The mainstream media continues in its slavish and obvious devotion to “The One” in a piece by Associated Press today. The piece alludes that his popularity among white voters has dropped after the Gates affair because of lingering racial prejudices.
Lawrence Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota’s Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, said he was stunned at how poorly Obama, normally so controlled, handled what Jacobs called "the first major personal debacle for the president."
"This thing was just hung around his neck and he couldn’t get rid of it," Jacobs said. "I think he presumed too much. He really started to believe his own press releases on post-racial America."
What planet is Jacobs living on? The reason that Obama lost points among white voters is that some of them are just starting to realize that Obama has some very concerning racial issues which he has managed to hide by pretending to be post-racial. His knee-jerk defence of one of his own kind was a step too far for those who had previously thought that he may have been beyond such doings.
"The most important thing for Obama is to move on to nonracial topics — health care, for instance," Jacobs said. "The loss of white support is potentially devastating but it is unclear how sustained it will be, especially if he can enact his legislation."
Really? A lot of the support that he has lost was not simply due to Gatesgate, but due to his trying to socialize health care at the expense of taxpayers. This was mentioned in the quote from Robert Shapiro. Looking at the way black voters chose in the presidential election it is easy to see which side is racially motivated.
Robert Shapiro, a Columbia University political science professor, noted that whites are more likely to be Republicans and independents than Democrats, and that poll numbers, even on a specific question, are almost never pure.
"I think here any decline in his poll numbers have more to do with the economy, health care, and issues other than the Gates arrest," he said. "His ability to recover has to be looked at in the longer term, which will hinge on the economy most of all, then other issues like Iraq/Afghanistan, health care, energy/the environment."
Hopefully the voters will look carefully at Obama’s positions on each of these and see that the “change” that was promised is only the sort that will keep America’s enemies happy.
Analysis: Obama must regain momentum after Gates – Yahoo! News
