Johnny "Come Lately" Edwards To Endorse Democratic Nominee

cross-posted to goodCRIMETHINK

While Politico, TIME and others. are running headlines that say "Edwards Endorses Obama," I think mine is better.

My initial reaction was:

about friggin time dude. where you waiting for hillary to come out in blackface and campaign for mccain?

There's nothing particularly impressive about his decision. After all, he's coming out even after the mainstream media has concluded that the race is over. So it's not so much an endorsement as it is the only possible thing to do.

I'm a bit harsh on people who lead after the fact. Your decision means more to me when I feel like you made it in a difficult environment. It's one of the reasons I'm so critical of Hillary's Iraq War vote. She made the easy decision to go along with a popular president and look "strong." The truly strong decision would have been to stand up when few others did.

For all John Edwards's talk of being a fighter and standing up for the little guy, I've gone from impatient to furious to bored over his non-endorsement after so many months. When Hillary's campaign, months ago, started acting the fool, where was this Mr. Edwards? Hiding in North Carolina.

The calculating political side of me understands that he probably wanted to keep as many doors and options open as possible and might have been afraid of the wrath of the Clintons had he miscalculated or endorsed "too soon." But I have the luxury of not being in that position, and I don't really care.

That's my take. I may update it after his speech tonight. And no matter how unimpressed I am with the timing of Johnny Come Lately, it will be good to have him on the campaign trail if only to silence this stupid narrative about Obama and the white vote. Given the thoughtfulness behind many of his policy positions, I also think he has a lot to offer the country.

Update at 6pm ET
Craig Hickman in the comments below points out that this timing is kind of good, coming on the heels of West Virginia. As far as its ability to change the headline from Hillary's "rural white" win, that is a good thing. I still maintain I'd have been more impressed with an earlier endorsement (remember Richardson??), but this is OK. Anyhow, let's get about the business of McSame.

Color of Change -- Presidential Poll Results

Color of Change is a Civil Rights Organization 2.0. It's a MoveOn style group for African-Americans and the people who love them. So I was very interested in their presidential poll results. It shows what those who are interested in issues affecting African-Americans (which are actually issues that affect all Americans for realz). They had a lot of respondents and next go round, I'd recommend that they consider releasing state by state results.

I don't know about your family but in mine, there's a pretty big generation gap and my moms is ready to beat my behind for supporting Obama over Clinton. She thinks he's just a pretty face and that America is in danger of making another grave error in judgment. If you look at the age breakdown for CoC's results, even those who are pushing for change using online means are more likely not to support Obama as you move up the age scale. It's interesting. There's also stronger results for Latino members than you might expect from recent press coverage for Obama though it's clear that Clinton has loyal constituents among that audience and among other minorities.

You can catch the age breakdown here. Between 26-35 year olds and those 30 years older, there's close to a 15 point spread in terms of a declining level of support for Obama.

Here's the racial breakdown:

Black members

Obama 85%
Clinton 7%
Edwards 1.5%

White members

Obama 54%
Edwards 24%
Clinton 10%

Latino members

Obama 58%
Clinton 22%
Edwards 12%

Asian American members

Obama 64.9%
Clinton 16.2%
Edwards 9.5%

Mixed race members

Obama 68.3%
Clinton 11.9%
Edwards 9.5%

Blogger Gina McCauley Talks to Rev. Jesse Jackson at Essence.com

This is a really interesting interview. Shoutouts to Gina and to Essence.com for this unique exchange. I'm pleasantly surprised that Essence noticed us black bloggers blogging our little hearts out. It's a good convergence of new media and newer media that will keep old media relevant.

There's a mention of the article by guest blogger Tami over at Gina's blog What About Our Daughters. I've excerpted my favorite parts of the interview here. Gina, thanks for bringing out the best in the man. I like it when Jesse talks about maturity. We could all use a little more of that in today's politics.

Essence.com: As somebody who was born in South Carolina, what do you think about the way African-American voters were portrayed by the media leading up to the primary? For example, they started talking about the barbershop and the beauty shop vote. Do you have any problem with the way South Carolina voters were portrayed?

J.J: No. My concern is that while focusing on the color of the vote, they were not focusing on Black issues and substance. For example, student debt—I think student loans are like a billion dollars. The disparity between Black and White student loans is alarming. The great disparities in infant mortality and life expectancy—great disparities.The income disparity… The college enrollment disparities… The largest industry in that state is no longer cotton. It’s the jail-industrial complex. There’s 24 state prisons in South Carolina and only one state college, South Carolina State. So we are free, but not equal. We live in one America under one flag, but there are some structural inequalities. Stop focusing so much on the color of our vote and start focusing on the substance of our situation.

Essence.com: Considering how much attention was given to the Black vote, do you think that African-Americans sufficiently stressed their demands with these candidates? Did we demand enough of them?

J.J: The civil rights agenda must always be kept out front: the civil right to equal opportunity. The civil right to health care, the civil right to adequate housing, the civil right to fair employment. There was this assumption that we’re all free now and it’s over. We’re all free, but we are not equal. Dr. King said that the next big chapter of our struggle was that we’ve won the battles of decency over barbarism, but equality? That was in the coming campaign.

Essence.com: I’ve encountered many people who say we shouldn’t question Senator Obama about what he will do specifically for African-Americans, that we should just get him in the White House and then worry about specific issues. Should we be attempting to nail him down?

J.J: Every issue that came up, he addressed. The issue of affirmative action; he’s for affirmative action. The issue of jail or criminal disparities; he’s addressed that issue. The issue of should every vote count; he’s addressed that issue. I think in this setting, we really have to look at the common ground that includes our interests. For example, in South Carolina, 62 percent of the people who work don’t have health insurance. That affects everybody. The subprime crisis. It affects us disproportionately, but it affects everybody. The Iraq War affects everybody. In Iowa I was talking about family farmers. By the time we got to Chicago, I was talking about urban abandonment. I am about addressing the structural inequalities. The media has some responsibilities to ask the right questions.
[...]
Essence.com: I understand that. But Rev. Jackson, there are a whole lot of Black folks who are very upset with the Clintons. They see a pattern. This is Bill Clinton, he knows how to craft words. So are you saying that the press is misinterpreting what President Clinton said?

J.J: I don’t know what he said. I was on my way to India. My point is I know that in November, whoever wins, Clinton and Barack are going to need each other. I saw in 1980 there was such a dog fight between Carter and Kennedy that they could not reconcile at the convention, and that opened the door for Reagan to get through to win. So, however tough this thing gets right up in here, keep one eye on the primary and an even bigger eye on the Super Bowl, which is in November.

Essence.com: It’s interesting that you say that, because I’m a younger voter. I’m a blogger and a lot of bloggers are saying that they are so turned off, and they are so irate about how the Clintons are treating Barack Obama that they absolutely will not vote for her if she wins the nomination.

J.J: That means that they’re going to vote for some anti–civil rights Republicans, who’s going to further stack the Supreme Court. And they’re going to vote for some anti–affirmative action Republicans. So you have to be mature in this process. You have to think this thing through. Politics also comes down to options. In this marathon race, you have to be walking through a storm and thinking at the same time. Barack has my vote. My point is that when it’s over, the two of them and the others who ran must close ranks because you cannot beat the right wing unless you do.

Debate Talk and My Questions to the Candidates

Sorry to get this up so late. I'm sure yall would have liked a thread to share your thoughts on last night's debate, but some of us are still holdin down the day job, ok? :)

Let's get to it. I didn't actually see most of the debate. I read the entire transcript and saw a few exchanges on YouTube and read many second hand reports. What impressed me from the transcript was Mr. John Edwards who seemed to evoke the most powerful spirit of Dr. King in reminding everyone of the Poor People's Campaign.

He could also afford to sidestep the Obama-Clinton battle much of the time but seemed eager to jump in as well (with his comments on taking money from lobbyists or defending his trial lawyer fundraising, for example).

I liked Clinton when she stuck to advocating her policies. The Green Collar jobs. A freeze on home interest rates. She was sounding mad progressive. I did not like the intentional misrepresentation of Obama on Reagan. We need to get past all that. Similarly with the "present" votes in Illinois. But she knows there is no room for nuance in these forums, and she's trying to spread as much dirt on Obama as possible. Felt like a bit of scorched earth campaigning going on.

Part of me had to rethink my entire anti-Clinton perspective. When O hit her hard with that "sometimes I'm not sure which Clinton I'm running against," I thought on the one hand, "hell yeah, go get em." But the other side was like, "oooh, it would be nice to have two Clintons attacking and distorting McCain or Romney's positions." It was a dark thought, based in the cynicism in which we've been soaked as a society.

Obama appeals to something more positive in me, but damn the dark side looks good sometimes. As for Mr. O, I'm so glad he jumped in and started swinging, because folks are right, if he can't take the heat from Clintons, much as I despise what they're doing as divisive, he can't take it from the Right who will call him everything but his name and then some.

I absolutely hate the tactics the Clintons are using (thus, the wiki), because if she gets the nomination, I doubt she can win the general (and she'd almost certainly hurt down ticket Dems in red states). If Obama gets the nomination despite the Clinton tactics, then we know we have a winner.

As for the debate questions. I think too many tried to instigate more race-based personality battles than were necessary, but at least there were no dumbass questions about clothing. Here are the questions I would have asked. I tried to get something for everybody and, of course, all for the American people.

1. What do you consider to be the primary cause of the subprime housing implosion? (this is designed to test their ability to diagnose a problem even before proposing solutions. Will they lay the blame at shady mortgage agents, uneducated buyers, the deregulation of banking and housing, securitization of mortgage debt? etc)
2. Despite calling ourselves "the land of the free," the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate of any nation in the world, with over 2 million people in prison, over half for drug-related offenses. The state of South Carolina was ranked next to last in its ability to reintegrate former prisoners into society. Whether through overzealous sentencing guidelines or a failed War on Drugs, something is clearly wrong with the U.S. prison system. As president, what would you do to fix it?
   
3. Most oil industry analysts agree that the world has reached its peak production of oil and as a consequence will face a dramatic increase in prices as demand outstrips supply. Considering how critical lo