Oy.
I guess the heartland isn't ready yet to get past their prejudices, racial and religious.
The answer, by the way is yes, I would, if the candidate supported issues consistent enough with my opinions. But Obama, in point of fact, is not a Muslim).
Although Obama is a Christian, he does have perhaps more direct personal knowledge of Muslims than any other candidate running, due to his personal upbringing. That experience, I think, is uniquely to his advantage in dealing with the Muslim world, which is a critical task facing the next President. And although Obama didn't spend eight years not baking cookies in the White House, it is his personal history that gives him the leg up over "experience." Fareed Zararia agrees:
Obama's argument is about more than identity. He was intelligent and prescient about the costs of the Iraq War. But he says that his judgment was formed by his experience as a boy with a Kenyan father—and later an Indonesian stepfather—who spent four years growing up in Indonesia, and who lived in the multicultural swirl of Hawaii.
I never thought I'd agree with Obama. I've spent my life acquiring formal expertise on foreign policy. I've got fancy degrees, have run research projects, taught in colleges and graduate schools, edited a foreign-affairs journal, advised politicians and businessmen, written columns and cover stories, and traveled hundreds of thousands of miles all over the world. I've never thought of my identity as any kind of qualification. I've never written an article that contains the phrase "As an Indian-American ..." or "As a person of color ..."
But when I think about what is truly distinctive about the way I look at the world, about the advantage that I may have over others in understanding foreign affairs, it is that I know what it means not to be an American. I know intimately the attraction, the repulsion, the hopes, the disappointments that the other 95 percent of humanity feels when thinking about this country. I know it because for a good part of my life, I wasn't an American. I was the outsider, growing up 8,000 miles away from the centers of power, being shaped by forces over which my country had no control.
5 comments:
I guess it depends on how you define "heartland." Illinois voters overwhelmingly elected Obama to the Senate, and not all of that support came from the Chicago metro area
yeah -- but he ran against alan keyes. hardly a contest.
True. But since both candidates were black, I think that does work as a counterexample to your hypothesis about the "heartland"'s resistance to a minority candidate.
So, your argument is that he knew some Muslims when he was a kid; therefore, he should be president? Is that it? Or have I missed the deeper meaning?
BTW, how does it feel to have YOUR argument reduced to a frippery?
To Musing85 -- true enough, I may have painted with too broad a brush, but my point remains - many in this country will not vote for someone they perceive to be an "other," whether it be because of race or religion. I was disappointed to see that prejudice in my own family and it surprised me. And I wasn't trying to single Illinois out, however, each trip home I've had religion mixed with politics crammed down my throat. You don't see that here in the Beltway (and you probably don't in Chicago either), other than hear about it on the news, so it's a a bit of cold water in the face to experience it.
To annon: The answers to your questions lie in the postings on this blog. Thanks for reading!
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