Geraldine Ferraro's Comments Explained...
As heard on the John Gibson show. (Geraldine Ferraro speaks) Between me and you and your millions of visitors, er listeners, if Barack Obama were a white man, would we be talking about this as a potential real problem for Hillary? (John interjects) You mean if Barack were John Edwards? (Geraldine continues) If he were a women of any color would he be in this position that he is in, absolutely not. (John) Geraldine are you playing the race card? (Geraldine) NO and that's the problem, everytime you speak the truth-I'm the first person John, and you know how honest I am, I am the first person who will say in 1984, If my name were Girard instead of Geraldine, I would never have been picked to be the vice presidential candidate. The main thing that Geraldine Ferraro's comments revealed was how pretentious many in our society have become, and I'm not referring to Ms. Ferraro but everyone who reacted in a ridiculous manner to her comments.
Ms. Ferraro's comment had a basic truth to them.
Because Barack Obama was the only black person in the race, Obama DID have an advantage. If Alan Keyes had chosen to run for president again, Mr. Keyes would have dug into Obama's numbers just enough to possibly be lethal.
But here is where lack of a sense of humor harms everybody. If there had been another women in the race, that women would also have cut into Ms. Clinton's numbers just enough to potentially be lethal. The comedy about Ms. Ferraro's comments was that whatever Ms. Ferraro said about Obama basically applies to Hillary Clinton as well.
It wasn't until John Edwards left the race that Obama picked up his final momentum. Once again, Ms. Ferraro's analysis ring true. When it was two men against one women, the two men were splitting the vote to a certain degree and Hillary Clinton, as the only women, was benefiting. Just as Ms. Ferraro claimed Barack Obama benefited by being the only black, Hillary Clinton also benefited by being the only women in the race.
In the end, Geraldine Ferraro was right, the problem was nobody had enough of a sense of humor to point out that everything she attributed to Barack Obama as being "luck" could also have been attributed to Hillary Clinton being just as lucky by being the only woman in the race.
I think it is also true that if Barack Obama were white he would have lost a lot of the black vote to.... Hillary Clinton. Hillary's base would have been middle aged and older white women, blacks of all ages, and mexicans of all ages as well, and that would have been a powerful one, two, three punch.
The fact that everyone reacted so stiffly to Ms. Ferraro's comments is what concerns me most. Rather than take the time to really understand Geraldine Ferraro's comments, everyone went for the immediate gratification of a knockout punch that saw Ms. Ferraro resign from Hillary Clinton's finance committee team.
Should Hillary have defended Ms. Ferraro? Since Obama had just let go one of his own people for calling Hillary a name, Hillary's hands were tied and she basically had to accept Geraldine Ferraro's resignation.
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