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Originally Posted by d-ray657
Ideology aside, I thought the way Barack Obama handled race in the 2008 political campaign was brilliant. He acknowledged his racial difference by appealing to a desire to overcome differences (No red states and blue states, etc.) Whether you think he followed through on that or not, it proved to be a good strategy for dealing with race. He dealt directly with race only after his guilt by association with Rev Wright required him to address it.
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Like when he said this:
"“Nobody thinks that Bush and McCain have a real answer to the challenges we face. So what they’re going to try to do is make you scared of me. “You know, he’s not patriotic enough, he’s got a funny name, you know, he doesn’t look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills.”
That seems damn racial to me. The "typical white woman" comment also seems quite racial.
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Several of us here, me included, have identified what we perceive as a racial element in the level or tone of the criticism of Obama. I haven't really observed that as an acknowledged position of his campaign or staff.
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The level of tone? What was the significance of the "level of tone" in the left's criticism of Bush. Just because Obama has some proportion of blackness doesn't mean that criticizing him has anything to do with his race. His policies aren't bad because he's black, but because they're bad policy. BTW, it was his campaign that set him up as some heroic ideal beyond proportion to anyone's ability. The utter lack of leadership in 2009 and the push for the divisive healthcare policy undermined any chance he had of not being a divisive figure. At this stage, one can't really determine whether this was because of his lack of executive experience or if he thought he was above the messiness of politics.