Obama’s Card Trumps Clinton’s

Both Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama have played their respective cards from the deck of protected classes under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 -- gender and race.

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Clinton, with the help (or hindrance) of former President Clinton, slapped down the gender card with the heavy-handedness of an auto mechanic. It didn't work. Obama lithely played the race card at the Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner in Iowa with great oratorical skill as he delivered, arguably, the best speech of the Presidential campaign to date. And it did work. Obama's oratory was clearly patterned after Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" speech. Obama reinforced the comparison between himself and King with one clear allusion, placed toward the end of his speech, as he cited "...what Dr. King called 'the fierce urgency of now.'" It's a quote from King's famous speech. Furthermore, both the construction and delivery of Obama's speech mirrored King's. (1) Both speakers frequently used the repetition of phrases at the beginning of sentences. King used repetitions of, "Now is the time to...," "We can never be satisfied as long as...," "I have a dream that one day...," and, his immortal close, "Let freedom ring from..." Among several sets of repetitions used by Obama were these five, * "We were promised...and all we got...," "We were promised...and we got...," "We were promised...and instead we have..." * "And that is why the same old Washington textbook campaigns...," "And that's why not answering questions...," "And that's why telling the American people what we think they want to hear..." * "A party that offers...," "A party that doesn't just focus...," and "A party that doesn't just offer..." * "I'm in this race to tell...," "I'm in this race to take those tax breaks...," "I'm in this race because I want to...," "I am running for President to make sure...," "I am running for President because...," and "I am running in this race because of what Dr. King called