Geraldine Ferraro Reopens Obama's Wound

The difficulties Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) will have for the 2008 general election campaign have just been reinstated today with a fresh new jab of criticism in a column today. It seemed that before this latest comment was written that we might have been making moves to unite the Democratic Party. After all, the president was just caught using an outrageous statement on Obama that even his rival Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) came to his defense over. The page seemed to have been turning where maybe we could have a mostly united party that would be able to squash Senator John McCain (R-AZ) like a big. Then, this comment came.

This comment I am referring to was a column that appeared in the New York Times today. This comment was made by Geraldine Ferraro, who was a former vice presidential nominee to Walter Mondale back in 1984 and supporter to Hillary Clinton's campaign. If you remember, Ferraro got into a lot of controversy earlier in the campaign for controversial comments she made about Obama and how he was only doing this good because he was black. Those comments caused a major firestorm that she played the race card on Obama and that forced Ferraro to step down from the Clinton campaign.

Now Ferraro is back and the Obama campaign probably wishes she wouldn't have returned either. This time Ferraro came out and wrote that she might not support Obama in the general election when he is nominated. In addition, Ferraro has said Obama was "terribly sexist" to Clinton. Ferraro even took it a step further by attacking the media and saying they were also sexist when suggesting why the media was against her. So with some strong words uttered out of Ferraro's mouth today at the New York Times, the issue of Obama's problem becomes an issue once again when it appeared Bush's statements on negotiation had halted that division.

If you ask my opinion on this matter, I say that Ferraro is probably just mad because the media covered her outrageous comment so much. No matter what side you are on in this race, you do have to admit that she did play the race card here. Everyone knows that she did, which was wrong at the time because it further fractured a fractured party. It is also a fact that Ferraro has been criticized by many people in the black community as well as by the Obama campaign. It is a fact that she had to step down off of the Clinton campaign because of these outrageous comments she had made. All of that is true, which means she did this as a sore loser and as someone who is having a childish fit about having her comments being scrutinized by members of the media and Obama campaign.

However, Ferraro also brings up the issue Obama will have to deal with again, which is a divided Democratic Party. Anyone who knows me well enough blames both the Obama and Clinton campaigns for dividing the Democratic Party up in a year when they should blow the Republican candidate away. Despite that, McCain has seemed to have found a little luck as the Republican nominee with both sides fighting each other. That is what makes the Ferraro statement pretty bad. You had the Bush Administration come out and question Obama's patriotism yet again. You had Hillary even coming to her side. You seen Democrats fired up at this idiot president we have and a party that looked to be coming together. But then, you had her comments, which have brought up the issue yet again of the split in the Democratic Party.

That is why I also find the timing of this article rather questionable. Take what I just told you about the party maybe finally coming together and take the day of Ferraro's comments. Strangely enough, Ferraro's comments were made the Monday after the party seemed to maybe be reconciling. If Ferraro really did care about the Democratic Party, she would have kept her mouth shut. So I look at these comments with a grain of salt because either she is mad about her comments being criticized by the Obama campaign or she is not a true Democrat. Either way, she has timed it out badly for Democrats and has raised the issue again of a divided Democratic Party.

Sources:

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/05/19/ferraro-suggests-she-may-not-vote-for-obama/

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/19/us/politics/19women.html?partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=allhttp://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x6026944