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UNITED NATIONS - / www.MaximsNews.com,
UN/ - 09 November 2006 -- With
the party’s takeover of the U.S. House of
Representatives, Rep. Nancy Pelosi stands a very
strong chance of becoming the first female
Speaker of the House, while Rep. Charles Rangel
is poised to take over the helm of the powerful And
in By the same token, Tennessee Rep. Harold Ford, Jr., who ran a remarkable campaign, lost in his bid to become the first African American senator from the South since Reconstruction. Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele and former Pittsburgh Steeler Lynn Swan were all defeated in their respective races for governor. And
in But
the recent electoral outcomes still beg the
question – if the nation is willing to have an
African American lead one of Capitol Hill’s
most influential committees, a black female
Secretary of State and a female Speaker of the
House, is it ready to elect a female and/or
African American to be president? According
to a recent Gallup Survey, the answer is a
resounding yes: 58 percent said they believed
the With
over 9,000 public officeholders nationwide,
blacks have made major progress on the political
front since the civil rights movement of the
1960s. In
1967, Edward Brooke of By
1984, Reverend Jesse Jackson galvanized the
black community and liberal democratic base in
bringing his candidacy from the fringe to the
mainstream within the Democratic Party. "White
folks were indignant that he was running,"
said Eric Easter, who worked on both of By
1988, he more than doubled his 1984 results,
winning 11 primaries before losing to
Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis. In 1996,
Alan Keyes ran for the GOP nod but had better
success in 2000, taking 14 percent of votes in
the In
2004, the Reverend Al Sharpton and former Sen.
Carol Moseley Braun, the first black woman
elected to the Senate, vied for the Democratic
nomination, collecting few delegates. Not
since 1988 has a minority candidate seen Largely
unknown in 2004, Obama emerged from a very
crowded field to win a U.S. Senate primary,
paving the way for keynote speaking opportunity
at his party’s national convention. His
performance caused the nation to take note, and
his subsequent landslide over Keyes sealed the
deal. A
December 2005 article in The
New Republic argued that Obama would have
his best chance of winning the White House in
2008, with no incumbent president or vice
president in the race. TIME
magazine recently put Obama on its cover with
the headline -- “Why Barack Obama Could Be The
Next President.” An editorial in the Chicago Tribune compared a possible Obama bid to President John F.
Kennedy’s successful run in 1960. According
to a recent CNN poll, the Illinois Democrat
trailed only New York Sen. Hillary Clinton in a
list of potential Democratic presidential
contenders. Of registered Democrats, he drew
support from 17 percent – compared to On
the GOP side, neither Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice nor Keyes was even included as
a possible presidential candidate.
But
does an African American like Obama or Keyes or
even Rice have a realistic chance of taking the
White House in 2008 or 2112 or even 2116?
Or is the hype just fodder for pundits
and journalists? A
study that appeared in the latest Quarterly
Journal of Economics concluded that the Can
Americans really look beyond race and gender
when it comes to choosing their national
leaders? That remains to be seen. Still, we can
be encouraged by the progress. It won’t be too
long before a person of color or woman does
serve our nation’s highest office – or at
least that is my dream.
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