{"id":2470,"date":"2008-03-17T16:24:15","date_gmt":"2008-03-17T22:24:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/election\/a-generational-distinction\/"},"modified":"2008-03-17T16:24:21","modified_gmt":"2008-03-17T22:24:21","slug":"a-generational-distinction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/election\/a-generational-distinction\/","title":{"rendered":"a generational distinction"},"content":{"rendered":"

Transcript of Obama\u2019s Interview on \u201cNewsHour\u201d<\/h3>\n
\n

SEN. OBAMA: You know, I\u2019m not sure if it was inevitable. I think that there\u2019s no doubt that race and gender are powerful forces in our society. They always have been. And I think it would have been na\u00efve for me to think that I could run and end up with quasi-frontrunner status in a presidential election as potentially the first African-American president that issues, race wouldn\u2019t come up any more than Senator Clinton could expect that gender issues might not come up. <\/p>\n

But, ultimately, I don\u2019t think it\u2019s useful. I think we\u2019ve got to talk about it. I think we\u2019ve got to process it. But we\u2019ve got to remind ourselves that what we have in common is far more important than what\u2019s different and that if we\u2019re going to solve any of these problems, we\u2019ve got to come together and bridge our differences in ways that we just have not bridged them before<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

MS. IFILL: Is that the speech you\u2019ll be giving tomorrow in Philadelphia? <\/p>\n

SEN. OBAMA: That will be a major focus of it. <\/p>\n

MS. IFILL: You have also cast this as a generational distinction<\/strong> of the sort of things that Reverend Wright said being the baggage of a fiercely intelligent African-American man of his generation and Geraldine Ferraro\u2019s as well. When does one person\u2019s baggage become another person\u2019s memory\/history? <\/p>\n

SEN. OBAMA: Well, you know, look, there\u2019s a continuum. But I think that, you know, when you look at somebody like a Reverend Wright who grew up in the \u201950s or \u201960s, his experience of race in this country is very different than mine in the same way that Geraldine\u2019s experience being an intelligent, ambitious woman, you know, is very different than a young woman who\u2019s coming up today and potentially has a different set of opportunities. <\/p>\n

Now, we benefit from that past. We benefit from the difficult battles that were taken place. But I\u2019m not sure that we benefit from continuing to perpetuate the anger and the bitterness that I think, at this point, serves to divide rather than bring us together. And that\u2019s part of what this campaign has been about, is to say, let\u2019s acknowledge a difficult history, but let\u2019s move forward in a practical way to get things done<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

MS. IFILL: Has this been damaging to your campaign? <\/p>\n

SEN. OBAMA: You know, the \u2013 I would say that it has been a distraction from the core message of our campaign. I think part of what has always been the essence of my politics, not just this campaign, but my life is the idea that we\u2019ve got to bring people together. Now, part of that is biographical as somebody who comes from a diverse background with a white mother and an African-American father growing up in Hawaii and Asia. You know, it\u2019s in my DNA to believe that all of us have something fundamental in common.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The Page – by Mark Halperin – TIME<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Transcript of Obama\u2019s Interview on \u201cNewsHour\u201d SEN. OBAMA: You know, I\u2019m not sure if it was inevitable. I think that there\u2019s no doubt that race and gender are powerful forces in our society. They always have been. And I think it would have been na\u00efve for me to think that I could run and end … Continue reading a generational distinction<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-election"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2470\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}