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The Spectacle Blog
Both former Democratic U.S. Rep. Artur Davis of Alabama (now Virginia) and even Democratic former Virginia Gov. Doug Wilder have been all over the news in the past couple of days blasting Joe Biden and the Obama campaign for racial divisiveness. Now Davis, long one of my favorite politicians even when he was a bit left of center, has added a sustained and well-developed argument in writing to his already-excellent TV interviews. At NRO today, he writes:
The transcendent moment of Obama’s triumph can’t be diminished. But one would have to be blinkered to deny that Obama’s race in 2008 likely empowered him much more than it weakened him — or to assume that Obama’s strategists and their acolytes in the press don’t recognize the power of recapturing race as both an offensive and a defensive weapon….
Biden brought this rawness to a place the Obama campaign and its allies have spent much time cultivating this year. It is visible in David Axelrod’s breathless assertions about a decidedly innocent, non-political moment: a small black child touching Obama’s head in an Oval Office photo-op. It is visible in Eric Holder’s deployment of the Justice Department to a series of battles over state voter-ID laws, and in the New York Times’ editorial-page crusade against all manner of alleged race-baiting by Republicans. (Including one writer’s remarkable, if side-splitting, assertion that Mitt Romney’s blandness is a calculated ploy to invoke memories of a Fifties-era, pre-multicultural America. Who knew?) It is an unmistakable, unapologetic argument that to defeat Obama is to suspend progress on race.
Then, this one-two punch:
Of course, there are different kinds of progress. There is the inconvenient fact that Obama has governed while black unemployment and the level of child hunger in the black community have risen to the highest rates in the modern era, and while educational achievement among African Americans continues to bottom out at appalling levels. This record is one that the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus said last summer would lead blacks to march outside the White House if it had a different occupant….Interesting that the Sixties-era figure whom the Obama reelect campaign conjures up is neither a Kennedy nor a King but that great hidden-hand stone thrower, Richard Nixon.
Davis was a national co-chair of Obama’s campaign in 2008, and was the very first elected official outside of Illinois to endorse him for president. But he soon became disillusioned, and he opposed Obamacare, and he has been a stalwart supporter of voter ID laws. More power to him.
View all comments (5) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Quin Hillyer
http://spectator.org/blog/2012/08/16/artur-davis-on-a-roll-against
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Trinacria| 8.16.12 @ 3:41PM
"The transcendent moment of Obama’s triumph can’t be diminished."
Yes, but it wasn't race that was transcended; it was reason. The former is a noble achievement; the latter is a disgrace for which we are now receiving just punishment.
I'm delighted Mr. Davis has learned from his mistake; let's hope there are others like him.
Oldefarte| 8.16.12 @ 7:12PM
Progress for African-Americans will not come through the Democratic Party's policies/programs of governmental welfare benefits, but can only come from their dedication and hard work to overcome their status. They must become aware that the DP is using them for political purposes, in that Democrats grant them increased governmental welfare in return for their votes. All this benefits are the Democratic politicians. AA's must divorce themselves from labor unions within education and government, and alternatively demand that this country provide the necessary public school educational excellence that is entirely achievable barring unionization of teachers etc. AA's must then dedicate themselves to taking full advantage of the educational opportunities that are free in order to increase their education and thereafter their employment/income opportunities resulting from same. American taxpayers in general need to also demand the non-union excellence from their paid for public schools, as same are the only vehicles possible to improve this nation. Unionization of education is the assurance of below average educated student-graduates, and public schools should only hire and promote those educators with superior teaching creds and procedures. Taxpayers now are paying for [and obtaining] a pass-through system that is not educating its children because of dumbed-down teacher qualifications due to this unionization of its ranks!!!
Oldefarte| 8.16.12 @ 7:12PM
Progress for African-Americans will not come through the Democratic Party's policies/programs of governmental welfare benefits, but can only come from their dedication and hard work to overcome their status. They must become aware that the DP is using them for political purposes, in that Democrats grant them increased governmental welfare in return for their votes. All this benefits are the Democratic politicians. AA's must divorce themselves from labor unions within education and government, and alternatively demand that this country provide the necessary public school educational excellence that is entirely achievable barring unionization of teachers etc. AA's must then dedicate themselves to taking full advantage of the educational opportunities that are free in order to increase their education and thereafter their employment/income opportunities resulting from same. American taxpayers in general need to also demand the non-union excellence from their paid for public schools, as same are the only vehicles possible to improve this nation. Unionization of education is the assurance of below average educated student-graduates, and public schools should only hire and promote those educators with superior teaching creds and procedures. Taxpayers now are paying for [and obtaining] a pass-through system that is not educating its children because of dumbed-down teacher qualifications due to this unionization of its ranks!!!
clemsberry| 8.16.12 @ 10:58PM
it was the dems in charge of fanny may,freddy mac that caused this financial problem we have. i blame bush and the congress for pandering. pet a snake and it will bite you.
Occam's Tool| 8.17.12 @ 12:54PM
Mr. Davis appears to be a rare man capable of larning from his mistakes.