeches, made statements, issued reports and position papers on the terrorism fight, the Iraq War, the Iran Missile threat, immigration, the housing and banking crisis, a tanking economy, and affordable health care. These are crucial problems and millions of Americans demand that both candidates tell exactly what they’re going to do about them in the White House. But as devastating as these problems are to many families, they do not pile up bodies and wreak catastrophic havoc on entire communities, mostly poor black communities. The AIDS/HIV plague does.

The Black AIDS Institute in a recent report backed up by statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) sounded a loud alarm that the number of African-Americans afflicted with the disease is now so high that blacks would rank sixteenth among the nations whose citizens are afflicted with the disease. Blacks make up nearly half of all new AIDS cases in the United States. That figure has remained virtually unchanged for the past few years.

The AIDS plague has long been the single biggest health issue that has screamed for massive action by the government and health agencies in poor black communities. This is all the more reason for Obama and McCain to speak out on the crisis and then spell out just what they will do about it. So far they haven’t done that during the campaign. In a campaign position paper Obama has said he will push for more funds for AIDS treatment, education and testing. But much of his emphasis has been on African and other nations. In 2006 Obama did publicly lambast government negligence in the AIDS battle. But the government was the South African government for it’s disgraceful head in the sand attitude toward the mounting crisis in that country.

Bush actually went further and modestly delivered on his promise to increase funds for treatment and education programs and push for greater access of drugs in Africa. The Black AIDS Institute notes that since then the number of AIDS cases have dropped in some African countries. Even more embarrassing, more African-Americans are afflicted with AIDS than persons in Botswana, Ethiopia, Haiti, Rwanda and Vietnam. These are among the poorest countries on the planet and have been wracked by war, civil war, genocide atrocities, and chronic political unrest. Yet they have managed to reduce the numbers of their AIDS afflicted while the number of African-Americans with AIDS continues to rise.
Meanwhile, McCain hasn’t done any more homework on the AIDS crisis since his stumble in Iowa more than a year ago. HIV/AIDS is not even mentioned as an item in the detailed health care plan on his official website.

But even if McCain had boned up on the AIDS crisis and laid out a specific plan to confront the crisis, and Obama had fleshed out more details about confronting the crisis in African-American communities, it’s still no substitute for them speaking out on the campaign stump about the crisis and pushing and proding government, health agencies and private donors to do more to combat the AIDS plague.

Obama or McCain will occupy the White House in 2009 and he will be there in 2010. That’s the target year that the U.S. along with other international agencies have set to prevent seven million more HIV infections. The liklihood is good they’ll meet the target goal. The Bush Administration did play a role in helping some of the poorest of the poor nations dramatically turn the corner in combatting AIDS. But it happened because Bush reacted to the withering fire he got for not speaking out and doing something to help these nations. Presidential candidates Obama and McCain can and should do no less. They should break their silence now.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).

Connerly’s Anti Affirmative Action Measure Could be a Win-Win for McCain

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

In 1998 Republican Presidential contender John McCain drew howls from conservatives when he opposed Senator Mitch McConnell’s federal transportation bill that would have replaced race- and gender-contracting set-asides with ones designed to help small businesses no matter the race or gender of the owner. But it was a Senate vote, and McCain’s vote passed way under the media and public’s radar scope. Most importantly for McCain, it was not a presidential election year. So McCain didn’t really gain or lose a whole lot by voting to keep racial preferences in place, at least at the federal level.
A decade later things are different, much different. McCain has deftly shifted gears and urges a “yes” vote on Ward Connerly’s anti-affirmative action initiative on the Arizona ballot in November. McCain bets that this time pummeling affirmative action will do far more good than bad for his campaign. It’s a smart bet. A big opponent of Connerly’s barnstorming state campaigns to dump affirmative action, the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality by Any Means Necessary candidly admits that the only way to beat back these initiatives is to keep them off ballots. That didn’t happen in California in 1996, in Washington in 1998 and in Michigan in 2006.
The anti-affirmative action initiatives won by solid even crushing margins in all three states. In the process, they galvanized public opinion, stirred subtle white resentment even anger against anything that smacked of racial preferences, and sent a big message that pushing affirmative action was a politically losing proposition. Michigan proved that. The two GOP candidates for governor and the Senate in the state opposed Connerly’s initiative. Both lost. But even more important the measure did not stir a mad dash by blacks, women, and Latinos to the barricades in Washington and Michigan to defeat the initiative. The lesson from the GOP candidate’s defeat and the relatively mild backlash to the initiative wasn’t lost on McCain.
At one point Connerly talked about taking his anti-affirmative action initiative fight to more than a dozen states. That hasn’t happened. But the number of states where Connerly dumped the initiative on the ballot isn’t important. What is important is the timing for placing the initiative on a state ballot and the states chosen to put it. Three states were picked for November. Nebraska is one. It’s a solid Red state, and almost certainly the initiative will win big there. election year or not. The other two states, Colorado and Arizona, are much more important. Democrats think that Colorado could for the first time in recent presidential bouts be in play for Obama. They think the same thing about McCain’s home state of Arizona. That’s mostly due to the big jump in the number of Hispanic and younger voters in these states. The Connerly initiative is just the thing to counter that by creating a mini wedge issue in both states that energizes conservatives too rush the polls to back the initiative and stick around long enough to back McCain.
That’s one political plus, but it’s not the only one. McCain can have it both ways on the issue. He can insist that he still strongly backs equal opportunity and just as strongly opposes discrimination. He can then make the standard anti-affirmative action pitch that he backs the Connerly initiative precisely because it strikes a blow against discrimination, namely racial preferences. And after all, isn’t everyone, and that even includes more than a few blacks, Latinos and especially Asians, against anything that smacks of racial unfairness?
There’s more still. Democratic rival Barack Obama appears to agree with McCain on this point. At first glance that seems a wild stretch. Connerly says Obama cut radio ads in 2006 hammering his Michigan anti-affirmative action initiative, and unabashedly saying that if it passed it would hurt women and minorities in getting jobs and in education. And he will oppose Connerly’s initiatives. But just as McCain wobbled in 1998 in opposing McConnell’s anti-affirmative action bill when it wasn’t a presidential election year. 2006 wasn’t a presidential election year either when Obama passionately defended affirmative action. 2008 is. He’s slightly wobbling on affirmative actions just as McCain did.
He has repositioned himself as a centrist Democrat and now flatly says he’s against quotas. That’s an easy call, since courts have repeatedly slapped down any affirmative action programs that mandate specific numbers of women or minorities be hired or admitted to colleges. But Obama wobbled even more when he says that the affirmative action measures should not be applied without taking into individual needs, and they should be applied to poor whites. The caution and even shading on how he speaks of affirmative action is a far cry from the ringing endorsement he gave to affirmative action for women and minorities.
It’s no real surprise. McCain aims to make Connerly’s initiative a political win-win for him. Obama aims to make sure that it’s not a total lose-lose for him.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).

McCain to Seniors—Let Them Drink Beer

By Sikivu Hutchinson

At 79, living in a subsidized senior apartment complex near USC which takes a quarter of her $2,000 a month Social Security check, my grandmother is one of the lucky ones. Though budgeting fiercely with coupons to make ends meet she does not yet have to take a late-in-life job to supplement her tiny check like many seniors. At 72, the Republican senior presidential candidate, who regularly trots out his 90-something mother to show his genetic inheritance of longevity, kicked seniors to the curb this week by proclaiming the funding of Social Security a “disgrace.” In John McCain’s world younger workers really shouldn’t be burdened with the obligation of paying into a system that won’t immediately benefit them. Like Bush in 2005 McCain is toying with the idea of privatizing Social Security by allowing workers to invest in private accounts. Bush’s failed plan was roundly rejected by senior’s rights groups and attacked as an abuse of what little remains of the American social safety net. Adherents of Adam Smith’s invisible hand are advised to check out Britain’s disastrous pension privatization system in which worker contributions were swallowed up by maintenance fees and more elderly citizens were ending up homeless. The British have since returned to government oversight.

The notion that Social Security is a radical encroachment is part and parcel of the conservative assault upon the very New Deal entitlements that contributed to economic stability for white Middle America. Due to the wealth gap that exists between whites and people of color, seniors of color are among the most vulnerable to rising food prices, soon to be $5.00 a gallon gas, mounting mortgage debt and exorbitant rent. McCain’s hypocritical disdain for the funding mechanism of Social Security and for the livelihood of seniors is not surprising coming from a politician whose ascent has been bankrolled by the beer empire of his multimillionaire wife. As McCain and his wife Cindy enjoy Gilded Age dividends on their investments, the disappearance of defined benefit plans and living wage jobs has made Social Security a virtual life raft for older working class and middle class Americans increasingly employed in service work as clerks, cashiers and custodians.

Elderly women in particular, due to their lower wages and less time in the workforce than men, are more likely to rely on Social Security for basic subsistence than are men. For most black women, all but invisible in such low wage occupations as food service, airport baggage handling or daycare, remaining on the job or returning to work past sixty-five is not an option but a necessity. Frequently entrusted with caring for grandchildren or other dependents, including those who are in and out of foster care, older women of color are on the frontlines of both the sub-living wage and child care crisis.

While Barack Obama’s job creation plan is nebulous, McCain’s is nonexistent; his prescription for growth consisting of a fiscally insane array of tax cuts headed by a decrease in taxes for corporations, a pipe dream panacea for job growth which would ultimately boost the bulging portfolios of wealthy seniors like himself. By indulging McCain’s monomaniacal emphasis on foreign policy the mainstream media has let him slide by without addressing how average and poor Americans dumped on by the mortgage crisis will benefit from his oligarchy-enriching tax plan. For my grandmother and the rest of America’s spendthrift seniors lapping up their transportation, food and utility bill expenses from the public trough, McCain has a hale and hearty message—let them drink beer.

Sikivu Hutchinson is the editor of blackfemlens.org and a commentator for KPFK 90.7 F.M.

Forget Apologizing to Obama Jackson Should Apologize to Blacks for His N Word Hypocrisy
Earl Ofari Hutchinson

On November 26, 2006 at a press conference in Los Angeles guess who said this: "We will challenge and urge all artists and comics to stop using this (n) word. What other group is subjected to such a degrading terminology?"
And then guess who called for this action: We will go after TV networks, film companies and comedians and demand that they stop using the word. We will boycott sales of the DVDs of Seinfeld’s seventh season TV show. The speaker of course was Jesse Jackson. The offender who dared utter the dreaded N word was comedian Michael Richards.
Now we hear that Jesse did a Richards like imitation with the N word in his infamous unguarded open mic dig at Obama on Fox.
Jackson’s pound of Richards and saber rattle of the entertainment business was strong stuff. In fact it was vintage Jackson; a denunciation of the N word, railing against the entertainment industry and entertainers for their racial insensitivity, and, of course, a threatened boycott. Jesse was riding tall on his moral and racial high horse at the time and had thousands revved up to go after Richards and anyone else who used the N word.
The problem is that the “anyone else” Jackson had in mind was not simply, a white bit part comedian, and some off color comics and filmmakers, but any and every black that used the word. Jesse would settle for nothing less than a total ban by blacks on the N word.

Jackson’s press conference tirade against the N word was hardly the first time he had hit the warpath against the word. He had spent years lecturing, hectoring, and admonishing blacks to dump the word from their vocabulary.
So that makes his N word slur even more unpardonable than if it come from a rapper or comic. They’re trying to make a buck off of using the word as cutesy shock value so at least there’s logic, commercial and twisted, but logic nonetheless to their spew of it. In Jackson’s case that doesn’t apply.
He committed two serious offenses in casually and recklessly using the word. Though he didn’t call Obama the word, by knocking him (“cut off his n…ts”) and tossing in the word to describe blacks who Obama allegedly offended, Obama by inference became an N… too. Jackson’s bigger offense was his tar of blacks with the word. If a white celebrity, personality or politician slandered and disrespected blacks with the word, guess who would be the first person to charge the barricades demanding their head and then that they banned in Boston for perpetuity. The chances are pretty good that Jackson would have gotten their head and the ban. But in this case, the famed personality that offended with the word is not a white notable but Jackson.
So what should we do about him? He’s already apologized to Obama, and since Obama wasn’t the target of Jackson’s loose lip slur, Jackson should immediately apologize to blacks for not only trashing them, but also apologize for his hypocrisy. That’s not all. Since Jackson called for a boycott of the DVD’s of the Seinfeld show for Richards N word offense, then turn about is fair play. In this case, listeners to Jackson’s national radio show should consider a brief tune out of the show to show that the N word no matter whether it drips from the lips of a tired white comedian, gangster rapper, blue room black comedian, radio shock jock, or a one time civil rights icon, is just as offensive.
Jesse has taken a much deserved hit for his intemperate personal rap of Obama. Now he should take an even bigger hit for his far worse racial rap of blacks and in the process himself.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).

McCain’s NAACP Appearance Is Not a Lose Lose
Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Republican presidential contender John McCain learned a lesson from G. W. Bush. That is from GOP presidential candidate Bush, not president Bush. In 2000, Bush braved the political chill and addressed the NAACP’s annual confab. There was absolutely no possibility that Bush would get anything more than a polite listen from the convention goers. They were nearly all generic Democrats, and would give Democratic presidential rival Al Gore the ritual ninety percent of the black vote. But Bush wasn’t trying to win friends at the convention he was trying not to make enemies. The last thing that he wanted was for blacks to see him as a white Southern, fundamentalist bible thumping, anti civil rights hard line conservative, but rather a racial moderate, and a compassionate conservative. If blacks saw him as a hard liner, it would virtually guarantee that they would treat the presidential campaign not as a campaign but a crusade and stampede the polls in big numbers to vote against him.
McCain’s foray to the NAACP is designed to do pretty much the same thing. He, of course, has got a far tougher act to follow with his Democratic rival Barack Obama than Bush had with rival Gore. The passion, even sheer thrill that blacks feel at the chance to back the first black presidential candidate with a legitimate shot at winning the White House is off the charts. Black voters have flooded the polls in near record numbers in some states to back Obama. Many were unabashed in saying in exit polls that race was the big reason they turned out. That feeling was very much in evidence when Obama preceded McCain to speak at the convention. Many gushed that Obama embodied what the NAACP’s near century struggle for racial parity was all about. That is to make it possible for an African-American to attain the top elected spot in the land.
But McCain’s point in appearing at the convention was still the same and that was not to antagonize blacks, and maybe, if he was lucky his and the GOP’s pet minority vote issues, school choice, business supports, faith based programs, increased HIV/AIDS funding might have resonance with some independent and conservative leaning black voters.
Still it seems a steep uphill for McCain to get even minimal traction among black voters. A May 30 Gallup Poll found that McCain’s unfavorable rating among blacks has leaped more than 25 percentage points since last June. But poll numbers in and of themselves don’t tell the whole story about how elections are won or lost.
The more important thing is whether a GOP candidate can get a small percentage of the black vote in the must win battleground states of Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida. In his two general election victories, Bush didn’t need to get a major bump up in black support to win, he just needed a marginal increase in the key swing states. He got the few percentage points he needed in those states and that made a difference in his wins.
McCain starts with something that Bush never had among black voters, and that’s a much higher favorability rating. The Gallup poll that showed McCain‘s unfavorable rating jump also showed a slight uptick in his favorability rating among blacks. It isn’t much, but it’s just enough for McCain to bet that by spending some time and resources in courting the black vote he could do what appears to be the impossible and actually win a small but significant percentage of their vote in some key states to make a difference.
McCain made that bet last September. He was the only major GOP candidate to agree to participate in a GOP presidential candidate’s debate on race and urban issues. He ultimately backed out but only after the other major candidates also declined to appear. Since then, McCain braved boos of the crowd at the fortieth anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. commemoration in Memphis in April, and even managed to turn the boos into applause when he did a public mea culpa for opposing a state holiday for King in Arizona. He then traveled to Selma to speak at the Edmund Pettis Bridge where civil rights marchers were mauled by police in 1965 to commemorate the Voting Rights.

The black vote in every election since Lyndon Johnson’s landslide victory over Goldwater in 1964 has not been in play for any GOP presidential candidate. That’s because with the arguable exception of Bush in 2004 they haven’t done anything to get it. McCain says this time he will. He won’t shake their massive support for Obama, but he doesn’t have to. He just needs a few more black votes in the right places to make the difference. The NAACP convention was one of those places.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).

New Yorker Depicted Obama Horribly Wrong, but Got It Horribly Right about the Slanders
Earl Ofari Hutchinson

New Yorker Magazine’s under fire cover illustrator Barry Blitt says his infuriating cover was intended only to show that the incessant rumor that Obama is a closet terrorist is preposterous and ridiculous fear mongering. Team Obama’s rage at the inflammatory cover was beyond ballistic and nearly everyone with eyes and an opinion about it, and that included Republican rival John McCain, expressed the same ballistic anger at the New Yorker. But Blitt’s point that the ridiculous rumor mongering, gossip, slurs, and flat out falsities about Obama’s religion, patriotism, birth, and, of course race, are deep and widespread is horribly true. Even more frightening is that those slanders may touch a nerve in an unknown but frighteningly large number of voters. That danger was there from the start and there were packs of website ready to deepen that danger.

Obama had barely finished his announcement on the steps of the State Capitol at Springfield, Illinois in February, 2007 that he was in the hunt for presidency when the site Barack Exposed popped up on every search engine. The website was a put up job by Human Events, a fringe, ultraconservative outfit. It promised to expose the "truth" about Obama, from his alleged role in corruption scandals to doubletalk on the issues, and of course the signature hit item, his patriotism. At the time, it was rightly laughed off as a typical smear and slander by one of the pack of ultra-conservative hit squads.

The laughter didn’t last long. Obama’s breakout win in the Iowa Caucus in January instantly marked him as the potential Democrat's presidential go-to guy. It also set off alarm bells among the blog hit squads. Here’s a check list of the biggest, best known, and most virulent Obama dirt dealer sites that sprouted up after Iowa:
AntiObama.net AgainstObama.com AudacityOfHypocrisy.com BlockBarack.com ChicagoAgainstObama.com DontVoteObama.net DrNObama.comExposeObama.comInvestigateBarackObama.blogspot.com JustSayNoDeal.com MeetBarackObama.com No-bama.blogspot.com NobamaNetwork.comNobamaZone.comNoExperienceNoChange.org NoQuarterUSA.net ObamaBlog08.com Obama-Wire.comObamaism.Blogspot.com ObamaNation.comObamaTruth.org ObamaWho.wordpress.com ObamaWTF.blogspot.com Obamology.blogspot.com SavagePolitics.com SlickBarry.com Stop-Obama.org TheRealBarackObama.wordpress.com

The anti-Obama bile, complete with the scurrilous and phony doctored photos of Obama as a Muslim terrorist is the staple on many of the sites, and is repeated as a sickening mantra by the Obama character maligners. Obama’s White House bid has virtually breathed new life into the unabashedly white supremacist group Stormfront’s site (stormfront.org). The group claims to get about 40,000 hits a day

Google belatedly realized that its engine was rapidly becoming a top conduit for spreading the anti-Obama rumor mongering hate and shut down several of the more blatant anti-Obama sites. It sternly warned that any site that engaged in lathering Obama with vicious personal slurs would be promptly shut down. This drew some mild criticism that Google was stifling free speech, but the right to propagate malicious slander and lies hardly qualifies as a free speech protection, let alone legitimate political criticism.

There were early warning signals of the on-line ugliness that could come. Talk show gasser Rush Limbaugh took the first real swipe when he derisively sneered at Obama as the Magic Negro. Limbaugh kind of sort of backed away from it. But the message was that Obama was not exempt from a racial dig. That was much evident in the short-lived furor over Obama's former Southside Chicago church, and the controversial outbursts of his former pastor Jeremiah Wright.

The inference was that Obama's guilt by membership and friendship with him made him a closet radical and a race baiter. But long before the Wright controversy broke in the national media, more than a few of the above mentioned anti-Obama sites had a field day lambasting him and Wright.


The nitpicking continued on the most trivial things such as his chain smoking, his admitted flirt with drugs, and pokes at his wife, Michelle as outspoken, bossy and domineering, and America hating. This slander against her has been almost as popular on the sites as knocking Obama as unpatriotic and inferring he’s a closet Muslim terrorist.

The great danger is that the lies and maliciousness the Obama slander sites busily fan could or has had some resonance with some voters, especially the much fought over independents. They make up about one quarter of American electorate, and the overwhelming majority of them are white, and centrist to conservative in their views.

The fear that the rumors could hurt prompted Obama and the campaign to take the unprecedented step of putting up an anti-smear website to counter the lies. It also prompted Obama in January to do a teleconference call with Jewish reporters to refute the rumors that he was a Muslim.

New Yorker Magazine’s editors may well as the claim depicted Obama and Michelle as flag hating, unpatriotic, violent terrorists to show the absolute vileness and absurdity of the rampant slanders. But the magazine which is the nation’s staid, bastion of highbrow culture and thinking inadvertently or deliberately imprinted the damaging slanders in the thoughts of an even more unknown number of voters. The same as the legion of dirt dealing Obama blogs have done.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).

Why Jackson Has an Obama Problem
Earl Ofari Hutchinson

A plainly irritated Jesse Jackson obviously didn’t mean that he would cut Obama’s n…ts off. The crude, salty street talk was simply an unguarded moment’s outburst from a frustrated Jackson at Obama’s recent political somersaults. Jackson, of course, took much deserved heat from his son Jesse Jr. and just about everyone else who has an opinion on him, his language and Obama.

But what is lost in the leap to beat up on Jackson is this: Is he right to be frustrated by Obama, and is there anything new about his frustration with him?
Jackson has always had a mix of puzzlement, wariness, and frustration with and toward Obama from the moment he announced that he would run for the presidency. Jackson and the other old guard civil rights leaders and old line black Democrats didn’t know what to make of Obama.

Jackson took a long wait and see before endorsing him. And even then the endorsement was more of a kind of, sort of endorsement than a ringing declaration of Obama’s possible presidential assets. The ubiquitous Jackson; that is the Jackson who prided himself for two decades on being any and everywhere there was a civil rights or political battle to be fought and commented on was suddenly the disappeared Jackson whenever the subject was Obama and his much touted historic breakthrough for African-Americans. There were brief Jackson sightings here and there but always it was to make a veiled knock of Obama. Jackson rapped him for not speaking out on the Jena 6 racial case in Louisiana and coupled it with a public muse about whether he was black enough. The customary denials and apologies followed when Jackson took some flak for the knock.

But Jackson’s Obama problem is not solely the pique of an aging, and increasingly bypassed civil rights icon, who has had his day, and is envious of Obama for stealing the media and public limelight. The problem is the profound gap between Jackson and Obama over how civil rights and racial battles should be fought in America.
Obama doesn’t look, talk, or act like a black leader or civil rights activist should look, talk and act. He does not march, picket or protest racial wrongs and injustices in the streets. How could he? He wasn’t around in the 1960s when Jackson and company did. He talks political and racial moderation, conciliation, healing and harmony. But even more galling than the notion that he hasn’t paid his civil rights dues, is that he also talks about being multi-racial. This sent up the red flag that Obama’s adherence and allegiance to blackness is deeply suspect.

Jackson and the old guard civil rights leaders could never hope for the rush by corporate donors to bankroll Obama’s campaign, the swooning embrace he got from Democratic Party regulars, the rapturous tout he got from blacks, and the starry eyed celebrity adulation he got from whites and other non-blacks. So it was no surprise that Obama’s rap of black men and his cheering of Bush’s faith based initiative was the last draw. It confirmed Jackson’s worst fear about Obama, and that is that he’s a deal making, Beltway Democrat who will say and do anything to get elected, even if that means tossing racial ideals as Jackson defines them under the bus.

The great irony in this is that Jackson for a brief time was looked up to with the same starry eyed swoon by many blacks and whites, was the unbridled darling of the media establishment, and could command his fair share of dollars from corporations and wealthy philanthropists. There was even a time even when the cry of “run Jesse run” for president bounced off the lips of thousands.
There was sheer delight when Jackson instantly heated up a crowd with a timely slogan, catchy rhyme, or well-timed phrase and he had the instant ear of presidents and heads of state.

Those days are long gone and Jesse is left with fast fading memories, and the frustration of having to look with a jaundice eye at a guy who’s doing what he once hoped to achieve, but doing it in a way that he could or would never do.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).

Obama Never, Ever Said No to Bush on Iraq
Earl Ofari Hutchinson

"Let me be clear: There is no military solution in Iraq and there never was. The best way to protect our security and to pressure Iraq's leaders to resolve their civil war is to immediately begin to remove our combat troops. Not in six months or one year — now."
Senator Barack Obama said that on December 12, 2007 in a speech in Clinton, Iowa. At the time he was still one of the pack of Democratic presidential candidates jostling and elbowing trying to get a knock out edge over the others for the Democratic presidential nomination. That included first and foremost Hillary Clinton. He mercilessly pounded her then and afterwards in speeches for backing the war and dutifully voting for war appropriations.
Nine months later things had radically changed. Obama was no longer jostling with Hillary and the others for the top Democratic presidential nominee spot. He was now the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee and he said this: "I have always said I would listen to the commanders on the ground. I have always said that the pace of withdrawal would be dictated by the safety and security of our troops and the need to maintain stability. That assessment has not changed.
His very public record of his very public pledge to end the war NOW in stump speeches the year before he said that had changed, and his words and voting record on the war had changed too. This has caused much grief, anguish and disappointment among fervent Obama backers. The war was the single biggest reason why many of them bought his sale that as president he would do what no other Democrat or Republican in the White House would do and that was to immediately end the war. That was more than enough for them to flock to his banner, lustily cheer him on, and furiously hector anyone who dared poke at his twists, turns, shifts, and deep knee bends on Iraq.
But even the most cursory look at Obama’s words, votes, and campaign pirouettes on Iraq paint a far different picture of a candidate for which Iraq was never the clear cut issue that many believed, or maybe wanted to believe. The Iraq flips started long before his Iowa pledge to get out now. It started even before he was in the Senate. At a Democratic forum outside Chicago during his Senate campaign in 2003 and 2004, Obama lambasted Bush for waging the war. He flatly said that if he had been in the Senate he would not have voted for $87 billion more to bankroll the war. Or, as he put it in an earlier speech, we have to say 'no' to George Bush." Once in the Senate that no quickly became yes.
He promptly voted for four separate war appropriations that totaled more than $300 billion. A year before he pledged in Iowa to get the troops out now, he opposed a proposal by Senator John F. Kerry to withdraw most combat troops from Iraq by July 2007. Obama didn’t just cast a quiet vote against Kerry’s troop removal proposal he added the veiled chastisement that an "arbitrary deadline" could "compound" the Bush administration's mistake. A year later he joined with Republicans and backed their resolution that the Senate would not cut off funding for troops in Iraq.
But money and votes aren’t the only issue in which Obama sent a different message then the impassioned get out of Iraq now speeches he still thundered before audiences. The other issue was when to withdraw. Obama backed up his end the war now rhetoric with another public demand that a firm timetable be set for withdrawal. In fact, a timetable with a specific withdrawal date was set by a Democratic senator. But that senator wasn’t Obama. It was Kerry. His bill set the goal of withdrawing combat troops from Iraq by the end of March 2008. In contrast, Obama’s withdrawal plan did not set firm deadlines and would keep troops in Iraq if the Bush administration and the Iraqi government met a laundry list of benchmarks.
March has long since passed, the troops are still there and big buck spending with the Senate’s approval continues with no visible end in sight to it.
Meanwhile Obama has added yet another wrinkle to his Iraq drama and that’s that he’ll go to Iraq and listen to what the commanders on the ground and military brass there have to say about where we need to go with the war.
This sounds less like the hard line one time verbal antiwar advocate named Obama speaking then a certain Republican presidential rival named McCain speaking. But then again Obama has been consistent from the start on one thing on Iraq and that’s political expediency.
Incidentally, some things at least rhetorically don’t change. An excerpt of Obama’s Iraq antiwar speech (cleansed of his Iraq war removal now call) is still on his official website. http://www.barackobama.com/issues/iraq/

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book is How the GOP Can Keep the White House, How the Democrats Can Take it Back (Middle Passage Press, August 2008).

Denver Singer’s Black National Anthem Switcheroo Was a Risky Act for Obama, and Black Americans
Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Heaven only knows what black Denver singer Rose Marie was thinking when she stood at the microphone and belted out the lyrics of the black national anthem instead of the agreed on Star Spangled Banner. The event was Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper’s annual state of the city address and confab. Marie was engaged at no pay to sing the customary opening Star Spangled Banner. The black national anthem penned by civil rights legend and songwriter James Weldon Johnson a century ago is a beautiful, lilting, and powerful expression of black pride and dignity. It has been a virtual staple at any and every kind of black gathering down through the years. And that’s where it’s appropriate to sing it. The Denver Mayor’s event wasn’t.

Marie’s tortured explanation for switching songs is take your pick: it was a matter of artistic expression, her way of showing her pride in being black, a veiled protest against racial mistreatment and discrimination, and her personal statement against the alleged racial hypocrisy of America. Her explanations are facile and self-serving and just about everyone with an opinion on the issue appropriately blasted her and demanded a formal apology which she hasn’t as yet given. She should apologize publicly, and do it now.

Her ill-timed, totally inappropriate act has been fodder for speculation that it could have a possible backdoor blowback on Obama. Obama immediately rapped Marie for her wrong headed switcheroo, and said that there’s only one national anthem. Obama had to move fast and knock the singer’s act. The Democratic convention will be in Denver in August and Obama can ill-afford to have even the slightest hint that he approves anything that could be construed as an act that disrespects America’s number one, time tested emblematic expression of American patriotism, especially from a black singer. And even more especially given that Colorado with a Democratic controlled legislature, and rising numbers of younger voters and Hispanic voters could be ripe for the picking from the GOP orbit in the fall.

The bigger reason is that Obama more than any other presidential candidate in recent times is hyper sensitive to the patriotism issue. Republican rival John McCain has been scrupulously careful not to stoke any doubt about Obama’s patriotism. But others have. Conservative websites, chat rooms, and some writers have feasted off impugning Obama’s patriotism. They have slandered and ridiculed his name; dumped on his wife Michelle for her off the cuff, repeatedly clarified in context, comment about her lack of pride in America, and the one time absence of an American flag from the lapel in his suits.

This line of attack can’t be easily shrugged off as a below-the-belt slug by fringe ultra conservatives or professional political hit specialists. Despite his recent slog to the center, even right on some positions, Obama is still widely regarded by moderates and conservatives as a liberal Democrat. As failed liberal Democratic presidential contenders from Michael Dukakis to John Kerry have found out the hard and painful way, they are subject to ruthless, and sustained attack for being too liberal, and allegedly too willing to waffle and compromise on everything from crime and punishment to military preparedness, and especially national security. This always loosely translates out to doubt about the fervor of a liberal Democrat’s patriotism. A prime McCain campaign attack point against Obama is that he can’t be trusted to be the tough guy against foreign enemies and threats.



Conservatives have long since seized the high ground on the issue of what is or isn’t true patriotism and cast themselves as the protectors and defenders of the flag, the national anthem, and their read and interpretation of American traditions against the liberal defilers.

Obama has one more albatross that white liberal Democratic presidential contenders didn’t have. He’s African-American. There’s the inherent suspicion among some that African-Americans are eternal rebels, and chronic social malcontents who undermine conventional American values and traditions. It’s a short step from that false and bigoted notion to see blacks as less patriotic than white Americans.

Unfortunately this ridiculous tar of Obama as somehow less of a true patriot because of who he is and what his votes and stances on the issues have been is not just a taint him in the minds of some. Those same minds tar blacks with the same, broad unpatriotic brush. Marie was probably oblivious to the implications of her rash act. In a follow up remarks, she blithely blew it off as simply being a risky artistic act. It was much more than that. It was a risky act for Obama and African-Americans.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).

Did Obama Really Torpedo Immigration Reform?
Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain made a curious charge through a spokesperson immediately after his talk before the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials conference in Arlington, Virginia. He flatly said that his Democratic rival Barack Obama helped torpedo the immigration reform bill in the Senate in June 2007. This is a serious even inflammatory charge. It probably won’t do much to hurt Obama’s standing among the majority of Latino elected officials and core Latino Democrats. Polls show that the overwhelming majority of them back him. But it could stir more murmurs among some about his credentials as the change advocate on economic and foreign policy matters, and that includes immigration reform. Worse, it could raise even more doubts among rank and file Latino voters about Obama’s willingness to go to the mat on immigration reform. This would be a disaster for him. Latino voter support is absolutely crucial in Obama’s drive to bag the White House.
In the 2004 presidential election, Bush got nearly forty percent of the Latino vote. Without those votes Democrat John Kerry would have won the White House.
It not just the Latino votes that Bush got and Obama and McCain are clawing to get. It's where the Latino votes come from that could cinch the victory for Obama or McCain. The greatest numbers of Latino voters are in California, Florida, Texas and New York, Illinois and New Jersey. These are the key electoral states that virtually determine who will sit in the White House for years to come.

This much is clear in looking back at the Senate immigration debate in the spring 2007, Obama did vote for five amendments dubbed “poison pill” amendments. They badly threw out of whack the carefully crafted, but always fragile, compromise package that Democrats and Republicans cobbled together to get a bill passed. The Amendments lowered the visa quota for guest workers, put a severe time limit on the temporary guest worker program, and the temporary worker visa programs, revised the system for evaluating immigrant citizenship claims, and changed the time limit on the renewal of visas for some immigrants.
The amendments were backed by liberal and labor groups. The intent was to make the bill more expansive, balanced, and fair. But it was also the classic case of noble intent clashing with political practicality and a very tenuous Senate Democrat and Republican consensus on the type of immigration reform bill that realistically could pass, and that Bush would sign. The amendments predictably were rejected. Both Senator Ted Kennedy and McCain turned thumbs down on them (McCain did not vote on one of the amendments). The time delay, energy expended and wasted debating the amendments (and others), upset the delicate balance and helped dig the hole deeper for the bill.
Though Hillary Clinton and other top Senate Democrats also backed the amendments, they didn’t draw much fire for it. They are hard line partisan Democrats who make little pretense about voting anything other than a straight party line on legislation or amendments to legislation that labor and liberal advocacy groups solidly back.
But Obama claimed to be different than them. The amendment debacle drew a mild knock that Obama had betrayed his oft stated promise to elevate his head above petty, narrow party politics and be a bi-partisan consensus builder. This means that he will be the one to smash through the dead end morass of party squabbling and Congressional paralysis to move things along in Washington. The paralysis has drawn the disgust and fury of millions of voters and earned Congress approval ratings that wallow every bit in the historic low depths as Bush’s approval ratings
The immigration reform bill killing amendments, and Obama’s vote on them, give McCain the hook he needs to lambaste Obama as an immigration reform spoiler. Worse, it allows him to try to plant the idea among some Latino voters that if Obama can’t be trusted to do what it takes to get immigration reform through, than why expect him to do what it takes on other issues such as affordable health care that are vital to Latinos.
Though the crowd at the NALEO conference publicly and enthusiastically chanted Obama’s name, privately he had a nervous moment. In a behind the scenes meeting with more than a dozen Latino leaders he reportedly was pressed to spell out exactly where he stood on immigration. Some also weren’t too thrilled that in the past Obama sounded every bit as tough as the anti-immigration hawks in backing a border fence. Immigration reform advocates vehemently oppose the fence.
Despite the vigorous cheers among Latino elected officials for Obama and the near certainty that he’ll net the big percentage of Latino votes, it still doesn’t mean that the Latino vote is not a bit of an X factor for him. Unfortunately, it won’t help that Obama now will be called to answer for what he did or didn’t do when it came to help make immigration reform a reality.

Nader Talks Black
Earl Ofari Hutchinson



One presidential candidate has brashly played the race card. It wasn’t presumptive Republican presidential candidate John McCain or his rival Barack Obama. Both have tipped lightly around race in the campaign. But Ralph Nader didn’t have any qualms about bring race into the campaign. The perennial political gadfly accused Obama of saying and doing nothing to threaten the white power structure. If Nader had stopped there he might have opened up a reasoned debate on whether Obama panders to corporate interests in his stance on high gas prices, home foreclosures, the lack of affordable heath care, the Iraq war wind down, corporate and environmental regulations, and labor protections. This might have prompted some to ask does Obama rise to the standard of a politician who has actually sold his political soul to corporations and the Beltway establishment?

But Nader didn’t stop at criticizing Obama for being a Beltway insider. He asked rhetorically “Is it because he wants to talk white” as to why Obama supposedly doesn’t take hard stances on these issues? He then tossed in a reference to Jesse Jackson as an example of someone who Obama allegedly doesn’t want to sound like because he obviously sounds black. He didn’t tell exactly how he thinks an African-American is supposed to talk too avoid sounding white.

The one thing Nader got right is that Obama doesn’t sound like Jackson. But this has absolutely nothing to do with him talking white. It has everything to do with him wanting to win. The instant that Obama declared his candidacy the buzz question in the press and among much of the public was whether an African-American could be a viable candidate for the presidency. This was quickly followed with the question of whether whites would vote for an African-American candidate for the highest office. From the first start of Obama’s campaign the overwhelming majority of whites said they do not vote for candidates based on their color but based on their competence, ability and qualifications. The polls show that whites continue to say that Obama’s color is of no concern.

For his part, Obama early understood the potential minefield that race poses to his chances, and that even the slightest perception that there is a racial tilt in his campaign would render his campaign DOA. He has said and done everything possible to sell himself and his campaign as race neutral and all inclusive. He’s stuck tight to the script in which he talks almost exclusively about the broad based issues of the Iraq war and the economy.

That script is too bland and saccharine to have much meaning to Nader. He’s spent decades and three presidential campaigns blasting political cronyism, two party dominance, corporate greed and malfeasance, war mongering and profiteering. He plainly regards Obama as a corporate candidate who has no antidote to those ills. Nader could have easily made that point without racially knocking Obama. But he did knock him, and the only real explanation is that Nader holds Obama to a totally different standard than he holds McCain or any other white mainstream politician; a standard that’s based solely on his color. Put bluntly, because he’s black he must be by definition in Nader’s eyes an inherent rebel or at the very least actively challenge the white corporate and political establishment. But that assumes that blacks are instinctive rebels because of their color. Earth to Nader on this one; the likes of blacks from Clarence Thomas to Colin Powell should have long since dispelled that myth. Yet, to even think that blacks should be open racial crusaders is crass, cynical, and even borderline racist.

The only standard that Obama can and should be held to is the one that governs mainstream politicians. Obama’s a centrist Democrat, a consummate party loyalist and Capital Hill insider. Any change he could effect could come only from working within the tight and narrowly prescribed confines of Washington politics. Race has little to do with that. And even if that wasn’t the case, Obama likely still wouldn’t be on the frontline of the racial battleground.

He belongs to the younger, post-civil rights generation. That generation did not experience the terror of snarling police dogs, fire hoses, racist sheriff’s batons, and Jim Crow segregation. They did not fight prolonged battles for equality and economic justice in the streets as those of Jackson’s generation did. The racial battleground for Obama’s generation has been in the courtroom, corporate suites, and university boardrooms. He fought those battles as a student at Harvard University, as a poverty organizer and civil rights attorney.

Obama blew off Nader’s racial dig at him as a ploy to get attention by an aging political crusader whose political star has since long dimmed. Nader certainly wouldn’t have gotten that attention if he had just rapped Obama for his alleged corporate and insider political sins. But then again that wouldn’t have been Ralph.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).

Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable
614 E. Manchester Blvd. Suite 204
Inglewood, Cal. 90301
310-672-2542


June 23, 2008
Mr. Farid Suleman
CEO
Citadel Broadcasting Corporation
142 W. 57th St. 11th Fl.
New York 10019

Mr. Suleman:
Don Imus has done it again. On his nationally syndicated morning talk show on Citadel Broadcasting Corporation, Imus in response to a statement from another WABC programmer about Dallas Cowboys defensive back Adam “Pacman” Jones legal difficulties asked "What color is he?" When the programmer responded he’s African-American, Imus responded, "Well, there you go. Now we know.”
The response reinforces the worst racial stereotypes of crime and violence about African-Americans. White football and other sports notables have run afoul of the law but there is no known Imus statement linking their misdeeds to their race. But he did it with Jones.
Imus and Citadel Broadcasting must issue an immediate public apology for the racially offensive remark and Citadel must issue a public reprimand of Imus.
Citadel promised that when it brought Imus back to the airwaves it would closely monitor his on-air conduct and statements. If Citadel is true to its word it will issue the apology and a public reprimand of Imus.

Sincerely,

Earl Ofari Hutchinson
President
Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable
CC: Mitch Dolan, WABC Director and President Citadel Broadcast Corp. Station Operations

Huckabee’s Admonition Not to Demonize Obama Will Fall on Deaf Ears
Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Former Republican Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee sternly warned the GOP that demonizing Barack Obama won’t work and it would be a big blunder to even try. Huckabee issued the warning because he’s worried that in going negative against Obama the GOP risks voter backlash. Obama’s rival John McCain agrees. He has repeatedly pledged that his campaign will be clean.
McCain’s clean campaign vow and Huckabee’s warning against going negative won’t mean much too some GOP-connected 527 independent expenditure committees (uncharitably hit squads). Under an IRS loophole independent expenditure committees can get funds from any source with no limit. They can spend the money pretty much anyway they want. The instant it became clear that Obama would likely get the Democratic nod a few independent committees swung into action. They ran campaign ads in a couple of primary states knocking him for his tie to his controversial former pastor Jeremiah Wright and questioned his patriotism. When things really heat up in the fall, the committees will have a mini-Fort Knox storehouse of privately funneled dollars to slam Obama on any and every big, petty, and almost always personal attack, issue they choose. Other than publicly disavowing any of the digs that hit Obama below the belt, McCain can’t do anything about them.
The question, though, is does demonizing a candidate really work? The two best known examples are the Willie Horton hit against Democratic presidential contender Michael Dukakis in 1988 and the Swift Boat blindside of Democratic presidential contender John Kerry in 2004. One stoked the fears of crime (Dukakis). The other planted doubts about character (Kerry). In both instances, they worked.
Even without these extreme cases, there’s evidence that going negative can work. Though surveys show that the overwhelming majority of voters abhor personal smears against candidates and are turned off by them, far too many voters also can be influenced by the negative stuff they hear about a candidate. The trick to implant the negative belief is that the ads must be directly linked to the candidate’s political position on the issues, style or even personality. In April the GOP-connected Legacy Committee loudly announced that it planned to hammer Obama as being soft on crime in attack ads in several states.
The committee tied this softer version of the Horton attack on him directly to his vote in the Illinois state legislature against expanding the death penalty for gang related murders. The law was superfluous and political pandering since there were already tough laws on the books that proscribed the death penalty for these types of atrocious crimes. And Obama has publicly stated his support of the death penalty for certain “heinous” crimes including gang related murders.
Yet, Obama’s vote, and the fact that he’s a liberal Democrat, gave the hit committee just enough of a hook to hinge their ad on and hope that the soft on crime tag on him would stick. In the fall, the committees almost certainly will dredge up some of the old stuff about Wright, Obama’s youthful self-admitted drug use, and financial dealings with convicted Chicago financier Tony Rezko They will once more mangle out of context, or flat out manufactured, quips by his wife Michelle about racial matters.
The more highbrow committees will work him over as being too liberal and too soft on national security concerns (with more subtle digs at his patriotism). Then there's the inexperience label that Obama's been saddled with from the start of his campaign. That will be tossed out repeatedly with the hope that it will imprint him as a greenhorn who will bumble and stumble on policy issues if entrusted with the highest office; in other words a Democratic version of Bush.
The one potential hit issue that the committees will tread gingerly on is race. It has derailed a few black candidates in past elections that were thought to be shoo-in winners in head to head contests with white opponents. But though race was brought up with Michelle, it won’t be used against him. It’s simply too sensitive and risky a ploy and would likely backfire anyway. Obama has not made an issue of race. Indeed, the appeal of his candidacy has been its all inclusive message. The majority of voters would likely be outraged if race was made an issue.


Obama and McCain have on occasion talked about reining in the 527 committees. In part they want to do it to make sure they control the themes and message of their campaigns, and in part to make sure that donor dollars flow directly from their supporters to their campaigns. But both also know how the rules of campaign spending work. One rule is that anyone can form an expenditure committee, raise funds, and spend the money pretty much the way they want.
Huckabee then can admonish the hit committees not to demonize Obama all he wants. Unfortunately, his admonition will fall on deaf ears.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).

The Silly Debate Over Whether Obama is Black or Mixed Race
Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Presumptive Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama gave the best answer to the question whether he’s black, mixed race or something in between. He recently told a Chicago fundraiser crowd that to some he wasn’t black enough, and he then promptly added
that others say he might be too black. He’s right, the knock against him has either been that he is too black or not black enough, not that he is too mixed race or not mixed race enough. Despite his occasional references to his white mother and grandmother, Obama by his own admission has never seen himself as anything other than being black. He says it has been that way since he was 12. It’s that way for those whites who flatly say that they won’t vote for him because he’s black. His Democratic primary losses to Hillary Clinton in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Kentucky showed there are legions of white voters who feel that race does matter to them. Few have said that they oppose him because he’s mixed race.
Yet, the silly debate continues to rage over whether Obama is the black presidential candidate or the multi racial candidate. The debate is even sillier when one considers that science has long since debunked the notion of a pure racial type. In America, race has never been a scientific or genealogical designation, but a political and social designation. Put bluntly, anyone with the faintest trace of African ancestry was and still is considered black, and treated accordingly. Their part white ancestry doesn’t give them a pass from taxis refusing to stop for them, clerks following them in department stores, from being racial profiled by police on street corner stops, from landlords refusing to show them an apartment, or being denied a promotion. The mixed race designation doesn’t magically make disappear the countless other racial sleights and indignities that are tormenting reminders that race still does matter, and matter a lot to many Americans.
Indeed, from the moment that Obama tossed his hat in the presidential rink a year ago, the mantra of the press and the public has been, “Is America ready for a black president?” Not “Is America ready for a mixed race president?” The equally incessant mantra is that Obama if elected will make history as America’s first black president not the first mixed race president.
That tells much about the still frozen public attitudes and perceptions about race and politics in America. The deepest part of America’s racial fault has always been and still remains the black and white divide. This has spawned legions of vile but durable racial stereotypes, fears, and antagonisms. Black males have been the special target of the negative typecasting. They’ve routinely been depicted as crime prone, derelict, sexual menaces, and chronic underachievers. There are slightly more than 6 million persons that self-identify themselves as mixed race in America. The number of persons with a black and white parent is a minuscule less that one half of one percent.
By contrast, African-Americans (mixed or not) number more than forty million in America and make up about twelve percent of the population. The designation then of “mixed race” is so new, benign and amorphous it softens racial attitudes and dilutes racial hostility. It carries none of the negative racial baggage that black or African-American does.
This is the big reason that scores of blacks have been frenzied over Obama’s candidacy. They have turned out in record numbers in some primaries and have given his candidacy the greatest boost forward. They have been unabashed in saying that they back him with passion and fervor because he is black. It’s hard to imagine that they’d cheer him with the same passion if he touted himself as a mixed race candidate. The thrill and pride for them is that a black man could beat the racial odds against blacks and scale the political heights.
The stock line is that Obama’s candidacy shows how far America has come in that a black man has a real shot at grabbing the top elected spot in the land. No one says that Obama’s candidacy shows how far America has come in that a mixed race man can win the White House. If Obama does win the presidency the new line will be that it shows not just how far America has come on race (meaning racial attitudes toward blacks), but that America has finally arrived on race (meaning racial attitudes toward blacks). Substituting mixed race for black would not have the same meaning or significance to blacks or whites.
If Obama grabs the White House, he’ll claim it as a triumph for all Americans. Many blacks will claim it as a triumph for them. They’ll both be right.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).

Obama Assassination Exhibit May Be a Hoax, But Fears of Assassination are Real
Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Hoax, cheap stunt, crank, crackpot, racist, and sick, were the apt terms tossed at so-called artist Yazmany Arboleda for his grotesquely named near exhibit, "The Assassination of Hillary Clinton & The Assassination of Barack Obama, " at a midtown New York store front. Near only because Secret Service agents and NYPD officials quickly moved in and yanked down and carted away the assorted painted nooses and the garish pictures of Obama from the building. The exhibit may have been a crackpot stunt but it did again point to the real fear that legions quietly whisper and openly voice about the danger of physical violence to Obama. This is not a paranoid or false fear.
This year that marks the fortieth anniversary of the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Robert F. Kennedy, and the forty fifth anniversary of JFK’s assassination. The three icons represented the best and brightest in leaders, and stirred the hope and longing of millions for change, and a full throttle fight against poverty and racial injustice. These are the exact qualities that Obama symbolizes to millions. But in some ways the luster on Obama’s star at this stage of his career out shines that of King and the Kennedys. Unlike the Kennedys he’s an African-American. Unlike King he’s the first African-American presidential candidate that could win. And unlike King and the Kennedys he has drawn an instant global throng of admirers who see in him the embodiment of change and a fresh direction for US policy on the war and the easing of global tensions. He’s also seen as a potential president who can put a diverse, humane face on American foreign policy.
But these are also the very same qualities that stir the deep fury, hatred and resentment among a handful of loose screwed malcontents and hate mongers. The thick list of fringe and hate groups as well as the hordes of unbalanced violence prone individuals running loose in America can fill a telephone book. The long history of hate violence in America further is more than enough to raise the antenna on the danger of violence against prominent political figures.

The first troubling hint of this with Obama came virtually from the moment that he announced in February 2007 that he was a presidential candidate. The personal death threats quickly began flooding in to his campaign. Obama had the dubious distinction of being the earliest presidential contender to be assigned Secret Service protection on the campaign trail. That didn’t satisfy some. Mississippi Congressman Bennie Thompson fired off a letter to Secret Service officials practically demanding that the Secret Service provide all the resources and personnel it could to insure Obama and the other presidential candidates safety. Thompson didn’t say exactly what prompted him to fret over whether the Secret Service was doing all it could to protect the candidates, but almost certainly Thompson heard the whispers and nervous questions from his constituents about Obama’s safety.
As the crowds grew bigger at Obama rallies and his public visibility grew even greater, the Secret Service increased the number of agents assigned to guard him. The ramp up in protection was a good move. At the same time, Obama campaign aides and volunteers continued to report occasional racial taunts and jibes when they passed out literature and pitched Obama in some areas. This further increased the jitters that Obama was at risk. As the showdown with John McCain heats up in the coming months, the flood of crank, crackpot, and screwball threats that promise murder and mayhem toward Obama almost certainly will continue to pour in. This just as certainly will prompt the Secret Service to tighten security and take even more elaborate measures to insure his safety. The Secret Service, of course, must spare no effort to make sure he’s fully protected.
That won’t totally ease the fears about his safety. But it will show that the government is doing everything humanly possible to insure his safety. That’s especially important given the deep doubt and even paranoid suspicion that some blacks have that shadowy government agencies were knee deep complicit in the assassination of King, and the fervent belief of millions of other Americans that the CIA or other shadowy government agencies were deeply complicit in the killing, if not outright murder of JFK.
Obama was one year old when JFK was killed. He was six years old when King and Kennedy were slain. But he well knows the horrid violent history of America and the very real danger that violence poses to a charismatic presidential candidate who energizes and excites millions and who promises political change and implicitly racial change. He can easily laugh off a phony, self-serving stunt such as an assassination exhibit, but he can’t laugh off the danger to presidents and those who aspire to be presidents of that violence.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).

Saber rattling the Saudis Won’t Bring Gas Prices Down
Earl Ofari Hutchinson


Predictably, Senate Democrats saber rattle threat to block an arms deal to the Saudis unless it pumps out another million barrels of oil went nowhere. The Saudi rattle is fueled by a mix of anger, frustration, desperation, and most importantly politics. It’s an election year and strapped motorists are screaming at politicians to do something, anything, to give them some gas price relief. But Senate Democrats showpiece gesture was doomed from the start. Even if they meant what they said the Royal Kingdom would simply buy the arms somewhere else. But that’s not necessary anyway. The Kingdom literally has the U. S. over two barrels. The first is the most obvious. About ten percent of the petroleum guzzled daily in the US comes from Saudi Arabia. That’s about fifteen percent of U.S. imports.
It was almost laughable to watch the Saudis throw up their hands in mock resignation when Bush on his two recent visits to the Kingdom asked them to increase production. Short of a U.S. takeover of the Saudi oil fields Bush’s request was simply a political feel good gesture. Bush officials desperately need Saudi oil. In fact, U.S. dependency on Saudi oil is greater now than it was before the 9/11 attacks, and this mocks Bush's claim that the U.S. can and will at least any time soon wean itself off Saudi oil, or dictate to the Saudi's how they should run their government or diplomatic policy.
It’s not just the U.S. that’s in oil hock to the Saudis. Western Europe, China, Japan and India's glutinous appetite for oil continues to grow. The Energy Department estimates that it will take up to 120 million barrels per day by 2025 to satisfy that appetite. Over one-fourth of this added oil will come from the Saudis.
Meanwhile, the U.S. occasionally will talk tough to the Saudis about speeding up democratic reforms, and cracking down on Muslim fundamentalist groups. That's more bluster mostly for media and public consumption.
If anything, Bush’s visits to the Kingdom sent a huge signal that the U.S. will do everything it can to placate the Saudi regime. The reason is simple. The much hoped for new oil sources that could break the U.S. dependency on Saudi oil have not panned out. The rivers of oil the U.S. boasted would flow into the tanks of America's gas-guzzlers after Saddam Hussein was dumped are a pipedream. Post-Saddam Iraq has shown no sign that it can produce the six million barrels projected by 2010. Currently it barely squeezes out two million barrels a day. Nigeria and Russia are mired in corruption and mismanagement, and Venezuela is government non grata to Bush. Libya, even with the softening of relations with the U.S., doesn't have the oil reserves to meet the U.S.'s bloated needs. Its reserves are about one sixth of Saudi Arabia's.
American oil executives have hammered the Bush administration and Congress to scrap environmental and land protections to tap the millions of barrels in oil reserves believed nestled in shale deposits off the coast and in the frozen ground on Alaska's North Slope. Those millions may or may not be there. It will take big improvements in exploration and drilling technology, as well as beating back environmentalists' challenges to determine the real oil potential of the North Slope and the sea.
While the U.S. is the still the world's most rapacious oil user, China and India have come on strong, and are willing to court the Saudi's and pay top dollar for the oil they need to fuel their industrial boom. The Saudi's can and will play both nations off against the U.S. With oil prices smashing new records every day that means billions more in the Saudi coffers.

The second barrel the Saudis have the U.S. over is the always durable and convenient threat of Iran and more Middle East turmoil. The Saudis are still the most dependable and consistent watchdog and Arab counter balance to Iran, and the U.S.’s perennial helpmate to safeguard regional stability. But there’s a Catch 22 in that for the Saudis and the U.S. The Saudi royal family runs the Kingdom as a tight knit, autocracy. It's fair game for both homegrown and foreign Muslim extremists and fundamentalists. A renewed internal insurgency could shake the regime. That could deepen anti-American sentiment in the country, and open the door wide to more terrorist attacks. Even without a Saudi regime shift or change, the anger and hostility toward U.S. policy in Iraq and the U.S.’s rock solid support of Israel, prevent the Saudi government from totally publicly realigning its policies with the U.S. Oil is and always will be the Saudi’s main weapon to keep the U.S. at arms length publicly while embracing it politically to maintain its power, security—and obscene wealth.
The talk by Congress of lawsuits, killing arms deals, and presidential visits and pleadings to the Saudis for oil relief will be just that empty talk; talk that will continue to fall on deaf Saudi ears. The U.S. dependency on Saudi oil will grow even greater, and unfortunately so will gas prices.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).

The second of two parts:
Pt 1 How McCain Can Win the White House
Pt 2 How Obama Can Win the White House
How Obama Can Win the White House
Earl Ofari Hutchinson

A Pew Research Poll Center Poll in early May found that "inspiring," " fresh," "change," and "visionary" was not the word that voters said best described Obama. The word was "inexperienced." Republican presidential contender John McCain has made this and the boast that he’s the best on national security, the terrorist fight and defense preparedness his attack mantra against Obama.
Obama can parry the attack by turning the table and proclaiming that his lack of national and especially international experience is a positive. That he'll bring fresh ideas and approaches to statecraft that replace the old, tired, and failed polices of recent times. But that’s not enough. He must choose and choose carefully a vice presidential running mate who is every bit the tough guy on national security, the war on terrorism and defense preparedness that McCain claims to be. Then he must convince voters that he will back up his pledge to bring an honorable and workable end to the Iraq war.
But it’s still Bush and the GOP’s domestic fumbles that are potentially his biggest selling point. He must repeatedly remind voters that they should be mad at Bush and the GOP for the bungle of the economy, his draconian tax giveaway to the wealthy and corporate interests, his gut of environmental and civil liberties protections, and his Medicare prescription drug benefit bill that lined the pockets of pharmaceutical companies and eroded Medicare coverage and protections. He must adeptly remind women's groups that the GOP will continue to wage a relentless war against abortion rights. He must remind gay groups that top GOP politicians are staunch opponents of gay marriage, and are likely to continue to fight hard against stronger civil rights protections for gays.
He must make the ringing call by the Democrats for party unity more than a feel-good, politically correct self-assuring call. This means repairing the deep polarization among Democratic voters, or more particularly, the hardliners who backed Clinton and are wary if not hostile to him. He must make an all out effort to convince white blue collar and rural whites that an Obama White House will aggressively battle against soaring gas prices, home foreclosures, job losses, plant closures, the erosion of farm supports and to implement affordable health care and a McCain White House won’t. He must make an equally all out effort to convince Latinos that an Obama White House will just as aggressively fight for immigration reform and affordable health care, and a McCain White House won’t.
Obama must turn the campaign for the White House into a holy crusade among black and Latino voters. The enthusiasm of black voters for Obama and Latino voters for Clinton was sky high in the primaries and the numbers that turned out were near record setting. The bellwether for that was Obama’s smash victory in the South Carolina primary in January. More than a half million Democrats voted. That was nearly twice the Democratic turnout of 2004 and almost 20 percent higher than the Republican vote the week before. Blacks make up more than half of the Democratic vote in the state. In California, Latinos make up nearly 30 percent of the voters and had a higher than average turnout in the Super Tuesday primary in February.
He must make sure that those near record numbers that flooded the polls in the primaries flood the polls in near record or better yet record numbers in the fall election. He must turn part of his campaign into a bully pulpit to speak out on the need for vigilance on voting rights and civil rights protections, the need for tougher and expanded hate crimes laws, and the repeal of the racially skewed mandatory drug laws. He must boldly call for increased funding for underserved inner city schools, and for combating the HIV/AIDS plague, greater funding for minority business, and the appointment of Supreme Court and federal judges committed to protect civil rights and civil liberties.
He risks little in aggressively championing civil rights and going all out to ramp up the black and Latino vote turnout especially in the South. There's little chance that he can break the strong grip Republicans have on white male votes in those states. Polls show they likely will still be McCain’s biggest and most enthusiastic backers in the South.
Finally, Obama must convince a significant number of swing state independent voters that he is the real change alternative to McCain in handling the war, the economy, health care, immigration and energy issues, and is centrist enough to convince them that he is as tough on terrorism and as big an advocate of a strong military as McCain.
That's a tall, but very doable, order but he can win the White House by filling it.

New America Media National Political Writer Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).

The first of a two parts:
Pt 1 How McCain Can Win the White House
Pt 2 How Obama Can Win the White House

How McCain Can Win the White House
Earl Ofari Hutchinson
In a talk with reporters in Louisiana, Republican presidential contender John McCain implored disgruntled Hillary Democrats to back him. His pitch was I’m the toughest, most knowledgeable and most experienced on national security. The unmistakable inference is that rival Obama is too green, fresh, and untested to gamble with on national security. McCain’s aim was to lop off disgruntled Hillary Democrats. But it also staked out what he must do to win the White House.
The terrorism issue is still a McCain election trump card. Many Americans think there could be a terrorist attack on American soil at some point in the future. Those who think that are susceptible to McCain's pitch that he can best defend the nation's security and with America under mortal danger from a terror attack, that it's risky to change to the Democrats.
This isn’t enough. McCain must duck the economic mess Bush made by pushing his economic plan that calls for lowering the corporate income tax rate, more tax breaks for business, and making Bush’s tax cuts permanent. Though it looks a lot like Bush’s plan, McCain can spin it his way with the standard GOP line that his plan is pro-growth, in contrast to the shop worn tax and spend Democrat’s approach to growth. This still has tremendous reverb with wide segments of American voters.
He can claim that his plan will save homes from foreclosure, spark business growth, and create more jobs. He can remind voters that Reagan economic policies sparked the economic boom of the 1980s and his updated version of supply side economic policies is a mirror reflection of Reagan’s. This gives him the hook he needs to boast that Americans will reap rewards with his economic policies
McCain must openly and subtly stoke middle and working class workers’ disdain for liberal solutions to problems. Only a minority of American voters call themselves liberal. The Republican's repeated smear of the Democrats as tax and spend, liberal big government proponents still strikes a chord with millions of voters.
McCain must contest the Latino vote. His name has been mentioned countless times in the Spanish-language press and most of the time the mention was favorable. Many Latinos look benignly on him because he broke with the GOP’s hardliner stance and backed immigration reform along with Senate Democrats.
McCain doesn’t have to top or even match Bush’s total with Latinos to push the Democrats. All he needs to do is get a quarter of the Latino vote in the key Western swing states of Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico, and that might be more than enough to move the states to the GOP camp—again. Even before Bush’s massive court of Latino voters in 2004, they gave Republicans a quarter of their vote and in some places such as Florida did far better
McCain must stress that the Iraq war is not a totally losing proposition for Americans. A significant percentage still think a change in strategy, tactics, and direction in the war can if not bring victory at least bring a satisfactory peace. McCain will have a parade of generals, defense experts, and the defense industry to help him sell that position to millions of voters.

McCain needs a fractured Democratic Party. Exit polls in the bruising Clinton and Obama Democratic primary battles showed that the bruises are firmly tattooed on some fervent Clinton backers. Nearly a quarter, mostly blue collar, rural, and non-college educated whites, said they would vote for McCain or stay home if the nominee were Obama. And since he is the nominee, if many mean what they say, McCain is the big winner with them.
The historic nomination of an African-American as the Democratic presidential standard bearer is applauded by many publicly but privately it raises doubts even dread among many others. McCain can’t and won’t stoke those racial fears. He doesn’t have to they’re already there and that’s a campaign plus for him.
Then there’s the issue of how many voters turnout for the Democrats and the GOP. Much is made that the Democrats scored near record turnouts in the number of voters and registration in their primaries in the winter of 2008 and that Republicans lagged way behind. Yet, in fairly recent presidential election history there was lower turnout and seemingly less enthusiasm in the Republican primaries in the election battles of Bush Sr. and Reagan. Both were still elected.
The variables that work for McCain against Obama are the war on terror, a victory spin on Iraq, the experience factor, the voter’s inherent fear of an untested candidate, the strong tradition in millions of households of voting for GOP candidates especially among male voters, a bickering, divided Democratic Party, and the X factor of race.
McCain can and will exploit these variables on the campaign trail. He can win the White House with them.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).