4 posts tagged “2008”

"I felt and still feel that everybody is right, no matter what he says ... And I gave a name ... to a mathematical point where all opinions, no matter how contradictory, harmonized. I call it a chronosynclastic infundibulum. I live in one."

"In our seminar, whether we were arguing about labor or religion or politics, he would sit back like a resource person and then he would say, I hear Jane saying such and such, and Tom seems to disagree on that, but then Tom and Jane both agree on this. I don’t mean he makes all conflicts go away—that would be crazy. But his natural instinct is not dividing the baby in half—it's looking for areas of convergence. This is part of who he is really deep down, and it’s an amazing skill. It's not always the right skill: the truth doesn't always lie somewhere in the middle. But I think at this moment America is in a situation where we agree much more than we think we do. I know this from polling data—we feel divided in racial terms, religious terms, class terms, all kinds of terms, but we exaggerate how much we disagree with each other. And that's why I think he’s right for this time."

[...] "In my district, people are going with Hillary," said state Sen. Robert Ford, a Democrat from Charleston. "I am sure there will be some young blacks who will be behind Obama, but elderly blacks are going with Hillary because they love Bill and they love Hillary for standing behind him for eight years." [...]

[...] "People down here don't know him, and South Carolinians in many ways are a difficult lot," said Cole Blease Graham, a political scientist at the University of South Carolina. "They like to see their politicians up close in the flesh, shake their hand and look them in the eye. "Blacks will determine the winner in South Carolina, and if it came down to it right now, it would be Clinton because of the lack of exposure Obama has here," said Graham. "If Obama can win some attraction from whites and overwhelming support from black voters, he can beat Clinton." [...]

[...] "South Carolina is one of the most racially polarized places in the country, and black people in South Carolina have never elected a black candidate statewide," said David Bositis, senior political analyst for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington. "There are places in the South where people don't think anybody black can be elected to anything. So when they think about the presidential election, they don't think of Obama as someone with very good prospects." [...]

Quotes from Dahleen Glanton's Chicago Tribune article "Obama's Southern support not a cinch"

[...] "He has to campaign. Like any other candidate, he will have to prove a viability, prove that he’s going to articulate the issues and do so in a way that proves that he is an authentic Democrat and not a closet Republican." [...]

Rev. Joe Darby, pastor of Morris Brown AME Church in Charleston, one of the largest black churches in the state, quoted in Aaron Gould Sheinin's The State article "Obama campaigning in S.C. today"

[...] "There are some things you can't run away from. He's going to have to raise between $US50 million ($64 million) and $US100 million, and that money's not coming from black people. So black people are going to have to engage with that reality. He gives the impression that he dances on both sides, but when he gets into the goldfish bowl of an election campaign, he will be forced to define himself more concretely." [...]

Ron Walters, the director of the African American Leadership Institute and an expert on black presidential politics, in Gary Younge's Guardian UK (via Sydney Morning Herald) column "The real deal"

"If you're a black man in America today, you're treated like a black man, every day. [...] Toni Morrison called Bill Clinton our first black president. He was very comfortable around black people, played the saxophone, went to black churches. I don't see where Hillary inherits that. She's a whole different deal."

"If blackness is not consecrated by slavery and childhood poverty, you're not black enough? That idea is nonsense. Nothing in Obama's background justifies seeing him as a white guy's black guy. He has addressed black concerns as a community organizer in Chicago and a state senator in Springfield. [...] Bill went out of his way to make black appointments, court black voters, and she was at his side when he did it. And blacks are loyal to people who they think have produced for them."

Quotes from Georgetown law professor Patricia King and her husband, civil rights activist Roger Wilkins, in Ken Bode's Indianapolis Star op-ed "Who will get blacks' votes?"

[...] Consider this: Just 40 years ago, one could make certain assumptions about the average Negro, or black American. She was probably no more than one generation removed from the South; whether a Northerner or Southerner, he had first-hand knowledge of Jim Crow, or segregation; when it came to religion, he or she was most likely Protestant. But scholars like Vernellia Randal, a law professor at the University of Dayton, point out that those assumptions have fallen in the face of urbanization, migration and integration. [...]

Afi-Odelia Scruggs' Cleveland Plain Dealer op-ed "Obama's identity crisis"

[...] "I think it could very well be generational—that people like myself, who are older and more established and have these relationships, will stay with the people that we know. Whereas younger people, who don’t have these relationships, will say that this fellow seems to be an outsider too—and so, therefore, they are attracted to him." [...]

Ex-New York State Comptroller Carl McCall, quoted in Jason Horowitz's New York Observer article "Clinton, Obama Vying for Black Power-Brokers"

Update:

[...] According to Census Bureau figures, in 2004, African-Americans cast 14 million votes nationwide. Now comes this stunner: Because African-American men not only are fewer in number but also register and vote at much lower rates, black women cast almost three of every five of these votes - 59 percent, to be precise. White women also outnumber, out-register and outvote white men, but the disparity is smaller (53 percent to 47 percent). [...]

[...] Senator Obama's allure may be perceived as more generationally prospective, whereas the appeal of Senator Clinton - the former first lady married to the man novelist Toni Morrison once called the "first black president" - is deemed more historically retrospective. "He brings a lot to our heritage and culture, especially to our youth," said Victoria Haynes, a 47-year-old Denver native who worked on the campaign of newly elected Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter Jr. "She brings a lot of strength as a woman who came from behind her husband to lead as a woman." [...]

Thomas F. Schaller's Baltimore Sun op-ed "Black women face dilemma in Democratic primary"