After the South Carolina primary Jack Tapper of ABC News headlined one of his blog posts: “Bubba: Obama Is Just Like Jesse Jackson,” referring to the following comment of Bill Clinton that was widely regarded as a race-injecting put-down:
Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in ’84 and ’88. Jackson ran a good campaign. And Obama ran a good campaign here.
As we all know, Clinton Inc. was subjected to a firestorm of criticism for this remark for attempting to turn Obama into a black candidate.
I must admit that I never understood why comparing Obama to Jesse Jackson was regarded as such an insult by so many people who had never been seen in the ranks of Jackson critics, but let’s let that pass. The point is that all Democrats agreed that Obama’s strength and appeal was based in large part on the fact that he had studiously avoided running as a black candidate.
Now, as a result of the Wright affair, Obama has become the black candidate, or at least much more of one than he had been before. Race, with the help of The Speech, has been moved from the balcony up to the front row of the campaign. As a result, in an irony that has been too little-appreciated, in an important, perhaps an all-important, respect, Barack Obama has in fact become Jesse Jackson.
For a number of years, if not decades, Jesse Jackson has used the threat of discrimination complaints and protest demonstrations to persuade or shame or extort (choose your own verb) corporations to hand over various kinds of benefits to blacks. Now listen to Robert Novak this morning, giving voice to a widespread concern and fear among the managers of a possible new corporate target, the Democratic Party:
Super-delegates, though they were inclined to Clinton no longer than three months ago, now flinch at rejecting Obama. They fear antagonizing African-Americans, who have become the hard-core Democratic base.
Novak’s observation is neither novel nor unique. Even before the Wright uproar, former Virginia governor and current Richmond mayor Doug Wilder said that if the superdelegates awarded Clinton the nomination despite Obama’s lead in votes and delegates,
There will be chaos at the convention. If you think 1968 was bad, you watch: In 2008, it will be worse.
UPDATE [25 March]
Barry O’Bama? Jack Kelly writes today on RealClearPolitics:
Super delegates should vote for Sen. Barack Obama because he’s black, many pundits are saying — though not in precisely those words.
….
If Sen. Clinton’s opponent were Barry O’Bama, charming Irish-American pol with the gift of gab, these arguments would have more resonance. But, as columnist Bob Novak notes, the super delegates “fear antagonizing African-Americans, who have become the hard-core Democratic base.” Geraldine Ferraro, who Sen. Obama unfairly likened to his racist pastor, was right. Sen. Obama wouldn’t be where he is today if he weren’t black.
Many who suspect Sen. Clinton is right about Sen. Obama’s electability still would rather nominate him than her. Better to lose an election than to split the party. Besides, if angry blacks stay home in November, Hillary won’t be electable, either.
At the time, the statement rang racist, as if to suggest that all black candidates are interchangeable, even the Obamessiah who was supposed to transcend race. Now with the Wright controversy in full swing, I’m beginning to think Clinton’s statement wasn’t wrong at all, just ahead of the news cycle.
I keep hoping that Obama will step up to the plate and do better, but I have my doubts.
On the plus side, Prof. R.C. Johnson reports, at the Durham in Wonderland site, that Obama did support a Department of Justice investigation of Mike Nifong, the infamously corrupt DA in the Duke lacrosse rape hoax.
On the other hand, Obama has repeated the fabrications of the race hustlers in the Jena gang beating of an innocent white boy. Obama has continued to attempt to portary that boy’s attackers as victims of a racist town. In fact, as Steve Sailer has repeatedly discussed, the black attackers were repeat violent offenders who had been excused for prior offenses because they were heroes on the local high school football team.
If Obama starts speaking in rhymes, we’ll know he’s in trouble.
As one editorial cartoonist (his name escapes me)wrote in a cartoon panel during the 1988 primaries regarding the mainstream media’s love affair with Jackson, despite his lack of substance:
“Drugs are bad, and crime is messy. Don’t be sad – vote for Jesse!”
As I recall the cartoon, the press was swooning in the background as Jackson recited the above nonsensical nursery rhyme.