Reflections on class and race in America

[Postman]

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/nov2008/pers-n07.shtml

the 1960 election, John F. Kennedy repeatedly said that he was not the Catholic candidate for president, but rather the Democratic candidate, who happened to be a Catholic. His bid for the White House came only 32 years after a Catholic Democrat, Alfred E. Smith, was overwhelmingly defeated. Yet when Kennedy became the first Catholic in US history to win a presidential election, the press treated the religious question as a minor theme.

The Times, by contrast, chose to present Tuesday’s election entirely as a referendum on race—not a popular repudiation of the Bush administration and the right-wing politics of the Republican Party, not a repudiation of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, nor of three decades of social policy single-mindedly devoted to the further enrichment of the financial elite. This interpretation ignores the indisputable fact that the most decisive issue in the election was the economic crisis, which prompted tens of millions of working people and youth, of all races, to vote for Obama in the hope that his election would signal a reversal of previous economic policies.

[qwlauren35]

1. Oh gee, mainstream media is wrong again.

Obama, the underdog candidate, flashed thousands of images of McCain hugging Bush to a nation that was very, very tired of Bush.

The fact that numerous Americans picked a black man over a George W. Bush makeover definitely says a lot about how far we've come in race relations... but what it really says is how much contempt most of us have for the current president and his party's failed economic policies.

It also says how many of us are sick of this gdmf war. I would have picked Mickey Mouse over McCain if I thought he'd get us out of this war. (We won't discuss the ears... after all, it's one of the few things that Obama and W have in common!!!)

But one thing that I definitely noticed is that Obama was perceived as more in touch with the middle and working class than McCain could ever be. This did swing a number of voters his way.

Obama is not one dimensional. Eventually the press will figure it out. Thank goodness over half of the American people already have.

Please rest assured, if Clarence Thomas ran for president, he could NOT sweep up the votes of the African-American community. Our decision to vote for Obama wasn't 100% race based. We're not that dumb.