Barack Obama clearly appears to be on the rise, while Hillary Clinton, who fired her campaign manager over the weekend, seems to be panicking. I like Obama, I like what he says, and I agree with his vision. He doesn't have a whole lot of practical experience, but some very great Presidents (Lincoln, Truman) have not had a lot of experience. Maybe I'm jumping the gun here, but it's beginning to look more and more to me like he will be the Democratic nominee for President.
So the question becomes, is he electable? Or to put it bluntly, can a black man with a Muslim name win the U.S. presidency in 2008? I'd like to think he could, after all, haven't we come a long way since the civil rights battles of the 60's? Aren't there prominent African-Americans in sports, politics, entertainment, education, the judiciary, etc?
Certainly that seems to be the case. And I believe that there are certain sections of the country that are ready to vote for Obama. On the other hand, there seems to me to be a great many other sections of the country that will vote for whomever is running against Obama merely because of his race. Racism is alive and well in this country, and it takes many forms. How many people do you know who have no problem with working with people of other races, yet never socialize with them or attempt to get to know them? How many people live in neighborhoods where people of color are not welcome, either tacitly or implicitly? If you're white, how would you feel if one of your children came home with a boyfriend/girlfriend who was black? The mere fact that these issues even exist today demonstrates that we are far from the race-neutral country that we aspire to be.
Barack Obama's race should not matter at all. We should be far removed from anything as detestable as that. But we are not. The fact that Barack is a black man will matter to a great many voters in November. And, shamefully, I believe that is why he can not win the Presidency.
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Nope. He can win. He may not, simply because once the issues are actually discussed, as opposed to whom wrote whose speech, the American public may not be happy with him. And he may not win because at the end of the day he has about 3 hours of experience. And he may not win because he or his wife make a major gaffe. But I think the areas where his race would hurt him are probably areas he wasn't going to win in anyway, because no Democrat will win there.
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