Poll: More Americans Think U.S. Ready for Black President

[Hissyspit]

Source: CNN

Poll: More Americans think U.S. ready for black president
Nearly three quarters of whites believe U.S. is ready for a black president

Nearly six in 10 blacks believes the country is ready

Four in 10 believe Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream has been fulfilled

(CNN) -- Four decades after Martin Luther King Jr.'s death -- and just weeks after Barack Obama's win in the Iowa caucus -- a CNN poll finds more Americans than ever before believe the country is ready for a black president.

Seventy-two percent of white Americans and 61 percent of black Americans surveyed in a new CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released Monday say the nation is ready for a black commander in chief.

That number is higher than it was two years ago, when 65 percent of whites and 54 percent of blacks felt the same way. It's also higher than the proportion of either men or women -- 64 percent and 65 percent, respectively -- who currently believe the nation is ready for a woman in the White House.

The top six concerns for both whites and blacks in making their presidential choice this year are exactly the same in the following order -- the economy, Iraq, terrorism, health care, gas prices and Iran -- though blacks place a higher level of importance on all those issues. But the groups part ways over the issue of race relations. That concern is roughly as important as taxes to black voters this election year, with roughly 41 percent saying it will have a major impact on their presidential vote. But just 12 percent of whites feel the same.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/21/mlk.day.poll/index.html

[ursi]

1. It's time ...

[Skittles]

2. it's ridiculous

you'd think they were talking aobut freaking ALIENS FROM OUTERSPACE :o

[DesertFlower]

3. unfortunately, there are those

who will not vote for a black president.

[Skittles]

6. it's like, WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

IT DOES NOT COMPUTE!!!!!!!!!!!

[damntexdem]

9. Yeah, unfortunately many of that 25% will not.

On the other hand, they probably wouldn't vote for any Democrat anyway. After all, even Dubya still has slightly higher percentages than those who don't think that America is "ready."

But remember that some of that 25%, and almost all of the 40% of African Americans who don't think America "ready," say it out of despair, not personal antipathy to its happening.

[rodeodance]

12. its 2008 and the white male still reigns supreme!

[WillParkinson]

4. OH FFS!

I don't care if the president is black, a woman, green, blue, or lavender.

Just be someone who can solve problems. Please.

[DesertFlower]

11. i agree.

i just happen to think that person is barack obama.

[WillParkinson]

15. Makes one of us

From my standpoint as a gay man (and I know I'm not speaking for anyone other than myself) Mr. Obama has shafted the gay community more than once recently and I don't trust him with my vote. Nor do I trust Ms. Clinton. I may have to check out Mr. Kucinich or Mr. Edwards a bit more closely.

[Skittles]

20. I agree with you absolutely, Will

I refuse to worship someone who panders to homophobes - it is sickening

[goclark]

5. "How Long ~ Much Longer!"

We still have an ex President of the USA calling Sen. OBAMA "intelligent."

That is an insult, of course he is intelligent, does that surprise Bill Clinton! For one that should know us better than that - I am shocked that the first word out of his mouth was "Intelligent."

Would he speak of Edwards as "intelligent." No ~ never

We still have Bill Clinton saying that OBAMA "tells Fairy Tales."

Odd choice of words for one so articulate as Bill Clinton.

I never thought I would see the day when Bill Clinton would disappoint me.

Was I having a nightmare when I heard Bill call OBAMA a "kid?"
That's hard to believe coming from the lips of the self described
"Comeback KID."

Here is the difference. In our community we don't call our MEN "kid," nor do we call our MEN "boy." To our community that is a supreme insult.

An insult that should not be coming from the lips of " The First Black President." :mad:

[aquart]

7. We HAVE to say "intelligent" about our candidates, dear.

On account of GEORGE. And the current Republican slate.

But if "intelligent" is now a racist code, I think we're going to have problems.

[goclark]

8. WE may not have the problem, I think America is

"ready" for the first woman President and the first Black President.

My point was that Bill Clinton does not truly understand our community.

By the way, my name is goclark - not "dear."

[karlrschneider]

17. That's pretty funny, sweetie.

:P

[boricua79]

13. I never subscribed to that "first black president" mentality

He was a white man who threw a few more crumbs to the black community than other presidents did, and many blacks, in classic house slave fashion, got all "I heart Clinton" about it. The "first black president" also ended welfare as we know it and didn't really help much with affirmative action.

I find it insulting that anyone would actually, seriously entertain the notion that a white man can be black. The day Bill Clinton losses a job interview, or a housing application over his race, or the day he has to fear walking alone through certain neighborhoods, is the day he'll be a "black".

[EFerrari]

14. Toni Morrison meant it in a very specific way that has been bastardized

in the very media that she was critiquing when she wrote it.

The original context is here:

Toni Morrison


Clinton as the first black president


New Yorker, October 1998


Thanks to the papers, we know what the columnists think. Thanks to round-the-clock cable, we know what the ex-prosecutors, the right-wing blondes, the teletropic law professors, and the disgraced political consultants think. Thanks to the polls, we know what "the American people" think. But what about the experts on human folly?

This summer, my plan was to do very selective radio listening, read no newspapers or news magazines, and leave my television screen profoundly, mercifully blank. There were books to read, others to finish, a few to read again. It was a lovely summer, and I was pleased with the decision to recuse myself from what had become since January The Only Story Worth Telling. Although I wanted cognitive space for my own pursuits, averting my gaze was not to bury my head. I was eager for information, yet suspicious of the package in which that information would be wrapped. I have been convinced for a long time now that, with a few dazzling exceptions, print and visual media have thrown away their freedom and chosen jail instead--have willingly locked themselves into a ratings-driven, moneybased prison of their own making. However comfortable the prison may be, its most overwhelming feature is loss of the public. Not able, therefore, to trust reporters to report instead of gossip among themselves, unable to bear newscasters deflecting, ignoring, trivializing information--orchestrating its minor chords for the highest decibel--I decided to get my news the old-fashioned way: conversation, public eavesdropping, and word of mouth.


I hoped to avoid the spectacle I was sure would be mounted, fearing that at any minute I might have to witness ex-Presidential friends selling that friendship for the higher salaries of broadcast journalism; anticipating the nausea that might rise when quaking Democrats took firm positions on or over the fence in case the polls changed. I imagined feral Republicans, smelling blood and a shot at the totalitarian power they believe is rightfully theirs; self-congratulatory pundits sifting through "history" for nuggets of dubious relevancy.


I did not relinquish my summer plans, but summer is over now and I have begun to supplement verbal accounts of the running news with tentative perusal of C-SPAN, brief glimpses of anchorfolk, squinting glances at newspaper--trying belatedly to get the story straight. What, I have been wondering, is the story--the one only the public seems to know? And what does it mean?


http://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith/clinton/morrison.html

[rayofreason]

21. Better than "clean"

Just google "biden obama clean"

[mother earth]

10. The race and the gender card are being played day in and day

out by the MSM, that's why the frontrunners are the frontrunners. This has sadly become the politically correct race for the nomination, it's not about issues any more. It's about a win for the FIRST...the FIRST woman...or the FIRST black man. I can't believe I'm saying it, but this is crazy. I still don't really know what Obama's about, and I'm really sick of Bush/Clinton...but MSM is deciding this one, I guess, or the republicans will. This is really sickening.

I would be proud to elect a woman or a black man, but the victory should come when it's because they are the right candidate, not for a FIRST. Wouldn't it be great if we could truly overlook what's on the outside?

[GoddessOfGuinness]

18. It surely would.

:(
The fact that someone would even ask people whether we were "ready" for a black person or a woman is divisive, in my opinion. I suspect we will never eliminate prejudice entirely; but we don't have to allow it into mainstream thought.

It's time to acknowledge racists and misogynists as society's outcast oddballs.

[DiamondJay]

16. why not ready for a GOOD president?

why does if have to be about a "black president"? Why not just a good president, black or white

[RaRa]

19. Because this country seems to have battered wife syndrome

as was made evident by Bush's "win" in '04.

[Orsino]

22. CNN is so *concerned*.

How many times is the MSM gonna poll on this "issue"?