A black woman has won the seat once held by Gingrich and which a white man could not win last spring

[grantcart]

14. I find the whole objectification of what kind of candidate we should run

To be very two dimensional.

It is frequently done to continue the tired premise that we can only bridge the vast canyon with whites is to run white males like Biden.

An equally two dimensional formula is that we have to advance I'll informed radical policies like economic nationalism to get more left wing supporters.

Again it is all very two dimensional.

The quality that Obama, Biden, Gillum, Abrams, Beto share is not race or policy but that they are able to TRANSMIT AN OVERWHELMING SENSE OF AUTHENTICITY.

Sec Clinton is a great person and public servant but her campaign admitted that while the people that worked closely with her felt a deep emotional bond with her they struggled to find a way to communicate that quality to a national audience

I also see a large number of African Americans outside of politics that have a gift to transmit that authenticity from Oprah to Magic Johnson.

While there are obviously folks of all races that have this ability my personal observation is that it is disproportionately found in AA public figures. I first was touched by Dick Gregory's unique authenticity to just beam out when I was a teenager in profound way.

I have developed a theory why this is, IMHO, more commonly found in AA famous and regular folks. My theory is that AA have to be fluent in 2 (or more) cultures white/black an move at ease between them at school and work while large number of whites operate in a monoculture. Of course there are many whites and other folk that have this ability I just think it is a common survival skill that many AA pick up young as a survival skill.

I saw this the other day when John Lewis was giving a thoughtful explanation about the current play of the political race on national TV and then latter at night he was very elegantly dancing at Abrams rally in a way that I have never seen a white 78 year old guy move. He was able to transmit an equally authentic John Lewis in both and widely disparate settings. I am guessing that he started to pick up those reflexes in grade school. We don't love him because he is black or because we agree on his position on capital gains but because he is able to share his authentic self.

Biden has it great but no one did it better than Obama. Gillum, Abrams, McBath all share that trait and that is why people responded to them not because they are Black but because they were able to transmit a warm authentic vision of how they incorporate Democratic values throughout their whole being.

They aren't the only ones who out performed the political stage not because of race or position papers. Bobby Kennedy did it 50 years ago, Barack Obama did it 10 years ago and Beto O'Rourke did it in Texas this year.

Republicans had a guy that did it 160 years ago and Teddy Roosevelt did it 110 years ago and since then it has been an exhausting string of Potemkin masks of inauthentic posers passing one long con on the people every four years. Teddy Roosevelt was the first and last Republican to talk honestly about the need for some kind of universal health care.

It is the authentic vision of leaders like Gillum, Abrams and McBath (and many many more) that portray the essential soul of the Democratic Party and it transcends race at about 20,000 feet.