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Edited on Wed Jan-09-08 12:17 PM by Kurt_and_Hunter
I am avoiding logging on to DU because I consider it important that I like Barack Obama, but I intensely dislike most Obama supporters here, and it poisons my perceptions.
But I came here today to say something to you specifically. A black President is not just a dream. A female President is also not just a dream. I am guessing you are young, (and guessing you grew up in Brazil, since you mentioned Portuguese being your first language and Brazil is a lot bigger than Portugal)
I am not ancient, but I am older, and was born in the very deep south, and have seen more change first-hand, and I can tell you that the generational divide in racial, gender and sexual orientation attitudes is astonishing. The simple math of generational attrition guarantees that America twenty years from now will be unrecognizable... nobody will even talk about this shit.
I am almost exactly Obama's age and I grew up amid formal apartheid in the south. There is a world of difference between something being perhaps ten years too soon and being just a dream.
I had lunch with my elderly mother after Iowa, and she was open in her disappointment that she would die without seeing a woman in the Oval Office. To her, it was held out and then snatched away... just a dream.
Fortunately for you, Obama may still yet win and, unlike my mother, I have no doubt that you will live to see an America remarkably free of race prejudice.
Also, about your candidate. I have always been 100% about electability, and he has shown me a lot. Despite the fact of race prejudice that I have always believed would hamper him, I have concluded that he brings enough to the table that I no longer worry too much about him being nominated. The insane level of Hillary hate in the media is probably a comparable handicap. Both of them would start the race with a built in five point deficit versus any white male non-Clinton Democrat.
Since being Hillary seems about equal to being black, and since Barack is a more talented politician, I no longer have a strong preference. Iowa showed that young people can sometimes get involved if led by the hand. New Hampshire has reminded us that women are an oppressed majority that may be enjoying their own awakening. (Remember that black men had the vote, at least formally, fifty years before black women did)
It's all good.
And, though it might be a dangerous combination of negatives, I have come to believe that Clinton/Obama would be the most broadly restorative ticket for the party and the nation. I want Barack around. I want him to be the first black President. And if that happens this year, that's great. If it happens later, that's great. And if other black candidates emerge who blow Barack away, that's good too. (I really like Artur Davis)
Anyway, you seem a fine man and I hate to see you disappointed. The swings of the last week have refocused me on the difficulty of a Democrat winning at all, and I am confident that whoever wins the nomination will be the right person... who better to pick who voters will vote for than the voters?
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