Obama: U.S. ready for black president
By JIM DAVENPORT, Associated Press Writer 41 minutes ago
White House hopeful Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record), taking a fellow black lawmaker to task, said Saturday voters are ready to elect a black president.
"At every turn in our history, there's been somebody who said we can't," the Democratic senator from Illinois told a nearly all-black audience of about 2,000 at Claflin University.
"Some people said we can't do this, we can't do that, so we shouldn't even try. If I have your support, if I have your energy and involvement and commitment and ideas, then I'm here to tell you, 'Yes we can.'"
The comments drew the loudest ovation during a question-and-answer session in his first campaign swing through South Carolina, an early voting state.
The first-in-the-South contest here is seen as a test of candidates' abilities to reach black voters. Half of the state's Democratic primary voters are black.
Obama responded to comments this past week by Democratic state Sen. Robert Ford of Charleston, who helped mobilize black voters for former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards in 2004, but has switched to Hillary Rodham Clinton in the 2008 presidential race.
Ford said Tuesday that Obama, a first-term senator, has much to prove. "The media made this guy bigger than life," Ford said. "This guy isn't tested and they made him a rock star."
Ford said one reason he was supporting Clinton, the New York senator, is that he is skeptical Obama can win the presidency and worries his nomination could hurt other Democratic candidates.
"Every Democrat running on that ticket next year would lose — because he's black and he's top of the ticket. We'd lose the House and the Senate and the governors and everything," Ford said.
Ford drew widespread criticism for his comment and later apologized.
U.S. House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., introduced Obama, saying "Run, Barack, run."
"Obama is able to run today because Rosa Parks sat down," Clyburn said. "He is able to run today because Septima Clark stood up."
Parks, in 1955, refused to give up her bus seat to a white man in Montgomery, Ala., sparking a mass boycott by thousands, mainly black women domestic workers who had long filled the buses' back seats.
Clark was an educator and activist for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People decades before the nation's attention turned to racial equality.
Clyburn says he is not endorsing a primary candidate.
State Democratic Party Chairman Joe Erwin tells candidates the race is open and the black vote is not monolithic.
Darcel Lancaster, an 18-year-old Claflin freshman, spent nearly two hours waiting in the morning's chill to be the first in line to see Obama. The biology major said she wouldn't commit to Obama's campaign.
"I'm going to look more into others," she said.
She doesn't expect him to win every black vote — including hers.
"Some people think he's not black enough," Lancaster said. If she picked Obama, it wouldn't be because of his race, she said. "He's not full black," Lancaster said.
U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut spoke earlier Saturday at a Richland County Democratic Party breakfast to a crowd of less than 100.
Both Dodd and Obama had to shorten their South Carolina visits to get back to Washington for a Senate vote on a resolution opposing the Iraq war.
Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
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While the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are being lost, while the U.S. Dollar continues to collapse against the Euro, Yen, and every other major currency of worth, and while the borders of the United States continue to be overrun with illegal-aliens and potential terrorists even--our Mainstream Media continues its love-affair with Obama. It's as if nothing else matters in the national front, this guy's mug is plastered everywhere in just about every major Mainstream Media publication.
This guy Obama is a media darling now! A Senator for less than 3 years, he's risen in notoriety like a Scud missle and his star shines brighter than Tinseltown. What's his claim to fame? He's black...or, to be accurate, he's "not full black," which doesn't insure the United States' Black-Block Vote. But he's more black than Hillary Rodham Clinton, so we gotta make do with what we have, we gotta' get cred where we can.
The funny thing about this article is the fact that a Democrat, John Ford--who also happens to be black--admitted that the Mainstream Media made Obama larger than life, a "rock star," in other words. What's more, Mr. Ford said what every thinking American should consider too--this guy, Obama, is untested. He's got no real experience, he has no foundation.
It is true that the other contenders for the next presidential election are also virtually untested and/or unknown, but it seems that the Mainstream Media is focused on this guy Obama more and more. Why? What does he have to bring to the presidential table other than the fact that he's half-black and can read off a teleprompter all the same platitudes and pithy remarks that the current Idiot-in-Chief can?
One thing of note...remember the words of Darcel Lancaster in the above AP article. Focus on what she says, and what it implies. "Some people think he's [Obama] not black enough." This sounds like the Black-Block Vote in action, to me. Ms. Lancaster goes further when she says, "he's not full black." All of this is a puzzle to me, as I am sure it is to you.
Now...flipmode on this kick...what if a European-American said this about Obama? What if a white guy said, "Some people think Obama isn't WHITE enough," and added further, "he's not full white." What do you think would happen to this white guy? If you're a minority-majority (any non-white person in any major city in America...a minority in the country, but a majority in the cities), and you read this from a white man about a potential candidate, what would YOU think? You'd think it was racist, I bet.
Thats the same way I feel about what Ms. Lancaster said and the way the Black-Block Vote tends to work.
America needs someone to the Right of Patrick Buchanan to survive the coming years. Anything less would be a pale (no pun intended) imitation of a real Leader.
America the pitiful...controlled by insanity and gripped with fear...
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