* Delmarie Cobb, Burris’ media adviser who more than hinted to Carol Marin this week that she intends to play the race card, sent a pretty frank letter to Ald. Freddrenna Lyle which was then posted on a local blog…
In true David Axelrod style, all week, white progressive Democratic elected officials have called for Roland’s resignation–David Orr, Dan Hynes, Dick Durbin, Pat Quinn, and Alexi Giannoullias.
You may not be able to ask this question, but where have all of these self-righteous people been during all of the corruption, scandal, pay-to-play and mismanagement revelations that have been uncovered by the Chicago Sun Times and Tribune on Mayor Daley. Not once have these elected officials or the Chicago media called for Daley’s resignation. As John Kass said in his column on Friday, black elected officials are perceived as weak and white elected officials are seen as powerful. Consequently, we can do to Roland–with no evidence of wrongdoing–what we can’t do to Daley and others with mounds of evidence.
Also, all of them will need black votes to be elected or re-elected, so this isn’t a good time to make enemies of the black community.
It seems pretty clear where this is headed.
A not so veiled threat…
Many black elected officials didn’t like Barack, but they stayed quiet and got on board and they need to do the same for Roland.
The ultimate goal…
We need to help rehabilitate Roland’s image and try to get him elected. Then, over the course of his six-year term, we need to find a successor, who is African American.
Cobb has been a high-profile Clinton supporter, and she said she is still paying the price in the African-American community.
“If people are still making digs at the Hillary Clinton people because we supported her, that is not going to bring us on board. It makes us feel as though we’re outsiders, and we’re Democrats,” Cobb said. “The litmus test for being black is [seen as] supporting Barack.”
Cobb said she saw Clinton supporters walking into an Illinois delegation meeting at the Marlowe Restaurant on Sunday and being handed Obama buttons, only to put the buttons in their pockets. That prompted the greeters to say, “You can tell the Hillary Clinton people, they never take the buttons.”
From her comments above:
Many black elected officials didn’t like Barack, but they stayed quiet and got on board and they need to do the same for Roland.
Except she didn’t stay silent and was quite vocal about her opposition to Barack Obama declaring supporters kool aid drinkers.
More from above:
We need to help rehabilitate Roland’s image and try to get him elected. Then, over the course of his six-year term, we need to find a successor, who is African American.
The stupid part of this is the notion that the only African American official who could win in 2010 is Burris. Illinois has one of the best statewide records on electing African Americans. He’s not the best nor the brightest right now. I have some sense that those who could make a good run at the US Senate aren’t on Cobb’s shortlist however because they don’t pay fealty to the politics of those like Bobby Rush who while quite African American, is a corporate whore on many policies including telecommunications.
Delmarie Cobb should hang her head in shame. That is one of the most disgusting arguments I have heard.
What black elected official could win though? Jesse Jackson? he’ll be beat up just as vigorously as Burris was by the press. Cheryl Jackson? Blago staffer, never won a election (and anyway I thought Illinois was in a new era of reform). The bench is thin and the sad fact is that unless Burris pulls off a miracle there will be zero African Americans in the US senate by 2010. And to many people that’s unacceptable.
Carol Marin? Yikes! Why would Cobb choose Carol as the journalist in front of whom she wished to make an utter ass of herself? Sheesh!!!
Anywho…
Face it, the responsibilility of assuring that people of color are present in the Senate does not rest solely on the shoulders of the legislators in the Land of Lincoln. That responsibility rests with every voter registered in every representative state and territory making up what we call the United States of AMERICA! However, until WE THE PEOPLE finally come to find it unacceptable that no American can be seated in OUR houses of legislature unless preferably he boasts an occidental European ethnic heritage, and we finally work to judiciously rehabilitate our abysmally amoral unethical election processes, we can expect more legislative misrepresentation from the handful of corporately connected political party whores representing the interests of opressive imperialistic religio-fascist military industrial corporatocracy over those of the woefully ill-informed voters.
Without question, it was brilliant, courageous, and yadda, yadda, yadda-ya that Illinois voters had enough confidence in Mr. Obama’s ability to carry on the legacy of the late great Senator Paul Simon to elect him to the US Senate. But, that’s just the thing. Obama was wore the Simon mantle to carry the torch and the sword to fulfill a greater mission. Furthermore, Mr. Obama’s ethnicity had little, if much at all, to do with that. Mr. Obama just happened to be an African America – PERIOD!
Don’t get me wrong. I truly admire and have even supported Mr. Burris. Mr. Roland Burris is a tremendous legislative asset to the state of Illinois. But, face it, in this fiasco, he’s a Blago pawn being used to stick it to Madigan one last time. And, we the People of Illinois are suffering as a result of this ongoing pissing contest Madigan has been waging for too years now against Blago in Springfield. Now, this corny Cobb-ing?!! Enough already!
I know Burris wants to keep that seat. Under any other circumstances, I would want him to keep that seat too. The US Senate is good to get if ever you can get it. His appointment, alas, no matter how folks fell about Blago, is legitimate and legal. In a perfect world, Burris should be allowed to stay in the US Senate on behalf of Illinois until he loses the 2010 election to a candidate elected by the People of Illinois, working closely with Dick Durbin to assure that the people who elected Mr. Obama are still well served. After all, Mr. Burris is standing in for Mr. Obama at the pleasure of the People of Illinois, Blago be damned. But, this isn’t a perfect world, is it? So, instead of returning to Illinois in poverty from amassing legal bills he will never be able to repay, Mr. Burris really needs to first distance himself far, far, far from the opportunistic idiocy of one Del Marie Cobb, and then call an expeditious end to these follies. There, unfortunately, is no rehabilitation for an image so inextricably linked to our infamous former Governor. So, all this craziness is an exercise in futility on which a man of Burris’ great stature should not end his otherwise stellar career.