Bout sums it up. You can pretend otherwise. At least WJ is open about it....

Tracey Barnett: Obama fairytale v the dirty truth - 28 Aug 2008 - NZ Herald: World / International News

Pollsters are madly trying to quantify what number to put on racism. Good luck. Various polls range from 5-9 per cent of respondents who admit they feel uncomfortable voting for a black man.

But the story gets a bit muddier when the question is made less personally revealing. When asked if respondents had friends who wouldn't vote for Obama because of his colour, that number went up to 19 per cent, according to a New York Times poll. Translation: I'm not willing to admit out loud that I'm a racist but it's certainly more comfortable telling you my neighbours are.

__________________
"I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world. Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence." Richard Dawkins

I see the Kiwis are trying to turn this election into a racial thermometer too.

Americans can vote for a white person without being a racist. Why don't you take that thermometer and stick it up your own country's ass ?

__________________
"Some men eventually stumble over the truth but they usually pick themselves up and walk on as if nothing ever happened."
-Winston Churchill

"But though there is no difference in this respect between the best demagogue and the worst, both of them having to present their cases equally in terms of melodrama, there is all the difference in the world between the statesman who is humbugging the people into allowing him to do the will of God, in whatever disguise it may come to him, and one who is humbugging them into furthering his personal ambition and the commercial interests of the plutocrats who own the newspapers and support him on reciprocal terms."
-George Bernard Shaw

I'm not sure I agree with that conclusion, since I DO know people who clearly aren't comfortable voting for Obama because of his color. I'm not one of them, so I think, in a sense, what the NY Times poll may be measuring, and possibly accurately, is what percentage of the population will be difficult for Obama to reach because of his color.

But yes... WJ is honest about that sort of thing... he's never tried to pretend he was anything but what he is.

__________________
"Trust none of what you hear And less of what you see" Springsteen

When the Founding Fathers protected our right to free speech, I think that meant we were supposed to use it.

Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi was the world's most unhinged lunatic. He's now dead. So that moves Ann Coulter up to first place - David Letterman

O, when she is angry she is keen and shrewd; / She was a vixen when she went to school, / And though she be but little, she is fierce. — Shakespeare

51 days left http://www.backwardsbush.com/

The numbers mean that most americans are friends with several or more people. Here's a hypothetical:

Do you have red hair? (5% say yes)

Do you have a friend with red hair? (20% say yes).

Seems a lot less interesting all of a sudden.

I don't think you're the person they're talking about... I think they mean people who might otherwise have voted for a democrat under other circumstances.

so stop shouting, please.

__________________
"Trust none of what you hear And less of what you see" Springsteen

When the Founding Fathers protected our right to free speech, I think that meant we were supposed to use it.

Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi was the world's most unhinged lunatic. He's now dead. So that moves Ann Coulter up to first place - David Letterman

O, when she is angry she is keen and shrewd; / She was a vixen when she went to school, / And though she be but little, she is fierce. — Shakespeare

51 days left http://www.backwardsbush.com/

I was making a point that regular folks like me HATE IT when the race card is played, we see it as a cheap shot, completely unfounded and there will be a backlash against those who play it.

Rationally discssing the effect that race is likely playing on the outcome of the election is hardly playing "the race card" champ.

Now I understand perfectly well that many people are not going to vote for O because they hate his policies.

But some people, and this is the question at hand, probably are not because of his race.

You taking umbrage with the discussion might lead some people to think you doth protest too much.

I don't think there are enough of those people to make any difference in the end.

Most of the people I know who most abhor him would vote for Condoleeza Rice in a New York minute.

__________________
Poor Spot! He was tired of being thought of as stupid. "I'm gonna join Mensa," he said to myself, "and then I'll be legally permitted to wear the society's insignia--a tattoo of a little map pin pushed into my flesh--and then everyone'll know that I'm not dumb at all!"
Spot Joins Mensa
by James "Kibo" Parry

I've marveled at that, too, actually. And what I've decided is that "conservative" blacks are not as threatening as "liberal" blacks in much the same way as it took a commie hater like Richard Nixon to open China. There's a certain logic to it.

__________________
"Trust none of what you hear And less of what you see" Springsteen

When the Founding Fathers protected our right to free speech, I think that meant we were supposed to use it.

Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi was the world's most unhinged lunatic. He's now dead. So that moves Ann Coulter up to first place - David Letterman

O, when she is angry she is keen and shrewd; / She was a vixen when she went to school, / And though she be but little, she is fierce. — Shakespeare

51 days left http://www.backwardsbush.com/

And yet it does not bother you one bit that a large segment of the black population wont vote for McCain cause he is white. Go figure. I suspect more blacks then whites will be voting because of racism.

__________________
The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd. Indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.

-Bertrand Russell

Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable

-Laurence J. Peters

I never said that you had no right to have an opinion. I just said that it was, in fact, worth nothing.

-Maineman ( on 12 June 2007)

Something to consider:

It's not unreasonable in a democracy for voters of one particular racial or ethnic group to want to see 'one of their own' in office. Because it's rational to assume that a black official will be more sympathetic to black issues, or a Jewish official more sympathetic to Jewish issues, etc. Jillian knows who represents Chinatown in NYC -- it's Rocky Chin, an Asian. Or, her councilman in Park Slope is probably David Yassky, who's Jewish. Is it a big shocker that a Jewish man represents Park Slope, an Asian man represents Chinatown, and so on?

But why is understandable, yea, commendable, for non-whites, but pure evil for whites?

That's not fair.

Whites are a minority in four states and D.C., and they are on track to be a minority in the U.S. by 2042, a date moved up from 2050 just recently by the U.S. Census folks.

What then? Does anyone really think the old thinking will still apply? Why?

__________________
Does anyone think it's weird that the two biggest goals of our time are "tolerance" and "zero tolerance"?

This is ludicrous...of course there will be people who won't vote for Obama because he's black. This is a shame, but there will always be idiots in the world. There will also be (if the polls are at all accurate), a large number of African-Americans who will be casting their vote for Obama specifically because he is black. But this seems to be "ok" or "socially acceptable" for some ridiculous reason.

I hate to say it, but I really think that Obama's candidacy is being used, and will continue to be used by the race-baiters in this country who preach about and profit off of America being a "racist nation."

Obama has practically been handed his nomination by people of all races who do not just like him...they worship him. There have been very few racist comments or remarks made about him from anyone serious (unless, of course, you want to talk about Biden saying how "clean" he was).

We should be celebrating as a nation that Obama's nomination is just one more step in the ongoing development of our nation...rather than listening to the race-pimps who desperately want to read racism in every blink, sigh, cough, and question posed by those who aren't sure about Obama as president.

Are we really going to let these people - those who want desperately to pull us further apart - play this game? Vote for Obama or you are racist. If you don't vote for Obama, regardless of the reason, you're secretly racist. If Obama is elected President, it doesn't mean that we've made any real strides in overcoming racism...and if he isn't, then we might as well be back in the times when slavery was legal.

Why are so many falling for this tripe?

__________________
"The less government we have the better." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

I don't live in Park Slope. I go there for the restaurants. David Yasskey isn't my councilman. You have to go further south to get to my part of the world.

I think the problem with "whites" professing they're underrepresented is that they've ALWAYS had ALL of the power. It isn't unreasonable for minorities to want to see "one of their own" as you put it because they've NEVER been represented.

__________________
"Trust none of what you hear And less of what you see" Springsteen

When the Founding Fathers protected our right to free speech, I think that meant we were supposed to use it.

Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi was the world's most unhinged lunatic. He's now dead. So that moves Ann Coulter up to first place - David Letterman

O, when she is angry she is keen and shrewd; / She was a vixen when she went to school, / And though she be but little, she is fierce. — Shakespeare

51 days left http://www.backwardsbush.com/

The Democrats have always been about fear mongering and the Liberals do it even more. It is part and parcel of their campaigns from start to finish. If you can not buy the votes, scare them into voting for you. Or in this case try to make them feel ashamed enough to vote for them.

__________________
The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd. Indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.

-Bertrand Russell

Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable

-Laurence J. Peters

I never said that you had no right to have an opinion. I just said that it was, in fact, worth nothing.

-Maineman ( on 12 June 2007)