Now You See Them (Votes); Now You Don't!

Well that was a touching scene in the Dems debate in Nevada when the almost black Obama kissed and made up with the almost black Clinton (female); both promising to behave and not bring up the obvious any more! I think it made Edwards feel left out because he looked like he was going to cry. Don’t do it John! A man running for President CANNOT cry! If you want to show that you’re upset, shave your head. I’ll do it for you for $300!! You’ll save $100 over your normal cut, and bald would look better than that “do” you have now.

Oh well, I for one am disappointed. I was enjoying the rhetoric heating up. I was watching to see if she’d use the “n” word and he’d use the “b”. But now things are civil if still a little strained.

The new direction taken by the campaign was tearing apart the Black communities as well as a considerable portion of the Democratic voters. Just two weeks ago, the talk on National Public Radio about the Democratic candidates and the Black community was very polite and cool. Many of the Black women were undecided between Clinton and Obama because they wanted both a woman and a Black to be president. They were most loyal at that time to their gender rather than their race and the Obama forces needed to turn that around and get the Black vote firmly into their camp and away from the Clintons. When Hillary made the statement that the Equal Rights Amendment was signed into law because of the effort of President Johnson, Barack Obama accused the Clintons of belittling the work of Dr. King and playing the race card; when in actuality, he played the card most cleverly and with great skill. He left the Clinton camp reeling with the question “what just happened?”. As a result, the talk now indicates that Black women and Black voters in general are leaning strongly toward Obama and not so eagerly supporting Clinton. That’s one for the Obama camp!

What’s amazing is no one noticed who played the card. That’s because, in America today, a black man/woman still has a very powerful weapon with the race card if played as skillfully as the way Obama played it. He is, after all, a Harvard trained lawyer and one of the smartest members of Congress. He and Mrs. Clinton are very much equals when it comes to intelligence. He just out foxed her and the First Libido, Bill Clinton, so effectively that they don’t even realize what happened.

I listen every night to Farai Chideya’s News & Notes program on NPR. Initially it seemed to me at least, that Farai didn’t recognize any racial impropriety and she thought that what Clinton said was simply giving political credit to President Johnson for getting the Equal Rights Amendment passed in Congress. Ms. Chideya didn’t think that Hillary took away any credit from Dr. King (and I still don’t). But a sufficient number of her male guests were of the opinion that what Hillary said was tantamount to defaming Dr. King and deriding Barack. Those guests argued that Blacks should give their allegiance to their race and not their gender as so many black women had expressed previous to Hillary's comment. Now when I listen to News & Notes, not only has Ms Chideya come to support Obama but the majority of the women calling in are now firmly behind Obama and away from Clinton.

I was wondering how Barack Obama’s organization was going to accomplish that because so much of Black America has been so enthralled with Bill Clinton that he had been called the nation’s first black president, and this had carried over to their support for Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Obama faced a huge challenge to wrestle these votes away from the Clintons and I for one was wondering how in the hell he was going to do it.

Clever, intelligent men are almost always patient men, too. Mr. Obama waited until the opening appeared and he swooped in quickly and masterfully and toppled the walls of Jericho with a single blast of the race card! It was done so effortlessly that it was not recognized for what it was and I feel like I’m one of the few in America that realizes what happened.

Brilliant! Acta est fabula plaudite (the play has been performed; applaud!) Truly, the Clintons never knew what hit them and neither did the Black voters who were at one time loyal Clinton supporters.

Mr. Obama, I think you are as clever, and I’m afraid devious, as Karl Rove. And that, sir, is placing you in the crème Del a crème of political gamesmen. That can be an OK thing if used sparingly and without the appearance of malice; but a not OK thing when abused and used too viciously. This round went most definitely to you, sir. Although it was no small victory, actually it was huge; don’t savor it too long or you’ll miss the next opportunity to wow us again. Revenge is sweetest when served cold! Stay tuned, America!