I'm watching Countdown and according to a couple of new polls, Obama actually now leads Clinton in support amoung African American voters. In a related note, McCain is falling behind Guiliani (sp?).

I'm not surprised that Obama's numbers are increasing, as I think he lacked general name recognition.

Right now it appears that each party will be a two person race, which is a little sad, as I think some of the others (Edwards and Huckabee) have some interesting ideas that deserve some time.

Off topic, for those moderate leaning lefties out there, Countdown and Scarborough Country make a nice one-two punch for politics, with Keith and his liberalism and Joe being a former Republican congressman from Florida, nonetheless.

AUSTIN, Texas - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama ridiculed Vice President Dick Cheney on Friday for saying Britain's decision to pull troops from Iraq is a good sign that fits with the strategy for stabilizing the country.

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Media titan Oprah Winfrey is throwing her considerable weight behind Barack Obama's bid to become America's first black president after dismissing public opinion suggesting she should make a run for office. Winfrey admits she's a huge fan of Obama's opponent and fellow Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton, but Obama has her vote. Speaking on Ellen DeGeneres' chat show yesterday, Winfrey admits, "I'm feeling Barack." She continues, "I don't just love him. I respect him. I think he's a fresh new voice in politics. I think what he can do for this country would be amazing." Winfrey has spent the past four years dismissing reports she's planning a political charge for the White House.

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Obama, Clinton rivalry flares over donor

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I don't know if anyone saw the Colbert Report last week, but on one episode he had a woman from Salon.com on to talk about Obama's "blackness" or lackthereof. The issue at hand is that Obama's ancestors were not West African slaves, which is, evidently, the traditional definition of who is black in this country and who isn't. There's a belief (supposedly backed up by polling) that Obama cannot win the support of black voters because of this. There's also a belief that he can win the support of white voters because it allows them to vote for a black candidate without actually voting for a black candidate.

There have been a lot of studies on the psychological aspects of being a descendent of slaves. One theory suggests that, whether conscious of it or not, parents place within their childen the idea that they are second class citizen with few options of improving their lives. Whether this idea is factual in their particularly circumstances or not is irrelevant; it's the subconscious belief that is dangerous. I think there's a lot to be said about that.

Obama lacks that particular upbringing. In fact, since his father was actually African, his upbringing would have been quite the opposite. It speaks to how humble and how confident he can be.

It's pretty clear that Obama would have faced the same type of prejudice in the U.S. as those with ancestors who were slaves. He made a comment along those lines on 60 Minutes. But does his upbringing work against him while the color of his skin works for him?

I find things like this disturbing, from South Carolina state senator Robert Ford, with regards to Obama winning the Democratic nomination:

"Then everybody else on the ballot is doomed," Ford said. "Every Democratic candidate running on that ticket would lose because he's black and he's at the top of the ticket — we'd lose the House, the Senate and the governors and everything."

"I'm a gambling man. I love Obama," Ford said. "But I'm not going to kill myself."

Does that represent reality, or the psychological mindset I mentioned at the top? Is Obama crazy to think otherwise, or does he just see things without mental blocks?

This morning I was looking over my groups on my.barackobama.com to see if there were new blog entries or interesting replies. I came across the following response to a blog post from Saturday.

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Other than the obvious: spelling mistakes, comparisons to Hitler, etc; how would you go about refuting this concern, which I think will be held by many white people? I will be putting my reply to this poster in the first comment.

ETA: x-posted to obama08

Greetings, and welcome to the comm. If you want to join the community and post, please first read the community user, in particular the rules. I've also posted them below for your convenience.

This community is for the purposes of discussing and/or supporting the 2008 presidential campaign of Barack Obama, the 2008 presidential election in general as it pertains to Barack Obama, etc.

Barack Obama is a junior Senator from the State of Illinois. He is currently serving his second term in the United States Senate, and on February 10th, 2007 announced his intent to seek the Democratic Party's nomination as the Democratic candidate for the 2008 presidential election.

The entry of Barack Obama into the 2008 presidential race is an historic occasion; Obama may be the first black candidate to have a viable shot at receiving the nomination of the Democratic Party as their candidate for the 2008 presidency.

If you'd like to learn more about Senator Obama, the below two links may be helpful:

The official website for Barack Obama's presidential campaign can be found here.

Barack Obama's official page for his office in the United States Senate is here.

Posting to this community links to news articles, editorials, scholarly and academic articles, press releases, and other relevant sites, links, and communities is encouraged. Yes, posting of icons and journal banners, headers, etc. is perfectly okay, but please put them behind a LJ cut. Offenders will be scourged with the flayed skin of Karl Rove.

Extensive analysis, intellectualism, and overly academic writing are welcomed. We're not afraid of big words like "antidisestablismentarianism" here.

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The moderator of this community is kali921. If you need to reach the moderator, please e-mail the following address: run_obama_mods[AT]yahoo.com.

To get things started, I found this interesting article on the Federalist Journal positing that the candidacy of Barack Obama proves that America is colorblind.

Thoughts? Discuss.