{"id":30722,"date":"2013-04-30T01:16:03","date_gmt":"2013-04-30T01:16:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=30722"},"modified":"2016-08-17T20:06:29","modified_gmt":"2016-08-17T20:06:29","slug":"black-pols-stymied-in-obama-era","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=30722","title":{"rendered":"Black pols stymied in Obama era"},"content":{"rendered":"

Black pols stymied in Obama era<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Politico<\/a>
\n2013-04-29<\/p>\n

Jonathan Martin<\/a><\/strong>, Senior Political Reporter<\/p>\n

More than five years after Barack Obama<\/a> won the Iowa caucuses<\/a> and demolished the notion that white voters wouldn\u2019t support a black presidential candidate, progress for other African-American politicians remains elusive. Even as the country elected and reelected Obama, making it seem increasingly unremarkable to have a black family in the White House, African-Americans are scarce and bordering on extinct in the U.S. Senate and governorships.<\/p>\n

The president is indeed exceptional \u2014 but in the wrong sense of the phrase as it applies to other black politicians.<\/p>\n

Consider what has taken place, or not taken place, since Obama broke the presidential color barrier in 2008: There has not been one African-American elected to the Senate \u2014 the only blacks in the chamber were appointed to fill vacant seats; the country\u2019s sole African-American governor, who was originally elected before Obama captured the presidency, won reelection but may leave the ranks of black governors empty when he leaves after 2013; and a cadre of promising, next-generation black politicians have either lost races (Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty<\/a>, Reps. Kendrick Meek<\/a> of Florida and Artur Davis<\/a> of Alabama) or seen their careers extinguished because of scandal (former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The situation is particularly embarrassing for Democrats, to whom black voters give the vast majority of their support. Until Sen. Mo Cowan<\/a> (D-Mass.) was appointed in February, the only African-American in the Senate was a Republican \u2014 Sen. Tim Scott<\/a> of South Carolina And it\u2019s not lost on high-profile Democrats that the GOP now enjoys more ethnic diversity among its statewide leaders than the party whose president is both an illustration and a beneficiary of America\u2019s changing face.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not there yet,\u201d conceded Rep. John Lewis<\/a> (D-Ga.). \u201cThat\u2019s why when people ask me whether the election of President Obama is the fulfillment of Dr. King\u2019s dream, I say, \u2018No, it\u2019s just a down payment. There\u2019s still a lot of work to do.\u2019\u201d…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Black pols stymied in Obama era Politico 2013-04-29 Jonathan Martin, Senior Political Reporter More than five years after Barack Obama won the Iowa caucuses and demolished the notion that white voters wouldn\u2019t support a black presidential candidate, progress for other African-American politicians remains elusive. Even as the country elected and reelected Obama, making it seem […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,63,8,26,20],"tags":[14577,14578],"class_list":["post-30722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-barack-obama","category-media-archive","category-politics","category-usa","tag-jonathan-martin","tag-politico"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30722"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48725,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30722\/revisions\/48725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}