23 Comments - Disgusted - Wednesday, Jan 10, 07 @ 8:20 am: I bet the Great Hairdo is grinding his teeth. - Cassandra - Wednesday, Jan 10, 07 @ 8:27 am: Poor Hillary. What’s she gonna do about Iraq. She voted for it because she thought it would make her look tough when she ran for Prez. But she has to get past those liberal Dems who vote in the primaries first. And Obama is telling them he wouldn’t have voted for the war. Should they believe that. Of course not. There’s no way of knowing what he would have done. But they are really mad at Hillary. Maybe the Dems will get fed up with these two prima donnas and go with John Edwards or Al Gore. - phocion - Wednesday, Jan 10, 07 @ 8:37 am: An MLK Day announcement is an awful idea. Obama’s appeal is that he has transcended race. While MLK did espouse “content of character, not color of skin” in ‘63, his holiday is now more closely associated with cultural differences rather than what binds us together. An Obama/MLK link will merely make race an issue. - Bill Baar - Wednesday, Jan 10, 07 @ 8:40 am: Maybe the Dems will get fed up with these two prima donnas and go with John Edwards or Al Gore. That’s my forecast you know. And that Obama get’s the VP slot on a Gore-Obama ticket with the Edwards and anti-war crowd walking out of the party. Obama seems thin not because he lacks a record (he has one, google around or read his books) but that he talks now in such banalities. That he calls himself a blank slate. People want to know where he’s going, not where he’s been; and the banalities are not comforting words for some of us. And as I learn more about him, it dawns on me just how much of a traditional Illinois Pol he is. It’s the long standing relationships with Rezko, the words for the Laborer’s Ed Smith (read Marathon Pundit on Illinoiz today) that speak louder to me then any policy. Obama wasn’t always like that for me. - grand old partisan - Wednesday, Jan 10, 07 @ 9:03 am: I believe the Address is on January 23rd this year. I agree with phocion that an MLK Day announcement would be a terrible idea. The press and pundits will certainly do plenty to “highlight” the historic nature of Obama’s candidacy, and any attempt by him to do so will (rightly or wrongly)will be considered by many as “exploiting” it. Any “historic” candidate runs the risk of a backlash by people who resent that being made into too big of an issue. For Barack specifically, I think that risk is greatest in some crucial Democratic demographics: blue-collar union voters and southerners. If he can’t hold onto a good part of both those groups, then his announcement will be the beginning of the end. - Dan Vock - Wednesday, Jan 10, 07 @ 9:39 am: The State of the Union is Jan. 23. The New York Times has a story today about the timing of Obama and Clinton announcements. (One of the reporters, Jeff Zeleny, used to follow Obama around for the Trib and even had a brief stint in the Illinois Statehouse). - cermak_rd - Wednesday, Jan 10, 07 @ 9:44 am: I don’t see MLK day as a day just for African-American people. MLK spoke to all of us and his vision had meaning to all of us. Regardless of what Obama does or when he declares, he will be both blessed and burdened by the history thing. No getting around it. I don’t see how which day he picks to announce is going to be all that important in the end. - RFK fan - Wednesday, Jan 10, 07 @ 9:47 am: Cassandra: Here’s how you know Obama would have voted against the war: he’s on the record as having said that was his position even before his run for the Senate, and certainly during his run for the Senate. - Rich Miller - Wednesday, Jan 10, 07 @ 9:50 am: Considering where Reagan announced his 1980 bid, I’m not so sure any Republicans should be claiming that MLK Day is potentially divisive. - grand old partisan - Wednesday, Jan 10, 07 @ 10:45 am: Due respect, Rich, but I don’t see anything in the linked article where Reagan announced his 1980 bid. Can you help me out? - Rich Miller - Wednesday, Jan 10, 07 @ 10:48 am: ===On August 4, 1980, Ronald Reagan, as a candidate, delivered a speech near Philadelphia, Mississippi at the annual Neshoba County Fair. Reagan excited the crowd when he announced, “I believe in states’ rights. I believe we have distorted the balance of our government today by giving powers that were never intended to be given in the Constitution to that federal establishment.” He went on to promise to “restore to states and local governments the power that properly belongs to them.” Philadelphia was the scene of the June 21, 1964 murder of civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, and Reagan’s critics alleged that the presidential candidate was signalling a racist message to his audience.The speech was in keeping with his philosophy of a limited federal government, but critics alleged that Reagan had chosen the site for the speech and had made his states’ rights declaration implicitly to appeal to southern white voters.=== - Rich Miller - Wednesday, Jan 10, 07 @ 10:49 am: should have been kicked off fall campaign instead of announced. - phocion - Wednesday, Jan 10, 07 @ 10:52 am: Uh Rich, I’m a Democrat and would vote for Obama for President. Just think the MLK symbolism would pull Obama down instead of letting him soar through the muck that is racial America. And Reagan’s racist 1980 “states rights” pandering in Philadelphia Mississippi is a groteque insult to all good thinking Americans. So why should Obama step into the race thicket? - ZC - Wednesday, Jan 10, 07 @ 11:21 am: If I were Obama, I’d try and get symbolically on the JFK bandwagon instead of MLK, since that’s the kind of campaign he needs to run. The People magazine spread was a good start! And as far as Iraq goes, the American people, God bless them, are very forward-looking. At the end of the day, past votes or positions are going to matter a heck of a lot less than the question, “What do Hillary or Obama propose NOW to do about Iraq?” - grand old partisan - Wednesday, Jan 10, 07 @ 11:22 am: Rich, I understand your point is that Reagan used the “Southern Strategy” quite effectively. Fair enough. The former chair of the RNC acknowledged and apologized for such tactics. But Reagan never campaigned - or was promoted - as a candidate who could transcend racial tensions and heal racial wounds. Furthermore, I don’t think “divisive” is the right word. “Off-putting” would be a better word to describe the way some in the Democratic coalition that Obama needs to win might view it. I will add, that I personally think it could be a great event - but only if Obama uses it to reclaim the vision of Dr. King and repudiate those who have distorted and exploited it (**ahem, Jesse Jackson, ahem**) and set a new “race-relations agenda” that focuses on our common values, goals and responsibilities instead of our differences, grudges and entitlements. - Limerick - Wednesday, Jan 10, 07 @ 12:28 pm: While King Day may please Barack’s faction, He should expect some hostile reaction. It’s reliance on race, But the Presidency’s no place To engage in affirmative action. - Establishment Republican - Wednesday, Jan 10, 07 @ 2:55 pm: Rich was correct to clarify that he made a factual mistake in claiming that Ronald Reagan “announced” his candidacy in Philadelphia, MS. He had announced his candidacy at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. in 1979. He did campaign as the GOP nominee in Mississippi, but to claim that this was somehow a racist tactic or anything of the sort if quite unfounded. Did he say anything remotely racist in his remarks in Mississippi? Did he say anything that speech that he was not saying while campaigning across the rest of the country that year, including when he campaigned in the Bronx for example? Should he and all other political candidates have just written off an entire city, a state, or a region, because of a sad history of racial prejudice that thanks to leaders like MLK, America had already came a long way towards overcoming by 1980? Ronald Reagan, an Illinois native, lived his entire with a belief in racial inequality, a lesson learned from his father, who once slept in his car and caught pneumonia rather than sleep in a hotel that forbid Jews. Jack Reagan said that it might be the Irish who were kept out next. As a football player at Eureka College, Reagan went out his way to stand up for a black teammate’s right to be treated the same as his white teammates in various towns where they traveled. Fans of Barack Obama love the way he talked about “One America” at the 2004 convention, and in that spirit, people should stop trying to think that somehow we still live in a pre Civil Rights Movement America and that should define our attitudes on race. Ronald Reagan should also not be disparaged in that way. - Smack-o-cratic - Wednesday, Jan 10, 07 @ 3:22 pm: Obama, regardless of the date, time or location of his announcement, will be criticised. I chuckled when reading this bit from Al Sharpton: “Sharpton, according to the Associated Press, told the audience the Democratic field needed a candidate who could provide substance on urban-related issues to the candidates’ debates. “Right now we’re hearing a lot of media razzle dazzle,” Sharpton said, referring to Obama. “I’m not hearing a lot of meat, or a lot of content. I think when the meat hits the fire, we’ll find out if it’s just fat or if there’s some real meat there.” - Establishment Republican - Wednesday, Jan 10, 07 @ 4:10 pm: Sharpton has a point. All we are hearing about now are Obama’s pecs. How much ink is the Sun-Times going to devote to that? Lynn Sweet and Neil Steinberg may be somewhat obsessed with discussing Obama’s physique. - cermak_rd - Wednesday, Jan 10, 07 @ 5:07 pm: Establishment, He should at least have mentioned Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney while he was in Philadelphia, MS. That’s THE thing that Philadelphia MS is known for. Certainly using codewords like states rights instead of more accurate terminology like federalism was off-putting and could be viewed as a stain on his legacy had he in fact done anything to actually promote federalism. - George Ryan's Cellmate - Wednesday, Jan 10, 07 @ 5:19 pm: Rich, Now, you’ve gone and done it - you’ve dared besmirch Ronald Reagan ! Lord help us all - the wingnuts are coming, the wingnuts are coming ! - Establishment Republican - Wednesday, Jan 10, 07 @ 5:44 pm: Maybe he should have mentioned the three slain civil rights workers but that does not mean that he went there deliberately to send a racist message or that speaking of states rights or limited government in the context of domestic politics in 1980 was in any way pining to return to the days of Jim Crow. - Angie - Thursday, Jan 11, 07 @ 1:34 am: Re: An Obama/MLK link will merely make race an issue. Except that Obama is half white. Maybe the point is to get African-Americans, who may wonder if he’s able to relate to the average Joe, as opposed to Harvard professors and United States Senators, to support him? My goodness, but after seeing the whoop-la over the guy in swim trunks in Hawaii, this is looking more and more like he’s the new JFK Jr. for the Democrats. Folks, go look at the cover of Ebony this week. Barack and Michelle are just ridiculously good-looking. It doesn’t matter which day he announces his candidacy on; the press is going to go bananas because the guy is so dapper. You know they love someone chic to sell papers. They either sell based on the dirt (negative stories), or else they’re thrilled to have good-looking, charismatic people to slap on the cover. This guy sells. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.