Obama is the right one

E. Ablorh-Odjidja

January 19, 2008

It must be asked whether Democrats, the Clintons, and Black America share the view that Obama is the right one for the presidency this time. This question must be asked because of Democrats’ professed political alignment with the Black cause.

But seeing how the Clintons are fighting hard to knock Obama off the presidential race and the support they are getting from the same Democrats quarters should give one pause.

Rather than stepping aside for this singularly bright star to be the Democrat flagbearer, “the second Black president” after Bill so to speak, the Clintons’ objective remains unchanged - a return to the White House for Hillary at all cost.

The Clintons will stop at nothing to get to the presidency, from Arkansas to the White House.

A look at the political trajectory of “team Clinton” has been interesting; from Arkansas to the White House, back to Arkansas for a moment of respite, then carpetbagging it to New York for a safe election to the Senate for Hillary to use as a stepping stone to the presidency.

So determined was "team Clinton" in the Senate race that it never occurred to them that a Black Democrat politician likes the perennial gubernatorial candidate H. Carl McCall, a native-born New Yorker, should be given the chance to run and win that seat. Instead, the Democrats of New York State had it fixed that Hillary should come from Arkansas for the job.  

The Democrat machine never imagined that the native son, however Black, could do better than a White carpetbagger from Arkansas.  And it showed no racial sensitivity for the traditional support and loyalty of Blacks, even though it is this community that constantly tips the scale for Democrats in presidential elections.

With McCall sidelined, the Democrats and “Team Clinton” are now facing Obama. 

Is Obama’s potential candidacy a nuisance for the party or are Democrats nationwide ready to vote for a Black man for president and can Obama be that man?

In the January 2008 issue of Black Enterprise magazine, Publisher Earl G. Graves, Sr., in a piece titled “Barack Obama for President” gave his answer as to why Barrack Obama should be the next president.

 Earl Graves argued that “No one asked if America was ready to see a Black man in Major League. It wasn’t – until the right man, Jackie Robinson, accepted the challenge and made most of it…:”.

Major League Baseball indeed is the appropriate metaphor. Robinson, despite his awesome talent, was kept out of the ball game.  So were many Blacks of the era.  The Black skin kept them out to make this Major League Baseball sham one of the many acts that spoke so loudly about the racial angst in the American public square.

Graves went on to state that “Similarly, Barack Obama is the right person, in the right place, at the right time to be America’s next president. If we continue to lend credence to the idea that it can’t happen, that we as a nation are not ready…. Then it won’t.”

 
The idea of Obama not being ready has been bandied about, even among Blacks who for some unstated reason would not like to see him as president now. Some, like BET founder Robert Johnson, have thrown their weight behind Hillary.

Is Obama not ready because he is Black, like Jackie Robinson versus Major League Baseball; or that America, still a racist nation, will like to hide behind the excuse of Obama lacking experience?  

Graves, exploring this myth about the experience further, brought in another named contender in the primaries -  John Edwards, a White male aspirant of Democrat rank.

And Graves didn’t “put much stock in the value of their experiences ( of both Clinton and Edwards). Claims to an edge over Obama in this area are exaggerated.” Clinton and Edwards, he concluded, “never held a national office before 1999 and 2000, respectively.”

Presumably, the notion of “experience” with Hillary in the background, could become a code word – Blacks need not apply!

Luckily for the Democrats, no Black is contending for the presidency on the Republican side to muddle the issue. But needless to say, the Democrat party is where all the Black vote is and so is the first place to settle this racial preference argument.

A January 2008 poll, conducted by Washington Post and ABC News, indicated that Blacks nationwide supported Barack Obama 2 -1 over Hillary Clinton.

The current indication from the Black community is a majority preference for Obama, in contrast to the sentiment of the Democrat party machine.  The party machine needs to listen to its most loyal group.  But would it?

It becomes more interesting when you consider the campaign theme from all three Democrat front runners – CHANGE! They all want change. The reality is the dialectics of this CHANGE should favor Obama.

If you would acknowledge that the presidency has so far been a White bastion, then a Black presidency next should be the change.

Gender is not the issue here. Hillary Clinton, as a White woman, is part of the White bastion just as Condi Rice, a Black woman, has been part of the disadvantaged in America. 

Change, therefore, should be something more akin and drastic. A claim that says “I represent change because I oppose George Bush” will not be enough for the cry for radical CHANGE that has risen because of Obama's presence.  A change from the George Bush personality only would rather be a very superficial one.

Similarly, an agenda that says America has to “change course because the rest of the world hates America” can be childlike in its reasoning and a complete falsehood.

The world doesn't hate America because of George Bush. Even without him, the world would still hate America the super-power as the less powerful have historically reacted to all super-powers.

Edward and Hillary, who tout the change from George Bush most, in actuality form part of the privileged status quo as does Bush.  A change to favor any of these two would be the same old story.

But change sometimes comes in quaint ways.  And there is one in this race for the American presidency.

Should Hilary win this race Bill Clinton, the former president of the U.S and her husband, will now be the first gentleman. This will be a change to favor a Clinton dynasty.

Bill’s role in his wife's campaign is already defined.  He is the chief supporter, co-candidate, and the primary attack dog in the race.  No former president has taken on this role in recent history.

Rather, than Bill carrying on in retirement with decorum as befits a former president, he is out on the hustings, jousting it out with the campaign crowd, debating and making the office of the ex-presidency more common, all in the sole interest of getting his wife and him back to the White House, a place they left barely a decade ago.

And should they win, the office of the presidency itself will change: For the first, it would be run as an open co-presidency by husband and wide. The saga of Juan and Eva Peron of Argentina comes to mind.  “Don’t cry for me, America.” 

Graves states in his concluding paragraph that what an Obama presidency has to offer “is what our nation needs at this critical place and time in our history….The question is not whether America is ready to elect a Black man as president. It is whether America will elect the candidate best qualified to lead our country and restore our global standing…..”

Sorry, Mr. Graves, the abilities of America’s presidency are eventually defined by its global superpower status.  The predilections of this power status may have to continue under Obama as they were under Bush.  What we as Blacks must want from Obama’s presidency is an outcome that ennobles us. Anything short will not look like Jackie Robinson's in the Major League Baseball game. 

With the baseball metaphor, should Obama be elected, his hits and home runs would be about his decisions and interventions in both the domestic and superpower global spheres. Hopefully, these decisions would notch upward America’s prestige worldwide while also advancing the Black pride, in the manner Robinson did for America.  

E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Publisher www.ghanadot.com, Washington, DC, January 19, 2008.

Permission to publish: Please feel free to publish or reproduce, with credits, unedited. If posted on a website, email a copy of the web page to publisher@ghanadot.com. Or don't publish at all.

Obama is the right one
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