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Senator Barack Obama will talk with TJMS about his run for the presidency...
Barack Obama
Now that Sen. Barack Obama has formally announced his run for the White House in 2008, black folks from the corridors of Capitol Hill to corner barber shops will celebrate and debate Obama's bid as arguably the first viable black presidential candidate in American history.
This weekend, a multi-cultural America took notice as Obama told the world that he is prepared to lead the United States into a new era with a message of hope and faith.
While historians, scholars and sisters in salons debate Obama's attributes and political challenges for months to come, one fact is abundantly clear: Obama is a black man in a society deeply divided by race, trying to take charge of the most powerful nation on the planet.
"It's difficult not to view Obama's candidacy within the prism of race," Colorado state Sen. Peter Groff, executive director of the Center for African American Policy at the University of Denver, told BlackAmericaWeb.com.
Cathy Hughes, Founder and Chairman, Radio One talks with TJMS about Barack Obama's candidacy
"The most significant aspect of this campaign is that it will serve as a test on race in American life, unveiling the underbelly of racial attitudes and tensions that are still very prevalent and unresolved," Groff said. "Whether he likes it or not, Obama's race will factor greatly into whether or not he wins."
On Saturday, Obama, 45, a Democrat from Illinois who graduated from Harvard Law School, told a cheering crowd in Springfield, Illinois that he opposes the war in Iraq and wants to bring U.S. troops home in 2008. He also eluded to the Bush administration's tepid Hurricane Katrina response and vowed to bring technology to inner city neighborhoods across the country.
"This campaign must be the occasion, the vehicle of your hopes and your dreams," Obama said in his speech outside the Old State Capitol, where an estimated 15,000 people turned out to brave the cold tempuratures and await the candidate.
AP Video
"It will take your time, your energy and your advice to push us forward when we're doing right, and to let us know when we're not," he said. "This campaign has to be about reclaiming the meaning of citizenship, restoring our sense of common purpose, and realizing that few obstacles can withstand the power of millions of voices calling for change."
Obama's announcement was a pivotal moment in our time, with many blacks saying they never thought they'd live to see a serious candidate of color run for president of the United States.
"I don't believe anyone can doubt his intellectual ability to become president," Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) told BlackAmericaWeb.com Saturday. "I think he can attract people across the color line, and I think he can attract African-Americans, even though polls suggest that he doesn't have the pull in his own ranks as Hillary Clinton does."
Conyers said Obama approached him last month about his interest in the White House, and the veteran congressman from Detroit encouraged him to run.
"He's worked closely with Rainbow PUSH and within our community," Conyers said. "He's worked with low-income people and particularly with young men and women. He has a great depth of experience in these areas."
Obama isn't the first black man to run for president -- Jackson and Sharpton have both entered the presidential race over the years. But while Jackson and Sharpton were high-profile symbols of diversity and eloquently provided a voice for the disenfranchised, few blacks -- or anyone, for that matter -- gave them a serious chance to become president.
But Obama, some say, is the first black man running for president who could actually win.
"I think there is certainly something special about him," Sharon Pratt, the first female mayor of Washington, D.C., told BlackAmericaWeb.com. "He has special qualities that make him a natural leader. He has a reassuring message. He offers reflective answers to questions. And he has an engaging personality."
Pratt, a black woman who made political history herself in 1991, added, "I think he is a force with which to be reckoned, and I feel he can help heal a troubled and divided country by drawing upon new energy."
But this week, after the initial euphoria of Obama's announcement wears off, the realities of obstacles facing him will set in and the hard questions will be asked.
Some blacks wonder if Obama -- who is not a product of the civil rights movement and spent his early years in Hawaii raised by his white grandparents -- is truly a product of the black experience in America, can articulate the concerns of middle-class and low-income black folks, and energize the black electorate.
Others debate whether he needs the blessings from old guard civil rights leaders to be taken seriously in the black community, while many question what exactly it means to be "a black politican" in the first place.
As Obama pursues the White House, critics are focusing greater scrutiny on his biography. Obama was born in Honolulu 45 years ago and lived in one of the country's most diverse metropolitan areas until he was 18 years old. He spent four childhood years in Indonesia and is the son of a black Kenyan father and white American mother.
In his 1995 memoir, "Dreams From My Father," Obama recalls experiencing some discrimination growing up in the islands, such as when other kids laughed at his name. He also wrote about his internal struggles as black friends would accuse all white people of mistreating others.
"I tried to raise myself to be a black man in America, and beyond the given of my appearance, no one around me seemed to know exactly what that meant," he wrote.
Conyers said Obama's vision for America will ultimately be measured by his actions today.
"What matters is where he stands on issues now," Conyers told BlackAmericaWeb.com, "not where he was during the civil rights movement when he was eight years old."
What most political observers agree on, however, is this: The work ahead for Obama will be difficult and complex.
One challenge for Obama, according to The Washington Post, "is not just assembling the nuts and bolts of a national campaign on the fly. He must, his advisers believe, do so in a way that reflects the distinct, next-generation message of his candidacy, or at least avoids making him look like every other politician in the race."
Another concern, and perhaps a slippery slope, according to Groff, will be race.
"The issue of race present advantages and disadvantages for Obama," Groff told BlackAmericaWeb.com. "On one hand, many will view this as an opportunity for reconciliation and atonement; on the other hand, there are those who will question whether his personal background equips him to deal with an array of political, economic and social disparities faced by African-Americans."
"On one hand," he added, "it forces a national conversation that is desperately needed; on the other hand, too much talk about a black president could potentially increase the reticence ratings among white voters who will begin to feel uncomfortable for a variety of reasons."
Meanwhile, Pratt said Obama there must have an organized "political machine" in place to be successful.
"The business of politics is a profession," Pratt said. "There has to be a political apparatus in place to support his vision, and Hillary [Clinton] already has an apparatus that she inherited from her husband, the former president."
And while Pratt said she will definitely be sending money to the Obama campaign, she does have concerns: "How long can he sustain the star quality before the honeymoon is over?"
Groff said fundraising will be a challenge for Obama, but is not an insurmountable problem.
"Despite Chisholm, Jackson, Fulani, Mosley-Braun and Sharpton before him, Obama is managing a scale of organizational and fundraising capacity that appears unmatched by those previous candidates," he said. "Therefore, he is very much the most solid black contender for president of the United States, thereby presenting an unbelievably unique opportunity for African-Americans."
Last month, Obama said American troops should begin pulling out of Iraq by spring 2008 to end "a foreign policy disaster," but he stopped short of endorsing a cut-off in funds. He introduced a bill to force the redeployment under law, but that's unlikely while Bush is president. Still, Obama said he's taking Bush up on his challenge to critics to offer alternatives.
Obama's bill would cap troop levels in Iraq at the early January level of around 130,000, when Bush announced he would send 21,500 additional U.S. forces to Iraq. It would require that troops begin coming home on May 1, with the goal of removing all combat brigades by March 31, 2008.
"I'm proud of Senator Obama for following in the footsteps of Jesse Jackson, Shirley Chisholm, and Al Sharpton," Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) told BlackAmericaWeb.com. "He has earned the opportunity to make this run for the presidency, and I look forward to hearing his plans on how to get America back on the right path."
Obama has been in the U.S. Senate for two years and served seven years in the Illinois state senate. According to USA Today, "only New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton had more support for the nomination in a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken last month. Among respondents, 18 percent of Democrats and independents who lean Democrat supported Obama; 29 percent backed Clinton."
Some critics have already suggested that because Obama has limited experience in the Senate, he is not prepared make critical decisions from the Oval Office.
Bill Burton, a senior advisor for the Obama campaign, told BlackAmericaWeb.com that Obama will attract a multi-cultural array of support and begin this week introducing himself to Americans while taking his message of hope to people across the country.
Craig Kirby, a senior advisor to former Virginia governor Mark Warner, said Obama’s candidacy is good for America.
"The fact that he has generated so much excitement is a great thing for all," Kirby told BlackAmericaWeb.com.
"I am of the belief that America needs a win, and an Obama candidacy feeds that possibility," he said. "I feel he can become a champion of change. I believe people want to be led in a direction that will make this country's future more promising. I think it is time we balance and understand not only our political and economic interest, but that we not compound our cultural and racial fears."
Groff told BlackAmericaWeb.com the parallels between President Abraham Lincoln and Obama’s Springfield, Illinois announcement are uncanny.
"Lincoln pursued the presidency upon developing a sense of the dangerous geographic split that was taking place due to the unanswered question of slavery at that time," Groff said. "At that time, it was North vs. South. Obama enters the fray on an American political landscape defined by Red State versus Blue State, seeking to find common ground. Each man presented -- or now presents -- messages of collective national hope and faith."
