But further, Bob Johnson wouldn’t be a billionaire if his name wasn’t Johnson. When I was a kid in Chicago, there were exactly three wealthy black men, and they were all named Johnson: George Johnson of Johnson Products, John Johnson of Johnson Publishing, and Al Johnson of Johnson Cadillac. And like Bob, George and John made their fortunes by targeting the black community. (The well-off of all races bought cars from Al Johnson.)

How ’bout taking a freshman senator from North Carolina named John Edwards?

How ’bout a former one-term Congressman and unsuccessful senate candidate from Illinois named Abraham Lincoln?

Obama is not the first black person to run for president, guys. Yeah, no one has even mentioned Douglas Wilder who ran in 1992 as the former governor of Virginia. That should have been seen as electoral gold, particularly since, as many have opined here, being black would have been an additional bonus (supposedly).

Anyone who saw Obama’s speech at the Democratic Convention in 2004 knew that he was being talked about as presidential material from that moment– he even bore mention by name in Neil Young’s “Living With War” album when it came out in 2006. The guy is a rockstar politician in the same way that Kennedy was a rockstar– and no one says, “Oh, Kennedy only got as far as he did because he was Catholic,” even though he had a distinct advantage of being able to get Catholic voters on his side if they might have otherwise supported another candidate.

Was Obama in the right place at the right time? Sure, but that’s because all successful presidential candidates are.

Your point? I never said he was favored to win, or presented serious competition for Kerry. Simply that his candidacy was taken seriously even though he was a junior senator and almost completely unknown prior to the 2004 primary season. The white equivalent of Obama, if you will.

Compare Edwards’ run in either 2004 or 2008 to the campaigns of Al Sharpton, Carol Mosely-Braun, Joe Biden, Dennis Kucinich, Mike Gravel, Wesley Clark, etc. etc. etc. etc. A lot of people run for president at the outset of each election cycle. Most don’t win a single primary. A great many barely rate a mention in the MSM.

The fact that Edwards ended up towards the top of the heap in 2004 (and was tentatively considered a contender this year) implies that, yeah, a particularly gifted junior senator with no real name recognition does stand a chance.

For that matter, how did being black push Obama to the top of the heap even though quite a few black politicians with about the same level of experience have run before without managing to come nearly this close?

To believe all this “it’s because Obama is black” nonsense, you basically have to be completely ignorant of the last 2 election cycles at least, and relatively uninformed about politics and the history of presidential hopefuls in general. Obama is not the first black person to run for president, guys.

Not to mention, of course, that the general consensus a year ago, from the same sorts of folks who are now saying “it’s because he’s black”, was that America simply isn’t ready to elect a black president, no way nohow is that gonna happen anytime soon. That’s a HUGE ideological leap, no?

As I remember it wasn’t from some normal fleabag dis-info-tainment source. I was shocked that someone could potentially turn their back on their own race… Well, but republicans turn their backs on other Americans everyday… Somethings are a mystery to me…

You know why that ‘take a random white guy’ thing doesn’t work?

Because of John Edwards. He has exactly Obama’s level of experience, and yeah, when he decided to run for president, people definitely took him seriously. He was taken seriously enough to be chosen as Kerry’s running mate last go-round, and he was seen as a real contender in the run-up to the primary season.

Edwards is from North Carolina, and the only primary he won was South Carolina. He stayed in the race through Super Tuesday, but it belonged to Kerry after Dean melted down.

Look at the republican black politicians. It seems that most have gotten where they are by not playing their race. What I mean by that is that I read an article on Condi Rice that stated that she was very much against racial quotas even though she directly benefited from them in her education.

Condi was born in 1954 in Birmingham, Alabama.

She went to University of Denver in 1970, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa at 19. She had a PhD at 26.

I don’t think academic institutions were practicing affirmative action at that point, but her father taught at U of Denver.

I have no idea whether her race or gender helped the advancement of her academic career in the 80s or not. It probably had something to do with her getting the job of Provost at Stanford. The various Republicans who she advised on policy in the eighties were unlikely to have been practicing affirmative action in their hiring, and Condi was apparently widely recognized as a leading expert in her field.

One of the primary objections to affirmative action by black people who don’t support the practice is the poisonous assumption that any accomplished black person must be a beneficiary of affirmative action policies. I don’t think George W. Bush had a black woman quota to fill when he was picking a National Security Adviser or a Secretary of State.

We have long recognized that our culture runs on trends, fads, cycles, waves, tipping points and is not in general linear. It should be completely non controversial to say that part of what has got Obama to the point he is at, is the luck of being at the right time in the right place.

This is not to denigrate Obama in anyway, it is just to recognize that the rise in “mainstream” popularity of African Americans in sports, tv, movies, music, and the tearing down of walls in schools, colleges, professions, means that right now, being a Black Male could indeed be a very “lucky” place to be in the race, especially when pitted against another classic underdog, the White Female.

But remember, to even mention this as a possibility demonstrates you are a racist.

You know why that ‘take a random white guy’ thing doesn’t work?

Because of John Edwards. He has exactly Obama’s level of experience, and yeah, when he decided to run for president, people definitely took him seriously.

speaking of Edwards… didn’t Pandagon and half the pro Edwards blogosphere, just 6 months ago say that the reason Edwards was the distant third was because the media decided the black guy versus the woman made for a more interesting narrative?

isn’t that the same thing, plus some more wiggle room maybe, as saying Obama got where he is in this race because he’s black

According to a story in the NYT a couple of weeks ago, when he was at HLS, the school was divided by major arguments over Affirmative Action. Obama abstained from the discussion and aligned himself with a group of conservative law review editors who backed his candidacy for law review president, which allowed them a convenient out for allegations that their position was racist while burnishing Obama’s resume.

Ford was probably better positioned as far as laying the groundwork in advance for a Senate run. Obama lost his attempt to run for the House in 2000, and then announced his senate candidacy in 2003. He got to the Senate through some extraordinary luck. His most serious opponent in the Democratic primary, millionaire Blair Hull, was rocked by allegations that he beat his wife.

Then, the Republican candidate, Jack Ryan, had some tremendously embarrassing stuff aired in his divorce, and he dropped out of the race. Alan Keyes, who doesn’t even live in Illinois, showed up in August 2004 so Obama wouldn’t run unopposed, but it wasn’t a seriously contested election.

Ford ran a fiercely contested election in a very white, southern, conservative state, the Republicans ran a phenomenally dirty campaign and Corker still won by less than three percent.

Obama’s presidential campaign has caught fire because he’s incredible on the stump. But Obama also had the benefit of several tremendously popular viral internet videos which provided a whole lot of name recognition and hipness, at zero cost to the campaign. Barack has star quality, but Obama Girl, will.i.am and especially Oprah are a big factor in what made his candidacy.

Ford is smooth on television, but I can’t say he would have picked up the same magic. Ford is a lot more conservative, and he’s single, which isn’t good in a presidential candidate. I think if Ford had won his Senate election, he’d have held off until 2012 or 2016 before running for president. But if Obama is the Beatles, that’s something that’s happened in the last six months or so.