If/when Obama wins SC, he'll have a real chance to win back the white voters he lost...

He'll give one of his great, inspiring speeches and MANY people of ALL colors will see it. He'll talk about unity, wanting to change politics for the better, and he'll get lots of positive press, with lots of replaying of that speech. I don't think the Clintons thought of that, but I hope that will happen. Anyone think it WILL happen?

You can't play the race card on Friday in South Carolina and then on Sunday return to preaching "unity" when you know 70% of voters on Super Tuesday will be white and about a tenth Latino, Native American, and Asian.

He has every right to have people be proud of him and still talk about bringing the country together (and meaning it).

Edwards is the only one who hasn't played the race or gender card. It is one reason I am supporting him. If you need those to win that is very sad.

Obama hasn't played the race card. The Clintons did and he was forced to respond.

Hillary can win the election. She is running on issues that matter to folks.

What does that have to do with Obama? :shrug:

because of his race. Having pride in someone is different than playing the race card.

That isn't the race card? Me=Obama. Do you think such a racist message wasn't cleared with his campaign before? You guys said Bob Johnson's passing comment on Obama's record of cocaine use was set up.

that is one. :eyes:

Vote for her, because it would be cool to have the first female president.

That's essentially what their arguments amount to.

vote for him thinking a Black man couldn't win. Things changed after IA and NH and they DID wake up and get it.

But demographically, that alone will not get him elected in the primary or GE. Right now Clinton has a significant nationwide lead in most polls. Anything can happen, but one thing I feel relatively sure about, is that Obama would not beat McCain, Rethugs most likely candidate. JMHO.

It's not his strategy to get the Black vote. It's his strategy to be ABOVE race.

Or are you just making that part up?

You need to vote for Obama if you are black to have "integrity" according to this speaker.


-snip-

Immediately before Obama took the stage, the woman introducing him made an explicit case for racial pride. "Our Latino brothers have integrity, our Indian brothers have integrity, our Caucasian brothers and sisters have integrity," she said. "God didn't anoint one set of people to have standards and not everybody else. This is why we are attracted and drawn to Senator Obama."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...

In the excerpt you posted, it was the reporter using that term.

And quite frankly, I don't see anything wrong at all about saying that all races have an equal claim to integrity. That has nothing to do with "racial pride" in the way you're implying.

Because that's not at all what she said in your excerpt.

Spin and lie until someone calls you on it, then disappear.

Rove taught the Hillary clan real good.

Noone is whining about people voting for ALL the OTHER candidates because they are WHITE. Clearly that is happening. Basically, Clinton and Obama are nearly identical, policy wise, so the main difference is personality, style, and yes race. Racial pride is not a crime. That doesn't mean that, as president, Obama won't represent citizens of all races, etc. How odd that whites start turning their backs on him the minute he speaks to another audience besides theirs as well. For decades black people have voted for whites. It is wrong for people to accuse them of a crime, when they choose to vote for someone of their own race.

It's pretty rich to hear, after more than 200 years of the presidency (and most other high political offices) being closed to anyone but white men, white folks now whining about how unfair it is for black people to take pride in the fact that a black man has a shot at being president - as if suddenly, white men are being picked on because they may possibly no longer have the entire political pie to themselves.

Obama has lost any white voters.

I just hope he can get them back after the damage the Clintons have done to him.

You don't notice a thing do you? Obama played the race card, not the Clintons. Obama's surrogates suddenly began crying RACISM! when? Just before he had to start polling well in SC. What happened? Black leaders whipped his ass. Publicly. They knew exactly who started this and they told him to stop it. But you cannot put the genie back in the bottle.

Nobody is scared that women will riot if we don't get our way. So Hillary calling on women to vote for her isn't scary. Crying "Sexism" annoys people but it doesn't terrify them.

But people my age remember when every major city in this country had huge burn areas from civil rights riots. A president who will cry RACISM! at any criticism is a genuine fear. One who will cry SEXISM! isn't.

There are people on this board who have threatened a nationwide black boycott of the Democratic party if we don't vote their way. For Obama. I would like, with all my heart, to believe these are trolls sent to defame and disrupt...but I see the behavior of the Obama supporters and they can't ALL be trolls.

Obama RESPONDED to the race card the CLINTONS played. Wake up.

that suggest he has "Lost" white voters - Is there some poll that asked of white voters if they were once voting for Obama and then decided not to????

This is nonsense. Polls show in SC that he is carrying about 22% of the white vote. In a 3 way race this is quite good. It is ridiculous to assume that white SC votes for either Clinton or Edwards or Kucinich are based on racial preference.

Obama's support among white voters is slipping.

If the vote breaks on racial lines, good luck with that. If he gets the majority of white votes in that southern state, you bet. But if he's trashed Clinton and it only strengthens Edwards?

And why you're giddy about a man TALKING about unity...so did Bush. He was the "uniter not a divider."

The polls say he's good to go. Friday we'll find out if the Bradley effect is a factor.

there's a real CHANCE it could happen that way. And you're using the Clinton line that BUSH claimed to be a uniter, too. Obama is not Bush. Obama IS a uniter. Bush never got support from Dems. and Indys. Obama's message is more than empty rhetoric.

In my phone bank work here in California, it is clear their strategy is backfiring big time, and Obama is steadily closing the gap.

I think the Clintons were banking on the olde tyme strategy of trash and burn not realizing that they are doing that to themselves. And in that endeavor, I am happy to hold their coats, stand back, and watch them * poof * self-destruct.

I'm glad you see proof of it backfiring! :hi:

what phone bank is that....."elect Al Gore for President" phone bank.........sorry.......I couldn't resist.......don't be mad.........

If he ends up with a low percentage of white voters and a high percentage of black voters, then that will reinforce the racial candidate meme. He'd actually be better off losing some AA support in SC

If he won with a low percemtage of white voters in SC thanks to the Clintons' games, he can REGAIN support of white voters by giving a great, unifying, inspiring victory speech.

to be all that. I mean, his speeches are okay, but they are long on platitudes and cheer-leading and catch-phrases, but short on almost everything else. Also, I do not want to join with Republicans. If Republicans want to give up their evil ways and join us, then fine, but I do not want to meet them in the middle. Unity for unity's sake - unity as a goal in itself - is pointless and of no interest to me and, as far as I can tell, that is pretty much all he's got...

That said, Obama is the most liberal of the three. Repubs. won't be changing Obama. Obama will be changing Repubs. by bringing them to HIS side, which has been shown in many polls. Repubs. who are sick of divisive politics and politicians LIKE Obama.

the massive amount of attention that the high % of black voters will have. A speech of a lifetime will go some way, but, and this is my point, won't be enough to undo the reinforcement of the image of him being the candidate for AA.

He was actually TOO successful courting the AA vote, as his support with that group is now way out of line with the white vote. He'd be smart to do some serious courting of the white voters now even at the expense of losing some black support, but it's probably too late.

Getting a high % of Black voters in a state that is 50% Black among Dems. is not news. After he won in IA and came in a very close 2nd in NH, two nearly all White states, he showed Black voters it's possible for a Black person to win and so they switched their support to Obama.

I think a great unifying speech CAN undo the damage the Clintons did. Having a high amount of support by Black people should be no surprise. But it doesn't mean he can't still appeal to others.

One speech isn't going to have that much impact, and IF he really had such a speech in his back pocket, he'd better deliver now instead of after the damage has been done.

Here's an example of Obama's problem lifted right from your post..."he showed Black voters it's possible for a Black person to win and so they switched their support to Obama." That implies Blacks are voting for him only because "it is possible for a black person to win" er go he is the "black candidate". It comes across as if it's not based on issues or intelligent analysis, but it's based on race or the chance to get a black to win. No one speech can undo that damage.

If he only had 60% of the black vote and 40% of the white vote, he'd avoid the "black candidate" label.

Who knows, I might be wrong, and maybe he does have some magic up his sleeve. We'll soon find out.

I think that Obama polls at around 35% of the white vote, and about 70% of the black vote in any given contest. If those two numbers equal enough votes to win, he he wins, if not, then he doesn't. Super Tuesday is going to be very hard for him. But we'll see, anything can happen...

Not happening, especially since the trend is Edwards rising fast among whites.

give a speech which will bring BACK the white supporters he once had.

You can't play the race card in South Carolina and then when you need whites again return to unity after using divide and conquer tactics in SC. Voters aren't stupid.

His supporters in SC have pride in him. That ain't playing the race card.

If he wins because of the huge support among AA and has low support from Whites, a lot of people are going to take notice, and not necessarily for the right reasons. The difference between him being seen as the "Black" candidate and Hillary being seen as the "Women's" candidate is that her support comes from women of all ages and races. He can't be viewed as being the "Black candidate." It will hurt him, not help.

I am saying that if a huge number of Blacks vote for him and not a lot of
Whites do it may look like block voting to a lot of people. Fair or not, that's how it will look. It won't look good for him if it appears that he won the SC primary because of the Black vote.

(implying he may have been a drug DEALER), and saying they understand if Black people vote for him "for obvious reasons). But it's a fact that SC has a large Black population. Getting a large chunk of that vote shouldn't HURT him.

to double the number of whites polling for him now - and he doesn't see that happening by Saturday...

Since the groups split about 50/50 in South Carolina half of 80% comes out to be 40%. That alone is enough to win in South Carolina. I don't think he will double his white support, though, in two days and the media will focus on the obvious racial nature of the South Carolina voting where 80% of voters voted for someone with the same skin color.

praised Reagan.

Obama co-sponsored a bill created Ronald Reagan Day in Illinois after all...

Sad but true.

Sister Sister, Hezikaiah Walker, the Exodus Movement, the Dominionists and on and on.
And Clinton did it too! Gee wiz! That makes Obama fine and dandy for pandering to bigots using my family as a wedge!
They are both unworthy of votes, that is why it is all about John Edwards.
Clinton never had a shot at my vote, Obama lost his with the McClurkin alliance and cemented it when he called the bigots 'good, decent, moral people'. That about did it. I don't think bigots are moral or good. They are the definition of indecency. So Obama and I have a basic disagrement on that. He picked the bigot vote, now he understands they are all in one area, and that the bigger states don't really dig that Church in your face, dogma as law routine.
Obama chose to throw away the gay voters for the small minded voters while claiming to be all about unity. Now, his backers are wonder why he has to live with the consequences of that choice.

I don't recall her kissing those asses, or sending them out to be her spokesperson spewing lies about gays.

he praises him.. He's trying like hell to play slick and weasel out of what he actually said, but we know the truth. He thought he could play the middle of the road. Swap some spit with republicans, with the hope of winning some of their votes, while crapping all over the democratic party!

Here is what he said:

"Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not, and a way that Bill Clinton did not," he said, describing Reagan as appealing to a sentiment that, "We want clarity, we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing."

RR DID change the trajectory by getting BIPARTISAN APPEAL, unlike Nixon and Clinton. Obama has that same appeal.

of winning a few votes from the dark side!

if you get lost because of something that didn't happen.....
hey, i know, why don't you volunteer to drive hillary supporters to the polls?

a couple babies, and will do or say anything!

Whatever losses he may suffer in that voter group he can offset by recruiting enthusiastic new supporters. Maybe not as much in the more conservative South overall, but I don't think Obama plans to pursue a Soupthern strategy except perhaps in the primaries. This is not the reason why Obama is not my first choice.

I believe that time is now.

it would help any.

especially healthcare and energy.... which are downright scary.
Most people have smartened up to his schtick & won't fall for it again.

I don't WANT to be forced to buy healthcare. What about his energy plan do you object to?

that's what he does. It's all fluff, no substance.

The others have BAD judgement.

the less likely their will be a Democrat as President. The divide continues