Obama, race and gay business

Hey

it has been a while - work it mad ATM.

Anyway my friend asked me what I thought about diversity strategies encouraging companies to purchase services from businesses just because they are gay owned, and why I published this article on the website I edit.

Here is what I said - probably the most logical thing I am going to write tonight, so enjoy!

gay businesses: interestingly Stonewall ask that their workplace diversity champions ensure their suppliers have gay-friendly hiring policies, which I agree with

But just going to a business because its owner is gay is madness, and only in America would I back going to a business because its owner is from an ethnic minority

Most of the UK minorities seem to be doing quite well enough in business without our help.

This sort of action entrenches the ghettoisation of the gay community.

It always strikes me that people are shocked to find out that most of the people who write for PinkNews.co.uk are straight

Like a straight person could not get their head round the issues, like I would not, as a journalist, be able to go to write for the Jewish Chronicle and easily pick up what their issues where and become attuned to it.

I think businesses should be encouraged to be gay-friendly, but ownership is a ridiculous model on which to judge whether or not a company will be the best to fulfil a contract.

"For me that speech yesterday showed more than ever that this man can be a great president," you said in your email.

I agree 100% and you know I do - that is why I published it in full, at one in the morning, having just read it.

But a news organisation exists to challenge the accepted wisdom and to stimulate debate.

Duane, who wrote the obama piece, is a black gay American - I felt his points were valid, if only because everyone deserves a say, if only for their view to be shot down, as is already happening on our comment pages.

The race speech is, in my opinion, one of the defining speeches we have seen this century, and is already being talked about in those terms on the BBC, who do not throw around accolades like that very often.

I agree with your comments about leadership and "qualifications"

Those that think leadership is about being experienced, go to Iraq and tell that to the 20 year old officers who lead our troops into danger every day.

Unfortunately, the sense I get is that the Hillary lady is going to work her black magic and snatch the nomination, back room style, before the convention - and then attempt to make obama take the VP slot.

But, in the unlikely story that is America, there is nothing false about hope! After all, JFK and Teddy Roosevelt made it to the White House by appealing to exactly the same values as Obama.

So there.

Barack and the Vice Presidency?

Barack Obama's campaign to win the Democratic nomination for President of the United States was given another boost when he won another state over the weekend.

Admittedly Wyoming is the least populous state in the union, but his comfortable margin of victory, 61% to 38%, has heartened his supporters after his rival Senator Hillary Clinton won three key states last week.

Senator Obama took seven of the twelve delegates Wyoming sends to the Democratic party nominating convention in August.

Both campaigns are looking to the remaining contests.

Mississippi Democrats will choose a candidate tomorrow, with Senator Obama expected to win comfortably.

The next major state to decide will then be Pennsylvania on April 22nd.

Many party activists, alarmed at the prospect of a bitter and acrimonious fight all the way to the convention, are pushing the candidates to compromise and come together on a President/Vice President ticket.

A Newsweek poll found 69% of Democrats are now in favour of a combined "Dream Team" ticket, though the poll did not specify which candidate would run as President.

The Republican party nomination has already been won by Senator John McCain.

Senator Obama has a lead over his rival in pledged delegates but neither candidate can now win outright without the support of the super-delegates.

The 795 super-delegates can vote for whoever they want.

All Democratic Congressmen, state Governors and former and current office holders, along with members of the Democratic National Committee, are super-delegates.

Yesterday former President Bill Clinton talked up the prospect of a Clinton/Obama ticket.

"He would win the urban areas and the upscale voters, and she wins the traditional rural areas that we lost when President Reagan was President," he said while campaigning in Mississippi yesterday.

"If you put those two things together, you'd have an almost unstoppable force."

Three times in the past week the Clinton camp has made it clear it would be willing to accept Senator Obama as a Vice Presidential candidate.

"You won't see me as a Vice Presidential candidate," was his response.

"I'm running for President. We have won twice as many states as Senator Clinton, and have a higher popular vote, and I think we can maintain our delegate count."

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-7083.html

John Edwards will be missed

A significant day in the US Presidential nomination circus, as John Edwards withdraws from the Democrat race and Rudy Giuliani looking almost certain to pull out of the Republican one.

This leaves four contenders left - talk of Ralph Nader running again on an independent anti-corporatist ticket has excited no-one.

It is sad to see two candidates I could have felt quite comfortable seeing sworn in as President leave the field.

Giuliani has always been a friend to gay people, and as he took hits for it in Republican circles I respected him for not trying to tack Right.

He was an outstanding Mayor of New York, before, during and after September 11th, and his support for limited abortion marked him out as a man of principle.

I am more saddened by the news that John Edwards has given up on his White House dream so early in the race.

Initially I was unimpressed with him, taking him for a Tom Cruise clone with a strange voice. However, the more I saw him in action the more I came to form the highest opinion of his stance on poverty.

It is immoral and disgusting that millions of Americans, many of them children, live in poverty. I hope that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were sincere when they said they would continue his work in office.

I think he would make an excellent Vice Presidential candidate, especially for Obama, and I also hope he comes out in favour of the Illinois Senator.

During the televised debate on Martin Luther King day earlier this month, Edwards certainly appeared to have more in common with Obama than Clinton and they made an effective team against her.

As for whether or not it helps Hillary or Barack on Super Tuesday next week, I don't really know enough to comment, except to say I hope that the progressives who were all for Edwards will recognise that Barack Obama is the candidate of change.

As for the Republicans, it seems increasingly likely that they will choose John McCain as their candidate. "Mad" Mitt Romney is disturbingly popular, but only with Republicans, and not even with all of them, on account of the Mormon thing.

McCain is a good candidate - for the 1988 election. At 71, he is by far the oldest candidate and was already 35, the age required to run for President, when the boy Barack was born.

He is a war hero, a fiscal conservative and a former prisoner of war. I have the highest respect for him - he is exactly the sort of figure that should be in the Senate.

I suspect that is where he will remain.