We need to quickly get over the significance of the “The First Black President”

To many, many Americans, the meaning and deeply powerful significance of Barack Obama becoming President elect lies so completely in the history of their families and their communities and their nation that any comment from Wales is little more than an impertinence.

Of course, it is not such a remote thing I am not tremendously moved.

I can talk about my thoughts and despair from a long distance away as I read and saw the pictures of the struggle for civil rights and felt the deep pain and shock of the worst of the events.

When someone like Martin Luther King talked of the future for the black citizen of the United States he was talking also about the aspirations of everyone, regardless of race and colour. His inspiration was our inspiration, although the interpretation may have been personal to the individual.

Today in the UK our television screens are full of pictures of celebrations across the world. Not least it is seen in the less developed countries, and particularly in Africa. The same celebrations - although less demonstrative - are being seen across a very wide spectrum of many people in many countries. I would say “all countries” and all peoples where there are those who are looking for change in their own societies and the wider world.

I admit to a tear in my eye last night. What was happening hit on a small but very real and still heavily felt experience that I had in in the States four years ago. It is a story of no great incidence and I am told is just an every day event that deserves to draw no special comment. Protected as I am from exposure to questions of race, it is only my own lack of awareness of discrimination that made it upsetting to me.

My next door neighbours here in Wales had befriended me. I am not sure why, I am in my sixties, she was in her twenties and he in the early thirties. Despite this, close friends we became. With their medical training complete, Yolanda, an Afro-American, returned home to her small town in Ohio. Dele, who had emigrated to England at the age of nine, followed soon after for the marriage.

Delighted by my invitation, I went over for the celebrations. The wedding was outstanding. Dele’s family had come over from Africa and Yolanda’s family took me into their fold. It was a fabulous day, colourful and full of unusual aspects that allowed the pleasure of encountering cultural differences.

The day after, I went as planned to their house. I had difficulty in finding it. I stopped the car and got out to make enquiries of a man about my age who was in the garden of his small neat house.

He was as helpful as he was able and said he was pleased to meet an Englishman ( I felt no need to correct him over my Welsh nationality). We talked at length and it was very friendly. He didn’t know the address, although the road was clearly that on which is his own house stood.

I handed to him the piece of paper on which I had the address and the name of Yolanda’s family.

When he read it he stiffened. “Are they black?” he asked. I confirmed it. His face expressed a hateful disgust. He abruptly turned his back and walked off, saying he wouldn’t know but that, if they were black they would be on the other side of the tracks, pointing dismissively with a wave of the arm at a bridge that crossed the road about a mile away.

In fact, I found the house. It was behind some trees with a short twenty yard dirt track leading to it. The home of Yolanda’s charming family was immediately opposite the front garden of the man.

When I talked to Yolanda about it three months later, she was puzzled that such a small every day occurrence had affected me so much. Her family had far, far worse said and done to them.

Ridiculous I know, but that is why I was personally so deeply affected by Obama winning the election. It was simply an expression of my love for Dele and Yolanda.

All day, I have had British TV showing and discussing the significance of the election of the first black man to the presidency of the United States.

I would be denying all that I know of the civil rights movement if I did not understand why it has captured the imagination of everyone across the world,

Now, however, I am just impatient for the emotional reaction to come to an end. TV in the UK has reached saturation level about the race issue. Of corse it deserves celebration and has important lessons for our own country. I want Barack Obama’s colour to be put aside. I want to show the majority of white males who did not vote for him that their time is past and the fact that President Elect Obama is black is now only of historical significance. His interest to us is that he is simply a new president elect. As such, I have some critical questions to ask of him during this time of transition and they have nothing to do with race.

The first person of mixed race becomes Formula One Champion

I am not sure about the title of ths piece, but I have borrowed it from elsewhere. It contains a distinction with which I am not comfortable but one that will be made again tomorrow and I offer this story to you as a good omen! Please let it give you confidence and remove any last minute nervousness that you may have.

Let me leave it to the Conservative newspaper Daily Telegraph totell the story of Lewis Hamilton, the new Formula 1 world champion:

A mixed-race boy who grew up on a council estate in Stevenage, his ascent to
become the youngest Formula One world champion ever at the age of 23 is a
victory for sheer talent and tenacity.

That victory is in no small part thanks to Lewis's father Anthony, who nurtured his son's skill from the earliest opportunity with impressive zeal.

Born in Stevenage in 1985, Lewis's black father Anthony and white mother Carmen split up when he was only two.

He lived with his mother for his first 15 years, shuttling between her home on the new town's Shephall estate and the house his father shared with his second wife Linda.Perhaps the fear of losing close contact with his son led Lewis's father to give him every bit of help he could with his chosen hobby.

He spotted Lewis's talent and - perhaps more importantly, his determination - when Lewis first stepped into a go-kart while on holiday in Spain aged six.

Spinning around corners at speeds that would not be allowed on a child's course in today's Britain, he promptly crashed. Sporting a bloody nose, he did not turn crying back to Daddy but climbed back in for
another go.

Impressed, Anthony bought him his first go-kart that Christmas.

Just two years later Lewis started racing competitively. Anthony took part-time jobs on top of his post at British Rail to pay for his son's racing.

Three years later he contacted Dennis, who signed the youngster to McLaren's young driver's programme.

Apart from financial and technical help, Dennis crucially protected him from what could have been the damaging glare of early publicity.

But as a youngster he faced the difficult decision at home about who to live with, when his mother announced she and her boyfriend Raymond Lockhart were leaving Stevenage for London.

Lewis chose to stay in Stevenage, moving in with his father, step-mother and step-brother Nicholas, now 16, who has cerebral palsy.

The decision proved a wise one and with the help of his father, who had by then founded a successful computer company and become his manager, he quickly rose up through motorsport's ranks.

Before Sunday's race in São Paulo he said: "Withoutmy family, I wouldn't be able to do anything. I owe everything to them. My dad for pushing me, and helping me with decisions. "My mum, my two mums, for being so supportive, for raising me and for giving me direction. And my brother who's never ever doubted me."

At one time Anthony, the son of immigrants who had moved to England from the Caribbean island of Grenada, was holding down three jobs to continue his son's expensive pursuit. One involved putting up estate agents' signs for £15 a time.

Folks, it is not just that Lewis has become a world superstar. It is not just that he has done it in what until yesterday was “a white man’s sport". It is not that he has done it with immense skill and a personal dedication and an extraordinary level of professionalism.

It is that he has done it and, in doing so, has been taken to the hearts of the the British people. There is hope for our society yet!

They have taken him to their hearts and he has not compromised in order to achieve this position. As the Telegraph concludes:

Touted as the 'Tiger Woods of F1', he has avoided the golfing superstar's controversial approach of describing himself as multi-racial rather than 'black'. Some viewed that approach as Woods denying his Afro-American ancestry, even though he is more Thai than black.

For a long time the F1 champion chose to keep quiet on the subject.

But last October he took a stand on the issue of his race, naming Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King as his heroes.

"Being black is not a negative," he told Black History Month magazine. "It's a positive, if anything, because I'm different."

We love the man. Like we will love your man on Wednesday.

Sarah Palin - The Disservice the Democrats Have Done America

To blame the Democratic candidate for anything connected with Sarah Palin may seem extraordinary but there is one aspect in which they have fallen short.

The criticism mainly applied to her is that Sarah Palin is not ready to be Vice-President. Not ready for that role and certainly not ready for the greater than usual possibility that she may have to replace the President whom she understudies.

What nonsense!

Sarah Palin is not fit to be Vice-President. She is not fit now nor will she ever be. To suggest that such fitness is a function of time is the disservice of which the Obama/Biden campaign is guilty.

As a consequence, a part of the USA now believes that her time will come in 2012. The reported distancing of herself from the McCain campaign suggests that even Sarah Palin believes that this is so.

Of course, the Democrats may like to see the Republicans tear themselves apart as Sarah Palin seeks nomination in the future. They may like to keep the delusion of a Sarah Palin candidacy live for another eight years.

Come on Democrats! Country before party, please.

2008 Elections - Another Wasted Opportunity

Although time will need to pass before any real objectivity can be applied to an assessment of the 2008 election campaigns, it is already clear that style once again dominated substance. Perhaps more so than ever before.

Two years of intensive addressing the American electorate by candidates on issues has done little to advance knowledge and understanding.

Taxation, even carefully and sensibly implemented taxation, is still perceived as a basically socialist concept and not as a real means to promote the growth and well-being of a society. Being Muslim is still regarded as allied to the relatively small number of militant extremists. Carbon emission has been discussed only in terms of the need for a reduction in oil dependence rather than a lowering of energy demand. International relationships are still viewed solely from the perspective of American protectionism rather than the potential benefits of a commonwealth of nations. The list is endless.

Although seeking to differentiate themselves from each other, each candidate has been careful to ensure that their presentation of their positions has remained “moderate”. As a result, no real debate has occurred, the challenges facing the American people and the world have hardly been engaged in any meaningful way.

Millions of dollars spent on talking to the people of a nation for an extraordinary length of time. What a waste of opportunity.

The main culprits are ourselves and our own desire that our candidates win a partisan battle without taking risks. The blame cannot be shifted solely onto the politicians or the system or any
inherent inability to comprehend the issues.

Could Barack Obama Lose The Election?

Obama is leading the polls by a clear margin and is shown by the Real Clear Politics average of all polls today as being +6.5 ahead. Considerable supporting evidence exists not just at national level but also at State level where a substantial majority in the electoral college is indicated.


That said, there have been some small shifts towards McCain in the last two days. None of these are as yet of a size or consequence to suggest a major surprise could be in the offing.


Is it realistic to ask in the face of the really only “scientific” data available to us if Obama could still lose? A number of those blogging believe so, and these are not simply those in the McCain camp.


Of course some of this is immediate pre-election excitement. Some argue that Democrats are pre-disposed to self-doubt brought on by the failure of Kerry to beat Bush in 2004. For Republicans, the argument for their belief that the election is not yet lost is simply the result of a need to lift spirits.


There has been serious debate, however, as to how an upset may occur. It ranges from lengthy and profound discussion of the “the Bradley effect” and possible errors that may be common to the internals of many polls. Always there is that belief that “one day is a long time in politics” (I think first said by British Prime Minister Harold Wilson and he spoke of a slightly more realistic week in politics). This prompts speculation of a last minute event, such a terrorist attack or a message from bin Laden affecting attitudes at the point at which people actually cast their vote.
So, if there are many knowledgeable commentators prepared to speculate on the lack of certainty of the outcome of the election, is there any evidence to suggest that the volatility of the electorate is such that last minute changes in intentions could occur?


There is and it is unavoidable. It is brought to our attention every time we look at the graphs tracking the polling situation over the last few months. It exists in the boost, albeit short-lived, that each candidate received in September that so altered the apparent race to the White House.


How a well orchestrated Democratic Convention and a populist, scripted speech by someone as light-weight as Sarah Palin could so dramatically reverse the relative standings of the two candidates is beyond comprehension.

The desperately serious business of appointing the leader of the world’s most powerful nation should not be capable of being so dramatically affected by events so contrived and insubstantial. Yet they are, in all our countries.


The first two days of next week are going to be a time of considerable tension. As John Prine wrote and sang:


“Gonna be a long Monday

Sittin' all alone on a mountain

By a river that has no end

Gonna be a long Monday

Stuck like the tick of a clock

That's come unwound - again”

Unsupported Claims About Stolen Elections Begin - Again!

Although there are reasonable grounds for being concerned about Obama losing the 2008 elections, despite the overwhelming weight of polling evidence, explanations for this in terms of “stolen elections” have already begun.

It is surprising to find that one such posting has appeared on ePluribus Media, a blog which likes to apply and require of its contributors some rigorous evidence to support conclusions.

The commentary is titled "Exit Poll Mess - 2008 The Past is Prolog” and raises a reasonable question about an apparent anomaly in exit polling figures and the subsequent announced results. Like many such posts published immediately after the 2008 election, it is supported by part data graphically displayed that gives some semblance of “evidence”, sufficient to induce the first response to be headed “I find your research on this fascinating".

The information provided in the initial commentary are reasons for questions but do not constitute research to support the conclusions.

We are all aware of the furore that the apparent blatant discrepancy between exit polls and declared results in Ohio caused across our blogs in 2004. Reams were written about it, vast amounts of statistical analysis was produced. Much of it was faulty and lacked academic rigor. Some was much more detailed and prompted the beginning of serious research.

The best of this initial work was undertaken by a contributor to the blog that I had setup called New International Times. She is a remarkable person. In her fifties, she had been a professional classical musician before undertaking a change of direction and working for a new degree in psychology.

With a real interest and aptitude for statistical analysis, she became intrigued by the work being undertaken on Daily Kos. Many of the posts, that included voluminous graphs and tables, were being questioned by a few at a time when the “gestalt” on the site was to support the overwhelming desire to prove that the election was stolen.

So began our contributor’s work. Her background was a bit different from the main contributors to our site. Unlike us, she was not a Liberal Democrat but a member of the Labour Party, despite her disgust with Blair and what she saw as his betrayal of the principles of socialism with she had first become attracted to what became known in the UK as “Old Labour”.

Not surprisingly, her motivation was to prove that those who doubted the worrying evidence of manipulation of the election results in Ohio provided by the exit polls were wrong to do so.
The intensity of her work increased as she found the material far more complex than she had originally supposed. Of even greater concern to her, it pointed to a different conclusion than that which she had originally set out to prove.

At that point, she felt it important that her work was capable of serious academic review, as it would undoubtedly be challenged. As a consequence, she developed what had originally been intended as a detailed diary into a full and lengthy thesis. Despite it formality, Marcos agreed that it was published simultaneously on New International Times and Daily Kos.

She was right that her work would come under exacting scrutiny. It was picked up by academia in the United States and underwent the severest of peer review. It withstood the harshest of these critical examination by others, peer reviews that at times placed her under considerable personal stress.

The final outcome was that she was invited as a speaker to the main post-election conference of those who are expert in the disciplined analysis of polling data in the States and became a paid researcher in the research team of a Professor of one of your leading universities who specialises in this subject.

I am not a statistician, nor would I pretend to have the knowledge to contribute seriously on the subject of the apparent anomalies between exit polls and results. I do know the honesty of the person who began the first really serious analysis of the 2004 exit poll data, know her original intentions and know the integrity with which she brought to her work that led to her conclusions that did not fit well with her political leanings nor her original intentions.

Four years on, I have difficulty in awakening further interest in this subject. It is, of course, right that bloggers continue to raise questions for which they feel they do not have the answers. To raise those questions, however, is not to produce proof capable of rigorous scrutiny and to contend that this is clear and irrefutable evidence of the claims of this writer to support the statement with which he apparently concurs that “… there something very wrong with the 2004 election results, i.e., the election was almost certainly stolen.”

By all means let us maintain scrutiny, but let us not do so in a way that distracts from the far more interesting area of voter suppression, which I believe is of far greater importance in the outcome of US elections.