BLM and I were clearly the ones referred to in an excellent Prosense thread.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x366491I get that she sees her family does not have the respect for Kerry that they had for the Clintons, Gores, and Kennedys. That may be representative and may reflect the extreme uneven playing field of 2004 in the media and the lack of genuine support from the Clinton wing in 2004. In the past, MA people have responded to her that Kerry does have AA support in MA. People have responded on his excellent civil rights record - including on speaking on environmental justice. An issue that the Clintons certainly did not act on when he was governor of Arkansas. People also posted that Kerry got a higher percent of AA vote than either Clinton or Gore. Each time there is push back, she takes it as a personal rejection, which it isn't.
There are four problems with this ALWAYS being her issue.
1) Unless Kerry were again running for national office, his personal popularity in TN is not important. His historical reputation will ultimately be based on his record. Obviously, his record will get less attention than that of a President, but important Senators do make there marks. Senators Fullbright, Lugar, and Church will all be remembered for their leadership as chairs of the SFRC. Senator Kennedy likely made more contributions to the country as Senator than Bill Clinton did as President for two terms.
2) Kerry's record on AA issues, and all issues of justice is about as good as it gets - far better than Gore and Clinton. This suggests that the problem
might be that this threatens black powers that be as much as white powers that be. Oprah's lack of support might well have reflected that she fared very well under Bush. As a leading black voice, where is she on environmental justice? Oprah does not live on the South side of Chicago and, on issues like this, she is likely closer to her fellow Gold Coast neighbors that to those living next environmental pollutants.
3) Kerry's actions here are to get a bill passed. The current CW is that he is working his heart out passionately lobbied to gain support from fellow Senators. He is simultaneously using every bit of intelligence and political skill he has to gain support for something that without him would have died last summer. The key issues here are NOT Van Jones' issue that the green job be fairly distributed - though that is an important secondary issue.
4) She buys every negative comment on DU to assume that Kerry is unpopular here. In general, he isn't. What is clear is that many hold him to a higher standard than they do other Senators. In most cases, it reflects that they expect more from him - which is fair because that is the expectation he set, but implicit in accepting that expectation is the view that he is not a hack politician. It is an expectation sufficiently high that he will sometimes miss the mark.
One thing to put this all in perspective. This weekend, my husband and I were at the Paley Center (the former Broadcast Museum) in NYC. They have archives of TV (and radio)that you can watch. By chance, we found that they had video of the CBS coverage of the 1960 Democratic Convention. We watched most of the entire first day (fast forwarding through entertainment and things like the prayer.) Frank Church, then a 35 year old Senator gave the keynote speech.
JFK was the front runner, but did not have 761 delegates (the number needed) as the convention started. Only a few states had open primaries then that determined their nominees - most states' delegates were still controlled by state party bosses. (The rules for that year had significantly cut the power of the party bosses from earlier years.)
One shock for my husband and I was that Eleanor Roosevelt, liberal icon, was speaking out forcefully and often against Kennedy as the nominee - Why? She argued that he could not get the "Negro" vote and that the Catholic issue was not really dead. She thought Stevenson/Kennedy would be unbeatable. Truman also was strongly against JFK getting the nomination.
The second shock was the wrap up of the first day's coverage by the CBS reporters there - including Murrow and Cronkite. There was consensus that the JFK people could wrap up the nomination - maybe in the first ballot, but they spoke of how there was a lack of confidence and enthusiasm among the Democrats there in JFK's ability to win - even though the popularity of the Eisenhower administration had waned.
Now, I was only 10 in 1960, and my memories, formed mostly by what I learned later that decade, was that JFK was a rock star, whose charisma led him to victory. Yet, imagine that close election had gone the other way - and we were time warped into an internet age. A lose would have completely changed the spin (just as a Kerry win would have). One certainty is that the Roosevelt charge likely would have resurfaced into charges similar to hers - no matter what the voting reflected.
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