Let's imagine an alternative history in which L.A. mayor Tom Bradley is elected governor of California in 1982, then is picked as Walter Mondale's running mate in 1984 instead of the other diversity choice Geraldine Ferraro. Reagan then has two bad debate performances in a row, raising serious concerns about his advanced age. Mondale ekes out a victory, but dies in an Air Force One crash, making Tom Bradley the first black President.
Or, in 1995, Colin Powell's wife tells him to run for President and he defeats Bob Dole and wins a narrow victory over Bill Clinton, making Powell the first black President.
In either alternative history, does Barack Obama become the second black President? If there had already been a first black president, would anyone have ever even considered Obama to be Presidential Timber? Would you have ever even heard of Obama?
The Presidential Timber test is one that I emphasize because it's easy to drop Obama into a certain point in the timeline and say, well, sure, all he had to do was beat Hillary and McCain, anybody could have done that. No, the Presidential Timber test is: Would it occurred to many people a couple of years before the election that this person sounds like a plausible winner and plausible President?
The Presidential Timber test is one that I emphasize because it's easy to drop Obama into a certain point in the timeline and say, well, sure, all he had to do was beat Hillary and McCain, anybody could have done that. No, the Presidential Timber test is: Would it occurred to many people a couple of years before the election that this person sounds like a plausible winner and plausible President?
As far as I can tell, Obama has gone far in life because, as soon as he arrived at Harvard Law School, he struck a lot of influential people as a plausible first black President, a historically symbolic role of vast appeal to many. David Remnick's quasi-biography of Obama, The Bridge, makes this point repeatedly. He couldn't find much to say about Obama's own life, so he padded out the book with vast heapings of Civil Rights Era history and with interviews with big shots who told him that the moment they met Obama, they just knew he should be President.
But if there had already been a first black President, if that box had been checked off in American history, what of Obama? My guess is that in that alternative history, he would be a nonentity.
Obama generally has not struck people who knew him well as a natural leader in smaller scale organizations, and his performance in positions like chairman of the Annenberg Chicago challenge did little to change minds. It was always First Black President or Bust for Obama.
By the way, if, say, George Romney had become the first Mormon president in 1968 or Mo Udall had become the first Mormon President in 1976, I could well imagine Mitt Romney not running for President. I have this theory that Romney keeps running for President because he secretly wants to be the Mormon JFK who normalizes his people by becoming President.
But I can't imagine a Udall Presidency would have had much effect on whether other people would have considered Mitt Romney to be Presidential Timber. The number of non-Mormons in America who feel deep down that it's time to elect a Mormon President, even if he isn't particularly qualified, are minuscule.
But if there had already been a first black President, if that box had been checked off in American history, what of Obama? My guess is that in that alternative history, he would be a nonentity.
Obama generally has not struck people who knew him well as a natural leader in smaller scale organizations, and his performance in positions like chairman of the Annenberg Chicago challenge did little to change minds. It was always First Black President or Bust for Obama.
By the way, if, say, George Romney had become the first Mormon president in 1968 or Mo Udall had become the first Mormon President in 1976, I could well imagine Mitt Romney not running for President. I have this theory that Romney keeps running for President because he secretly wants to be the Mormon JFK who normalizes his people by becoming President.
But I can't imagine a Udall Presidency would have had much effect on whether other people would have considered Mitt Romney to be Presidential Timber. The number of non-Mormons in America who feel deep down that it's time to elect a Mormon President, even if he isn't particularly qualified, are minuscule.
Obama has gone far in life because he struck a lot of influential people as a plausible first black President
ReplyDeletehttp://www.chicagojewishnews.com/story.htm?id=252218&sid=212226
Dubbya didn't even strike people as a plausible second Bush president.
ReplyDeleteGood point.
ReplyDeleteBut to be honest, how much does the identity of the president matter? Obama in office acts pretty much the way that Clinton did, or the way Hilary would have. If elected, Romney will act the same way as GWB. This is why Democrats almost always vote for Democrats and Republicans almost always vote for Republicans.
But out of 15 million adult male black Americans, why pick a half-white guy with a weird, foreign sounding name who isn't actually descended from west African slaves?
ReplyDeleteOf are last few GOP nominees, we have a son of a two term large state governor, scion of several generation of top admirals, son of a president, and son of a senator and married to descendant of President Pierce. Only Dole and Reagan came from something other than super high class backgrounds. Why not ask the same question of them?
ReplyDeleteThis problem is only going to get worse as journalism is increasingly a professional for wealthy heirs who resent self made men from middle class backgrounds like Obama, Biden, Dole, Gingrich, Huckabee, and Clinton. And journalists are gatekeepers still who largely control the image and popularity of politicians.
I prefer an alternate history of America where Robert Heinlein beat Sam Yorty for the Democratic seat in the California state assembly at the beginning of the '50s and later became Mayor of Los Angeles during the '60s before running as the Democratic candidate in the '72 presidential contest and beating Richard Nixon. How does President Heinlein grab you? I think Ronald Reagan would have come nowhere after his performance. I want to see the first Science fiction president.
ReplyDeleteBefore Obama, I figured Corey Booker would have a shot at first black POTUS, after a spell representing NJ in the Senate. But Obama may have done for POTUS what Dinkins did for NYC Mayor: shown the limits of the symbolism.
ReplyDeleteThe other problem Booker would have is that his conventional, feel-good liberalism (e.g., "our children are our greatest resources", "our schools can all be great", etc.) won't be a match for American cynicism levels by the time he's ready to run.
Heinlein was more of a chief of staff personality. If he hadn't had so many health problems, I could imagine him being chief of staff during WWII to top admiral Ernest King (his commanding officer on the Enterprise in the 1920s).
ReplyDeleteA simple but devastatingly true assessment.
ReplyDeleteObama was the second Black US Senator from IL. And prettier than Carol Mosely Braun.
ReplyDeletePredicting the future is a hard thing to do.
ReplyDeleteBut I think there is a possibility Obama will be the only black president.
The hispanic effect is really going to kick in a few years from now.
Right now I'd put money on any future minority presidents being hispanic. It's always possible, but I can't see a black candidate beating a hispanic one nationally, if the candidates are at all comparable.
As to this:
"But out of 15 million adult male black Americans, why pick a half-white guy with a weird, foreign sounding name who isn't actually descended from west African slaves?"
My take on Obama is that "elite" people are comfortable with him, in a way they never would be with Jesse Jackson or most other black politicians.
It really doesn't have anything to do with where his father was from or what his name is. It doesn't have anything to do with the color of his skin. You could have skin the color of coal, and an afro two feet tall, and it wouldn't make any difference if you are charming and act "white" or whatever you want to call it.
Marion Barry and a host of others will never be in the club however.
Anon 3:17. Because that's an incredible stretch but you still typed it and hit "Publish," I'm guessing you are never going to see what is amazingly weak about your argument. It is 20% worthwhile.
ReplyDeleteTo the OP: So, since a black person has been named to the SCOTUS and two women have been put forward as VP candidates, you have noticed that there have been no more accusations of racism and sexism? You are speaking as a reasonable person, as if reasonable people were ruling the day. Just because prejudice in America is real doesn't mean that the people who milk it the most aren't narcissistic, entitled people. This is a pathology issue. Anything the hustlers have acquired they feel they deserve forever, and will revert to the same tactics of accusing racism to get it again. Because it works.
The fond hope that well-meaning white people had, including liberals who voted for Obama whether he was qualified or not because "it was time" - that we could now put racism to rest and move on to a normal life, have it exactly backward. The dog has been fed from the table and we will wait long before it gives up now.
Very funny, Steve. 49 state loser Mondale might have beat the Gipper if he had 2 good debates. Belly laughs!
ReplyDeleteDoug Wilder was supposed to run for president in '92, though, and in that crazy year of economic downturn and bipolar Ross Perot shaking things up he might have won the election with a plurality (as the 'unelectable' Clinton did in reality).
Consider if Wilder had been president during the 1990's tech boom. It would have made things easier for Black politicians - unlike Obama, Dinkins, etc.
"in a way they never would be with Jesse Jackson or most other black politicians."
ReplyDeleteThat's so true, esp considering that Al Sharpton had been the most recent "contender." OMG no bobo lib could go for that.
steve sailer wrote:
ReplyDelete=================
As far as I can tell, Obama has gone far in life because, as soon as he arrived at Harvard Law School, he struck a lot of influential people as a plausible first black President, a historically symbolic role of vast appeal to many.
============
but why? Both the Dem and GOP activists/writers tend to avoid the 'why' aspect of things when pointing out the hypocrisies and absurdities of the other side.
But why do so many 'educated' white people feel a driving need to have a black as president? Why is that?
Well, because the edu-entertainment-media propaganda regime has created a worldview that holds that whites are to blame for enslaving blacks and that we whites must atone for that shameful act. But the 1860 census showed that only 1.5 percent of all americans owned slaves. And since the median wage back then was about 150 bucks a year and the average slave cost 400, it was the RICH people who owned slaves.
But the rich created a pseudo-left culture that demonizes whites in general for slavery instead of themselves. Fancy that.
So that is why there is so much goodwill for obama--atonement of white sins that were always sins of the rich. But I notice that the GOP activists never seem to dwell much on that. Cuz they work for the rich, just like the Dem activist base, just in different ways.
Another reason obama has gone far is that he is half white and half black. Blacks have strong powerful voices that can move people. But Obama has unique gifts compared to blacks and whites in general in that he can use his white voice in combination with his black voice. Combine that with his education and other personal oratorical talents, and that puts him in a unique position.
Once you go black you never go back.
ReplyDeleteAnyone who won the Democratic nomination in 2008 would have been elected president when the economy collapsed. The question is would Obama have beaten Hillary in the primaries if there was a past black president.
ReplyDeleteBased on how masculine Michelle looks and how the O-man has a rep for being effeminate, I'd say Michelle's the one with the timber
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said...
ReplyDeleteVery funny, Steve. 49 state loser Mondale might have beat the Gipper if he had 2 good debates. Belly laughs!
An interesting history note from 1984 is not that Mondale won his home state, Minnesota, it is that people rarely remember he came within 3,800 votes of LOSING Minnesota. He did not even get 50% of the vote.
@daveinhackensack: good point. & it's too bad, b/c Corey Booker would've made a much better prez than obama. ...could C. Booker could be our first gay president? panjoomby
ReplyDeleteIf GOP had gone with Powell and Powell had been president, then Dems would have to match the GOP with a black guy, and Obama would have been a natural. I mean it sure beats Al Sharpton.
ReplyDeleteNo.
ReplyDelete@daveinhackensack: good point! it's too bad, b/c Cory Booker would make a better prez than Obama. Cory Booker could still be the 1st gay president (if those rumors are true). But yeah, once bitten, twice shy.
ReplyDeleteWell, because the edu-entertainment-media propaganda regime has created a worldview that holds that whites are to blame for enslaving blacks and that we whites must atone for that shameful act.
ReplyDeleteOff topic, but the above comment struck me because on the radio today I heard an advert for the 40th anniversary of the fair housing act. They referred listeners to this webpage, A Richer Life.Org.
The advert featured two voices, one white and one minority. The white voice said he grew up in a plain neighborhood with all white people where everyone thought alike, did alike and such.
The minority voice said he grew up in a diverse neighborhood where people had different ideas, approached life differently and he became better off for this.
This commercial touched on so many falsehoods, I just had to visit their site. They have a whole section about the benefits of diversity and include papers from such Ivies as Yale And Penn to support their claim. Funny, I did not see Harvard's Professor Putnam's paper.
They even have a letter that they want people to sign and pass around to their friends:
"I want a richer life.
I want to live in a neighborhood that reflects the realities of our society as a whole – a society that is becoming far more varied and diverse. I want the benefits that living in integrated communities brings. I want neighbors from different ethnic backgrounds who can help me appreciate the beauty of diversity and better prepare my children for a future in which they will be part of a truly multicultural world.
I embrace the goal of this richer life for myself and my family and support the work of the National Fair Housing Alliance to promote neighborhood diversity in America."
Your Name:
Your Email address:
If GOP went with a black guy and made him president, white liberals in the Democratic party would have been especially eager to find a black guy to outblack the GOP. Obama would have been it.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the appeal of Obama wasn't so much his blackness--after all, would Jesse Jackson Jr. have made it?--as his play of blackness and whiteness.
Powell would have been too white. Not only does he look very white but he acts and talks like a white guy. He lacks authenticity. Making him would have been something of a snub to the black community: "we whites went with him because every ounce of his blackness has been bleached out." White liberals don't feel too good about that.
Powell would have been like the first white black president. Not the real thing.
As for guys like Jackson and Sharpton, they are too black and too off-putting.
Obama understood white psychology, especially white liberal psychology. It goes for authenticity but not too much intensity.
So, Obama juggled elements of academic dryness, white intellect, black charisma, hipster coolness, jazzy slipperiness, and etc in a kind of fusion dish of politics.
He fist-bumped(authentic!)but ever so nicely so that even old white people didn't feel threatened.
He was like Goldilocks of blackness. Not too strong, not too weak.
And white folks liked the idea that he was essentially adopted by the white community since he was a kid. And as an adult he was adopted by the Jewish community. So, even as he's black, he was also 'one of us'.
Obama mixed JFK-ism with MLK-ism with Malcolm X-ism with Oprah-ism, and etc. His book was like the autobiography of Malcolm X decaffinated(sic) with lots of milk.
It's all phony but politics in the mass media era is phony, and Obama is a master artist of bogosity. You gotta give him credit for that.
But all said and done, the real decisive reason for his victory was Jewish financial and media support. Due to his controversial background and lack of achievement, he could have been railroaded by the media, but the Jewish controlled media went easy on him, indeed protected him. Also, he got tons of cash from Jews. Also, Jewish comic writers on late night TV refused to write jokes about him.
Since Americans have been neutered against 'red-baiting' and 'race-baiting', there was little conservatives could do to really attack him.
So, if we really wanna be honest, Jews made him.
Obama might have been elected because the underlying demographics would have still changed. Browns and Blacks are not interested in being represented by Whites. A lot of pundits don't get this point. Every Black district has a Black congressman. Every Hispanic district has an Hispanic elected.
ReplyDeleteOnly goofy Whites (a few of them) thrill to electing a non-White. So, someone like Obama would have been the candidate who probably got elected.
White liberals, as well as guys like Steve that don't seem to really care that much personally about race (other than as a curiosity), don't seem to get that Blacks and Browns care a LOT about race.
"I have this theory that Romney keeps running for President because he secretly wants to be the Mormon JFK who normalizes his people by becoming President."
ReplyDeleteI don't get this impression AT ALL. Mitt Romney is Mormon in the same way Catholics are Catholic, which is to say, they stay Catholic because they were born Catholic, because family members are Catholic, because ...well, there's really no reason to switch, is there?
Do you think Harry Reid's secret dream was for "his people," Mormons, to have the first Mormon Senate Leader? Nah.
As for Obama being the second black Prez--I disagree with you there as well. The press decided they loved him not only because he is black but because he could speak (well,THEY think he can) and the press is always mesmerized by what they see as a fine speaker who paints with a broad brush, who speaks of hopes and dreams. Me, it makes me want to puke, but then I don't have the personality traits of journalism and communication majors.
In fact, I give Obama credit (rare, for me) for understanding the press as well as he does. He knew that all he had to do then and now is give them what they want. They'll do the rest.
You see, Bradley was not a narcissist, not an actor, not a big stage guy. He was, on the screen at least , a courtly gentleman, not "eye candy." He would not have satiated the grander appetites of the elites, and further, as he was not a leftist, he would not have given them their dessert.
They would still have seen Obama as some kind of NEW THANG, their fulfillment of the failures of the Sixties. Bradley would never have been viewed in that light. He was an adult.
"Once you go black you never go back.:
ReplyDeleteSaw delegates at the Dem Convention holding signs that said this.
I laughed--a derisive laugh, I must say.
Did you happen to see the story at the Daily Caller today about Holder's past at
ReplyDeleteColumbia? To this guy, and to Barry and Michelle, AA is forever.
http://dailycaller.com/2012/09/30/as-college-sophomore-eric-holder-participated-in-armed-takeover-of-former-columbia-university-rotc-office/
I believe, with (dis)respect to Obama, that Gertrude Stein's epigram on Oakland fits: "There's no there there."
ReplyDeleteWhat I mean is that Obama is the Empty Vessel in whose void liberals invest their utopian dreams, all of the boilerplate content of their MCD Fairytale Narrative Blind Faith. That's why Obama himself is so bland, that's why his blandness, his banality, work for him.
I recall a Richard Brautigan short story (if what Brautigan scribbled could qualify as short stories) in which he wrote that his friend found complete contentment in having wed a homely plain Jane, because, according to Brautigan, her vagina was the screen on which his friend projected and enjoyed all his fantasies. That pretty much nails why leftoid-libs adore Obama: he is the screen upon which they project all of their Multi-Culti-Diversity Fairytale "Kumbaya" Narrative utopian fantasies.
All that Obama has had to do has been to recite boilerplate from the MCD Fairytale Narrative, and legions of leftoids are gulled into believing that he is The One. Also, so long as Obama's recitations avoid veering outside the MCD Fairytale boilerplate - which is also the Goodthink of Media-Pravda in which everyone has long been marinated - this makes him appear "moderate," or "centrist," "sensible," and "empathetic" to independent voters.
So, yes, the hypothesis that Obama could have been the second black president is quite formidable, simply because of his being the Empty Vessel repository of the left-utopians' scripted fantasies. Hitler pulled the same Empty Vessel trick - his appeal to Germans had no basis in actual policy or issues, his appeal to Germans was purely emotional and yet banal, so that they saw in him what they longed to see. Reagan pulled this off too, so did Lenin, and so did FDR (after all, what the hell does "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself" actually mean?!). The Empty Vessel is, in fact, the oldest and most successful of politicians' useful tricks.
son of a senator and married to descendant of President Pierce
ReplyDeleteCouldn't be a direct descendant, as all three of President Pierce's children died in infancy or childhood.
"...he struck a lot of influential people as a plausible first black President, a historically symbolic role of vast appeal to many."
ReplyDeleteI've read Remnicks book too. It struck me that Obama struck a lot of Jews as a plausible black president.
Obama went into Libya, why?, because he didn't want a Rawanda incident. I'm sorry, but I forgot why we regret not going into Rawanda.
ReplyDeleteMaybe we should let some Kenyan troops settle the issues in Libya, it is discriminatory for the Europeans and the Americans to have all the glory.
I was hoping O's massive incompetence and arrogance would get the affirmative action mindset out of our system, but now we are poised to reelect him. Tea Party needs to take over GOP and bring some non elitle non establishment real conservative candidates in 2016.
ReplyDeleteDriverless car is here. Drink and
ReplyDeleteun-drive all you want.
The point here, or so I infer:
ReplyDeleteQ. What type of White person supported Obama?
A. Racially-naive Whites.
An article published in mid-2008, entitled "The Race Chasm", showed that Whites who did not live around Blacks were much more likely to support Obama, while Whites with real experience with Diversity voted against Obama.
This can be seen easily with a casual glance at the actual results: At that link, hover over any state you think of as 'a White state'. You will see that that state voted for Obama at a higher rate than for any Democrat over the past 20 years. Now hover over any state you think of as a 'Black state' (Deep South) -- despite a very strong Nonwhite turnout, their Democrat totals tend to be lower than any election of the past 20 years, which suggests very low White vote-shares.
The quintessential example is Montana. It nearly went for Obama. Montana!
902,000: MT Population in 2000.
2,700: Blacks resident in MT in 2000 (<0.3%).
'Racially-Naive White for Obama' could be a good parody bumper-sticker.
See also here: How Many U.S. Whites Live Around Blacks? (Or, Why Obama Won in ’08)
"Another reason obama has gone far is that he is half white and half black. Blacks have strong powerful voices that can move people. But Obama has unique gifts compared to blacks and whites in general in that he can use his white voice in combination with his black voice. Combine that with his education and other personal oratorical talents, and that puts him in a unique position."
ReplyDeleteI don't buy this. James Earl Jones seems to narrate half of all documentaries or something, but I just don't think I believe what you are saying.
I think we live in an age of dwarfs as far as public speaking goes. It has been going down linearly since Reagan.
If you get on the podium now and give a speech that would have gotten mild applause at a Toastmaster's club in the 1950's and they will say you ooze charisma or magnetism or something.
They all suck at public speaking. Every last one of them. If they had to go head to head with the Sham Wow Man, he would crush them.
Some sucked more than others it's true.
A lot of Kennedy haters here. But go to youtube and listen to his New Frontier speech. It's not specific to him and his "vigor" though. Eisenhower gave great speeches compared to anything I've heard since Reagan.
And while I'm not a Reagan fan, the blunt truth is he wasn't as good at it as some past Presidents. I think he is remembered as a great orator because of who he is compared to.
Roosevelt (probably Theodore too) was awesome compared to what we have seen in recent years.
It hurts in some ways to listen to these things, and even more to read them.
Today's speeches seem like they are read by morons to an audience of idiots.
This is not an age of rhetoric that's for damn sure. And in the print media, to my eye at least, the prose has gone way downhill. Which is ironic because non-college graduates are rare in that field now.
No, I don't think Obama is a great orator. Unless you just compare him to his competition. Hilary? Romney?
If William Jenning Bryan came back from the Great Beyond he would probably be considered some cosmic god of oratory if you judge these things by what you see now.
Sarah Palin?
ReplyDeleteHello?
George "Is our children learning" W Bush?
Do those two examples not obliterate your faux concern about passing some sort of presidential timber test?
Hail said:
ReplyDelete"The point here, or so I infer:
Q. What type of White person supported Obama?
A. Racially-naive Whites.
An article published in mid-2008, entitled "The Race Chasm", showed that Whites who did not live around Blacks were much more likely to support Obama, while Whites with real experience with Diversity voted against Obama.
This can be seen easily with a casual glance at the actual results: At that link, hover over any state you think of as 'a White state'. You will see that that state voted for Obama at a higher rate than for any Democrat over the past 20 years. Now hover over any state you think of as a 'Black state' (Deep South) -- despite a very strong Nonwhite turnout, their Democrat totals tend to be lower than any election of the past 20 years, which suggests very low White vote-shares.
The quintessential example is Montana. It nearly went for Obama. Montana!
902,000: MT Population in 2000.
2,700: Blacks resident in MT in 2000 (<0.3%).
'Racially-Naive White for Obama' could be a good parody bumper-sticker.
See also here: How Many U.S. Whites Live Around Blacks? (Or, Why Obama Won in ’08)"
You know that is very interesting. I mean could we draw a conclusion as to why the Republican Party gets any votes at all?
Is it because a substantial number of voters believe in the issues they run on? Or because they are perceived as the white party?
I'll spell it out more bluntly. If it were not for blacks, the Republican party would be a very different party, or it wouldn't exist at all as a major political party.
Lizard Wisdom said... guys like Steve that don't seem to really care that much personally about race (other than as a curiosity), don't seem to get that Blacks and Browns care a LOT about race.
ReplyDeleteYou don't think Steve gets that? Been here long?
Great column Steve. Obama is our first black POTUS and our last one. Like David Dinkins we've got THAT out of our system.
ReplyDeleteBTW, I'm currently listening to "the Bridge" and what comes across is O's complete mediocrity. He got into Columbia from Occidental cause he was black, got accepted to Harvard Law for the same reason, and got pushed into the Senate by the example of carol mosley-braun.
Of course if George W. Bush's last name was Smith, he never would've left Texas.
To address Steve's hypotheticals:
ReplyDelete1. One commentator sneered at the idea of Mondale beating Reagan; given how the "49 state landslide" is etched in popular memory (the popular vote percentages were more similar to Eisenhower vs. Stevenson in 1956, but it was still a big win). However, after the first debate showed indicated that Reagan might be going gaga, Mondale almost caught up in the polls for awhile. Reagan gave a more coherent performance in the second debate, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief and voted for him. Mondale actually did come close to becoming president by default.
Still, a more plausible route for Bradley becoming President would be Governor of California in 1982, then after doing OK in the role Democratic VP nominee in 1984, then presidential candidate in 1988. In this situation in 1988, Jesse Jackson almost certainly wouldn't have run, and historically Dukakis was able to sort of game the primaries without anyone getting to excited about him, and then fell flat in the general election after leading Bush in the polls by almost twenty points.
2. Powell running and winning in 2000 would be more plausible. Still Clinton's popularity is exaggerated in the popular memory, he was still held to under 50% in 1996 so a Powell victory in 1996 is not too bad.
3. Someone mentioned Doug Wilder, but I think he is too much of a maverick within the Democratic Party to go national. One wild scenario would be Perot running a serious campaign in 1992 (no attempting to drop out mid race for example), picks Wilder as his VP and Wilder accepts, Perot makes history and wins the election, and then resigns early in his turn in a fit of pique. Something like this happened in Brazil in 1961. I think American national politics is too controlled for this to be plausible.
Anyway, historically Obama reportedly thought he was a failure at the time of the 2000 Democratic convention. You have to go back to the time of the Civil War to see people coming from as far out of left field to get in the office so rapidly (Lincoln and Grant), and there were other things going on then, like a third of the political class permanently taking themselves out of U.S. politics. How far he would have gone without the first Black president thing depends on whether you are enough of a conspiracy theorist to think that TPTB manipulated the 2004 Illinois Senate election to get Obama a national platform. He could have had a Senatorial career somewhat like that of John Kerry. I could also see Daley picking him as his successor as Mayor of Chicago.
Though in fairness you can play similar what if games with just about every other President. Fourteen of the Presidents were ex-Vice Presidents. Of the fourteen, its pretty certain that only Adams and Jefferson (who became VP under a very different system) would have made it to the White House if they hadn't happen to have been selected as VP candidate. George W Bush needed alot of help from Florida voters, not just in 2000 but in their not electing his brother Jeb as governor in 1994. Clinton needed the entire Democratic establishment bailing in 1992, so that his chief opponents for the nomination was a one term ex-Senator who was dying of cancer, a war criminal, and Jerry Brown.
Next big leap will be...
ReplyDeleteFirst really coal black president.
Then
First female black president.
Then
First gay black president.
Then
First lesbian black president.
Then
First white male president. (It will have been so long that amnesiac Americans would have forgotten that white guys used to be presidents). Historic!
Obama be blite.
ReplyDeleteBest thing would be for US to divide into 5 or 6 autonomous regions and elect a president for each. Then, everyone is happy.
ReplyDeleteThere would be one common president only for foreign policy.
After NYC got its first Black Democrat mayor in Dinkins... It only elected White Republicans afterwards...
ReplyDelete"Every Black district has a Black congressman."
ReplyDeleteNope. See here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee%27s_9th_congressional_district
36.1% white, 59.7% black, represented by a white guy with pale blue eyes.
Also, this guy continued to get elected after his LA Country Supervisor district became heavily black:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Hahn
And this nice Irish-American lady pictured here served on the Detroit City Council, now all black, until 2010:
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080701/NEWS01/80701048
Until shortly before her death in 2006, another IA named Maryann Mahaffey served as a Detroit councilwoman, and indeed was council president when she retired.
Picture here: http://www.cornellcollege.edu/cornell-report/issues/2007-winter/images/obits-Mahaffey.jpg
I think I might have been the first to predict that Obama would be America's Last Black President. I don't remember when that was exactly (early 2008?), but I know it was months before Peter Hitchens made the same prediction.
ReplyDeleteLet's keep a little perspective, okay?
ReplyDeleteJohnson - even Dick ("Affirmative Action") Nixon - pumped more wealth into the black ghetto than Obama could ever dream of.
I'll take a faded cigar-store Indian over a certifiably foreign-directed vulture capitalist every time, thanks.
Supreme Court appointments during the next 4 years? Expect the Rom-bot, if elected, to try to appease the base with some hellfire-and-brimstone Fundamentalist, who will be easily knocked down, after which a bland moderate will be nominated and will pass. The best conservatives could hope for realistically is another Roberts, and we know how that turned out.
Whom would Obama appoint? Same story as above. Republican opposition this time around would admit naught but a gelding to the bench.
Not that there is a Constitution left, anyway.
I expect both houses to go Red. Actually I predict Romney will win in a last hurrah landslide and begin selling off vast tracts of the country (what is left of it) to the Chinese - what am I saying? - to the highest bidder(s). Even the humblest white voters can be counted on to elect the plutocrat who will rob them the fastest and screw them the hardest. It's a close one this time, but with an unerring instinct, the people (all 20% of them who vote) will make their choice, minus a few missing ballot boxes as usual, and business can return to the business of business.
"After NYC got its first Black Democrat mayor in Dinkins... It only elected White Republicans afterwards..."
ReplyDeleteYeah, two of them.
"I'll take a faded cigar-store Indian over a certifiably foreign-directed vulture capitalist every time, thanks."
ReplyDeleteThere aren't many perfect things in this world; that, David, was one of them.
The number of non-Mormons in America who feel deep down that it's time to elect a Mormon President, even if he isn't particularly qualified, are minuscule.
ReplyDeleteMaybe so. I'm more sure that the verb here should be is, not are, since the subject -- "number" -- is singular.
michael jackson, cosbies, and lion king
ReplyDelete36.1% white, 59.7% black, represented by a white guy with pale blue eyes.
ReplyDeleteA regular Scots-Irish TN white guy, at that (Stephen Ira "Steve" MacCohen)!
Anyway, historically Obama reportedly thought he was a failure at the time of the 2000 Democratic convention. You have to go back to the time of the Civil War to see people coming from as far out of left field to get in the office so rapidly (Lincoln and Grant)
ReplyDeleteThe acid test is to ask whether the nominee in a given year's election was even mooted on a long list for the ticket exactly four years before. Lincoln passes this test (he did get the second largest number of votes for VP at the 1856 GOP Convention), as does Obama (the convention speech had people talking about a run in the future by the time the election came around in 2004). Even Jimmy Carter was talked about (by some) as a plausible running mate for McGovern in 1972.
My choices for most-out-of-the-blue would be George McClellan (a railroad company VP in November 1860) and Wendell Willkie (a power company executive in 1936).
I was just saying this in conversation on the weekend.
ReplyDeleteI didn't think to ask what would be the case if Obama were to have been the 2nd black President though.
Rather my question was, will the next black President actually be judged on the quality of his work? Because surely the "he's the first black president" schtick will be invalid.
But out of 15 million adult male black Americans, why pick a half-white guy with a weird, foreign sounding name who isn't actually descended from west African slaves?
ReplyDeleteBecause the white people who support Obama don't support him because he's black. They support him because he's foreign.
The liberal, highly educated, Post-American, Baby-Boomer elites have spent all their life hating Americans, hating America and hating the principles on which America was founded. In Barack Obama they found a president who shares their hatred of their own nation.
"The number of non-Mormons in America who feel deep down that it's time to elect a Mormon President, even if he isn't particularly qualified, are minuscule. "
ReplyDeleteI am one of them. I would like to see Mormons become a more respectable group in mainstream American culture. More than one person I know seems to think they're still polygamous.
I had thought that Romney was qualified anyways, but his campaign has been run so poorly that now I'm not so sure.
Best thing would be for US to divide into 5 or 6 autonomous regions and elect a president for each. Then, everyone is happy.
ReplyDeleteThere would be one common president only for foreign policy.
That could really work, how about 50 autonomous regions and the Prez just takes care of the basics of foreign policy, defense. I know,its a crazy idea thats never been tried...
An article published in mid-2008, entitled "The Race Chasm", showed that Whites who did not live around Blacks were much more likely to support Obama, while Whites with real experience with Diversity voted against Obama.
ReplyDeleteAnd thus the multicult is advanced. By the time whites in an area have woken up to the nightmare,its too late, they're outnumbered and outvoted. Meanwhile whites in majority white areas continue their moral grandstanding and vote for the multicult, ignoring the anguished signals trickling out from overrun areas.
I'm sure you're right as far as you go. But I'd ask the follow up questions - "Why do white people want a Black President?" and "What do people have against Mormons?".
ReplyDeleteI think the desire of whites for a black leader is basically fear of where any other policy towards blacks is going.
Since the death of Kennedy America has spent eleven trillion dollars trying to solve the black American problem. Yes, I just made up that figure. I'm sure however that you get the point. We are the richest nation that ever was and we have tried to spend that wealth to solve the black American problem. And of course we have failed.
The problem starts right at the beginning in our founding documents - "we hold ... that all men are created equal". That isn't true. We would all like it to be true, but it isn't. We are therefore confronted with a conflict between belief and reality. Not surprisingly we cling to belief and reject reality.
One way to resolve the conflict is by simple assertion. So we call people who refuse to believe in human equality racists - the foulest calumny possible. We then spend a fortune on preferences and propaganda. But still blacks do poorly in school and destroy neighborhoods with their mere presence. Finally in desperation we elect a black man as President.
You would think that the American people would have wised up by now. There is plenty of evidence that blacks are below the mark in just about all those qualities that are required for prosperity, peace and civilization. But most Americans resist such a conclusion because they can see where that line of reasoning goes. Americans don't want ethnic cleansing. They don't want to be Nazis and I don't blame them. There is no serious plan by anyone to rehabilitate Detroit. It has been destroyed by simply having a black population. There are no prospects for recovery outside of other unwelcome population policies.
So many Americans will cling to the impossible dream that a black man will emerge who can lead us out of this dilemma.
The reason why people hate Mormons is simple. The Latter Day Saints were founded by known charlatans and con men. Many people foolishly believe that Christianity wasn't also so founded. Jesus was executed for being a troublemaker. He was. He had been going around walking on water and performing miracles. Fortunately for the faithful there were no investigative reports in those days. Joseph Smith wasn't so lucky and L. Ron Hubbard even less so.
From my perspective all religions are based more or less on bunk. But some have positive moral doctrines and others don't. Christians tend to be good people as do Mormons. Muslims tend to be bad people. That's what counts not the literal truth about the lives and actions of their founders.
Albertosaurus
Two bad debates would be enough to go from getting crushed to winning?!
ReplyDeleteAincha heard of the second coming? so why not?
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteObama mixed JFK-ism with MLK-ism with Malcolm X-ism with Oprah-ism, and etc. His book was like the autobiography of Malcolm X decaffinated(sic) with lots of milk.
It's all phony but politics in the mass media era is phony, and Obama is a master artist of bogosity. You gotta give him credit for that.
But all said and done, the real decisive reason for his victory was Jewish financial and media support. Due to his controversial background and lack of achievement, he could have been railroaded by the media, but the Jewish controlled media went easy on him, indeed protected him. Also, he got tons of cash from Jews. Also, Jewish comic writers on late night TV refused to write jokes about him.
Since Americans have been neutered against 'red-baiting' and 'race-baiting', there was little conservatives could do to really attack him.
So, if we really wanna be honest, Jews made him.
I disagree with this. Jewish media and financial influence would have been instrumental in electing ANY democrat president in 2008 (especially against evangelical Sarah palin who the Jewish elite dislikes) but Jews were not particularly helpful in helping Obama beat Hillary. On the contrary Hillary won the jewish vote , was declared inevitable by the media, was declared the winner of every debate, and was hawkishly pro-Israel in a way that the allegedly Muslim Obama could not compete with.
It was only after oprah dived into the campaign in critical early states did Obama gain momentum. Oprah was the first black to have the wealth and media influence to affect elections in a way that typically only Jews have been able to do, and her endorsement was decisive, delivering Obama a million votes in a razor close primary.
And no, Obama would never have become president had a black previously occupied the white house. The novelty would have been gone, and Hillary, running as the first woman to be president, would have had the more powerful symbolism.
"It was only after oprah dived into the campaign in critical early states did Obama gain momentum."
ReplyDeleteJews initially went with Hillary, but when Obama seemed viable, they were with him. Look, many Jews have said 'we made him' and called him the 'first Jewish president' since so many people who found, groomed, and made him are Jewish.
"After NYC got its first Black Democrat mayor in Dinkins... It only elected White Republicans afterwards..."
ReplyDeleteRINOS.
Pat said: There is plenty of evidence that blacks are below the mark in just about all those qualities that are required for prosperity, peace and civilization. But most Americans resist such a conclusion because they can see where that line of reasoning goes. Americans don't want ethnic cleansing. They don't want to be Nazis and I don't blame them. There is no serious plan by anyone to rehabilitate Detroit. It has been destroyed by simply having a black population. There are no prospects for recovery outside of other unwelcome population policies.
ReplyDeleteWe'll get there in the end Pat and the longer we leave it the worse it will be.
The most humane solution would have been African repatriation in 1865.
Some people think stopping mass immigration is inhumane, they dont seem to conceive of how much more inhumane things will get.
"According to exit polls conducted in 30 primary states, Jewish Democratic primary voters overall supported Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama - 54 percent chose Clinton compared to 43 percent who chose Obama. Jewish primary voters made up 4 percent of the total vote in the Democratic primary states polled."
ReplyDeleteLook, Jewish power is not in the voting. They are only 2% of the population. It is in their control of Wall Street, Hollywood, media, news, etc. And superduper Jews went with Obama. That's what matters. Your average Jew who works as accountant and votes doesn't have much power. For real Jewish power, you have to look to the top 1% of the Jewish community, and they were with Obama.
When Jews speak of their political power, they always point to Florida and how Jewish votes matter there. Yes, it matters there.
ReplyDeleteBut that is NOT the essence of Jewish power. It is control of media, finance, and etc. But Jews don't wanna touch on that issue--and they don't want us to mention that aspect of Jewish power. They'd rather have us focus on old Jewish ladies in Florida voting for Pat Buchanan in butterfly ballots.
"I'm not at all convinced Jews were decisive in Obama getting elected."
ReplyDeleteRight. Maraniss's biography of Obama's first 27 years suggests that culturally he's notably more Yankee than anything else. Puhahou is a very New England Congregationalist / merchant prince institution in its roots. Occidental is kind of similar. There aren't many Jews in Hawaii and he didn't seem to have many Jewish friends even in New York.
When Jewish interviewers tell him how sympatico they feel with him, how he must be a little bit Jewish, Obama tends to reply that that's because he has read some Philip Roth novels and had some Jewish professors at Columbia and Harvard.
This is not to say that he didn't stumble into a profitable role in a lot of Jewish fantasies, but it took him a long time to figure that out. He really wanted to be accepted by blacks. Also, the hard-nosed super self-consciously Zionist wing of the Democratic Party funded by Haim Saban was suspicious of him all the way up until the first month after the election, when he appointed Hillary, Rahm, and Larry Summers.
I'd say the Superduper Jews like Haim Saban were more in the Hillary camp.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteMost of big media was with Obama
Most of big media was actually for Hillary. I remember the constant coverage of how inevitable Hillary was and how she blew Obama away in all the Democratic primary debates.
And the big Kahuna of Jewish media influence (the New York Times) explicitly endorsed Hillary:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/25/opinion/25fri1.html?pagewanted=all
I would say Obama won the Democratic nomination despite Jewish influence, not because of it.
Now once he had secured the Democratic nomination, and McCain had made the mistake of alienating Jewish elites by picking Sarah Palin, Obama enjoyed enormous Jewish support (both from the media and at the grassroots level)but whoever had won the Dem nomination was virtually guaranteed the white house in 2008 (with or without media help).
Now there is a subset of left-wing Jewish male intellectuals who worship Obama because they finally found a black and president who is literary, liberal, exotic, and elegant looking (elongated)enough for them to deify, and this subgroup is so in awe of Obama that they convince themselves he's a friend to Israel (people project on him their fantasies as Steve said), but this type of Obama worship by male intellectuals is not unique to Jews (though Jews have more intellectuals and Jewish intellectuals are more influential).
Hillary lost NY to Obama only fter she promised to give drivers licenses to illegal aliens
ReplyDeleteObama exploited that gaffe and then granted administrative amnesty to illegal aliens this year.
CA Governor Brown just granted illegals drivers licenses to illegals.
Romney and GOP on this winning issue?
Silence.
No. If a competent black man had become president, Obama would have looked too weak. If an incompetent black president had become president, he would have looked too "green". Say what you like about Powell or Bradley, both of them had decades of success/experience. Barack would have looked like a child wearing Daddy's suit beside either of them.
ReplyDeleteWe Red-Sea pedestrians were responsible for Obama?
ReplyDeleteAll I have to say is ...
I didn't do it; nobody saw me do it; you can't prove anything!