Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Legal Commentary Blogs -> Discriminations

Legal Commentary

: Discriminations

Obama?s Manager?s ?Solution? To An Interesting Problem

Roger Simon is an astute political writer, but, perhaps because of his long friendship with David Axelrod, Obama?s campaign manager, I think he was a bit tone deaf this morning to the sound of one bit of evidence he provides of Axelrod?s style.

When he was running Paul Simon?s successful U.S. Senate race in 1984, one of Simon?s campaign offices in Chicago was defaced with swastikas out of the mistaken belief that Simon [no relation to Roger] was Jewish. Axelrod saw an easy solution, and Simon began mentioning in his speeches that he was the son of Lutheran missionaries.

So today, in a nation in which 15 percent of voters think (mistakenly) that Obama is a Muslim, I was not surprised when the Obama campaign recently began circulating leaflets with a picture of Obama standing in a pulpit with a large cross in the background and saying that Obama ?felt a beckoning of the spirit and accepted Jesus Christ into his life.?

What I find interesting here is not so much Axelrod?s ?solution? for Simon as his definition of the problem. Maybe it?s unrealistic to expect an Illinois pol and his manager (who actually is Jewish) to respond to rumors of Jewishness by donning a yellow arm band bearing a Star of David, but neither does the craven response ? ?Jewish? Who, me? No way! I?m not a Jew! ? qualify Simon and Axelrod for a chapter in any new Profiles in Courage.

Axelrod?s characteristic response to his candidate being tarred with an unpopular association ? swaddling the candidate in reassuring stage props ? also does little to allay the suspicion that the American flags and crosses that surround Obama these days represent anything more substantial than, well, stage props.

Full post as published by Discriminations on May 20, 2008 (boomark / email).