For those of you who may have been wondering when President Obama would finally get around to making a political decision that would be specifically helpful to the black community – or to any specific black person, at all – it seems your prayers have been answered.
It appears that the President’s heavy-handed, wrong-headed effort to remove David Paterson, one of only two black U.S. governors, from the 2010 New York Governor’s race in favor of State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, may very well wind up turning public opinion in favor of Paterson.
Two weeks ago, the Obama administration, through Gregory Meeks, a black Queens Congressman, who, hereinafter, will be referred to as "Brutus," sent Paterson a message that the president wants him to step aside and not run for governor because of his low approval ratings in the polls, which, they said, would make him a political liability for the National Democratic Party in the upcoming mid-term elections. There was also some far-reaching political logic released, at the same time, that projected that if Paterson did run, his Republican opponent would likely be Rudy Guiliani, who, the administration feared, would "crush" Paterson, cause the loss of New York State for the Democratic Party and position himself to run for president in 2012 against Obama.
Whew!
That’s some serious speculation, but that was their excuse for throwing the black governor under the bus – right next to Rev. Wright, next to Van Jones, next to Eric Holder, next to Kanye West, next to Louis Farrakhan, next to Jesse Jackson, next to "irresponsible" black males all over America, next to equally “irresponsible” and “corrupt” black males in Ghana, etc., etc., etc.
Let me make sure that I understand how the president and his people approach Democratic candidates that are being challenged at home…when it’s Senator Specter, if you’re Barack Obama, you fly to his state and appear at a fundraiser for him, when it’s Governor Corzine, you do the same. Why, other than the disconcertingly obvious reason, are the rules different, when it’s an African-American governor named Paterson?
Somewhere in the back of your mind, you just had to know that, sooner or later, the chickens really would come home to roost on the administration's blatant pattern of callous treatment of black folks for political advantage, and now it seems that the cracks are starting to appear in Obama's facade of political invincibility, based, in no small part, on his unconscionable attack on David Paterson.
Right after the White House sent its “get lost” message to Paterson, a Niagara Gazette columnist named Dan Glynn wrote: “Any New Yorkers who voted for Barack Obama in the last presidential election undoubtedly have a different opinion after his visit to the Albany area this week.”
Glynn went on to call Obama’s action “….a rude and unwarranted intrusion into the 2010 race for Governor.”
Even more graphic was the New York Post, a Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid that has arguably been most responsible for the sensational, unrelenting, anti-Paterson news coverage that has driven down the Governor’s standing in the polls.
Two weeks ago, however, there was this from the Post, describing Obama’s arrival at the New York airport where Paterson was among his greeters: “Obama Embraces Governor And All That’s Missing Is The Knife In His Hand.”
A caption under the photo carried this warning to Governor Paterson: “Watch your back, Dave.”
Later that day, with Paterson and Cuomo both in the audience for the president’s speech at Hudson Valley Community College, Obama, consistent with his previously established, anti-black-governor agenda, damned Paterson with faint praise as a “wonderful man” then went on to shower a great deal of favorable comments on Cuomo, his yet-unannounced "horse" in the Governor’s race, offering special plaudits for Cuomo’s work as attorney general.
By early indications, New Yorkers aren’t having any of it. They seem to be very much opposed to Obama’s intrusion into their local politics; more so, even, than they have been receptive to the negative images created about Paterson in their home state’s news outlets.
In fact, a Marist poll released two weeks ago revealed that 62 percent of New Yorkers do not support Obama’s involvement in the Governor’s race. Only 27 percent believed Obama's action was justifiable.
In my opinion, the Obama administration has gotten caught up in something other than what may be in the best interest of New Yorkers in this whole issue. The president also may have seriously underestimated the “juice” still left in the powerful Paterson political family.
First of all, people are beginning to wonder out loud, not just in New York, but all across the country, why the president chose to come out against Paterson, as opposed to any other incumbent Democratic governor with low approval ratings.
Aside from the obvious, it might have had something to do with David Axelrod, who handled media operations for Obama’s presidential run and who is now “senior political advisor” to the president. It seems that Axelrod had also been the communications consultant for the New York Attorney General campaign for Eliot Spitzer, the disgraced former New York governor whom Paterson was brought in to succeed, and for Andrew Cuomo, the all-but-official, new gubernatorial aspirant, when he, himself, ran for New York State Attorney General. According to one media account, which quotes an unnamed White House source, “The decision to ask Mr. Paterson to step aside was proposed by political advisors to Mr.Obama, but approved by the president, himself.”
Almost makes you wonder who’s really running the White House, huh?
Can this blatant attack on Paterson’s candidacy really be reduced to Axelrod dragging the weight of the President's Office into a political scrap on behalf of his client, Cuomo, and against one of only two U.S. black governors?
There's a growing feeling that once black, and other, voters in New York fully realize that a major reason why they have been inclined to believe the worst about Paterson is the unrelenting barrage of negative news--and opinion-- about the Governor in the New York press, they may return to being effectively supportive of him. The Obama attack may just be that kind of "wake-up call."
For black New Yorkers, especially, Paterson has a very impressive political heritage. His grandmother, Evangeline, worked as a secretary to Marcus Garvey, after arriving in this country from Jamaica. His father Basil’s contemporaries and “roadies” in New York, and especially in Harlem, included David Dinkins, New York City’s first black mayor; Charles Rangel, chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee; and Percy Sutton, the former Manhattan Borough President, and media mogul, who served as an attorney to Malcolm X, as a young man. When Basil Paterson, a powerful labor lawyer by profession, was being elected to the New York State Senate in 1965, Barack Obama was just four years old. When Obama was in his senior year of high school in beautiful Hawaii, Dave’s pop was Deputy Mayor of New York City. The year Obama graduated high school, Basil Paterson was already Secretary of State for New York.
That’s an unprecedented political legacy, and those old dudes still have a lot of “chips” to cash, and will no doubt use them to help young David in any way they can – even, if necessary, against the wishes of the first black president.
The other issue for the Obama administration is that the person who will, arguably, have the largest impact on this entire situation will be Murdoch, who not only owns the New York Post, but also the Fox Cable News Network and Dow Jones, the parent company of the Wall Street Journal.
When the extremely conservative Murdoch only had the black governor to kick around, the New York Post and his other outlets were all-too-happy to abuse Paterson on an almost daily basis. But now that building support, or at least empathy, for Paterson can further drive down Obama’s poll numbers, Murdoch can actually be supportive of Paterson, at Obama’s expense.
It’s going to be interesting to see which way it goes, but as they say, “Politics makes strange bedfellows.” It appears that President Obama's Axelrod-influenced strategy, in this case, has the potential to drive New York’s state-wide voters and its largest city’s most powerful black leaders into the same political camp – at least for the upcoming primary election.
Go get some popcorn. It’s going to be fun to watch.
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