In a recent interview, Ferraro said what many people are only thinking, and that is that Barack Obama would not be where he is were he not black. Instantly, the Obama campaign responded by calling Ferraro's remarks "patently absurd."
Really? Absurd? Take a freshman senator from Illinois and make him white, and just see how far he would get in the presidential campaign. Let's do a little comparison. I'm sure you all remember Dan Quayle. He was our vice president under George H.W. Bush, and served from 1989 to 1993. Throughout the 1988 presidential campaign and all through his four years in office, Quayle was hounded mercilessly by the press as being too young and too inexperienced to be our vice president. I remember when Dana Carvey would play George Bush in Saturday Night Live skits, Dan Quayle would be played by a little kid who would sit in Dana Carvey's lap.When Dan Quayle took office, he was 42 years old. If Barack Obama wins the election, he will be 47 years old. When Dan Quayle took office as vice president, he had served two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives and was in the middle of his second term as a U.S. Senator when he was tapped to become V.P. That makes a total of 12 years spent in the U.S. Congress when Dan Quayle became vice president. Barack Obama spent 7 years in the Illinois state senate before becoming a U.S. Senator in 2005, meaning he had been in the U.S. Senate for a scant two years before announcing his candidacy for president in February 2007.
I make this comparison not to point out what a fabulous candidate or vice president Dan Quayle may have been. I make this comparison to show the inconsistencies in people's perceptions of the two politicians. Dan Quayle actually had more experience going into the 1988 election as a vice presidential candidate than Barack Obama has in the 2008 election as a presidential candidate. Yet Dan Quayle was the butt of jokes for years because of his "youth and inexperience." Where is that same rancor and ridicule towards Candidate Obama? What is the difference between Obama and Quayle? To ask the question is to answer it.Actually, Geraldine Ferraro - a leftist hack for whom I have little positive to say - has answered that question for us. For this she is being raked over the coals for pointing out the obvious.
NEXT: Does being the put-upon wife of a two-term president along with serving as a carpet-bagging senator for two and a half terms qualify you as being president either? Oh my Lord how I do despise this election.
Good Day to You, Sir
6 comments:
Geraldine who? Where has SHE been? Who cares?
It's not about Geraldine Ferraro - it is about the untold numbers of Americans who share the thought that she verbalized.
It is about the absurd notion that Obama refuses to acknowledge that his race plays a role in his success in the presidential campaign.
You're right on the money here. What is so patently obvious is that McCain can simply go after Obama's stands and senate record and never get within 19 1/2 feet of his race. And yes I do remember Dan Quayle. Remember his remark about Murphy Brown? A great point that was poorly made if there ever was one...
My blood boils everytime I hear Hillary and her surrogates talk about her "experience". No one ever seems to spell out what that is exactly. Ready from day one? Based on what?!
Someone else said it well, "If Obama was white he would be Edwards." Enough said.
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