Ok, the CBC selects certain issues, while National Journal looks at the totality of his voting record.

I still would be interested in the CBC using their voting selection and taking it and applying it to all the rest of the Senators in the field.

But, I’ll still point out that Obama, at 70, is hardly the low man on the CBC Repord Card totem pole.

Rikyrah, Don’t you think the National Journal rating is much different from CBC’s in terms of content areas. What is important to black folk vrsus the larger American population?

Obama got an 86.

Highest of all the Democrats in the Senate running.

Dodd is at 84.
Biden is at 77.5
Clinton is at 70.2

http://nationaljournal.com/voteratings/sen/lib_cons.htm?o1=lib_composite&o2=desc

I just get a little peturbed by some I feel want to liken Obama’s voting record to Inhofe or Kyl, when that simply isn’t the case. What’s it gonna take? A score of 100? Please.

Now, ask how low some of the others go.

I think the lowest is a 10, if I remember correctly.

IMO, there’s a great deal of difference between 70 and 10.

And, what I’d like to know is if the CBC used their grading system with the other Democratic Senatorial candidates and where they score?

Just wondering.

Ouch! obama, what is up with that?

I don’t care how light, dark, black or white Obama may or may not be.

What I really care about regarding Barack Obama is whether he is a consistent “underachiever” or for that matter an “achiever.”

Now that we know he is an “underachiever” let’s ask him questions about his positions on issues versus his family roots. If after reviewing new positions and votes he still is an underachiever, lets inform our people, then next candidate please!

I don’t care what color or hue the brother is.

I don’t care what hue, skin tone or pale grey color any of the white candidates may be. Are they underachievers? That what we should be concerned about.

We have a black on the Supreme court, he has done more harm than good for black folks. I understand that through many years of slavery black overseers crack the whip harder… in order to keep the good job of keeping the other blacks in line.

Will Obama do the same?

If this guy is a consistent “underachiever” I don’t want him. We already have one of them G W Bush.

It’s really hard to get folks, even self-described progressives to liberate themselves from the hype machine long enough to talk about issues instead of amorphous, touchy-feely “authenticity”, or “can he really win” crap on Obama. The handlers and media savants are, as Noam Chomsky points out — the same people who sell us soap and new cars with depictions of folks driving underwater and straight up the sides of buildings. With these folks in charge of framing and packaging American political campaigns it’s no surprise that there is little or no room for actual issues. They wouldn’t want you judging candidates on their actual merits any more than they want you to judge soap or your next new car purchase on history or facts.

The Sunlight Foundation are a decent bunch too, and the place where the congressional profile actually resides — Congresspedia, which is also funded through the Sunlight Foundation deserves a plug too. Congresspedia is a supervised and professional fact-checked wiki on members of Congress, a parallel project of SourceWatch a professionally fact-checked wiki on pressure groups, lobbyists and “authoritative sources”. This means that although anybody can offer them material, it actually does get fact checked before it gets to be permanent.

I am going to suggest that our friends at CBC Monitor add their report cards on the Black Caucus to Congresspedia. Barack Obama by the way, rates on the CBC Report cards as a consistent “underachiever”.

I’ll be surprised if Obama faces much racism in his campaign of the ‘I won’t vote for a black man’ type. But he’s got quite the minefield to navigate.

I think you are on point, and as long as the Black vote was seemingly not going to Obama, then they could hide behind the ‘ is he Black enough’ garbage. But, now that the polls seem to be shifting, and he’s gaining on Hillary, and leading her in some, with regards to the Black vote, it’s like, ‘uh oh – our cover is blown’.

If Black folk are voting for him, what’s OUR excuse now?

I’ve said from the beginning that this is a Rorshach test on race. And, that the test would come from BOTH, the right AND the left in this country.

It’s going to get very very ugly before it’s all said and done by January 2008.

It’ll become the most raw, racially, in this country, in a very long time.

Maybe White America isn’t ready to vote for a Black Man for President.

While Blacks will not be surprised about it…for a lot of Whites, it will make them uncomfortable, but I say, too bad. Choke on it. Deal with it.

But, if Blacks come to support Obama in large numbers, don’t try and use US as cover. Deal with your OWN hangups as to why you won’t vote for Barack.

But maybe I’m overthinking this. My new theory, in brief: when a white person says, ‘Is Obama black enough for blacks?’, she is really asking: “Is Obama white enough for whites?”

Phrasing this as a question blacks are asking makes the statement permissable. Some of this is due to anxiety of the type you mention, and some to the white anxiety to even -talk- about race (in public, at least).

I’ll be surprised if Obama faces much racism in his campaign of the ‘I won’t vote for a black man’ type. But he’s got quite the minefield to navigate.

Bingo

I think you’re right, because Black folk I know think it’s absolute lunacy.

They want to know when America dropped the ‘ one drop ‘ rule. Oh yeah, they didn’t. So, this entire conversation is moot.

It’s the whole ‘single drop’ theory of race pollution. Obama’s mother’s white. His father’s black. By any purely rational, or genetic, theory of racial identity, he’s equally half-white and half-black. But, of course, in the US, he’s: black.

Yep. You nailed it.

I dunno. I suspect there’s a fairly narrow but quite deep well of unease about this in white America. Worse than white women sleeping with black men–white women having black babies. Babies who are purely black, by our social reckoning, and completely alien to the one side of the family’s race.

I think it’s an unwillingness of WHITE America to deal with a not-so-small detail… a not-so-small question…

How, when you look at West Africans…do you think the Blacks in America come in all shades?

Hmmmm

Could it be…miscegenation?

Ding Ding Ding.

Two Black parents can produce a variety of shades. My Maternal Grandfather could have passed for a White Man. My Grandmother was deep chocolate. They produced many children, ranging from my Aunt who could have passed for a red headed White woman, to my Uncle who was as dark as my Grandmother and everything in between. That range is due to our ‘ mixing’ in this country. It’s always been hilarious to watch White people not deal with that FACT.

Black people today, could not look like we do, without mixing with WHITE FOLK ‘ back in the day’.

It’s the whole ‘single drop’ theory of race pollution. Obama’s mother’s white. His father’s black. By any purely rational, or genetic, theory of racial identity, he’s equally half-white and half-black. But, of course, in the US, he’s: black.

I dunno. I suspect there’s a fairly narrow but quite deep well of unease about this in white America. Worse than white women sleeping with black men–white women having black babies. Babies who are purely black, by our social reckoning, and completely alien to the one side of the family’s race.

Far as his politics go … I dunno. He was a pretty big disappoinment with Lamont, which–for reasons that have nothing to do with Lamont himself–is close to a litmus test for me. Maybe his supporters are right, and the Obama plan is:

1) Get Elected In Crushing Victory.
2) Transform Politics So Completely that Previous Positions Become Utterly Irrelevant.
3) Yay!

Or maybe he’s just a super-cautious politician, who makes all the easy choices.

Bingo

Democrat that Obama votes with most often: Russell Feingold.

That works for me.

And, he doesn’t get a lot of his money from PACs. 10% isn’t a lot to me.