Herman Cain’s improbable rise to the top of Republican presidential primary polls — and the prospect that two black men, including an incumbent, could compete head-on for the White House next year — should be proof that American politics has moved beyond race. Instead, Cain’s candidacy has been marred by empty self-promotion, embarrassing miscues and renewed allegations that may have set back the cause of black conservatism.
As pundits turn themselves inside-out over Harry Reid’s inartful comments about Barack Obama, yesterday’s release of another batch of Nixon papers gives us a little reminder of what truly racial politics looked like at a point in our not-so-distant history:
Here‘s my Q&A with Ralph Nader today, a shortened verision of which will appear in the dead tree edition this week.
Winning and losing primaries is not a clear-cut, black-and-white issue. A candidate can essentially win by coming in second as long as he defies expectations. Conversely, if a candidate is unable to attract enough of a key group of voters, he can be judged to lose a race even if his name is tops in [...]
Eleven and a half months ago – and God, I can’t believe it’s been that long – I watched Barack Obama rally a crowd of nearly 3,000 at Columbia, South Carolina’s convention center. It was the week after he’d entered the race and pundits were still amazed at the size of the audiences he could [...]
