Charles D. Ellison is a veteran political strategist and frequent contributor to The Root. He is also Washington correspondent for the Philadelphia Tribune and chief political correspondent for Uptown magazine.
Posted on 03/01/2014 3:11:05 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
If two-term Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick wants to be a candidate for president in 2016, he’s faced with one problematic detail: We’ve already had a black president.
Patrick, who’s the Bay State’s first African-American chief executive, is openly chewing on a bid for the White House, answering “maybe” in a recent Politico interview when asked about a possible run. “That’s a decision I have to make along with my wife of 30 years, and she’s a tough one to convince,” he said. “Let’s just see what time tells.”
The problem, though, isn’t so much convincing his wife—who’s probably attracted now, more than ever, to the notion of living at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., since current first lady Michelle Obama is wearing it so well. The problem is the brewing Curse of the Second Black President. A wary and prickly American electorate that is never fully honest with itself about race will more than likely feel like it’s “been there, done that” with the black-president thing—at least for the moment. And the resounding push-back to Patrick could be something like, “We’ve been through eight years of this, fam. Can’t do that again.”
Clearly this is from the three-quarters of the electorate that’s still white and will continue to dominate the polls well into the next 20 years. (Talk all you want about people of color rising, but white folks are still running the show.) It all depends on where President Obama’s approval rating—right now at 44 percent—is by the time the 2016 Democratic primaries kick in.
Obama seemed to carefully calibrate this issue back in 2008, when he decided to pick then-senator and notorious word fumbler Joe Biden as his vice presidential running mate. Back then, progressive purists were pushing him to pick archrival Hillary Clinton as his running mate....
(Excerpt) Read more at theroot.com ...
Charles D. Ellison is a veteran political strategist and frequent contributor to The Root. He is also Washington correspondent for the Philadelphia Tribune and chief political correspondent for Uptown magazine.
Deval Patrick is equally inept as a politician as his role model. That’s why the 47% might just vote for him too in the future. I do think that liberal “White Guilt” will not be as strong as it was in 2008, though.
Just the fact that this POS thinks he has a chance says to me that this country is toast.
A Liberal from MA. LMAO.
The majority of U.S. voters should be tired of voting for a POTUS candidate from Massachusetts, too.
“three-quarters of the electorate that’s still white and will continue to dominate the polls well into the next 20 years. (Talk all you want about people of color rising, but white folks are still running the show.) “
Take note white progressives, you are considered the enemy too.
Well, let’s see.
Democrats care about skin color more than anything.
Republicans don’t really care.
Obama is possibly the worst President ever.
Republicans don’t really care.
Nobody in America is smart enough to understand what is going on.
Republicans don’t really care.
The media cares about only one thing more than skin color, and that’s 1) anal sex and 2) killing babies.
Republicans don’t really care.
What’s not lo love?
RUN, colored or African American or Black or whatever Democrat, RUN!
AMERICA IS WAITING FOR YOUR LEADERSHIP!
and then, there is Ben Carson
Dr. Carson is mushy on amnesty, no sale.
A lot of people here supported a liberal from Ma. in the last election.
No, thank you. Deval Patrick has been a disaster as MA’s governor. I shudder to think what he’d do as President.
Read the comments. Many posts there refer to Obama as another Reagan. They call Barack another Republican that betrayed the liberal, Progressive Democratic base.
Figure that one out.
yup...my thoughts exactly.
That’s the author, right, not Gov. Patrick? He looks like one of the Wayans clan.
Deval Patrick’s problems aren’t as described.
They are #1 - Hillary!, #2 - All the dem dames who will be thinking we need to have a dame president now, #3 - himself and his incompetent liberalism. We’ve had quite enough of that lately, but thanks for thinking of us Deval.
If he runs and wins I won’t be surprised.
That hasn’t worked for either party for quite a while.
Don’t give a damn about his color. I give a damn that he’s a damn democrap.
Did Deval even win a majority last time he ran?
Worse than Dukakis.
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