The elephant in the room

Fabio P.Barbieri

My dear Stephen, we would never be talking about it, because the media would never have allowed it to be known. Exactly how much space has even your newspaper, supposed to be the voice of Conservatism in Britain, given to Obama's machine-politician roots, his connection with Tony Rezko, and his friendship with a convicted terrorist? And I wish to remind you that Bristol Palin is not a candidate to the nomination for President of the USA, as Senator Edwards was when he betrayed his wife as she was dying of cancer and got his girlfriend a well-paid sinecure - a scandal which the media kept silenced for months and then failed to pursue when a supermarket tabloid broke it. Please, do not let yourself be misled by your trans-Atlantic colleagues, who are in the tank for Obama and hate Palin because she is stealing his thunder.

Fabio P.Barbieri

Incidentally, since when was it illegal to own guns in America, or to call oneself a "redneck"? Unlike, mind you, the little deals of Senator Obama's convicted friend Tony Rezko, his pastor of twenty years the Rev. Wright, or his mentor Ayers, the Weatherman? Don't look, Stephen, but your prejudice is showing.

Chris

The Conservative Family Groups would be displaying compassion for a fellow sinner. The media, as others have observed, would be saying, 'Elephant? Nothing to see here, folks. Move along, and mind you don't step in the pachyderm poo as you leave.'

Ross

Well the media have not been too hard on Michelle Obama's actual misdeeds so I don't see why they would not keep quiet were she guilty of the misdeeds of Cindy McCain.

Similarly the misbehaviour of Joe Biden's son hasn't deatured at all in this campaign.

I don't think that the case that the media would be harder on the Obamas has any credibility.

Edward McLaughlin

..and if we had any eggs we could have bacon and egg sandwiches......but we haven't any bacon.

David Preiser

Stephen, you are doing a disservice to the citizens of the US. Both the Liberal Media and Bloggers in the US, and the British Media, have essentially refused to discuss the Obamessiah's poltics, or, as Mr. Barbieri correctly reminds us, his undesirable personal associations. So it's very easy to slide back into "they're all racists!", because nobody knows the real reasons why so many of us don't want him to be President. Yet that would be unfair, and false. If you put up a white male candidate with the same political beliefs and personal associations as the Obamessiah, the results would be basically the same. Let's be perfectly clear: none of this denies that racism exists, or that the US has an unfortunate history in that regard (but surely no less than the racism of the British Empire, or Belgium, or Germany, or.... so let's not play Historical Guilt). But every time you people start to go back to the racialist stuff, you are by default denying that there could be any rational reason to object to the Obamessiah. The US, British and European Media have mostly neglected his politics and played up (or even made up) negatives about his opponent, yet the people always find time to call us racists. Enough already. Nobody who is voting for McCain on purely racial reasons would vote for a Democrat anyway. It's all just a smokescreen so the real issues can be ignored. Colin Powell would have gotten plenty of support from the people you're calling racists. If so many white people are so racist, why would Bush have had two black people as Secretary of State? It doesn't wash.

Kram Ekosum

Fabio P. and Preiser are quite correct to point out the double standards of left leaning Europeans but remain very naive to the realities of the US. Sadly hypocrisy knows no political boundaries. I seem to remember Americans were officically practising racial segregation within living memory! A significant proportion of Americans still cannot locate Iraq on a World Map. Whether you like it or not the term "redneck" does not apply to college educated people or non-whites e.g. black, brown or yellow people! Mrs Palin does not have a serious university degree. You do not appear worried by this! Mr Barbieri you also need to check out your facts - "how much space has even your newspaper, supposed to be the voice of Conservatism in Britain". Which esteemed publication are you referring to?! The less energy you on the Right spend dissecting the actually incoherent policies of the big O and the more time you spend whingeing about unfairly being labelled racist the more you close down the debate and reduce the quality of the discourse. If therefore the "Obamessiah" gets elected, proves to be a complete disaster and we never heard the erudite arguments, you only have yourselves to blame. Ultimately it will be your fault, oh... and also the current administrations!

Fabio P. Barbieri

Kram Ekosum: as an alumnus of St.John's, Oxford, and SOAS, University of London, I can tell you that you are talking shallow, classist, ignorant nonsense. To mention only a few, Churchill, Dickens, Shakespeare and Beethoven had no college education at all. As for the specific office of President of the United States, it only has two requirements: that you are a native of the USA, and a majority of electoral votes. Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln had no college education. Lincoln and Truman had less qualifications than Governor Palin has. On the other hand, the worst Presidents in American history, namely Buchanan and Woodrow Wilson, were triumphant academic successes.

The fact is that the American political structure provides a large number of responsible and demanding jobs that can qualify a person for high office. Recent candidates have been big city mayors (Giuliani), state governors (Mike Huckabee, Bill Richardson, Mitt Romney, etc), and federal representatives and senators. There have also been a few independents who brought nothing to the candidacy except their own fame (think Nader, Perot, Buchanan, Anderson) and yet made considerable waves. Governor Palin is not one whiff less qualified than those unknowns from small "redneck" states, Carter and Clinton, when they stormed to their nominations. Yet I do not remember anyone making the same idiot arguments against them; perhaps because they were, one, boys, and, two, Democrats. Alas, prejudice is a hard animal to kill.

Nick Kaplan

David Preiser; If anything the racism runs the other way. If a white politician had come up for the democratic nomination against Hillary with the same lack of experience, dodgy associates and minor (at best) achievements he would not have stood a chance. Obama won the nomination purely because voters believed it was time to have a Black candidate no matter that Obama was the wrong one.

G

Just because it is characteristic - disgracefully so - of the British Right to stigmatize young mothers, doesn't mean it is or need be so of the American Right.

Young mothers who do not abort their children are the moral heroes of our age.

David

Obama described his cocaine and marijuana use in his first memoir and this has not been used against him.

also, self-proclaimed redneck culture is preferable to hop-hippers walking around with their trousers halfway down their posteriors.

Mark Solomon

Stephen

To get some boring old pro-Obama pap, there are hundreds of thousands of media outlets and blogs to go to written or edited by supposedly professional journalists who might as well be paid-up Obama staff members.

Those of us who choose to come to the site of the UK's best intellectual conservative magazine do not do so to hear more of the same we get from every other media outlet.

How about the huge elephant in the room that is that if Palin is supposedly inexperienced for the job of VP, what does that make Obama then, given his total lack of executive experience and his only achievement in 10 years in Illinois and US Senates being the ability to vote 'present' 1000 times (and draw his pay check of course!). Not to mention pushing a lot of pork his wife's way.

We need you highlighting this stuff instead of printing one of the Chosen One's press releases.

Roy

As long as there is a world there will always be views based on race . . . whether some holier than thou, self righteous, multicultural effervescent people agree or not. So also there is bound to be misunderstandings and misjudgments.

David Preiser

Nick Kaplan,
Yes, you're correct that the Obamessiah wouldn't be the nominee if so many people weren't playing the "It's about time to redeem the US from its evil racist history" game. I was discussing those who aren't reflexive Democrat voters.

Snorri Godhi

Difficult to tell whether Stephen really agrees with Isaac Bickerstaff from this post; in fact, it's difficult to say what Isaac meant in the first place. Nonetheless, I'll answer the questions as though they were not rhetorical: conservative blogs+media would certainly report facts that discredit Obama, but would be very careful to avoid sounding judgmental. That is not because they are gentlemanly and tolerant, but because they would calculate that sounding racist or sexist would lose them votes. The Democrats OTOH are judgmental, not because they are sexist or elitist, but because they calculate that personal attacks will lead to a net gain in votes.

George Mitrovich

Sir,

Of course race will be a factor in the November presidential election. The question is, to what dgeree?

When Tom Bradley, a black man was moyor of Los Angeles, he ran for governor of California. Polls showed him wildly ahead, but he lost. It was decided voters had lied to pollsters. No doubt.

Will that happen with Obama? Yes, but nonetheless victory will be his November 4.

Indeed, it won't be close. Obama will win 411 Electoral College votes; McCain will carry only 10 states.

Stay tuned,

George Mitrovich
San Diego

TDK

"When Tom Bradley, a black man was moyor of Los Angeles, he ran for governor of California. Polls showed him wildly ahead, but he lost. It was decided voters had lied to pollsters. No doubt."

When major beat Kinnock in 1992 the Polls showed Labour well ahead. Afterwards it was recognised that Conservative voters were more reluctant to admit to pollsters who they were going to vote for.

How do you know that in Bradley's case the same wasn't true? ie. People who wanted to vote Republican just didn't want to admit it to a Pollster.