Recent primaries and the thing about Geraldine Ferraro

In the last few days Mississippi and Wyoming held primaries, both won by Barack Obama. Final results from previous states are coming in, to see the latest delegate count I like MSNBC’s site.
I mentioned last week that I was experiencing some election fatigue. It’s now transformed into election exhaustion. Not from the too many hours of watching cable news, or trying to think of super Tuesdays and delegates, or trying to avoid John McCain at all costs. Those hassles aren’t helping, but they’re not the worst. The worst is watching the push/pull of racism and sexism. This isn’t the oppression Olympics anymore. It’s turned into a war. A war no one can win.

“If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color), he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.”

Uh, Senator Obama, wanna take care of this one for me?

Obama said that being an “African American man named Barack Obama” was not the quickest path to becoming U.S. president.
“Anybody who knows the history of this country I think would not take too seriously the notion that this has been a huge advantage, but I don’t think it’s disadvantaged either,” Obama said.

Ferraro’s response to the backlash? She was just stating the truth.

“In all honesty, do you think that if he were a white male, there would be a reason for the black community to get excited for a historic first?” Ferraro said. “Am I pointing out something that doesn’t exist?”

Uh, Obama is not only getting votes from black people. And Clinton isn’t only getting votes from women. So again, we get back to this bullshit that Obama and Clinton are nothing but historic candidates, and everyone is picking a side based on, what? Which is more historic? Both campaigns, and every voter should be outraged by this line of thinking. Presumably black women will have to get together in pairs and split votes for either candidate.
And then, of course, there’s her comment, “Racism works in two different directions. I really think they’re attacking me because I’m white. How’s that?”
It’s hard to express the many thoughts and feelings elicited from this comment. Wait, no it isn’t.
Fuck you, Geraldine Ferraro.