On 13-7-2009 20:15, Darren New wrote:
> andrel wrote:
>> The main point of course is that if someone is claiming Obama is any 
>> color at all and that that is relevant, is that the person who does it 
>> is a racist.
> 
> Well, unless the person who is making the claim merely that his election 
> showed that the country isn't as racist as it once was. I.e., if you're 
> attributing anything to Obama himself due to his skin color, that's 
> racist. If you're attributing something to the voters due to Obama's 
> skin color, that's not necessarily racist.

True.

>> I am not totally familiar with US history, but I think that most 
>> (all?) presidents before him were from an upper middle class background. 
> 
> Not exactly. Of course, by the time you're president, you have to have 
> enough money to advertise to get elected. But quite a number of 
> presidents were born into families too poor to effectively support 
> themselves.
> 
> Abraham Lincoln in a one-room log cabin doing homework on the back of a 
> shovel with chalk because he couldn't afford paper or a blackboard is 
> the most famous example.  Some recent presidents started out rather poor 
> too.

Thanks for the info. I was under the impression that the Bushes were 
rather well off and so were the Kennedys, I assumed Clinton was also 
from a middle class family because he studied law (using the prejudice 
that working class children are more likely to study something 
productive) and generalized from there. I must admit that it was mostly 
motivated by being able to make the 'economist' 'joke'.

> Of course, yes, you don't get to be president without any money to spend 
> on a campaign.

Sure but money that can come after your childhood. Perhaps because you 
have a talent.

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