Review the NAACP's Questionnaire and a Legal Scholar's Study of Candidates' Campaign Stances

The NAACP and noted legal scholar Vernellia R. Randall have released, respectively, an exhaustive questionnaire on the Democratic candidates' positions on issues important to African Americans, and a thorough analysis of how the presidential aspirants' stated policies will impact the legal standing of Blacks. Obama and Clinton's positions are remarkably similar, most often nearly identical in content, if not style. This is not surprising, since both their advisers - the people who actually responded to the NAACP and framed their candidates positions on legal issues - are drawn from the same corporatist wing of the party. BAR invites its readers to review for themselves whether there's a "dime's worth of difference" between the dueling political twins.

Review the NAACP's Questionnaire and a Legal Scholar's Study of Candidates' Campaign Stances

The NAACP and legal scholar Vernellia Randall, of the University of Dayton, Ohio, have done the national discourse a great service through dint of hard work and attention to what has been almost totally lacking in the Democratic presidential primary process: attention to the issues.

Both efforts were exhaustive. The NAACP submitted 37 questions to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, asking them to explain for the record their positions on issues ranging from Affirmative Action, to Reparations, discrimination in so-called "Charitable Choice," Election Reform, Voter Re-Enfranchisement, Voting Rights for DC, Federal Judgeships, and Immigration.

The questions and the candidates responses can be accessed at:

 The NAACP 2008 Presidential Candidate Civil Rights Questionnaire

http://www.naacp.org/news/press/2008-02-01/RESPONSES.

Clinton_Obama.pdf

Prof. Randall looks deep into the candidates' views on how race affects the legal system, and what can be done about it. In her words, the assessment "is not about which candidate's platform is best, but which candidate does more than acknowledge the existence of racial inequalities, but includes a plan to eliminate those inequalities."

She reviews the candidates public statements on "eliminating racial inequalities" in the justice system, their failure to acknowledge inequalities, or their admission that inequalities exist, but failure to propose ways of eliminating racial bias under the law. Her topics range across the entire spectrum of reality in which the legal system impacts the fates and fortunes of citizens, especially African Americans.

Prof. Randall's surveys of Clinton and Obama are found at:

Clinton's Platform on Eliminating Racial Inequalities

http://academic.udayton.edu/race/2008ElectionandRacism/Clinton/

Clinton00.htm

and,

Obama's Platform on Eliminating Racial Inequalities

 

http://academic.udayton.edu/race/2008ElectionandRacism/Obama/

Obama00.htm