Posted on 07/27/2004 7:51:30 PM PDT by jmstein7
One rival politician from his home state of Illinois has called Barack Obama "the Tiger Woods of politics."
But that comparison is unfair - to Obama. The 42-year-old U.S. Senate front-runner and Tuesday night's keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention is having a much, much better year than the struggling golfer.
Obama's already been the subject of a publicity avalanche that's included a 5,744-word profile in the New Yorker - not bad for a politician who's never been elected to anything higher than the Illinois state Senate.
Bidding to become just the third African-American since Reconstruction to win a Senate seat, Obama has been leading by 20 percent in the polls - and that was before his original GOP foe dropped out because of a lurid sex scandal.
Even before the balloons and confetti were swept up from his Democratic primary victory in March, the Chicago Sun-Times wrote: "If he is elected in November, Obama will immediately replace Colin Powell as the person most talked about to be the first African-American elected president of the United States."
Who the heck is this guy? Here are 10 things you might want to know about Tuesday night's star, Barack Obama.
1. He has a remarkable bio - one that prompted the Democrat's 2000 keynote speaker, Harold Ford Jr., to call him "an American story."
His father was a Kenyan - also named Barack Obama - who was studying economics in Hawaii and later left for Harvard and then his home country, never to return. His mother was an 18-year-old white woman from Kansas. Her second husband was an Indonesian oil manager, so Obama spent part of his youth in Jakarta.
His family struggled, but Obama went to Hawaii's top prep school, then Columbia and Harvard Law School, where he was the first African-American to edit the law review.
2. His first name means "blessing" in Swahili. On the campaign trail, he wins voters over by joking about his unusual name and says that it rhymes with "Yo Mama" - although he steers away from its rhyme to a certain Middle Eastern terrorist.
3. He declared that Iraq didn't have ties to al-Qaida or weapons of mass destruction - back in 2002. The same autumn that candidates John Kerry and John Edwards were voting to authorize President Bush to go to war, Obama was speaking at anti-war rallies.
"I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars," he said two years ago.
4. He can be candid about his past. In 1995, he published his autobiography, "Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance," and admitted that as a teenager he experimented not only with marijuana but with cocaine.
"I guess you'd have to say I wasn't a politician when I wrote the book," he told the New Yorker. "I wanted to show how and why some kids, maybe especially young black men, flirt with danger and self-destruction."
5. He's very supportive of Bill Cosby's recent controversial comments about African-American teenagers, their parents, and black popular culture.
"I understand the basic premise that Bill Cosby was talking about, and I think he's right about it," Obama said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "There's got to be an element of individual responsibility and communal responsibility for the uplift of the people in inner-city communities."
6. When asked, he says he considers himself an African-American. "The reason that I've always been comfortable with that description is not a denial of my mother's side of the family," Obama told the New York Times. "Rather, it's just a belief that the term African-American is by definition a hybrid term. African-Americans are a hybrid people. We're mingled with African culture and Native American culture and European culture."
He added later: "If I was arrested for armed robbery and my mug shot was on the television screen, people wouldn't be debating if I was African-American or not. I'd be a black man going to jail. Now if that's true when bad things are happening, there's no reason why I shouldn't be proud of being a black man when good things are happening, too."
7. He's unapologetically liberal. After law school, Obama shunned white-shoe law firms and worked as a community organizer in a poverty-stricken Chicago neighborhood.
As a state lawmaker, he pushed for death-penalty reforms and an end to racial profiling. He also pushed for health-care coverage for children.
8. He's not only a good candidate, but a lucky one. The man he was supposed to run against, Republican Jack Ryan, dropped out recently when unsealed divorce papers said he had dragged his wife, TV actress Jeri Lynn Ryan, to sex clubs. Possible replacement candidates, like former Chicago Bears football coach Mike Ditka, have shied away from taking on Obama.
If he wins in November, Obama will become only the second black Democratic senator, after Carol Moseley Braun, also of Illinois. Massachusetts elected a black Republican, Edward Brooke, in the 1960s and '70s.
9. He's ready for prime time, but apparently not on the major broadcast networks. ABC, NBC and CBS, which used to offer wall-to-wall convention coverage, didn't televise the convention at all Tuesday night.
When Obama took the stage around 10 p.m., the networks were airing shows like "Last Comic Standing" and "Navy NCIS." But you could catch the speech on the major cable news channels or C-SPAN.
10. He really could end up in the White House. Why not? He's not only brilliant and a good public speaker but has movie-star good looks and a great story to tell. He's a bit to the political left, but some pundits already see Obama drifting to the center.
Illinois state Senate President Emil Jones recently told a youngster at an event that if his parents voted Obama into the Senate, then he would have a chance to vote for him for president someday.
Yeah, I am not so unsure that Obama's 'Harvard Law' mafia didn't have something to do with all these marital papers getting the light of day.
Meantime he once did crack and nobody blinks an eyelash. The Clinton thing all over again. If you're a lib, you can not pay your taxes, carouse, and its OK. If you're a GOPer, such news goes 24/7 til they get you to step down.
I think the solution is to push the alternative (ie non-commie) media to an ever-increasing share of the pie. Death to CNNCBSNBCABC news!!!
He's about as much of a centrist as Chairman Mao. IMHO.
Doesn't that mean we'll be rid of Terry Mc, too?
Touche. I also found it odd, to say the very least, that both Blair Hull and Jack Ryan had their divorce records - which are supposed to be protected by the liberals' most sacred constitutional right, the right to privacy - outed. My guess is that Obama is well connected within the leftist legal establishment in this country, no doubt thanks in part to his being an affirmative action darling of Harvard Law school.
And there's a lesson to be learned from that: He's never tried to hide it. The public forgives mistakes, particularly when they are fully disclosed in an honest and humbling way.
Oh for heavens sake, he was going to "sex clubs" with his WIFE, not a stranger, not a "ho", with his wife, and on vacation! Good luck in finding a candidate as pure as the driven snow. Wonder what skeletons you may have in your own attic. Ryan was set up. And the Pubs in Illinois, rather than make a stand to support their candidate, threw him over like a Scott Peterson cement anchor (thanks Judy Barr Topinka, a RINO of the first order). Big rat stench here, I smell it.
Does the guy kneel on a rug and point east 6 times a day??? I read nothing about his faith??
So? Who said you did? Not I, nor did I imply as such. I know how to evaluate speakers and don't rely on Fox to tell me how to think.
Where exactly did I say if one opined he was a good speaker they must be a "lefty"?
Save your instructional tone with me.
Wow, you're being extremely touchy. If you don't agree, that's fine. I don't think I was using an "instructional tone" with you. Sorry if you took it that way. I was explaining my opinion just as you were expressing yours when you answered with a terse "it was not" to someone else's description of the speech. Your only stated problem with it seemed to be that you thought people would confuse his name with "Osama". Wow, that's an intelligent evaluation of the speech.
Was the problem the policies stated? (If so, that's why I explained that those of us praising the presentation were not necessarily agreeing with the leftist policies). The words used? His tone? His delivery?
If you prefer to stick to terse "it was not", that's fine.
I'll just answer with "yes, it was."
No instructional tone, just a simple declarative statement.
Goodnight.
Probably. :-(
Well I saw his speech. He spoke in a clear understandable language. That is about all I got from it other than another wannbe MLK. He was better than Ted Kennedy so I guess that is something. I have never seen a more lackluster convention, from any party, in my life. It is like watching paint dry. I can't even get a good mad going.
That's what I've been saying. The lamest convention I have ever seen.
Not to put too fine a point on it but I have had prostate exams more exciting than this crap.
I also agree .. this convention has been the worse
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