God only knows what Howard thinks he's going to accomplish with this foolishness

John Quiggen tries to explain.

That response ruled. I'm really warming up to Obama.

I sometimes think, "Americans like to vote action hero movie stars into office, and Americans hold Wesley Snipes style heros in highest regard. Therefore Obama is electable."

and Americans hold Wesley Snipes style heros in highest regard.

What? Snipes sucks. Can he even get work anymore?

"Wesley Snipes" s/b "infer what I'm trying to get at, because I dislike action movies."

Vin Diesel?

Replace "Wesley Snipes" with "Denzel Washington." Even hardcore rednecks dig Densel Washington.

Sweet.

I've long argued that Obama needs to play the Denzel Washington card as hard as humanly possible. Seriously, if he could walk into the convention with explosions in the background while holding a pistol and quoting clausewitz, he would win hands down.

It's true that the "I'd vote for him but America won't" argument is often a rhetorical maneuver that allows people to avoid confronting their own prejudices

Prejudices about African-Americans, or about America?

Right now, I'd vote for him no matter who is actually on the ballot. It's not often one gets a chance to piss off the Right, Aussies, and the Professional Arbiters of Adequate Blackness at the same time.

I meant the former, but probably both.

9: African-Americans.

9sb10.

13: Racist! All African-Americans do not walk around with explosions in the background quoting Clausewitz!

Damn. I was hoping to get that in before the correction.

Just to clarify, 13 was actually directed at 10, correct.

I actually believe the prejudices about average americans and prejudices about african americans are deeply and inseperably linked in that type of rhetoric.

15! Non-sensical! I don't even know what Clausewitz means!

(I see 16 but was going to post this anyway to keep the joke on a ventilator.)

17 is interesting. Like, triangulating yourself, African-Americans, and Average Joe, so that you don't actually have to confront your own prejudices?

I'm uncommitted as of today, but Obama's looking pretty good right now. These muscular but not over-the-top responses are what every Democrat should be practicing this year.

(You just know some wingnut is going to hit Obama with a bullshit "politics stops at the water's edge" line suggesting that Obama shouldn't be criticizing an important US ally like that...)

I love the characterization "muscular".

15: Maybe you African-Canadians don't, but all of my black friends certainly do. God I hate going to the movies with them.

19: I think pundits are so narcissistically concerned with seizing the "Average American" rhetorical high ground that their is no clear distinction in their minds between themselves and average americans. The average american is just themselves, shaved of their most "enlightened" conceits.

23.--Christ, yes. This is the problem with the media narrative about "electability": everyone triangulating like mad about who some imaginary stupid person led by their emotions would vote for. Reading Democratic primary voters talk themselves into circles over electability gets distressing after a while.

I really liked his wife in the 60 Minutes interview last night. Kroft asked if she worried about the same things Powell's wife worried about, i.e. a lone gunman, and she replied that as a black man he could get shot pumping gas, and you can't live your life in fear. Made me sit up and think twice about his chances.

22: Up in Canada we quote Sun Tzu. It's a subtle but important difference.

Up in Canada we quote Sun Tzu.

Yeah, "we." Do you really expect us to believe that there's more than one black person in Canada?

Few know about the secret Canadian plans to invade the U.S.

Every demographic is stupid on a few things. Unfortunately, when the media averages, somehow they end up with a patchwork man created from all the stupid pieces and none of the smart ones. It's a deeply disturbing process.

28:Without following the link, I only wish...

Questions about Obama's appeal to black voters are raised today by Steve Gilliard channeling Cornel West, and Salon in an article about losing a congressional race on the South Side of Chicago.

I really don't feel entitled to tell blacks what to think about Obama.

I'll take any opportunity to link this picture.

Whee chauvinism!

Speaking of lonely travelling soldiers:

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/bush_commits_one_additional_troop

30: In that 60 Minutes interview, when questioned about his blackness, Barack said something like, "No one seems confused about that when I'm trying to catch a cab."

I really don't feel entitled to tell blacks what to think about Obama.

That's probably all to the good, as I don't recall hearing any of them ask you what they should think.

34: I think some of my friends may have asked me between Clausewitz quotes, but it got drowned out by the explosions in the background and I'm afraid they might think me presumptuous if I ask now.

Were they pumping gas?

I personally think that Obama is far too slender and well-groomed. Also, too fucking articulate. I'd still vote for him, though.

27: Either there's at least three of us, or I have MPD. I'm not ruling out either possibility.

That line in 33 is awesome if true.

Were they pumping gas?

No, but they sure were earning their money that day.

28: That Defence Scheme No. 1 is listed in the category "Military history of Canada." Who knew?

(Actually, there's more in the category than one would think; it's even longer than the category "Nixon's Friends.")

He really said that line about catching a cab? Hell, I'm writing him in if I have to.

Remember Clinton's enterance at the 2000 convention, with the camera following his approach? I think Obama should do that, only there should be hostile thugs in the way, so he fights his way in, displaying martial arts prowess, then slips on a clean shirt and tie while entering the arena to huge pyrotechnics.

You can see the 60 Minutes interview here, and yes, he really said that about catching a cab.

That Defence Scheme No. 1 is listed in the category "Military history of Canada." Who knew?

(Actually, there's more in the category than one would think...

That time they kicked Madison's pillaging imperialist ass all the way back to the White House, which they then set on fire, comes to mind.

So people are always talking about how they want liberals to hit back, fight fire with fire, and so on.

Obama's comment is a beautiful example of how to do that right. Not to mimic the petulance or psychosis of the right, and not to issue turgid position papers which the candidate thinks somehow "counter" a bad spin.

Hit back with a very quotable, pithy statement that nevertheless hits hard. More importantly, wait for the OTHER GUY to act like an asshole or a whiner-baby. Don't just swing away rhetorically like a wild man, or escalate a trivial insult with a discursive atomic bomb.

I dunno about anything else, but Obama gets props for his sure footing in the game of quote and counter-quote, for sure.

I dunno about anything else, but Obama gets props for his sure footing in the game of quote and counter-quote, for sure.

He's starting to win me over in just this way, too.

He's been using that cab line for years.

OK, young, limited government experience, never hired or managed significant numbers of people, but damn he's making all the right moves.

He's been using that cab line for years.

And? MLK did versions of the "I have a dream" speech forever. William Jennings Bryan, ffs, went from coast to coast refusing to be crucified on a cross of gold.

It's a good line. Use it.

Just saw something that reminded me: Amadou Diallo isn't "black" either.

The Canadians and the racist Danes are engaged in a hostile confrontation as we speak. Every time the ice near Greenland melts a little further, there's a territorial dispute.

Don't underestimate the racist Danes. Their long slumber is over. The British are lucky that they're targetting hapless Canada instead of York.

Louima either.

46 - It's catnip to the ladies, so why not use what works? He also has asked America if our daddy was a thief.

Soon, he'll be busting out Ol' Reliable.

50: The Canadians are also looking covetuously at all that wonderful shipping traffic that will be using the Northwest Passage some time in the next few decades. Time to dust off those invasion plans....

He also has asked America if our daddy was a thief.

Oh no! Obama, it's over between us!

Aaron Burr tried to invade Canada. He's pretty universally hated. Probably some contrarian has already claimed him.

There is an Aaron Burr society, but they don't seem serious.

Apropos of very little, shivbunny once explained "manifest destiny" to me as "the idea that Americans were going to take over Canada."

Screw the cab thing, I like his response to the question about whether someone so young, inexperienced, and African-American can learn on the job. Excuse? What does race have to do with that?

And I'll take young, (relatively) inexperienced, and smart over young, almost completely inexperienced, stupid, and demonstrably incompetent any day of the week.

Seems more likely that Canada is just going to become America.

When it does, though, will it really be American? After all, it has a completely different historical experience.

The more I think about Dickerson's argument, the more it pisses me off.

Eh?

58: Absolutely. I'm just trying to pretend that I've weighed his negatives and made a considered decision, rather than getting seduced by the idea that we could have Bill Clinton's intellect and political skills in a guy who actually has some discipline AND local boy makes good all at once.

You can write "mrsbarackobama" on your notebook, too, DaveL, we won't tell.

"African-African-American" really is Death by Hyphenation in the worst way. And in light of things like Diallo there's something truly indecent about all these fine splittings of identity.

I wasn't attacking him for it. Sheesh.

"things like Diallo" s/b "cases like Diallo"

"things like Diallo" s/b "cases like Diallo"

Racist!

The most recent invasion of Canada that amounted to something was by the Fenians, in 1867. The idea was to hold it ransom for Ireland! A military force crossed at Niagara Falls and were met on the outskirts by the Queen's Own Light Infantry, a Canadian militia unit, down from Toronto. The Fenians, almost all of whom were Civil War veterans, did better on the battlefield, and the Queens Own withdrew in disorder. But the fact of resistance did the trick, and the Fenians melted back across the border.

They don't call the elegant 1917 structure spanning the gorge "The Peace Bridge" for nothing.

64: Well, I did send him some money, but I don't think he's that kind of girl.

Ok, if you're thinking of Louima and Diallo then yes, her argument seems shitty. OTOH, it's not like poor immigrants who aren't black get respectful and fair treatment by cops.

But what, in all honesty, Ogged, bugs you about D's point that a big part of Obama's appeal as a candidate is that he is (1) black; and (2) not really black? She's just unpacking the ideas behind Biden's statement. Which I'd be willing to bet is pretty close to what a lot--not all, by any means--of middle- and upper-middle class white voters think: that Obama is an attractive candidate because his discourse and background seem unaffected by his skin color.

"because" s/b "in part because."

41: Hopefully he won't don the shirt so smoothly and quickly that we won't get at least a glimpse of his muscular, um, rhetoric.

57-40 or fight!

Personally, I like this idea that you can't be a legitimate presidential candidate unless you have a higher than room temperature IQ and are able to speak in complete, coherent sentences. I think we should extend it to white candidates.

Though looking further upthread, "54-40 or fight!" kinda works too, plus there's that whole accuracy in citation thing.

not really black

That bothers me, because I can't imagine a meaning for Dickerson's "really black" that isn't stupid and racist. Does the descendant of slaves cease being "really black" if he speaks standard american english and has moderate-left political views? Presumably not. Would whites be barred from feeling good about another racial hurdle cleared if they voted for that man? Presumably not. So what's the significance of Obama's ancestry supposed to be?

75: Amen.

71:Thank god, b. Did anyone go to Gilliard? Is he or Cornel West not credible on black politics?

If You Don't Understand Black Politics ...Gilliard

I am not going to say Obama isn't "black enough" but I will certainly listen to what blacks have to say about Obama. Whether it should matter to me is another question...

But the announcement in Springfield to a mostly white crowd? What is that?

Hell, I will quote Gilliard:

"What people are wary iof are candidates like Ford, Corey Booker and Denise Majette. They had tremendous white support and black voters wondered who they would serve in office. These people seemed to be picked by others

The fact that Obama's announcement had a sea of white faces did little to inspire confidence among black voters. There has been a decades search for a mailable black politician who keeps blacks in place but serves the interests of whites."

"But the announcement in Springfield to a mostly white crowd? What is that?"

A nice start. Appealing strongly to the largest segment in the American electorate - not a bad way to run. (Less snarkily, a signal that he is not running as a black candidate but as a candidate who is black.)

Anyone know how he's polling among Hispanic voters?

What bothers me about it, though I'm not willing to attribute this to Dickerson, is the nearby implicit assumption that if someone goes to Harvard and Columbia (or plays tennis), he isn't really black. And while for some sense of "black", meaning "hasn't had a typical black experience", that is certainly true, it does seem to come worryingly close to identifying "black" with "not middle class and successful." That seems worrisome to me, but all that I think that follows from it is to use some other formulation besides "black/not black" when talking about Obama's heritage. (That, or shutting up about it, MSM.)

You may all proceed to call me racist. I'm not trying to be, I just don't know how to spell this out precisely.

Does the descendant of slaves cease being "really black" if he speaks standard american english and has moderate-left political views?

Hm. I'm hoping we can actually talk about this without too much digression b/c it's an interesting question.

I think two things: first, Obama being a second-generation immigrant (I think) means that if, like a lot of immigrants, his class background is one of relative privilege, wealth, and education, that right there gives him a lot of advantages that most American blacks have been legally prevented from having. So there's that. The second thing is, your "presumably not" is potentially mistaken, right? I mean, we're all aware of how tokenism and exceptionalism work: the whole, "oh, you're not like the other ones" thing. I think it's fair to say that Biden's comment, for instance, was saying precisely that.

OTOH, it's to Obama's credit that he's actively refusing that sort of thing (and I think that his "I knew what Joe meant" comment, btw, wasn't intended to absolve Biden, but to faintly condemn him). And when push comes to shove, I'm not a fan of the "you're not like the others" argument. But at the same time, it's legit to point out that (say) Hillary isn't a typical woman, that she's gotten where she is in part b/c of her husband's success, that Caitlin Flanagan's claim to represent stay-home moms is bullshit, given that she's got a nanny and a maid and writes for the NYT, etc. And, thinking along those lines, it's true that Obama has never (to my knowledge) denied his difference, either.

So anyway, I don't think that the authenticity question is so much about him, per se, as it is about what our fucked-up ideas of "authentic" blackness are. Which is what you're saying. But then again, those *are* our ideas (albeit fucked-up); college-bound black kids *do* have to struggle with the oreo label.

I think I'm coming around to your view that Dickerson is, effectively, perpetuating this rather than identifying it while pointing out how fucked up it is. But I do still want to grant her commentary some respect as an articulation of a real problem.

77: Well at the risk of opening up more bad 3/5 jokes, it's the notion that a person's identity has some hysteresis to it--that how they got here is wrapped up in their being in a way that cannot be denoted with a just few simple parameters like (African descent; dark skin; can't hail a cab easily). He was not raised by African-Americans, and he hasn't dealt with the knowledge that his ancestors came here as slaves. I don't particularly know what that's like and I'm guessing you don't either, Ogged. But I recall reading about how massively emotional watching Roots was for a swathe of Black America, or how emotional it was for Black actors to put on shackles and take on the role of slaves. So I'm guessing that somehow, it means something--a lot--for most Black Americans, and some of them (Dickerson) have a hard time harmonizing their resulting notion of blackness with Obama's.

I'm curious why you are so pissed off--Dickerson seemed very clear that she did not mean it as a put down. I think it's annoying that she's questioning his self-identity, which has some basis, and that she's doing it now, but it does seem like she's only condensing what a lot of people have been noting in aside.

80: Gilliard points are more specific than (what I know of) Dickerson's and would seem stronger to me.

I think Gilliard is obviously correct that Obama needs to not take the black vote for granted, and to show some sign that he takes black political issues seriously. OTOH I wouldn't carp about every conference the guy misses, because he does have to put it out there that he cares about the greater electorate and not just one segment of it. His announcement reflects that and isn't necessarily a bad thing.

If the black political establishment doesn't think Obama is black enough, fine, they don't have to vote for him in the primary.

Believing Obama ...Ezra is all over Obama's today case on charges of vagueness and over-conciliation.

Ezra's is pretty much an Edward's site now, tho Ezra is undeclared I think. But the complaints about Obama to me imply doubts about his economic populism.

Will Obama try to find the happy medium on health care and entitlement reform between upper-middle class Democrats and upper middle class Republicans?

82: I think you're confusing present conditions (typical black experience versus Obama's Harvard and Columbia education) with histories. I don't recall Dickerson commenting on his present state at all. She was commenting entirely on his ancestry and his family history, no? So that goes back to the idea that identy has wrapped up in it some complex information about the path leading up to that point, and that slave ancestry is a very important part of that history.

Does the descendant of slaves cease being "really black" if he speaks standard american english and has moderate-left political views? Presumably not. Would whites be barred from feeling good about another racial hurdle cleared if they voted for that man? Presumably not. So what's the significance of Obama's ancestry supposed to be?

Because there's a difference between 'standard American English' and 'English with absolutely no indication that the speaker was brought up culturally African American'? George Bush's faux-Texan routine is further away from standard newscaster English than Al Sharpton's speech patterns are -- Bush's cultural markers aren't a problem because being Texan isn't a disfavored mark of low status, but Sharpton's (again, just talking about his speech patterns) are because being African American is disfavored. Saying that Obama speaks standard American English misnames the distinction between him and a politician who Dickerson would recognize as 'black' -- while the latter almost certainly also speaks standard American English (or come as close to it as many white politicians) they telegraph their cultural identity as African Americans in the same way Bush telegraphs his cultural identity as a Texan. Obama, on the other hand, wasn't raised African American, and so doesn't telegraph that cultural affiliation.

Dickerson's point, as I understood it, is that there is racism focused on the cultural markers of being African American, cultural markers which Obama doesn't share, and so any discussion of the racial implications of his candidacy should recognize that he's not going to run into some racial barriers because he doesn't come from the African American culture that racists think ill of.

79: Bob's Gilliard link is better than this discussion we're having about theory. If it's true that Obama has little record of actually supporting policies or laws important to black voters, then that's a legitimate reason to object to him (though admittedly not the objection Dickerson raised).

84: He was not raised by African-Americans, and he hasn't dealt with the knowledge that his ancestors came here as slaves.

I think someone mentioned in the other thread that in the bygone Sixties, pan-African ideology tended to regard the experiences of slavery and colonialism as roughly analogous, or at least comparable. It's a defensible practice and preferable, in a lot of ways, to the identity-parsing that Dickerson engages in. After all, it's certainly not like African immigrants are coming from a continent with some kind enormously impressive recent history and prestige, however (relatively) privileged a few of them may be.

90: Okay, I'll have to watch the video again when I'm less busy, but when was Dickerson objecting? I recall her specfically not objecting to Obama himself, or his candidacy.

What specifically about Bill and Hillary Clinton's record on racial issues--as far as public policies as opposed to an usual degree of comfort level with black voters--is thought to be so good? Genuine question...

(So Obama announced in Springfield. I wonder how Steve Gilliard would react to him leaving the campaign trail to preside over the Rector execution?)

92: I think that's right -- she was nothing but positive about Obama, she was only saying that it was somewhere between premature and misleading to look at his candidacy as a black milestone.

It's a defensible practice and preferable, in a lot of ways, to the identity-parsing that Dickerson engages in.

I don't know. I'm also the descendent of the victims of colonization--but relatively priveleged ones. I'm a lot darker than Obama. I do not feel comfortable telling a large group of Blacks that their understanding of what it means to be the descendant of slaves, and what that means to being Black, is less preferable to some other formulation.

And on the same count, I'm a little queasy with Dickerson telling Obama what to think, but I would have to frame my disagreement on his terms, not my separate 3rd party ones, if that makes any sense.

93: I'm very rusty on this stuff, but my impression is that Clinton's urban development programs were actually fairly appreciated by a lot of Black urban leaders.

For the record, and I think I have a record, I am not necessarily agreeing with either Gilliard or Ezra.
The particular church Obama attended impressed me from the stories, and his history as a community organizer supports his populism. I am just pointing out some questions.

I am also consumed with guilt about my white guilt.

Under other circumstances I would support Dickinson. The American "black vote" isn't the vote of people with certan genes. It's the vote of people with a common experience which correlates strongly with certain genes.

Every genetically black person in America has to deal with casual racism in public places, but that's not the whole common experience. Living in a black neighborhood with parents working stereotypically black jobs would be another part.

I have known individuals who were 1/4 --1/2 Native American who I would say are no Native American at all because they didn't have any of the cultural experience. One thought so herself, and refused to apply for affirmative action because to all intents and purposes she was middle-class suburban white.

I think Ogged's 77 is 100% wrong. What Dickerson says is anti-racist -- she denies that genes are the test.

In the Obama context, this is really a red herring though. What Gilliard and Dickinson are saying is that the black vote is NOT racist, and that it will not be decided by skin color. On the other hand, a lot of people (not Gilliard, probably not Dickerson) are talking about this just to cut Obama down.

I personally expect the black vote to be made on the basis of various factors, of which Obama's race or non-race will be one of the smaller.

So LB, just substitute "white" for "standard american english"--the point is that it becomes very dicey to try to define "culturally african american." And although "african-american culture" is certainly a fact, trying to put people in the proper category, particularly in the context of a political campaign, is just going to lead to people privileging some aspect of identity to make the groupings they want. Obama doesn't sound like a black guy (he does, actually, but I'll grant it for the moment), but he attends a black church, has a black wife, and was a community organizer in a black neighborhood. Who is anyone to say whether he's "really" black.

You know, bob, there are actually other African-Americans in the US than Gilliard. Some are even in Texas. You might even find some in a bar, and they might be willing to talk to you about this sort of thing. If you do go, ask them this, "If push came to hard shove, and the President was being pressured to roll over hard on African-Americans, who would you trust more: HRC or Obama?" I'm not sure what the most common answer would be today, but I feel pretty confident about what the answer will be the day before the primaries.

Or put it this way: It doesn't matter whether or not he's black. His kids are, and that's a likely limiting condition to his behavior.

"Because there's a difference between 'standard American English' and 'English with absolutely no indication that the speaker was brought up culturally African American'"

The latter isn't what Obama speaks. Not in his speeches anyway. In TV interviews he goes a bit wonky.

Klein, OTOH, is right. From the convention onward Obama played it incredibly safe; the first signs of changing that were last month. That's not going to be sufficient for him to win this thing. He can be conciliatory and talk about One America all he likes, but he's going to have to take clear stands that may be unpopular if all this rhetoric about a more moral politics is going to mean anything.

I have a sense that Edwards is running as more of a liberal than he actually is, and that since 2006 Obama has been running as more of a conciliatory centrist type than he actually is. But what starts out as a campaign strategy can become permanent--look at Hillary. We'll just have to wait and see.

99: Dude, I am just linking and informing. I honestly have no problems or criticisms of Obama at all, at all.

Other than my instinctive resistance to charisma.

since mid-2004 I mean.

I'm not getting 98. Are you saying that Dickerson's point (assuming I'm understanding her correctly) is mistaken as a matter of fact (which would include it being vague to the point of meaninglessness) or that there's something unsavory about making it even if it is correct?

. If it's true that Obama has little record of actually supporting policies or laws important to black voters, then that's a legitimate reason to object to him (though admittedly not the objection Dickerson raised).

What does "legitimate" mean here? Are you suggesting that white voters can--by putting themselves in the place of black voters--legitimately object to Obama for the sake of black voters? Or that black voters have to vote for Obama unless they can offer up that sort of justification? I'm pretty sure any voter can vote against him for reasons as specious as his jug-eared head.

Quite awhile back on Yglesias someone said that black Americans tend to vote Democratic because they think that Democrats are for the working man, and most blacks are working men (women).

A lot of black voters have good feelings about Bill, and Hilary will pick up some of that.

I don't think that this ever was going to be a straight color-of-skin vote. Obama doesn't campaign that way, and most black voters don't vote that way, and I doubt that Obama feels that he has that vote sewed up. In a lot of ways this is a fake, distraction, noise issue.

Yes. I think Dickerson made a fair point, but it's a point about what this campaign will mean in retrospect, not so much a reason to vote, or not to vote, for Obama.

103: Just that while there's a distinction to be made between black and non-black, we can't make it for someone who credibly self-identifies as one or the other.

Obama doesn't campaign that way, and most black voters don't vote that way

If you watch the 60 Minutes interview, Obama has a great line about how some people think that blacks are so unsophisticated that they vote for people based solely on their skin color, but he knows that that's not true...

Because 'black' is the wrong name for the category Dickerson is talking about that Obama doesn't belong to, or because it's offensive for Dickerson to claim that there is a socially important distinction between Obama and most Americans we'd call black?

109 to 107

In high school I had a posse of black classmates. (Like I said, I go with self-identification.) Most of them were classically Black, as Dickerson defines it. One, however, was the son of Nigerian immigrants. He had grown up in Oakland and had the local Black accent; if you did not know him well you would never have thought his parents were from Nigeria. He gave off all the cultural markers that Dickerson is talking about.

One day another black classmate, a girl, was going off about how her parents had just located another piece of the family tree. They had invested quite a bit of effort into figuring out their geneology--which planation which ancestor had come from, etc.. The Nigerian-American boy simply bathed her in contempt. I can't remember exactly how he said it, but he very harshly noted that it wouldn't matter how many plantations they tallied up, she would never know her real ancestry, and she would never really be African. She would always be the descendant of slaves--and so there was no point at all in finding her ancestry, b/c there was no gain to be made, because there was no cultural history to be understood.

This girl was not very good at defending herself, and pretty much teared up and took the punch. I hate it when that happens. I had just read Roll Jordan Roll, by Eugene Genovese, so I gave an impassioned if ludicrously juvenile speech on how there was plenty of amazing slave culture, slave culture was glorious precisely b/c it was created from scratch from so many adverse conditions, blah blah blah. I think it neither changed his mind nor soothed her. But this strikes me as basiscally the inverse--but a very new inverse--of that conversation, and considering that conversation has probably been happening for a lot longer and a lot more unpleasantly, I can't be too judgemental of it.

104: Of course anyone can vote against him. I meant legit in the sense of a legit objection to his status as "first major african-american candidate"--but I'd also say, a legitimate objection for anyone who's interested in the status of blacks in this country. Which of course *should* include the Democratic party. In theory.

Obviously we need someone like this to sort things out for us.

25: You Kill Obama and WE WILL BURN SHIT DOWN.

107 is fair enough, and I'm inclined to agree--but on those same grounds, also inclined to treat Dickerson more seriously than I would a white journalist making the same argument.

Also, I wanted to make some snark about black voters being almost as irrational as women. Instead I'll offer metasnark.

I also have respect for black voters, they are smart enough to vote their interests. OTOH, Thomas Frank wrote that book about other voters voting against their interests.

I am wondering if the question here is about white liberals voting for Obama because of his skin color, and perhaps perceiving Obama as more liberal than he really is.

I ask questions of myself like:If Edwards were from the Bronx? Well, if Obama were Polish...

. I meant legit in the sense of a legit objection to his status as "first major african-american candidate"

To the best of my knowledge, the first major African-American candidate was Jesse Jackson. His campaign, IIRC, was treated at first as something of a joke or a protest, but with growing wonder, until he made that gawd damn slur. (I would love to know what Jesse thought his chances were, in his heart of hearts, absent that moment.)

95: I don't think comparing colonialism and slavery works on the minute specifics of experience, but rather in that seeing their analogous aspects reduces the temptation to split hairs about who has the more authentically "black" experience. And if a portion of post-colonial immigrants come from privileged backgrounds, it's not as though the slave-descended community was without gaps in privilege before they arrived.

It's good to be aware of the specific histories in that they help explain, for example, why Yardies are even more neurotic about skin color than South Africans. But there's enough commonalty in the histories to make them just as worth focussing on as the differences, both morally and pragmatically. And I take Dickerson to be enabling the neuroses rather than just describing them (as I think B alluded to earlier).

To piggyback off DS's 118, a related thing that's been bugging me: PK's school is focusing on black history this month, and so he and I have been talking about the history of racism and where it comes from and how it worked, etc., and he said, much to my horror, that he feels guilty because he has light skin. Dear god.

I tried to do some damage control by talking about white abolitionists, white people who helped with the underground railroad, and explaining that part of what's so bad about the legal underpinnings of racism is that they're bad both for blacks, who they define as inferior, *and* for whites, who they define as superior even if individual whites don't want that. And that black history is part of *American* history, and as Americans it's part of us too, and so forth. But, dang. How are we going to improve things if we teach little kids about race and racism in ways that perpetuate the racial divisions we say we're against?

117: The first vote I ever cast was for Jesse Jackson. Some years later, I was hanging out with some black friends (all men in their 30s/40s) and mentioned this and they all started to chuckle. The specific response I recall was "Jesse's never run anything except his mouth, and you'd let him run the whole country? Damn, son."

At which point they really started to laugh.

118 before I saw 111. The other side of the coin, of course, is that pan-Africanism only goes so far. You can't literally pick up a black American and plop them down in West Africa and expect them to have a good shot at figuring out what's going on. It's a point that Africans tend to be sensitive about, because part of the history of colonioalism is Liberia.

120: You and your white guilt, Apo.

99:His kids are, and that's a likely limiting condition to his behavior.

This is an excellent point. Better here than when it's made about the still-sexist fathers of daughters.

On the whole though, I don't care about how black he is or how well he could play to the Black vote--I do care about how well he actually does mobilize them. Would love to see more reporting on that than theorizing.

You want to know my incredibly wonky reason for being dubious of Obama? Ethanol Tarriffs. I'm still trying to untangle the issue, but I find it incredibly important. The three four things I care about are 1) Climate Crisis 2) War 3) Transparent Governance & Fiscal Responsibility and 4) Health care. The first three are inextricably linked---war and oil and energy, war and subsidies and defense pork and opaque policy, defense pork and opaque policy and subsidies and oil and the environment. As far as I can see there are four credible Climate Crisis policies that might have a prayer of slowing catastrophe down if all employed asap---1) carbon taxing 2) massive cultural shift towards conservation 3) nuclear power and 4) cellulosic ethanol. Of these (4) has the fastest chance of happening--but only if people are willing to stop mucking around in it on behalf of the narrowest corporate interests. (I.e. American corn.

It sounds crazy but I see this as the urgent issue of the day, requiring enormous grit and principle and leadership, and I'm suspicious Obama is not going to exert it at all.

Perhaps Obama's potential importance as a public figure is rooted in his ambiguity of blackitude.

He shares the American black experience, as he says, when he's trying to catch a cab, despite having a different background. He is distant enough from the American black mainstream as seen in American pop culture to be less threatening to xenophobic whites. (Which is, I think, what people who call him "articulate" are actually trying to say -- it's just a hard thing to say without offending someone.)

So will he bridge the gap, or will he be torn in two?

120: That's interesting. The hardest thing I've ever heard said about Jesse Jackson was said by African-Americans. But I don't really have a sense about when his reputation started dropping. And I'm really curious about whether he had a worse reputation in the South than in the North (as the South, by my recollection, could put up big number of civil rights leaders in a way that most of the North couldn't.)

Best of luck finding a candidate that will stand up to the ethanol lobby, Ile. Maybe if we ever stopped letting Iowa go first, but probably not until.

Better here than when it's made about the still-sexist fathers of daughters.

My recollection is that there is statistical evidence that the acquisition of daughters has an effect on federal legislators. (And that the effect increases with number of daughters, through number three, at least.) Not on point, precisely, but I thought I'd mention it.

Sorry, LB, I actually have some work to do (!) but briefly: I certainly wouldn't object to something because it's "offensive." My problem with Dickerson's position is that I don't think there's any rigorous way to make the black/non-black distinction in borderline cases, so it all becomes a game of agendas and ulterior motives, and all that is magnified in a presidential campaign.

119: Liberal guilt's better than Catholic guilt, at least.

Josh Marshall

60 Dems in the Senate in 2010?; and is Joe gonna switch parties?

I am really bothered by the overemphasis on the Presidency. He/She should be Congress's flunky with very little policy input, and with luck in a couple elections will be.

Much more controlled and overseen than presumed even in foreign policy, for reasons recently made obvious. Down with the Imperial Charismatic President! Power to the People!

Esp. a candidate from Illinois, much of which is Iowa East.

125: These guys didn't trust preachers to begin with, and this conversation would have been in (doing the math, based on where I was working, carry the one...) '93 or '94.

130: bob, I find your faith in congress... disturbing.

(131:126).

Okay, I'll preface this with an acknowledgment that I am obscenely naive generally, and probably even more so on racial issues -- I'll blame white privilege, since that's allowed me to get by without ever *needing* to think about any of this. But I wonder if maybe all this "is he black enough?" stuff doesn't sort of work for him politically in a cynical/twisted sort of way.

As in, there are lots of voters who have alot of un-thought-through racist assumptions who feel uncomfortable voting for a *black* guy but maybe can get over that hump once they buy into this rhetoric that Obama's not *really* black. Like some racist relatives I have who nevertheless adore a black family friend and say things like, "But he's not like those *other* black people." I hold out (naive) hopes that their affection for this "not really black" black guy perhaps makes at least a little headway toward their one day learning to see people more generally as people rather than defined by the color of their skin. Like I hold out hope that if believing Obama's not *really black* allows people who otherwise wouldn't to focus on Obama for his rhetorical skills and policies, then maybe helps enlighten people who would otherwise nver see the light.

I'm not expressing that well -- and maybe wouldn't make any sense even if I did...

Fucking Iowa.

123: Even were he to agree with your priorities, and he just might, he's got to figure out how to get elected, which means not being too far in front. And Katherine's point about how centrist and risk-averse he's been should be borne in mind. He's starting to come out a bit, responding to a change in the mood of the country. That's what a politician should do, it's the measure of his competence, and so far the signs are very encouraging, even to those of us who really want a more left policy.

135: I'm naive on race issues too, but what you're saying makes sense. I'm hopeful that the Obama Effect you describe does race relations in this country some good, whether or not it gets Obama nominated or elected.

118/121--yeah, I'm just deeply uncomfortable referring to what is claimed to be such a basic aspect of self as a neurosis, even indirectly.

126: Thanks. I'm going to keep trying. Two points: 1) I bet soemone smart could come up with a lucid calculation of why it is actually in the greater financial interest of more midwestern voters to be pro-CC-alleviation on Ethanol than pro-Big-Corn Ethanol. Articulate that, promote that information, and then make a courageous vote--I think that's a good idea. 2) We could revive our discussion of moving the California primary forward to nullify Iowa.

133: I am so completely faithless.

"Best of luck finding a candidate that will stand up to the ethanol lobby"

If I understand it, the fight over Dingell and global-warming sub-committee has a Pelosi ethanol aspect. Pelosi, I think, is pushing ethanol subsidies in order to color-shift some upper-Plains states. Or other reasons. IOW, it wasn't entirely about auto-owned Dingell, tho that is the way it was portrayed, and Dingell had some real gripes.

Fwiw, did some googling and found this interesting thread. There's a whole lot of tension between African-Americans and African immigrants in some cities.

The thing is there are people who bitch about Ethanol b/c they think it's *stupid*, like gasoline *just fine*, and point to any kind of subsidy as a waste of money. They may be right that the subsidy is a bad idea, but frequently for the wrong reasons.

And like I said, I'm still untnangling it, super slow. It might turn out that Obama's vote happened to be very good for slowing the Climate Crisis.

140: But you want the Pres to be the puppet of congress? I think there are some governmental functions that are well served by a decisive single executive, provided s/he operates within the law and isn't a complete ass-napkin.

Obama being a second-generation immigrant (I think) means that if, like a lot of immigrants, his class background is one of relative privilege, wealth, and education

I think that's only partially true. His parents met as graduate students and he spent part of his childhood in Indonesia. Punahou is very nice, but IIRC his grandparents didn't have a whole lot of money and he may have had scholarship help to go there. I think it's a trajectory closer to Clinton's than Bush's or Kerry's.

I've been grappling a bit with how Hawaii fits into the identity stuff. Obama grew up in a place that was doing better than most on racial matters but maybe not as well as it thought it was, and that had very few people who resembled him. I wonder how much all of that fed into his analytical approach. I need to re-read his first book, but have to finish the second one and retrieve the first one from the boy first.

Big Oil would be delighted to get into the ethanol business, if it weren't so inefficient and expensive. Their internal scientists (hi, Dad!) look at the energy-in/energy-out equation, look at the oxygenation point, look at the costs of pipeline storage, and just sigh. The companies have been trying to lobby against corn ethanol, but Iowa & Ohio (and sentimental environmentalism) have been winning.

Sausagely used to be a militant opponent of ethanol subsidy. He hasn't mentioned it recently to my knowledge.

130: He/She should be Congress's flunky with very little policy input, and with luck in a couple elections will be.

Even if Congress takes the lead on making policy, we will still need someone to unscrew the courts and the federal bureaucracy. The presidency will still be critical.

143: "I think there are some governmental functions that are well served by a decisive single executive"

I don't. Yes, I would prefer a puppet to an Emperor, and prefer 535 people working out compromises to one jerk Deciding Decisions.

And some people call me Leninist. Luxemberg & Liebknecht live in the hearts of the free! Or whatever.

148: Except that the alternative to an elected executive is parliamentary government, in which the executive is selected by the parliamentary party. Which, since 1994, would have given us Newt Gingrich and Dennis Hastert leading our government; or if the other house were in charge (though I can't off the top of my head think of a parliamentary system in which the upper house provides the executive), it would have gone Dole Lott Daschle Lott Daschle Frist Reid.

Whether mixed systems such as those enjoyed by Brazil, France, Poland and Ukraine (to pick four) provide the best or the worst of both worlds is left as an exercise for the mid-term.

145: Well, any subsidy is going to cause major problems, since you're betting on a technology winner ex ante and people's bets have historically been pretty terrible in those situations. That's why economists usually push for an all-purpose tax that will encourage wide-ranging experimentation and quick adaptation of any winners.

But there's still an unbelievable attachment to farming votes in America, it's one of the historic drivers behind our terrible agricultural subsidies and it was one of the main arguing points against the estate tax (even though they already have special exemptions). We can only console ourselves that other developed countries pander to their farmers even more.

Also, on the Obama issue, I thought his comments about how he started to associate with black culture particularly resonated with me. He talked about being a child, and how your schoolmates see you as determining a lot of your identity. I know this has been a major factor with a lot of the black kids I know whose parents were African immigrants, and a major reason why most of those kids were almost impossible to discern from their slave-descendent classmates despite major differences in their family histories and even their parents' cultures. I'm sure this is what Ile touched upon in 111 with the boy whose parents were Nigerian immigrants but normally had all the cultural markers of a "typical" black American.

Do we really pander to Farmers, though, or big corporations that do Agriculture? Every time I hear about actually self-contained farmers, they're doing terribly.

moving the California primary forward to nullify Iowa

That we were already discussing the '08 election before the new congress had opened its first session and any new members had been sworn in is grating and exhausting to a lot of the electorate; OK, it's grating and exhausting to me, anyway. Please, please, let us not stack so many primaries so early that Iowa and NH start pushing theirs earlier and earlier to preserve their celebration of specialness. I don't care if they're special. I don't care if I'm not special.

151: That is exactly what I was alluding to, but I wanted to note that it's complicated--that for all that he clearly felt Black most of the time, he also clearly felt African some of the time--and was able to bring that out in the most harsh way. Obama's probably just too nice a guy to pull a trick like that, but given the pulling of tricks like that, I can grok some of the tension. Note Obama also spreading (and then regretting) the idea that his father was royalty. That's just not an option for most Black kids.

Let me reiterate though, that if Obama wants to say he's Black, I call him Black.

152: When it came to estate taxes, it was individual farmers (and small business owners) as corporate farms would never have to worry about the issue.

For agricultural subsidies and tariffs, they're both on the same side of the debate so drawing the distinction is not particularly helpful. More voters are swayed by the idea of a struggling individual farmer than a struggling corporate farm.

153: This is almost terrifyingly similar to Prisoner's Dilemma. Every state has the incentive to push their primary earlier so that they're oh-so-special, but when we all move the dates earlier we lose as campaigns become longer and more expensive. These are the situations where outside regulation is the best solution (as happens in the UK with general elections) since it forces everyone to stick to a shorter election season.

But who or what has the authority to dictate the primary dates in the US? Are we stuck with each state individually declaring its primary dates forever?

152: Actual farmers exist primarily to support ADM's marketing and lobbying efforts.

My understanding is that primary dates are set by the states themselves within whatever boundaries are defined by that state's laws but trust me, my actual knowledge of this is a dark and empty chasm. Frankly, I would just as soon avoid any real knowledge of it.

As I was in the shower on Saturday I heard a host of Weekend America say, "A lot of people are already sick of hearing about who's running for President so, to take people's minds off that, let's talk to some Ordinary Folks(TM) and ask them whom they would nominate for President!" and I nearly beat my own skull in with the radio.

my actual knowledge of this is a dark and empty chasm.

I am totally stealing that.

Moving California up would be a disaster, though, due to its size. Despite California's reputation for progressivism, what it would do is hugely favor big money, establishment candidates that can make enormously expensive media buys, and the field is already tilted pretty sharply in their favor.

About Obama ...more Gilliard

"While I find it amusing to have words and sentiments [put] in my mouth, it's really tiresome" ...SG

Back to check if I done wrong.

I think we're going to have to take Iowa and New Hampshire out behind the gym and rough them up a bit.

One of the NPR programs---it must have been Weekend Edition, since it was so annoying---went to New Hampshire to try to divine why that state should get to go first. As far as I could tell, the only reason she came up with was: one annoying older woman who ran an inn and could rattle off all the candidates she's known in a familiar, underawed voice. For me, of course, that's reason number one to take the Only Primary That Seems To Count away from these complacent fuckers.

160, 162 I thought the reason New Hampshire was relied on as an early primary was precisely because it is small enough to allow "retail" politicing, i.e. door to door, meet the folks kind of stuff that is impossible in larger states. Choose any small population state for this effect, but by having it be near the Media Center of the Universe, and easily accessible by the Wise means NH ain't goin' nowhere.

What is the median state? You'd want about 70% white, some rural but not very much, and a typical economic range. Ohio and Missouri are usually named.

Dunno, but it ain't Iowa or New Hampshire.

We should really just rotate the schedule.

166:We should draw lots in January of election years.

166: This is precisely what some people have been proposing, apparently for at least 20 years. There was a show on local radio this morning about the whole primaries issue.

158: According to the radio show linked above, it's a subcommittee of the National Association of Secretaries of State who set the parameters.

Missouri is about right on black/white/Asian, Hispanic-low, East-West North-South neutral, and probably a bit poorer and more rural than it should be.

The big divide is between rural/southern and urban/ coastal, and that's a hard one to split. Pennsylvania, maybe?

But "Asian" and "Hispanic" both encompass very different groups of people, e.g., fourth generation Japanese-American vs. immigrant Hmong or similar for established Mexican-American vs. immigrant Salvadoran.

What about Colorado? I always thought that the first few primary states were also supposed to be pretty evenly split between the parties. I also like the idea of Ohio being first.

If some subcommittee that's split between states determines the dates, why are the same couple crappy states always first? If we really have to have one or two states that hold primaries before all the others (and I can see good reasons why, since it allows smaller dark horse candidates to press the flesh for a shot), then why allow the same two states all the time?

Maybe if they randomized the order of state primaries, choosing the first five or six at random and then having the rest hold their primaries on or after a given date, then postponed the selections and announcements of primary orders until 18 months before the general election, they could cut into this bullshit.

What about... having the primaries in the order from smallest margin of victory to greatest?

...Or a multi-week nationwide primary, in which voters in a pre-selected, random group of congressional districts vote. This week: all the 3rd and 7th districts nationwide. Next week, 5th and 10th. And so on. The candidate who wins the district sends a representative to the convention. If no candidate has a clear majority by the date of the convention: negotiations, deal-making, excitement! Balloons!

Okay, I got carried away. But maybe.

The big divide is between rural/southern and urban/ coastal

New York!

How come roughly half of the comments on this thread to not have a horizontal divider under the "Posted by:" line?