Eugene Kane's euphoria over Barack Obama being the Democrat presidential nominee is being tempered by what he defines as reality.
For Kane, reality is racism. Whites are racist.
Same old, same old.
In his column, "After euphoria, Obama now faces reality," Kane perpetuates the distortions being promoted by the Democrats to shore up their base. In addition to stating outright falsehoods, he reiterates rumors, attributing them to a supposed master plan, an orchestrated effort by the Right to play on the fears of white people.
He suggests that fringe kooks are the mainstream. It's important to note that this is Kane's reality, not reality.
This paragraph from Kane is priceless:
Since that landmark event, the reality of having a man named Barack Hussein Obama run for president against a single white opponent has become more apparent to those of us not yet ready to concede that electing a black president in 2008 is inevitable. All indications suggest this will be a campaign based largely on many white voters’ perceptions about race, even if some people don’t want to admit it.
Kane is in a time warp.
With the country at war and the economy badly faltering and many challenges ahead, I don't get how he can say that Election 2008 will be "based largely on many white voters’ perceptions about race."
How can Kane think that the most critical factor for many people in choosing the next president will be the candidate's skin color?
I feel sorry for the guy. I really do.
Diehard Leftist Frank Rich makes some interesting points that should calm Kane's fears.
[W]hen “NBC Nightly News” and The Wall Street Journal presented their new poll results last week (Obama, 47 percent; McCain, 41 percent) they ignored their own survey’s findings to stick to the clichéd script. Both news organizations (and NBC’s sibling, MSNBC) dwelled darkly on Mr. Obama’s “problems with two key groups” (as NBC put it): white men, where he is behind 20 percentage points to Mr. McCain, and white suburban women, where he is behind 6 points.
Since that poll gives Mr. Obama not just a 19-point lead among all women but also a 7-point lead among white women, a 6-point deficit in one sliver of the female pie is hardly a heart-stopper. Nor is Mr. Obama’s showing among white men shocking news. No Democratic presidential candidate, including Bill Clinton, has won a majority of that declining demographic since 1964. Mr. Kerry lost white men by 25 points, and Mr. Gore did by 24 points (even as he won the popular vote).
“NBC Nightly News” was so focused on these supposedly devastating Obama shortfalls that there was no mention that the Democrat beat Mr. McCain (and outperformed Mr. Kerry) in every other group that had been in doubt: independents, Catholics, blue-collar workers and Hispanics. Indeed, the evidence that pro-Clinton Hispanics are flocking to Mr. McCain is as nonexistent as the evidence of a female stampede. Mr. Obama swamps Mr. McCain by 62 percent to 28 percent — a disastrous G.O.P. setback, given that President Bush took 44 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2004, according to exit polls. No wonder the McCain campaign no longer lists its candidate’s home state of Arizona as safe this fall.
Kane fails to note that no "Democratic presidential candidate, including Bill Clinton, has won a majority of [white men] since 1964."
That 40+ year pattern isn't about skin color. All of the white Dem candidates failed to carry the white male vote since '64. Nonetheless, their failure to support Obama is supposedly based in race.
Even so, Obama (the black guy) is carrying plenty of white voters. He seems to be pretty popular. I guess white women, independents, Catholics, and blue-collar workers must like what Obama is promising, his policy positions, stuff like that.
But in Kane's world, they're not supposed to accept Obama because whites are hung up on race and won't look past Obama's skin and they're racists at heart.
Could it be that white women, independents, Catholics, and blue-collar workers don't realize that Obama is black?
Could it be that they aren't the bigots that Kane makes them out to be?
Kane concludes:
...Bottom line, Obama is unquestionably the black guy running for president, which makes lots of people proud and possibly just as many apprehensive. He's still a symbol of how far society has come in the past 40-odd years, but the proof will come only after we see just how many raw racial nerves get exposed between now and November.
I don't see Obama as a symbol.
He's a candidate for president, not a black guy running for president.
He's supposed to transcend race, right? If that's the case, he can't be the black guy running for president.
Bottom line: Kane is the one emphasizing Obama's race. Kane is being divisive and using a vote for Obama as the test to prove whether or not one is racist.
Clearly for Kane, race is a major factor in the election.
It's the skin color, stupid.
That's sad.
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