Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] "The second black president" John Kerry!

[Jonathan King <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On Wed, 3 Mar 2004, Jerry Gamblin wrote:

> "President Clinton was often known as the first black president. I
> wouldn't be upset if I could earn the right to be the second," he told
> the American Urban Radio Network.
> 
> http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=694&ncid=718&e=1&u=/ap/2
> 0040302/ap_on_el_pr/democrats 
> 
> Is this really the guy that the democrats are going to run this year?
> Bill Clinton was black? 

Context would be important here.  For whatever reasons, and there
are many theories out there, Clinton enjoyed a breath-taking amount
of support in the African-American community, and you really would
hear people saying that it was because they detected in him a
kindred soul.  This was striking because Clinton did not always
favor the same things that (say) Black congressmen did.  Now in
2000, Gore only got close in the election because of historically
fabulous turn-out in that community, and to have any chance in 2004,
Kerry is going to have to do much better in getting out the vote in
favorable (to them) voting blocks than Democrats as a whole did in
2002.  He knows this.  So you will hear him campaigning a lot among
such voters (and certainly more than he has had to running for
office in Massachusetts). Unfortunately for him, while Kerry is not
a complete disaster as a speaker, you *will* hear him say a fairly
large number of things that are awkward at best.  And you can
certainly chalk this one up in that category.

Of course, we don't seem to pick candidates these days based on
oratorical skills, otherwise 2004 would have been something a lot
more like Alan Keyes vs. John Edwards.  Bush-Kerry will be a very
different thing.

jking


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