The hype continues over US Presidential candidate Barack Obama. A few months back, he had only 45% of the nation’s Black vote, but today he enjoys a reported 92% of the Black vote. Former President Bill Clinton was first to help turn the tide during the South Carolina primary, referring to the Obama candidacy as just one more Jesse Jackson fling. Angry Black folks quickly moved to support Obama. Most important, Obama captured the traditional 90% Black voting block, in spite of the “Not Black Enough” early connotations and the lukewarm support of Black civil rights leaders such as two time Presidential candidate Jesse Jackson, civil rights leader Al Sharpton and former Atlanta Mayor and UN Ambassador Andrew Young. Such civil rights leaders made his candidacy possible. “After the negative response to comments by Obama’s minister, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama knows what it is to be Black in America,” states Oakland Resident and Obama supporter, Robert Brackins. “He will be sensitive to the needs of African Americans and deserves the Black support,” he continued.

Yet, the Obama tide has caused other power moves among Black leaders. Georgia Congressman John Lewis publically switched from opposition candidate Hillary Clinton to Obama because of his constituents support for Obama. Then, when Black Radio and TV Host Tavis Smiley criticized Obama for not attending Smiley’s “State of the Black Union” symposium (Hillary attended) and why Obama didn’t visit Memphis for the 40th Anniversary observances of Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination, Black hate mail came in so heavy that he quit the Tom Joyner Morning Show. This is also symptomatic of the anguish of other Black civil rights leaders like Jackson and Young, who bear physical scars from white attacks during the civil rights marches fighting for Blacks, to pass on a viable African American candidate for a white machine based candidate.

So, while Obama and Clinton battle it out, white Republican Candidate, Senator John McCain, rises in the polls. McCain went to Memphis for Dr. King’s observances, even in the face of voting against the federal holiday honoring Dr. King in 1983. Later, in his home state, he supported Arizona Governor Evan Mechan’s rescinding the Executive Order for a King holiday. Mechan publically supported referring to Black people as “pickaninnies.” McCain voted four times against the Civil Rights Act of 1990 on job discrimination and in 2004, opposed affirmative action in college admissions. Ironically, like President George Bush, McCain was an affirmative action “Rich and Famous Admission” to Yale University because his father and grandfather were naval four star admirals. McCain, who supports the war in Iraq, graduated in the bottom 5% of his Annapolis Naval Accademy class. “This is not De Ja Vu, but another George Bush!” states Len Canty, President of the Black Economic Council in Oakland. “With the fixation on the Democratic battle between Obama and Clinton, WE BETTER RECOGNIZE the real stakes of the battle between Republicans and Democrats coming up for November elections,” he continued.

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