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Presidential Politics: Obama Settles in as the Presumptive
Nominee
By Fletcher Word
Sojourner’s Truth Editor
Senator Barack Obama entered a period of relative calm this
past week as the presumptive Democratic Party nominee for
president.
The Clinton issue seems to have been put behind him, as have
the preacher eruptions … finally. The most recent bit of
drama involved the departure of vice presidential search
committee chairman, Jim Johnson, a prototypical Washington
insider, and the failure of the Obama campaign to vet the
vetter.
But the Obama forces moved swiftly to dump Johnson, having
learned that lesson from the mistakes of the recent past
with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and the fallout seems to have
been contained.
It’s a lesson that both the Obama and the Senator John
McCain campaigns have had to learn in a hurry – this is not
your father’s run for office. Mistakes hit the Internet and
the cable news shows in a hurry and the legion of pundits
salivating over this contest have little else to do but wait
for someone somewhere to make a mistake and experience a
slip of the tongue.
Obama seems to have had no such slip this past week. He did,
on the contrary, have two big moments that would seem to
cause no damage. First, he had his Sister Souljah moment.
Second, he garnered another big endorsement.
Back in 1992, candidate Bill Clinton decided to go after
fledgling hip-hop star Sister Souljah for comments she made
in the wake of the Los Angeles/Rodney King riots when she
famously said “if black people kill black people every day,
why not have a week and kill white people.”
Bill Clinton harshly criticized her at a public forum and
criticized Jesse Jackson as well for allowing her to be on
his Rainbow Coalition. The attendant brouhaha seemed to do
candidate Clinton a lot more good than harm.
Obama had his Sister Souljah moment on Sunday when he called
absentee black fathers to task. Black fathers, said the
senator at a church on the South Side of Chicago, “are
missing from too many lives and too many homes.”
In truth, this was not a new message for Obama. He has made
such comments on several other occasions.
Then, on Monday, Obama ended up in the Joe Louis Arena for a
rally in front of 20,000 cheering fans. His guest for the
evening was former Vice President Al Gore who endorsed the
Illinois senator for president.
Gore was, of course, the Democratic Party nominee for
president in 2000 when he lost in one of the most hotly
contested elections this country has known. He led, in fact,
in the popular vote but lost the electoral college decision
when the U.S. Supreme Court stepped in to overrule the
Florida Supreme Court’s decision to hold a series of
recounts.
Gore has risen in stature over the years with his dedication
to the cause of bringing to light and correcting a global
warming crisis. An award-winning documentary and a Nobel
Peace Prize (shared with the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change) have added to that enhanced stature.
“Why didn’t they choose change when they had a chance?” said
Gore on Monday evening of what future generations might be
asking themselves if the issue of global warming is not
addressed.
Gore’s endorsement, and commitment to doing all he can to
assist the candidacy of Obama, is the latest in a series of
high profile commitments – not the least of which was that
of Hillary Clinton on the weekend after the last of the
primaries.
Gore’s endorsement also raised the issue of whether he will
be considered by the Obama camp for the vice presidency
although the question of whether or not Gore would accept
such an offer is highly speculative. The popular former vice
president seems to have his own agenda these days.
So, all in all, a good week for the Democrat.
The Republican nominee was conspicuously quiet over the past
several days. McCain has been attending fundraisers, trying
to keep his distance from President George Bush and has
unveiled a new round of ads emphasizing his Vietnam P.O.W.
days.
It’s hard to believe we only have about four and a half
months to go in this election cycle. The first 18 have been
all to brief. |
