Prometheus 6

In the wake of Thursday's approval of Murdoch's $5 billion takeover of Dow Jones, the Journal's publisher, the News Corporation is spending more than $2 million to place the ad tomorrow in newspapers in the United States, Britain, Australia, and Asia. The ad will run in the Journal, Murdoch's New York Post, and The New York Times - Murdoch's stated archrival.

How sad.

Let's see, what would I have missed (because I will not do anything to put more money in Murdoch's pocket or more trash in the public debate) if this deal had closed a week ago.

A big factor behind the rise in black support for Mr. Obama in South Carolina appears to be his popularity among white voters, though he is also expanding his outreach to black voters, and many of his views, especially his opposition to the Iraq war and support of social programs, resonate strongly with them.

"I see how [Obama's] charisma is among other races," says Ed Robinson, owner of Posh soul-food restaurant in downtown Florence, S.C. "He has been able to attract people from all races." Mr. Robinson said he strongly considered backing Mrs. Clinton but has now decided to back Mr. Obama.

"A lot of African-Americans in the South have questions about whether a black candidate can be elected president," says David Bositis of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, which studies black issues. "Picking someone who is going to have a good chance to win is very much on their minds. If Obama shows he can win and that white voters can vote for him, there will be a lot of African-Americans who will be lining up to support him."

No one should assume these Black folks are following white people's lead, not really. It goes back to what one Black Southern politician said: "I love Obama but I'm not going to kill myself." The fact is, the threat to his political life was a white backlash...and those backlashes aren't just political and electoral concerns to Black folks.

Now, if white folks are voting for Sen. Obama that raises the possibility that the backlash will be minimal. And Black folks have been the most obvious risk-takers in America...if there is the shadow of a hair on the head of the possibility of an improved situation most Black folk will get on line the night before the applications are handed out, and get on line again the night before day they are accepted. You see white folks lined up like they're waiting for an iPhone or the next Lord of the Rings movie.

Me, I don't think he'll get the nomination. I honestly don't think there's enough conscious Democrats. If it were strictly a matter of quality and qualifications, our first Black President would have also been our first woman President.

Florynce Kennedy, lawyer, black activist, a founder of the National Organization for Women and the Feminist Party:
"The Chisholm candidacy not only freaked out the Establishment and the niggerizers, but it also confused and unsettled the niggers — and by niggers, I don't mean just the black niggers, but also the student niggers and the woman niggers and the poor niggers — plus a whole lot of other people who thought they were revolutionaries but discovered they couldn't dig her wig.

"So what if she didn't win? If you've been lying on the ground with a truck on your ankle, you don't jump up and join the Olympics. The first step is to walk at all."

Mary Young Peacock, from Fort Lauderdale, Florida; self-described as "a white, middle-class, middle-aged American housewife":
"Most politicians seem to spend their time playing to so many different points of view — the Poles and the Czechs, the people for busing and antibusing — that they don't come out with anything realistic or sincere.

"The important thing about Chisholm's candidacy was that you believed whatever she said — it combined realism and idealism at the same time — and that's the combination I'm looking for. Shirley Chisholm has worked out in the world, not just gone from law school strait into politics. She's practical."

But again, the deal is you just can't do instant transformations of a nation this large, so you have to do it step at a time, planting each foot firmly. And the final fact is, by gathering the support he has Sen. Obama's candidacy has already changed the game. 

I expect folks to make up their minds about a candidate a couple of months before voting, at best. Black folks have kept an open mind, but it's getting to be about that time.