Background: I appeared on Al-Jazeera’s World News last night to discuss the “Super Tuesday” presidential primary results, and previously discussed my views on developments in Reflections on Super Tuesday, Part I: The Far-Right’s Hysterics over John McCain & Immigration. To learn more about the presidential election, click here.
One of the subjects we discussed was the success of Barack Obama. I have many reservations about Obama, largely that he is young and inexperienced One of the Al Jazeera producers, a guy named Mark from England, told me, “Obama really hasn’t done anything.” That’s an exaggeration, of course, but it has some truth to it.ÂÂ
During the California Democratic presidential debate a couple weeks ago the candidates were asked about their backgrounds and experience and qualifications for the job. Obama talked about being a street and community organizer in Illinois, presumably while in his 20s. I had to laugh at that–when I was in my early 20s, I did the same sort of work, and it sure as hell does not constitute a qualification for being president of the United States. I also think that many of his plans concerning the war and government spending are very unrealistic.
That being said, he certainly is an intelligent, charismatic, and impressive individual. One of the things that I discussed during the interview is his success at winning deep South states and all white states. As of this writing, according to CNN, Obama took Georgia 67 to 31 and Alabama 56 to 42. Obama took North Dakota 61 to 37, Utah 57 to 39, and–get this–Idaho 79 to 17. I am certainly not of the belief that racism is a thing of the past in the United States, but I have to say that we have certainly come a long, long way.
[While proofreading this my assistant, a woman in her early 20s, send me this:
"We certainly have come a long way. When I was voting yesterday there was an older black man waiting in line ahead of me. We talked and he told me how when he first tried to vote they gave him a test with questions like 'How many bubbles are in a bar of soap?' and 'How many water droplets are there in a gallon?' in order to weed out the black vote, because obviously no one could pass the test. I remember learning about this in high school, but it was great that a man who suffered through this is alive today to see Obama as a candidate."]
One could argue that Obama did well in some of those states in part because of people’s aversion to Hillary Clinton. Even though I was not impressed with John Edwards’ candidacy, it would have been interesting if he had stayed in the race through Super Tuesday because it may have smoked out the Hillary factor in Obama’s vote.
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