Financial Gazette (Harare)
Ken Mufuka
16 May 2008
column
OUR brothers and sisters of colour are quietly changing the political landscape of America. They are not shouting, "I am black and I am proud. Say it loud!" They are saying quietly to the old and tired politicians, "No, not you! Not this time! You had your chance!"
This is a powerful message because over the years, politicians in the pay of money bags have learned to overturn the American political will.
There is a quiet sense of pride in their achievement so far. I must confess that people of colour did not start this stampede towards Senator Barrack Obama and the idea of new politics. It started with David Axelrod and David Plouffe, two white political operatives.
These two realised that the old politicians, of the Bill Clinton cabal and other Republican politicians had a stranglehold on American politics. The stranglehold was based on what they call "big money". In order to call an "Exploratory Committee" to test the waters, one held a dinner, and asked supporters to pay US$5 000 each. If one could raise US$100 million, then the game was on.
The George Bush family could always rely on oil money, and they did not need a dinner to raise US$100 million. They say when George W. Bush started, only 67 men met somewhere in the Texas desert and said: "We want to make you president".
This is very important because it means that an American politician is programmed by the movers and shakers to talk of the ordinary man, sing his songs, play his game, and after all is said and done, when in Washington, they do whatever their sponsors want them to do.
The present President Bush is an example par excellence. He was sponsored by oilmen, and he has been doing their bidding ever since he went to Washington. He started a war for oil in Iraq, which 70 percent of the American people do not want. Vice President Dick Cheney was asked the other day, and he said about the 70 percent: "So what? We do not do what opinion polls say?"
If they do not do what American people want, whose wishes do they follow? That is why Senator Obama's candidacy is very important. He refused the oil money, and his candidacy would have been sunk right there if conventional wisdom had its way.
He appealed to students, intellectuals, little old ladies, approached all the 1 600 black hair salons in South Carolina, and approached little ladies like Sister Edith Childs (who loves wide brimmed hats) in my home town.
He approached white college educated youths who have grown up in mixed classrooms over the last 30 years. This combination, together with the American Federation of Labour organisations, each man and woman sending as little as US$20 a month, outpaced even the formidable Clinton machine.
Last month, the Clinton machine loaned itself $11.6 million and they are expected to be in the red to the tune of $2o million. Obama, on the other hand, raised $46 million and in Indiana outfoxed the Clinton machine by four to one in advertisements. If money was the reason why American politics was held hostage by money bags, the Bush, Clinton and Kennedy families, Obama has shown that this hurdle can be overcome.
In his first trip to my home town in South Carolina, Obama met with the formidable Sister Childs and 67 supporters. Despite their numbers and obvious lack of financial means: Sister Childs preached to Obama: "Young man, we are fired, and ready to go. Are you?"
The American political titans still had a second weapon against any new comers, who threatened their stranglehold on politics. They have a host of talk show hosts and television stations with hosts like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh. They specialise in digging up dirt on politicians, some made up, some imaginary.
They stumbled on a clearly divisive issue of a little known preacher, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Obama's preacher. They bought all the tapes of his sermons for the last 10 years and put student interns to study them. They found some incendiary material, namely that Brother Wright had preached a sermon in which he said American policy abroad had been terrorist in Nicaragua, in South Africa and in Vietnam.
They sought to tar Obama with the brush of anti-patriotism by association. However, once the American people are freed from these money bags, they made up their minds in Indiana and North Carolina.
In those states, these practitioners of old politics and smear and destroy lost their shirts. In North Carolina, the new voters swelled the voting rolls to two million, the largest number in 40 years. They overwhelmingly rejected the politics of smear and destroy. "No, not this time!" was their slogan.
As to the old and tired Clinton machine, the voters said, after 20 years of Bush, Clinton and Bush again: "No, not you. You had your chance!" Hillary Clinton was soundly defeated.
l Ken Mufuka is a professor at Lander University (USA). He can be reached at:
kenmufuka@yahoo.com
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