Posted on 03/04/2007 5:19:35 AM PST by Chi-townChief
When Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton shows up in Selma, she won't have to talk about race. All Clinton has to do is cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge -- the infamous site of the showdown between disenfranchised voters and state troopers -- on the arm of former President Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton, who was dubbed by Toni Morrison as the "first black president," is still hugely popular with African Americans. His presence in Selma on Sunday is designed to stop the flow of black support to Sen. Barack Obama.
A national poll initially had Hillary Clinton leading among black voters 60 percent to Obama's 20 percent. But less than one month after his official announcement, Obama has cut that lead down significantly -- 44 percent to 30 percent, according to an ABC News/ Washington Post poll released last week.
But for the most part, Hillary Clinton's approach to prickly racial issues mirrors the way white people in America generally handle race. She doesn't talk about it. Few people expect her to talk about it, and unless she stumbles over a racial minefield, no one asks her to talk about it.
'President Clinton understood' When it comes to race, her mojo is her husband. "I think black people really did feel that President Clinton understood, and that for the first time there was a president that got it," said Janis Kearney, the author, publisher and former Clinton diarist.
Kearney's book Conversations: William Jefferson Clinton -- From Hope to Harlem, was released last year.
"I didn't buy the fact that he acts black, but I think he had a genuine empathy -- not just for black people -- but for people in general. But African Americans felt it because they had never felt that from a president before," she said.
While Hillary Clinton benefits from Bill's popularity among blacks, she doesn't have that same gift.
"There's no comparison," Kearney said. "She's nice, but there's no comparison."
But the former Clinton diarist noted that when she first met Obama during his senatorial campaign, she told him he was the nearest thing to Bill Clinton that we [African Americans] would ever get.
"I still remember the day I did that," Kearney said. "He was very flattered."
Still, it will be an uneasy gathering at the foot of the Pettus bridge, where the former president will be inducted into the Voting Rights Hall of Fame -- after rival speeches by his wife and Obama at separate churches.
Because it has to be just a bit irritating for a black man to have to prove that he's at least as black as the white woman in the presidential race.
As the first biracial presidential candidate who identifies himself as African American -- and a front-runner to boot -- Obama has had to deal with stories that raise questions like: "Is he too black? Not black? Not black enough?"
Last week, during an interview on NPR, Obama was again reminded that Hillary Clinton has a lot of black leadership support. To prove it, they trotted out U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush, who is supposed to be supportive of Obama's campaign but sounds more like a naysayer.
"I'm a race politician and he is not," Rush said, forgetting that he endorsed a wealthy white candidate over Obama in the U.S. senator's race. "I don't compromise. I don't step back. I don't try to deny I'm proud to be an African American."
Obama will arrive in Selma with the ghosts of his great-great-great-great-grandfather, George Washington Overall, and great-great-great-great-great grandmother, Mary Duvall, also stirring up sound bites.
An emotional punch On Friday, the Baltimore Sun reported that Obama's ancestors owned two slaves each. While it's not unusual for researchers to dig into the ancestral trunks of serious presidential contenders, the report compiled by William Addams Reitwiesner just happened to break two days before the Clinton-Obama faceoff.
As an Obama spokesman noted, the senator's ancestors "are representative of America."
But it is black voters, most of whom are unable to trace their lineage nearly as far, who felt the emotional punch packed in this story.
That certainly can't be a coincidence.
Still, it was an ugly way to kick off an event that marks a bloody civil rights battle.
mailto:marym@suntimes.com
CHICAGOLAND PING
If Her THighness Hillary Rotten Clinton needs a little sympathy vote to put IT over the top, BJ Clinton better hire a food taster.
That certainly can't be a coincidence.
Nooooo. Of course not. /s
Very intersting. Seems the writer of this article believes if you are of a certain race you would not mind disbarred criminal felons.
It must be a gangsta rap type of thing. Certain blacks worship overpaid criminals who rap. Bill Clinton is exactly that.
Didn't any of Bill Clinton's ancestors (SC? GA? MS? FL?) own slaves?
I have to ask: Why is this in "breaking news"?
I'm no fan of Obama based purely on his politics but I'd have to admit to a certain amount of sympathy for him due to crap like the above. IMO not only is that type of speculation unfair, it is just plain ignorant.
That said, I'd also add that bringing up the slave ownership of great-great-great grand pappy is equally stupid and unfair, but it is also the type of rubbish that the left has been shoveling for decades so that is a case of a taste of your own medicine.
Assuming he has made no hypocritical statements on the issues above I say they have no place in the election. You judge a man by what he stands for, what he has done and what he says he will do. End of story.
They could only check his Mother's side of the family.
If they checked his father's side of the family, they would probably find ancestors who bought and sold slaves. This was (and still is) a common practice in Islamic East Africa.
If we were dealing with reality, yes. But Bill would have to disavow his Blythe ancestry, if he wanted to remove himself from that branch of the tree.
He still has his mother's branch (Cassidys, Snelgroves, Russells and Spradleys of SC; Gresham/Grishams of TN-- and their ancestors) to contend with.
What do we know about Hillary's ancestors?
Hillary's ancestors -- many from England.
http://www.wargs.com/political/rodham.html
Well, the Selma march happens today - that's pretty breaking.
The liberal media wants Hillary/Obama to win and they will do anything.
That certainly can't be a coincidence.
Nothing is a coincidence with Hillary. This was a staged event, against a carefully orchestrated backdrop of "facts" leaked to the MSM just in time to do the most damage to Obama.
This slave owning thing is a moot issue.....
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