"The incompetence was color-blind," he said, adding, "the real stumbling block was indifference to the problems of the poor," Scott continues. In his speech announcing his official candidacy, Obama stated, "...Beneath all the difference of race and region, faith and station, we are one people." The Rev. Al Sharpton has said that Obama "doesn't want to look like he's only a black candidate." The Scott article notes that Obama's advisors are saying he is "entirely comfortable with his identity...proud to be an African-American but not limited by that." And moreover, Obama carries a "peculiar burden as a presidential candidate," Scott asserts, and that burden relates to whether or not he calibrates his words, "blacks as well as whites are likely to parse them for anything they might signal about racial issues." That said, it is also true that Obama grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia, a long way from black life in America, so he is not even a traditional black politician, let alone the fact that blacks don't make serious runs for the presidency very often.

As for Hillary Rodham Clinton, she has "subtly but unmistakably, pushed gender, engaging in a series of events intended to present her in softer ways," according to an article in the New York Times January 14, 2008 (Nagourney 2008). In fact, a number of prominent Democrats believe that Clinton defeated Obama in New Hampshire "after a decisive swing of women into her camp." That swing came...

Notwithstanding the fact that Clinton expressed on "Meet the Press" Sunday the 13th of January that she was "hopeful race and gender would not be an issue," Obama's supporters are saying that Clinton "and her allies might be deliberately raising the issue of race at the very time Mr. Obama had shown signs of taking off,' Nagourney writes. Adding to the tension is the recent suggestion by Clinton that President Lyndon B. Johnson "deserved more credit than Dr. King for the Civil Rights Act of 1964" (Nagourney's words).
The third Democrat in the race, John Edwards, was quoted as saying that he was "troubled" to learn that Clinton suggested civil rights changes came "...not through Rev. Martin Luther King, but through a Washington politician." Edwards added that he "fundamentally" disagrees with that assessment.

Works Cited

Balz, Dan. (2007, January 17). Race and Gender Make Democrats' Field Historic. Washington Post. Retrieved January 13, 2008, at http://www.washingtonpost.com.

Nagourney, Adam. (2008, January 14). Race and Gender Are Issues in Tense Day for Democrats. The New York Times, Retrieved January 14, 2008, at http://www.nytimes.com.

Scott, Janny. (2007, December 20). A Biracial Candidate Walks His Own Fine Line. The New

York Times, Retrieved January 14, 2008, at http://www.nytimes.com.

Seelye, Katharine Q. (2007, October 14). Clinton-Obama quandary for Many Black Women.

The New York Times. Retrieved January 13, 2008, at http://www.nytimes.com.