Obama, Rudy, and Cabbies
by Ryan Sager
Thu, 26 Jul 2007 at 12:20 PM
updated Thu, 26 Jul 2007 at 12:34 PM
May God strike me dead for citing an Ann Coulter column — but I'm actually citing it (really, truly) for an insightful point she's made, not for her normal, racist, faux-provocativeness (though, there's plenty of that in there, too).
I didn't get into it at the time, but there was one comment from Barack Obama at the YouTube debate that really struck me as false (and pretty phony). It was when he said he was "black enough" because cabs in New York City wouldn't stop for him. Now, I'm not black, but I am a New Yorker, and this just strikes me as somewhere between an exaggeration and a lie.
There was a time in New York when this was true. And it roughly correlated with the time when there were 2,000 murders a year, under David Dinkins. Post-Giuliani, however, this isn't much of a problem. As Ms. Coulter notes, not only did the general decline in crime help, but regular taxi sting operations by the police show an extremely high rate of compliance as regards picking up black passengers.
This, again, is one of the many ironies of the supposed hatred in the black community for Mr. Giuliani. Those 2,000 people getting killed every year, by and large, were not white people. Policies that Mr. Giuliani pushes, like school vouchers, are not aimed at benefiting white people. (Mr. Giuliani has, in fact, criticized white suburbanites for being selfish in opposing vouchers.)
A Giuliani-Obama race would be an interesting debate between symbolic concern for minorities versus policies that have actually helped minorities in a tangible way. (To go back to education, Mr. Obama's concern for minority children apparently is less than his concern for placating the teachers unions, as his educational positions would do nothing to break up the union-dominated status quo that does so much to destroy the lives of black and Latino students.)
I'm sure Mr. Obama would win the black vote in a landslide — bigger than usual for a Democrat, that is — in such an election. But that doesn't mean he should.
Related Topics: Dem Primary, General Election, GOP Primary
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