Not Just Specter: Obama Sinking Afro-American Candidacies, Too

The great expectations aroused by the success of the 2008 Obama presidential campaign — that Obama's victory heralded a new era of electoral success by black politicians — has not been sustained. As with similar expectations by the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, those hopes are increasingly dashed by the electorate's anger at the Obama Administration's servility toward the Establishment and the Administration's willingness to sell out its 2008 constituency.

As we reported yesterday, Rep. Artur Davis, an Afro-American, lost his bid in the Alabama Democratic primary for Governor on June 1, to an opponent who tagged him as being like Obama — Harvard-educated, arrogant, distant from the people — and in fact a friend of Obama's. But that's only the most recent shoe to drop on the heads of Afro-American members of America's political class, as Politico laid out in an article.

In the May 18 Pennsylvania Democratic gubernatorial primary, notably lost by Arlen Specter, state senator Hardy Williams finished third. Williams says that race was not an issue, but Obama was: "... the question I got was, 'Are you an Obama Democrat' in regard to spending and bailing out Wall St., but not in regard to race." Attorney Ken Lewis also finished third, in North Carolina's May 4 Democratic primary for U.S. Senate. Cheryle Jackson, a black Chicago businesswoman and civic activist in the mold of Valerie Jarrett and Desiree Rogers, and former head of the Chicago Urban League, came in third in the Feb. 2 Illinois Democratic primary for U.S. Senate.

Politico cites as African American current candidates considered to be in trouble:

* Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker, trailing the front-runner in the governor's primary by 60%, according to a recent poll;

* Georgia State Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond, likely to win the Democratic nomination in the state's Senate race, is polling behind his Republican opponent by a wide margin;

* Rep. Kendrick Meek (D-Fla.) likewise is the likely Democratic candidate to run for a U.S. Senate seat, is polling a distant third for the general election;

* Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, running for re-election in a three-way race, is still well under 50% in the polls.

Finally, New York Gov. David Paterson, and U.S. Senator Roland Burris (D-Ill.) both decided not to run for a full term in the offices to which they'd been appointed to fill vacancies.