After race-laden contest, Morrison picks Obama

Playing brown against black?

"Insensitivity was reflected in a recent issue of the New Yorker, when Clinton's veteran Latino political operative Sergio Bendixen was quoted as saying, "The Hispanic voter -- and I want to say this very carefully -- has not shown a lot of willingness or affinity to support black candidates."

That brief quote from an obscure politician has generated shock and awe in Democratic circles. It comes close to validating the concern that the Clinton campaign is not only relying on a brown firewall built on an anti-black base but is reinforcing it. A prominent Democrat who has not picked a candidate this year told me, "In any campaign I have been involved in, Bendixen would have been gone."

"If a Hillary Clinton campaign official told a reporter that white voters never support black candidates, would the media have swallowed the message whole? What if a campaign pollster began whispering that Jews don't have an "affinity" for African American politicians? Would the pundits have accepted the premise unquestioningly?" "The Clintons attempted to make South Carolina a 'Black thing', they underestimated both the intellect and evolution of the southern state."

Gregory Rodriguez charges that the "Clinton campaign's assertion that Latinos historically haven't voted for black candidates is divisive -- and false" in his piece in today 's LA Times entitled "Clinton's Latin Spin".
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-rodriguez28jan28,0,1688217.column

Leaving aside Ms. Morrison's extraordinary bombast regarding the supposed character of Senator Obama as the poetic flight of fancy for which she is licensed, the moniker of "former top fund-raiser" for Anton "Tony" Rezko is a euphemism to say the least. That Rezko effectively made it possible for Obama to acquire his $1.7 millioon Chicago mansion by putting the adjacent property in his (Rezko's) wife's name at a cost of about $700,000 is the sort of political favor that has a stink about it and that cannot be dismissed merely as some sort of oversight by the candidate. It is the sort of scandal that should sink the candidacy of a city alderman no less of a presidential aspirant, and America has dismissed men of greater worth for less, much less. But Senator Obama, who plainly admires at least the political success of Ronald Reagan, appears to have inherited some of the Teflon for which his hero was also famous.

Poetry, Property, and Propriety

Leaving aside Ms. Morrison's extraordinary bombast regarding the supposed character of Senator Obama as the poetic flight of fancy for which she is licensed, the moniker of "former top fund-raiser" for Anton "Tony" Rezko is a euphemism to say the least. That Rezko effectively made it possible for Obama to acquire his $1.7 millioon Chicago mansion by putting the adjacent property in his (Rezko's) wife's name at a cost of about $700,000 is the sort of political favor that has a stink about it and that cannot be dismissed as some sort of oversight by the candidate. It is the sort of scandal that should sink the candidacy of a city alderman no less of a presidential aspirant, and America has dismissed men of greater worth for less, much less. But Senator Obama, who plainly admires at least the political success of Ronald Reagan, appears to have inherited some of the Teflon for which his hero was also famous.