Monroe Anderson

Giuliani's fat lady drags

  The fat lady has been warming up her vocal chords since the campaign for the Republican nomination got serious. New York’s photo-op former mayor, Rudy Giuliani, came up with an unorthodox approach on winning without really trying. He basically skipped the Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan and South Carolina contests, while planning to prove he was the man by stomping his challengers in Florida.

     Strange strategy. Didn’t work. Tonight he came in a disappointing, but predicted,distant third behind John McCain and Mitt Romney in the Sunshine State. Although "America’s Mayor" was not dressed in drag, the fat lady sang her song anyway. While I was relieved to know, for sure, that as I had satirically predicted in March of last year, there would be no "Giuliani time," I was also disappointed. Had the tough-talking, cross-dressing, two-timing former mayor of New York been a contender, I could have published his girly-girl photos here more than once.

     Since he’s bowing out the race, scheduled to throw his support to McCain at the Reagan library tomorrow,  I’ll only get to use the pretty photos of Giuliani all crossed-dressed up with no place to go right now. So be it.

Here’s the op-ed page column I wrote that appeared in the March 4, 2007 edition of the Chicago Sun-Times.

     Remember, satire, folks. Satire.

Daley could easily take Giuliani

May 4, 2007

BY MONROE ANDERSON

The Bush administration bungled the Iraqi and Afghanistan occupations so badly that the president's base is in a mad scramble toward that camera-ready symbol of national security: Rudy Giuliani. Even if he is a counterfeit conservative, the unannounced New Yorker is now the Republican party's front-runner, sprinting past its old media darling John McCain. A CBS News poll last week showed ''America's mayor'' with a 50 percent to 21 percent surge over America's war hero among likely GOP voters.

The only big-city mayor to be elected U.S. president was Grover Cleveland, back in the 19th century. I see no reason to tamper with that single precedent. But if the Repubs want to raise the bar by running a mayor for president, the Dems should do the same. How about this dream match-up: Time magazine's Man of the Year vs. Time magazine's Top Big-City Mayor? It would be the clash of the titans. And, when the dust settled, I'll bet it won't be Giuliani time.

Fresh off an election victory that could lead to the longest-ruling-big-city-boss entry in the Guinness Book of Records, Chicago's Richard M. Daley would clout-slap Giuliani silly in an '08 presidential smack-down. Just elected to his sixth term in office, Daley strong-armed some love from all quarters and crannies of his Midwest metropolis. In comparison, Giuliani was saved by NYC's quaint term-limit law. Had he been allowed to run for a third term, New Yorkers would have run him out of office. On Sept. 10, 2001, Giuliani was a little more popular than a snaggle-toothed plain Jane, with a running cold sore, selling smooches at a county fair booth. The next day, after Osama bin Laden's terrorists struck and the international media descended on the Big Apple, the scandal-infested, lame duck-mayor's star fatefully rose again. Thanks to days of photo-ops at funerals, Giuliani morphed into the poster child of American leadership.

It's easy to look at Daley and Giuliani and decide the two are alike. After all, Daley is one of the nation's most Republican Democrats and Giuliani is one of the nation's most Democratic Republicans. This the New Yorker knows. So with all deliberate guile, he has started to distinguish himself by shifting the nation's right-wing concerns away from family values -- with good cause. Giuliani has embraced gay rights, and he's on the record as pro-choice and anti-guns. There isn't a dime's worth of difference in Daley's position. The boring Chicagoan distinguishes himself by remaining married and faithful to the mother of his grown children. Giuliani is on his third wife and who-knows-which mistress.

Then there's foreign affairs. Neither mayor has real experience in that arena. Nor have they demonstrated disaster preparedness. As the Twin Towers crumbled, New York's firefighters and police couldn't communicate with each other because Giuliani had failed to ensure coordination between the two departments. And a Homeland Security report released two months ago gave Chicago low marks on its readiness.

It doesn't matter. As mayor, Giuliani unleashed his police force to reduce crime. Its success made national news. Four of New York's finest cornered Amadou Diallo, a black immigrant from Guinea, in the vestibule of his Bronx apartment building. The plainclothes cops fired 41 shots at him. Unarmed and not a suspect of any crime, Diallo died while trying to go home. Two Harlem teenagers, Robert Reynoso and Juval Green, were luckier. They were only wounded when New York police opened fire on them as they ran down the street. The cops thought they had a gun. They had no gun.

Daley is tougher than Giuliani. His police department has made sure that more than one unarmed Chicagoan has suffered the plight of Diallo, Reynoso and Green. As the Cook County state's attorney, Daley couldn't hear, didn't see and wouldn't read reports that one of Chicago's finest, Lt. Jon Graham Burge, was torturing suspects into making confessions.

A Daley or Giuliani in the White House would make al-Qaida think twice. With a president who has demonstrated his willingness to allow innocent people shot or tortured to keep the peace, a foreign terrorist would have to be a psychopath and suicidal to tread on us.

This is the first worthy chain e-mail ever

   

    I got this one tonight from my friend, Al Robinson, a 70-year-old semi-retired Chicago businessman, who is both socially and politically alert. I have no idea who wrote this viral e-mail but it's worth a read, some thought and some intelligent discussion.

    What do you think?

    On January 31, I learned the name of the author, Detrick DeBurr, of the e-mail, thanks to this info from the Daily Kos website: Update[2008-1-31 14:9:38 by DavidSewell]: Catte Nappe found the source of the letter.

Obama and Black People

I am practically seething with all of the black people, especially so called "intelligent”, "educated", black people giving a million tired excuses of why they won't vote for Barack Obama and will vote for a Hillary Clinton:

1. He's not ready/He's not experienced.

Man please. You have the top 3 Democratic candidates with 1 Senate term under their belt. Hillary as the First Lady as experienced? Not one executive decision is made being as the first lady. That's like Stedman recommending a book, endorsing a candidate, or having his own show...SO WHAT.

2. White America is not ready for a Black president.

Whaaa? Was White America ready for slavery to end? Giving us the right to vote? Desegregation of our society? When did black people ever let white people dictate when and where we were getting our just due, our break? We've always stepped up and demanded what we wanted, or we were either hitting the streets and tearin' up some stuff, escapin', marching, or picketing. White America is ready for a Black President because Barack Obama is the right man for President, PERIOD.
Besides, that never stopped anyone from voting for Jesse Jackson, a man with NO political experience AT ALL from almost snatching the Democratic nomination in 1984, and coming darn close again in 1988 20 YEARS AGO.

3. Barack is half black and half white, so he's not really black anyway.

I should backsmack anyone who has ever thought that. Ever heard of the one drop rule? It has not only been a social standard for WHO is black, but it also upheld the constitution in keeping us from suing a white person over personal property. No black person ever refers to another black person as "biracial". You black. You might have another heritage in your lineage, but this country as well as any other sees you as black, PERIOD. Lame excuse people.

4. I don't know what issues Barack stands for.

When the heck has that ever prevented black folk from voting for a black candidate, really? I guess now, but the main people saying that couldn't tell you anything about Hillary's or John Edwards platform either. Please stop fronting.

5. All he did was give that one speech.

How many great people have defined their lives, the scope of human history, and changed the world in a speech? Moses, Jesus, Paul, Martin Luther, Frederick Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King, Jr., John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Ronald Reagan, Nelson Mandela, Jesse Jackson, and Jim Valvano all have changed the course of history of the world and the hearts of billions of men and women in societies since the beginning of time with a speech.
That is the purpose of a ra lly. A person speaks, and it prepares all to act in relation to the spirit of what is spoken. That is why we go to church, not to just hear our pastor blather, but to refresh God in our hearts and spurn us to take up God's will in our lives.
So save all that ying yang about that speech.

6. If all of those white people are supporting him, he must be in their back pocket.

Save the conspiracy theory home skillet. He's liked because he comes at a time where a person that looks exactly like them lied to their face (two in a row, if you include Bill Clinton with Monica and of course Bush with Iraq), and flat out said what no politician would admit: We have two Americas, blue and red, black and white. It was not publicly said, and on top of that proposed that we ACTUALLY DO something about it, not find more ways to be divided and not come together despite our differences. Noble concept and one to be championed. That's JFK, FDR, and Abe Lincoln material. So they were feeling it, just like I was and you should too. His legislative work has been indicative of this as well, including his Fuel Standard work with President Bush. Check the resume, it shines.

THE REAL REASON BLACK PEOPLE DON'T WANT TO VOTE FOR OBAMA IS THAT THEY ARE AFRAID THAT HE'LL WIN, AND:

1. WE’LL HAVE NO MORE EXCUSES LEFT.

We won't be able to say, "America is racist", "I cannot get a break because I'm black", and all other random excuses many blacks make for not achieving anything in their lives.

2. IF SOCIETY IS LEFT UNCHANGED AFTER HIS PRESIDENCY WE'LL LOSE HOPE.

If a black man becomes President, I honestly believe many black people feel that all of the world's problems should come to an end. No more crack selling, no more black on black crime, no more baby mama drama and dead beat daddies, no more people on welfare and on the chow line, no more winos, no more police brutality, no more DWB, no more predatory loans, no more ghettos, no more racism period, no more Middle East unrest, just everybody singing cumbaya. To some degree, I think a lot of white people, especially liberal, feel that way too, that's why they are all up on him like that.
THAT'S RIDICULOUS. If it happened, he'd be one of the greatest people that ever lived, but that's way too much pressure to put on one man. DANG! I feel that people are really not ready for the world to get better anyway. It's like that father you never knew but won't make a relationship with because you don't want to be let down. It's unfair and let that go. Barak will make a great President, but he won't solve all of the world's problems, nor can he solve all of black peoples' problems either.

3. SO CALLED "EDUCATED" BLACK PEOPLE WON'T BE SO SPECIAL ANYMORE BECAUSE THE PLAYING FIELD WILL BE LEVELED.

Absolutely hate more than anything else. The above 2 reasons were largely a poor disadvantaged black person's inner fear about Barack. Many of number 2 and all of this one is specifically tailored to you bourgeois folks that actually like being the only black person (or one of a very few) in your medical school, your law school, your master's program, your Ph.D. program, your high fallutin' Fortune 500 Company, your faculty at your prestigious institution.
You feel deep inside being a talented 10th will become a talented population. As much as you detest and look down at your disadvantaged brothers and sisters, and claim they need to "get a job", "get an education", "pull themselves up from their own bootstraps", and "stop being so ignorant", you like them where they are. You are the one that has that shady feeling in your belly when a new black person is hired because you don't want them to screw it up for you. Yeah you...I'm talkin' about you. You know who you are. You think deep inside,  Keishas, Darnells, Shequans are going to get theirs now that Barak is in office, and you won't be so special anymore.
See you like racism. You probably are like Clarence Thomas, the man that benefited from Affirmative Action but now you got yours, nobody else can get in too, so you vote against Affirmative Action. Yeah, claim you got your opportunity on merit. No, you got it on the backs of our ancestors that had to fight for you to get that job. Now you don't want a world where everyone has an equal opportunity. Well actually neither do poor blacks either, see 1. < /P>

3. IF HE MESSES IT UP, WE'RE ALL SCREWED.

Back in the day blacks with degrees could do nothing but shine shoes outside the company. Now we're in them, making decisions, even CEOs like my man Stanley O'Neal, the first black American to take the helm of a major Wall Street firm. That brother completely mismanaged the company, like many others who mismanaged banks and cause losing equity because of security back sub prime loans. Now, those that are in the know are afraid that a black man cannot ever get that opportunity to be THE MAN at a major institution again.
Not only that, if Barack messes it up, there will be a backlash on all of black America. "You guys had your chance to run the free world, and you blew it".
Sorry Charlie, Barak is one man. You can 't use the logic for yourself as far as getting ahead, but lose it for this man. George Bush completely botched America's standing in the world, but I don't see anyone afraid to elect another white man. So come off of it.

4. BLACK WOMEN FEEL SORRY FOR HILLARY BEING CHEATED ON BY THE REAL FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT.

This is so dumb, I cannot address with words, but it's the truth for a lot of black people, who felt Bill was the first Black President, and sistas especially would feel like they were vindicating a woman that was done wrong by anotha brotha.

5. BLACKS LIKE TO BE DIFFERENT FROM WHITES AND BARAK WILL BREAK DOWN BARRIERS WE LIKE HAVING UP.

Keep it real people. You hate it when anything we do gets imitated. It is instantly uncool. Most blacks love that we have our own thing, our own culture. Having Barack win means for a lot of people America will have more of a shared consciousness. We'll actually have to come together and squash some beef to make this country cooperative. I don't completely believe this concept, but I'm down for it. Once again, Black people really do like racism.

For all of you doubters out there this is what you really need to ask yourselves:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

That's all the brotha is trying to do. So vote for him, drop the excuses, and support the first viable Black Candidate. Our ancestors demand that we do so.

Was South Carolina's primary a race race?

   

    A quarter of a century ago or so, it was Harold Washington who was forced to face the great racial divide in electoral politics.

Now the trick bag is back, getting loaded up with America’s political peculiarities once again. This time it's Barack Obama turn to stuff the sack where African American politicians automatically get assigned to the short side of our nation's dueling color categories rather than as one in many of our country's diverse ethnic groups.

But rather than discuss the changes Washington had to go through to overcome his opponent’s “before it’s too late” campaign slogan to become Chicago’s first African-American mayor, I’d rather review yesterday’s news.

Obama won South Carolina by a landslide. He ended up with 55.4 percent of the vote in a record turnout. Hillary Clinton got 26.5 percent of the vote and native South Carolinian John Edwards got 17.6 percent.

I was in South Carolina last week; on the Obama press bus, covering the election for the Afro American News, where only a few of the Carolinians I spoke with saw the race in racial terms. But most, like the supporters in lily-white New Hampshire, spoke of the contest in terms of change—status quo versus new or young versus old.

In sharp contrast, the BBC News reported yesterday’s election results under the headline:   Polarised vote in Obama sweep.

In dissecting who voted for whom, the U.S. national media analyzed the election along those lines as well: Obama got 80 percent of the black vote and 25 percent of the white vote because he was black. Hillary got 42 percent of the women’s vote, as compared with Obama’s 22 percent, because she’s a woman and Edwards got 45 percent of the white male vote, as compared to Obama’s 27 percent, because he’s a white man.

It seems to me, we’re playing with a glass is half full, half empty perspective. In a former slave-holding state where they’re still battling over displaying the Confederate flag and statues of the rabid racists still hold prominent positions in public places, Obama’s white vote could be interpreted as phenomenal.

    On the other hand, the racial-polarization story line does not bode well for Obama come super-duper Tuesday, February 5. Casting Obama’s performance in—in pure black and white—all but guarantees that Hillary will be opening a can of whip ass in 10 days.

    Being ever the competitive campaigner, our “first black president,” Bill, casually dismissed the victory over his Mrs. by pointing out that Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in ’84 and ’88, leaving it easy to infer that yesterday’s election was nothing more than the black primary.

    Now we can get on to the February 5 primaries where the white voters can decide.

    And that’s the stuff that African American politicians get stuck in—the trick bag. Rather than paint this presidential contest in black and white, with Obama, obviously being the black candidate, why isn’t a matchup between hyphenated Americans?

    If Obama’s surname was Pucinski and his father was from Warsaw and his mother from Dodge City, the color coded coverage would vanish and the reporting would center on the possibility of the Democratic Party nominating the first Polish-American for its presidential standard bearer. That could then transform Hillary Rodham Clinton from the white woman candidate into the Welsh-American woman president.

    In general, Obama is the African-American candidate, a member of the nation’s second largest ethnic group, and, in particular, he is a Kenyan-American candidate, a member of one of the nation’s smallest ethnic groups.

    African or Kenyan, American voters in the 22 state primaries on February 5 should vote for the best candidate, free from being forced to make a black or white choice.

Obama's Philsophy of Hope

    This is my last post from South Carolina. Since the Afro American News is a weekly, the next publication is next Wednesday. The polls are giving Obama a 7-10 point lead, so it looks like he may win tomorrow--but we won't know for sure until the polls close.

    Here's a transcript of an answer the Illinois senator gave to a black woman during a stop Wednesday in Rock Hill. She wanted to know what she could say to her 77-year-old father would doubted that an African American president would be able to govern because racism will hamper his effectiveness.

 

Obama’s response to a question which speaks from defeated Southern Black hopes of the past

By Monroe Anderson

AFRO Staff Writer

ROCK HILL, S.C. -- Rita Moore-Johnson asked the question that caught everybody’s attention.  It was a question rooted in the darkest days of America’s history and years of Southern oppression.

Moore-Johnson, 45, a medical lab technician, had come to Rock Hill to hear presidential candidate Barack Obama speak at one of the many rallies here before Saturday’s  Democratic primary.

Her father, she explained, is 77 years old. He is the grandson of a former slave. 

He, like his father, and his father, has spent all his life in South Carolina, where the Confederate flag still flies outside the state capital.

Segregation, lynchings and the Ku Klux Klan are real memories for him, not just something out of a history book.  He repeatedly has seen Black aspirations beaten down; he repeatedly has seen Black efforts met by irrational White resistance.

" I don't want to perpetuate this notion in our kids that there's a limit to what their dream is..."

And for those reasons, he is afraid to vote for Barack Obama.

So, during a question and answer session following Obama’s speech at Winthrop University,  Moore-Johnson, an Obama supporter, explained to the candidate that her father "feels that a Black president will not be able to do what he needs to  do in Washington to get change done.”

And then she asked, “What do I tell him and people like him, in a small sense that will change his mind?"

Obama responded:

“Tell him this. First of all, people said I couldn't win the United States senate race. Illinois is only 12 percent African American. And everybody said, 'wow, this black guy with the funny name. People will not  vote for him. We won by 20 percent in the primary and 30, 40 percent in the general election.

“Number one, we have shown that we can win. I am absolutely convinced that the American people, right now, they don't care if you are black, white, brown…green.

“What they care about is, are you going to help them. If I came here and I had polka dots and you were convinced that I was going to put more money in your pockets and help you pay for college and help keep America safe, you'd say

"Okay, I wish he didn't have polka dots, but I'll still vote for him."

“The thing I want you to tell him is this. This goes to what I said about hope earlier. What if Dr. King looked over 400,000 people at the Lincoln Memorial and said, ‘Y’all go home, this is too hard, we're not going to change people's attitudes’ What if John Kennedy looked up at the moon and said, ‘That's too hard. We can't go.’

“Part of the test of leadership is breaking through barriers. And most of the barriers are not barriers outside us, but barriers inside us, in our heads. We tell ourselves we can't do something. And part of what I want to do is to say "yes, we can" and I want to send that message to our children. I don't want to perpetuate this notion in our kids that there's a limit to what their dream is.

“Tell your father that he's got to be thinking of making sure he doesn’t pass that mindset on to his grandchildren and even their grandchildren. If they try, they may succeed. It's always possible that they won't succeed, but you definitely won't succeed if you don't try.”

               

 

Obama truth squad locked and loaded

    Barack Obama was running a hopeful campaign for change. And then he won in Iowa and became a real threat. Even with the popular vote wins in New Hampshire and Nevada, Obama is leading with more delegates. The Clinton's cordialities have been the first to go. What came next was pure WWF with Bill and Hillary doing a tag-team number on the Illinois senator.
    Earlier this week, on cable TV, he struck back. The Ebony/Jet poll now has Obama leading Clinton by 10 percent. His truth squad may be busy for some time to come. Here's a news story I wrote for this week's Afro American News.      

   

   

   

More combatant Obama heads towards S.C. finish

By Monroe Anderson
AFRO Staff Writer

Columbia, S.C.— As Saturday’s Democratic presidential primary looms, South Carolina is witnessing the transformation of Barack Obama from the congenial, well-tempered campaigner into “No More Mr. Nice Guy” who is slugging it out with the chief rival, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton.

The Illinois senator's conversion occurred following 10 days of rough and tumble skirmishes with the Clinton camp in Nevada and after Obama arrived in South Carolina Sunday to learn he was about to get more of the same.

Faced with an unexpected tough election challenge from the first serious African American contender for the presidency, Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton have been engaged in tag-team tactics in their attempts to discredit him, Obama campaign officials said.

David Axelrod, the Obama campaign's chief strategist, said that the Clinton campaign had given them two choices, "to allow ourselves to get painted in ways that are completely misleading" or to fight back.

As part of that fight back strategy, the Obama campaign has establish a "truth squad."

"If there's any misleading statements made, we're going to correct those misstatements," Axelrod said. 

Meanwhile, Obama’s South Carolina campaign is sticking to one strategy that helped it win Iowa caucuses; going after the youth vote.

Most of the volunteers and many of the paid staffers are in their 20s, and since beginning his campaign in South Carolina in earnest, Obama has spoken to overflow crowds at colleges and universities throughout the state.

On Tuesday, for example, he started at Furman University in Greenville before speaking to another large crowd three hours later  at Lanham University in Greenwood three hours.

He ended the day with an overflow “Stand Up For Change” rally at South Carolina State University in Orangeburg that featured singer Usher, comedian Chris Tucker and actress Kelly Washington.

On Wednesday, he started the day with a rally at Winthrop University in Rock Hill.

Meanwhile, his wife, Michelle Obama, has been doing much of the same, beginning with a talk Sunday at predominately Black Benedict College, and continuing this week with a four-day tour of the state.

The campaigns only really new twist is its plan to go head-to-head with Clinton about her accusations regarding Obama’s record in the Illinois legislature and his statements.

Clinton, her husband and campaign supporters have taken turns attacking Obama, who has won more delegates in the party's early elections, but after winning Iowa, has suffered close losses to the New York senator in New Hampshire and Nevada.

The former president recently said that the Illinois senator's claims about his anti-Iraqi war efforts were a "fairy tale," opined that putting Obama in the White House would be a roll of the dice and accused Obama of saying that "since 1992, the Republicans have had all the good ideas."

During the Nevada caucus race, the former president also claimed that Obama's union supporters were trying to suppress the vote of his wife's backers.

Obama has said none of the accusations are true.

Earlier this week, the Clinton campaign stuck to its story. "We understand Sen. Obama is frustrated by his loss in Nevada but facts are facts. Sen. Obama's allies in Nevada engaged in strong-arm tactics and intimidation against our supporters and his record against the war has been inconsistent," Clinton campaign spokesman Phil Singer said.

Former BET owner Bob Johnson was forced to apologize after attacking Obama about his use of drug during his young adulthood, something Obama had written about in his book.

Obama's strike-back reflex went public during the Democratic debate earlier this week when he and Clinton engaged in a verbal smack down, during the CNN/Congressional Black Caucus Institute-sponsored debate.  The frontrunners repeatedly interrupted each other, made charges and counter-charges and even cast personal attacks about their careers as lawyers.

The following, Obama unveiled his new strategy when he took on Clinton in a speech at Furman.

"In this time of economic anxiety and uncertainty, what this country needs most is a President who says what he means and means what he says,” Obama said.

On the day that the stock market opened down nearly 500 points, Obama charged that Clinton had been inconsistent on some economic issues.

Some Democrats and Obama supporters say they fear that if the Clinton and Obama campaigns keep up the attacks, they may hurt the party during the general election and that the two rivals should focus on the nation's big problems—the war and the economy.

But Axelrod said the campaign has no choice.

"This is not the fight that we choose, but we cannot walk away from it," he said.

 

 

Obama calls out Bush and Clinton

In our first stop on Tuesday morning at Furman University in Greenville, S.C., Obama dropped his stump speech to comment on the worsening economy, blaming President Bush and chastising Sen. Clinton. You can read this story and others on afro.com.

Following the MLK Debate, Obama Continues Attacking

By Monroe Anderson

AFRO Staff Writer

GREENVILLE, S.C.—The morning after his no holds barred presidential debate with challengers Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama continued in his combative mode, taking President George W. Bush and Clinton to task for their economic policies.

With the stock market plunging more than 400 points when it opened and talk of recession growing louder and louder, Obama, just days away from Saturday’s primary here, departed from his stump speech about change and hope to address the morning's bad financial news.

"For the second day in a row, the global stock market has continued to plunge as the world continues to fear that the United States government won't do enough to prevent a recession," Obama told a packed auditorium during a rally at Furman University.

He said he hoped the rate cuts announced earlier in the morning " will restore some confidence and stop the damage, but the fear remains."

What started as a crisis in the housing market "has now spilled over to the rest of the economy," Obama said.

… Obama, just days away from Saturday’s primary here, departed from his stump speech about change and hope…

Obama said he's been warning "for years that this might happen. But Washington did what Washington does – it looked the other way. It rewarded lenders and lobbyists with whatever they asked for while ignoring the voices of working people who needed help most."

He accused President George W. Bush of being a president "who's done more to contribute to this country's widening inequality than anyone since Herbert Hoover."

He also continued his in-your-face attack on his chief rival, New York Sen. Clinton. "In the debate last night, we spent some time talking about the economy,” he said. “And one of the things I brought up that concerned me was that when Sen. Clinton first released her economic stimulus plan, she didn't think that workers or seniors needed immediate tax relief," Obama said.

"She thought it could wait until things got worse. Five days later, the economy didn't really change, but the politics apparently did, because she changed her plan to look just like mine."

Obama criticized Clinton for saying that she voted for a bill, but was glad when it didn’t pass.

"I know you can get away with this in Washington, but most of us know that if you don't want to see a bill pass, there's a pretty easy option available,” he said. “You can vote against it."

Advisors in the Obama campaign said the Illinois senator is changing his campaign strategy and has decided to get tough with Sen. Clinton, pointing out the contradictions in her record.

Tracking the Obama campaign in South Carolina

    I'm back on the Barack Obama campaign trail for a few days. This time it's South Carolina, where the primary is January 26, and the political positioning is getting curiouser and curiouser as race and gender play a critical role. You can find my latest story and others on afro.com.

COLUMBIA, S.C.--After a bruising battle in the Nevada caucuses, with New York Sen. Hillary Clinton claiming a most-votes victory, but with Illinois Sen. Barack Obama still holding more delegates than his chief opponent, the two Democratic Party presidential front-runners now have their sights on one particular constituency in South Carolina: Black women.

That constituency was well represented as Obama began to campaign here in earnest Sunday night, just six days before the state’s Saturday primary, with a major rally before thousands at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center.

And if Brenda Lowery, Rhodessa Smith and Willie Mae Ferguson are any indication, which candidate will receive the lion’s share of that vote is anybody’s guess.

Lowery, Smith and Ferguson are three friends who are all members in good standing at Antioch Baptist Church here.

They listened intently as Obama got a warm round of applause when he promised to raise the minimum wage "every year to keep up with inflation."

He got a roaring applause when he said, "if we can build new jails, I know we can build new schools."

He repeated his stump speech joke that in the next November's presidential election," the name of

George Bush will not be on the ballot. The name of my cousin, Dick Cheney will not be on the ballot."

When the Obama’s speech was over and with the overflow crowd dispersing, the three friends walked away each with a differing opinion.

Admitting to being “very impressed” by the junior senator from Illinois’ speech, Lowery, 63, said she was still torn between him and Clinton. She said she liked Barack and was “going to weigh everything he says,” but believed that Hillary had the experience.

Smith, on the other hand, said that she is staunchly in Clinton’s camp.

“It’s something about that experience,” said Smith, who at 45 is a year younger than Obama. 

She said she has heard the arguments that Obama should be president because he’s Black or that Hillary should be president because she’s a woman.

“You don’t vote on race or gender; you vote on experience,” Smith said.

Ferguson, 82, said she had not “quite decided” but indicated she was leaning towards supporting Obama. She said she likes him because he is young and might bring change to Washington.

What the three Black women think, and how they will vote, is a major concern and cause for both the Obama and Clinton camps as the South Carolina primary approaches.         

The gender gap has played a crucial role in which of the top two Democratic contenders ended up with the most votes in first three presidential match-ups. In lily-white Iowa, Obama scored an unexpected victory by drawing more women’s votes than Clinton. The junior senator from New York struck back in lily-white New Hampshire by winning 46 percent to Obama’s 34 percent of the women’s vote. In Nevada Hillary beat Barack by 13 percentage points among women.

But South Carolina is different. Here, about half of the Democrats are Black and more than half of the Black Democratic voters are women. That’s why Lowery, Smith and Ferguson’s opinions—and ultimately their votes—are so important.

“I’m going to think about it and pray on it,” Lowery said.

Smith said, “I don’t believe Hillary Clinton is going to keep the same old Washington bureaucracy going.”

Ferguson said she believes Obama should be given a chance to show what he can do.  She cited another young Black leader, who was given the chance to lead the civil rights movement when he was just 26 years old.

“A lot of people didn’t think Martin Luther King could do it,” she said.

 

 

Sharpton plays Harlem's Hamlet

    

Yesterday, when I wrote about the loosey-goosey support Barack Obama was getting from the nation’s black leadership, I only mentioned the Rev. Al Sharpton in passing.

    Four years ago, Rev. Al was a semi-serious candidate for the Democratic party’s nomination for president. This time around, he’s been a dedicated fence-sitter. The most obvious reason is that he’s from New York and Obama’s eyeball-to-eyeball challenger is New York’s junior senator, Hillary Clinton. With Hillary as the state’s favorite daughter, there has to be a lot of pressure on Sharpton to jump on the Clinton bandwagon.

    Today Rev. Calvin Butts, pastor of Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church where Adam Clayton Powell once dominated the pulpit, announced his support of Hillary. The Clinton camp had Rep. Charlie Rangel (D., N.Y.) with "Hello."

    But beyond Harlem, Sharpton is engaged in his own political battle with the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Jr. over who’s the Number One leader of black America. With Jackson backing his state’s favorite son, Obama, and Barack, of course, being black, just how should Sharpton position himself?

    How does the nation’s wannabe top black leader stomp for the white lady? How does New York’s most famous black minister-politician not support New York’s candidate for the Democratic nomination? To do or not to do?--That is the question.

    It’s been so much easier for Sharpton in past elections as I pointed out in an op-ed page column I wrote for the Chicago Sun-Times nearly a year ago. The column is not exactly complimentary to Sharpton. The day after it ran, I got an e-mail from Fatiyn Muhammad, the executive producer for Keeping It Real, Sharpton’s nationally syndicated radio program, to discuss the issues I’d raised.

    My ego isn't big enough and I’m not that stupid. I was to go on Sharpton’s show, before Sharpton’s audience, to discuss Sharpton’s life? I respectfully neglected to respond. Anyway, I reread the March 18 column today and it’s still good. Check it out.

    Tomorrow, I board a plane for South Carolina. I’m back on the Obama campaign trail.

Why Sharpton is badmouthing Obama

March 18, 2007

BY MONROE ANDERSON

Al Sharpton is on a jealousy trip, power trip, ego trip and is tripping over his own two right feet. Last week, the New York preacher declared that presidential candidate Barack Obama should not take the black vote for granted. He also bad-mouthed Obama for supporting Sen. Joe Lieberman. Sharpton’s Obama-drama took center stage last week when the New York Post reported a pro-Hillary activist charged that a jealous Rev. Al was out to do deadly damage to Obama’s presidential bid. “He’s saying that Obama never did anything for the community, never worked with anybody from the community, that nobody knows the people around him, that he’s a candidate driven by white leadership,” the Post quoted the activist.

Bathing in the warmth of glowing television cameras and hyped by headlines, once again, Sharpton denied and deflected. He wasn’t jealous; he was just doing what he’s always done, he said. “I want to talk about a civil rights agenda as a priority.”

That civil rights agenda Sharpton wants to talk about is just fine if you’re in the presidential race to see if you can get more votes than the Rev. Jesse Jackson did back in the ‘80s so that you can claim the de facto Leader-of-Black-America crown. But it won’t play in Peoria if you are seeking to become Ruler of the Free World. That calls for universal, not racial, appeal. And whether Sharpton knows it or not, universality in good hands is great for civil rights. Universal health care appeals to all Americans but will help African Americans proportionately more. An African-American president, elected on universal appeal, can launch a public school initiative that will ensure that each child is well-educated and that voting rights are enforced.

To say that Sharpton is jealous is about as obvious as saying that America’s not about to elect a black man who wears his hair conked. Why should the media again seek out Rev. Sharpton, a self-appointed leader, when it can call on Sen. Obama, the first competitive African-American presidential candidate? Why go to Sharpton to get a quick quip on how we’re losing the war on poverty, when you can go to top-tier candidate Obama for a substantial response on what he’d do about us losing the war in Iraq?

Some of the over-the-hill New York politician’s over-the-top anti-Obama snipes and gripes are transparent. Lieberman for one. While both he and Obama opposed the Iraq war, Sharpton tongue-lashed the Illinois senator for campaigning in Connecticut for the pro-war Lieberman. Sharpton failed to mention that Obama’s support came during the primary with the balance of power in the U.S. Senate up for grabs. In the general election, Obama backed the party nominee, Ned Lamont. In both elections, Obama was acting as a loyal Democrat. Sometimes Sharpton does not.

In his 2004 presidential loss, Sharpton strangely fellowshipped with GOP Watergate trickster Roger Stone. Back during that symbiotic relationship between the civil rights leader and the right-wing operative, I’m not sure who was tricking whom. A Village Voice investigation revealed that Sharpton’s campaign was staffed, financed and finessed by Stone and other rich Republican conservatives. The Stone hookup also helped pave the way for Sharpton’s unlimited access to Fox Cable News, the semi-official Voice of the Bush White House. The Republican strategy was to keep hope alive in Sharpton’s campaign, allowing him to bloody the eventual Democratic nominee, undermining the chances of the Democrats winning the presidential election. With a war chest of a mere $600,000 for the 2004 race — Richard M. Daley had 10 times that amount for a run in a sure-win contest — I’m not sure what was Sharpton’s strategy.

Power to the people protests aside, Sharpton has a history of hanging with the GOP — from 1986 when he endorsed Republican Al D’Amato for the U.S. Senate to his 2004 presidential bid when his campaign co-chairman gave as much money to the Bush-Cheney campaign as to Sharpton’s.

Sharpton hasn’t said whether he’ll endorse Obama or make another run for the presidency himself. He may be waiting for Fox’s flamethrower Bill O’Reilly to cheer him on before he makes the big decision.

Barack's back

    I find it curious that not all of black America’s civil rights organizations and its power elite are enthusiastically backing Barack Obama.
    My curiosity evolves not out of the traditional tried-and-true black and white purview or from simply peering through a rose-tinted lens but because I’m approaching it from an ethnic stance, not a racial one. If a pro-Israel Jewish-American candidate had a real shot at winning the Democratic party’s nomination for president, would leaders from the Anti-Defamation League or Jewish Defense League lay back in the cut until . . . ? If an Italian-American or a Polish-American ended up being the Democratic party’s front-running candidate, what would most Polish American or Italian-American politicians and community leaders do? So why are so many African-American leaders ambivalent, if not outright AWOL? And why are some of them backing the wife of our "first black president" while backstabbing the man who could be our first real African American Commander-In-Chief?
    Earlier this week, William Jelani Cobb, a history professor at the historically black Spelman College, had a widely-circulated Outlook piece tackling the issue. The headline read: Civil rights leaders aloof from Obama. Here’s how the piece began, click here to read it in its entirety.

   

    There was a time in the not-too-distant past when "black president" was synonymous with "president of black America." That was the office to which Jesse Jackson appointed himself in the 1970s — resigned to the fact that the actual presidency was out of reach. In 2003, Chris Rock wrote and directed "Head of State," a film about the first black man to win the presidency. (It was a comedy.) And in the ultimate concession, some African-Americans have attempted to bestow the title of black president upon Bill Clinton — a white man.
    In the wake of his strong showing in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has already permanently changed the meaning of that term. It is no longer an oxymoron or a quixotic in-joke. And this, perhaps more than anything else, explains his tortured relationship with black civil rights leaders.
    The most amazing thing about the 2008 presidential race is not that a black man is a bona fide contender, but the lukewarm response he has received from the luminaries whose sacrifices made this run possible. With the notable exception of Joseph Lowery, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference veteran who gave a stirring invocation at Obama's Atlanta campaign rally in June and subsequently endorsed him, Obama has been running without much support from many of the most recognizable black figures in the political landscape.

    In Cobb’s commentary, he cited the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson’s criticism of Obama for not championing the “Jena Six” cause. Rev. Jackson took issue with Cobb’s wrist-slap, making a defensive rebuttal in his own commentary which ran under the headline: Barack Obama is Not a Threat.
    This is part of Jackson’s rebuttal, click here to read the rest: “I have supported Obama's campaign since early on. But civil rights leaders have always played a somewhat separate role from presidential candidates. Free from the constraints of sound bites and pollsters and the politics of compromise, we are able to speak truth to power and apply positive leverage to get inequality issues on the candidates' agendas.”
    Jackson should know better. Inequality issues were the driving force behind his two runs for the Democratic party’s nomination in 1980s and they automatically and instantaneously limited his potential to win. Rev. Al Sharpton, who ran for the Democratic party’s nomination on the inequality platform four years ago, did not fare as nearly as well as Jackson.
    The reason Obama is poised to be the first African American standard bearer in the Democrat’s bid for the presidency is because he’s not running on what have been stereotyped as black issues. His stage is larger than that. He is addressing and debating the same issues that Hillary Clinton and John Edwards are addressing and debating. Should he win the party’s nomination and then go on to defeat the Republican presidential nominee, Obama will be free to push any inequality issues that need pressing.
    And should he fail to do the job the Reverends Jackson and Sharpton and the other black power brokers in the civil rights community believe he should be doing, I have no doubt that they’ll have his ear. Nor do I doubt that when they pull his coattail, he’ll be more understanding and more receptive to their inequality-issue pitch than any previous occupant in the White House–much more so than the last Clinton or, if it turns out that way, the other Clinton.

Bad BET

    Now let’s see if I can get this right, black voters are supposed to listen to Robert L. Johnson, who is unarguably the biggest sell out in African American history? Or does he think ethnic memory has come and gone in a flash?
    Just in case, here’s a quick review of why Bob Johnson’s opinion isn’t worth the time it took to spew it out. When he owned BET, he sold black Americans cheap by providing the most low rent, low brow content available on the boob tube, mainly a steady diet of raunchy rap music videos, which he got for free, and black sitcom reruns, which he got for next to nothing. He dumped Emerge Magazine, which was well-edited and featured stories by some of the best black journalists in the nation, because it wasn’t making enough money. He neither expressed nor demonstrated much interest in seriously investing in the collective future of black America.
    Still, as inadequate as his Black Entertainment Television cable network was, it WAS a major black-owned media outlet. I say was because when Viacom came-a-calling, Johnson became the $3 billion sellout–the legacy of black American institutions be damned.
    So now, America's first black billionaire, whose principal principle is money, is asking us not to support Barack Obama, who would be America's first black president.  We're supposed to gamble on Johnson's commitments. And he's supposed to be taken seriously when he sets his stake in the Clinton campaign while trivializing the front-running African American candidate? Just as Hillary last week trivialized Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s role in the establishment of civil rights laws in the 1960s, giving the credit instead to President Lyndon B. Johnson. Her ill-advised remark tarnished the Clintons-good-for-blacks patina.
    Except in billionaire Bob’s mind: “As an African-American, I am frankly insulted that the Obama campaign would imply that we are so stupid that we would think Hillary and Bill Clinton, who have been deeply and emotionally involved in black issues . . . ”
    I’m not sure what Hillary plans to do for black America. I know that Bill may have done for black America more than Bob Johnson set out to do, but I also know that Clinton didn’t do us a lot of good when he was in the Oval Office. He mainly looked good to us because he served between the Bushes.
    I’ll explore that reality before the week is out.