2008 Election Coverage

Obama Gets Bold in Interview on NPR

March 1st, 2007

I was reading this: NPR : Obama to Attend Selma March Anniversary and was struck by Obama’s willingness to answer questions rather than weasel his way out of them.  I’ve hightlighted some of the questions it seems that politicians usually avoid somehow:

Do you try to talk in the same way to a black audience as a white audience?

I think that the themes are consistent. It think that there’s a certain black idiom that it’s hard not to slip into when you’re talking to a black audience because of the audience response. It’s the classic call and response. Anybody who’s spent time in a black church knows what I mean. And so you get a little looser; it becomes a little more like jazz and a little less like a set score.

I don’t know what I would have said, but not that.  And could a white person even say that?  Also a question about him not being black enough:

There’s no doubt that in the history of African American politics in this country there has always been some tension between speaking in universal terms and speaking in very race-specific terms about the plight of the African American community. By virtue of my background, I am more likely to speak in universal terms.

Entry Filed under: Obama, Barak Obama, 2008