Obama: The Affirmative Action President

ABM sent me this article. Interesting read: Obama: http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/08/obama_the_affirmative_action_president.html

 

Interesting article. Basically it says he won the presidency simply because he was black, because he really had no qualifications otherwise. I’m not agreeing nor disagreeing with this premise. However I have often wondered if a couple of other factors were not huge in his favor. First one being that his run followed the Bush era. Which left a lot of people, ummm, unhappy I guess. Combine that with the fact that the republican candidate was John McCain and I think this is really what landed Obama in the white house. It’s just my own theory and I barely follow politics.

 

I think they both came into play. Not necessarily a "black" thing, but there were a lot of white guilt in play...."I voted for Obama" became the new "I have black friends". I think it was a lot of fluffy marketing. but those types were going to vote for the democrat or republican anyway.

Overall, I think as many people voted for obama because he was black versus people who didn't vote for him because he was black...basically the racists cancelled each other out.

 

It seems pretty obvious to me.

Hilary and Obama were very similar in a lot of the issues, and the votes were very evenly split when you remove the black vote. Now look at the black vote, and it was something like 97% of black voters voted for Obama in the southern states.

Good luck if you want to argue that race wasn't an issue.

 

Uhm, it's not BP. It's never BP.

 

Probably no too far from the truth, BD.

 

Obama's election is a kind of miracle . . . He had never done anything consequential in his entire life, had never run a business, a town, a state, or a government of any kind, but was nevertheless elected president because he could make an eloquent speech. He is the closest thing to the Manchurian Candidate that we have ever seen.

 

I think you're overlooking the more important issue of the Dem primaries, and how Obama was able to defeat Clinton.

 

Yes. In the primaries, Obama received an excessively skewed black vote that has never shown up before. I don't think it is just a coincidence that ~98% of black voters agreed with Obama's policies over Clinton's policies. Their policies were not different enough to explain the 98% of black voters in favor of Obama.

Once Obama won the primaries, he didn't have an advantage that other Dems haven't had in the general election... as you posted. But he may not have had the chance to be in that position if it weren't for the skewed primary votes.

 

Obama won because McCain was an even worse option at the time. The GOP would have been better served to dust the mothballs off of Bob Dole and run him in 2008.

Hillary would have won as well, so I don't think race is why he won. I do think it is why he won the Dem primaries, though, and I also think race is why the Dems can't run a primary challenger against him, either, like they did with Ted Kennedy against the more competent (by comparison) Jimmy Carter in 1980.

 

I voted for Obama over Hillary in the primary mostly because he wasn't a Clinton. Sure, it was nice and all that he was black. But after Dubya I was pretty burned out on dynastic presidents. And although I didn't have a lot of hope for change in the negativity of political discourse, I realized Hillary was much more repugnant to the right than Obama. So I thought maybe Obama could be more of a uniter than she would likely be. And I think I was right on that point. As nasty as Obama's first term has been for everybody, it would've been much worse with Hillary as president.

Hillary had more appeal among women, Obama had more appeal among the young. Both are huge demographics for Democrats, and in the end I think it was just the young winning out.

 

you do know that "young" is the buzzword the press uses when talking about black youths committing crimes?

such as a group of "young people" doing a flash mob robbery.

 

I pretty much agree. Add to it he's a dynamic speaker and won over many people. He ran a great race.

 

Whoa! What slithered into your panties this morning? I just thought it was interesting. I still do. No apologies. BTW, take your meds.

 

I felt if Clinton hadn't gone negative she still would have won the dem nomination.