Earlier this week, my mother and I got into an argument over the electability of Barack Obama. Well…it wasn’t really an argument so much as a heated discussion. I never feel comfortable arguing with the woman who gave me life. Anyway, my mother stated that she did not think Obama could win the general election because “They would not let him win.” When I asked who “they” were, my mother stated, “The same people who wouldn’t let Gore win.” Hmm. Touché, mommy.

Still, I found myself refuting this opinion of mom’s. Idealistic me. Deep in my heart I still believed that, despite the debacle of eight years ago, the people would still decide who the next leader of the free world would be. I believed that our country may have learned our lesson during the Bush/Gore campaigns and that we would not only be on the lookout for blatant corruption, but we would also not stand for it. It would be especially railed against by those who have always stood up for the forgotten and disenfranchised. Right?

In the New York Times today, there is an article written by Sam Roberts that may indeed give credence to the words spoken by my dear, old mother. It seems that a number of African-American districts in New York that showed an overwhelming amount of support for Hillary Clinton on the night of the primaries are now giving indication that the amount of votes for Clinton may not have been as great as first stated.

In the Harlem district, for instance, where the primary night returns suggested a 141 to 0 sweep by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, the vote now stands at 261 to 136. In an even more heavily black district in Brooklyn — where the vote on primary night was recorded as 118 to 0 for Mrs. Clinton — she now barely leads, 118 to 116.

Now, am I suggesting that the same “they” who stole the election away from Al Gore as well as from the majority of Americans who voted for him also had a hand in the obvious gross miscalculations made in New York? No. Do I think that the Clinton campaign is above committing somewhat shady acts in order to get a better grip on the lead? Um, definitely not. But that isn’t because I think the Clinton’s are absolutely corrupt. I think they are professional politicians. They know the game. They know it better than Obama does, that’s for sure. As a result, they know how to play it. Give Obama a few more years under the searing heat of politics and all the machinations that come with it, and he may know how to play the game too. Right now, he is wide-eyed and bushy-tailed, and while some are turned off by this greenhorn from Illinois, others seem to revel in and embrace the fact that he hasn’t been tainted yet.

But my concern here isn’t so much on the campaign or those people in New York who obviously jacked up some of the results. According to the article, New York has been doing that for years, so what else is new? No, my eyes this time are focused in the direction of Mr. Julian Bond, the head of the NAACP.

I have an insurmountable of respect for Julian Bond and all he has done in respects to his fight for civil rights and equality among all men. He has been a frequent critic of the Bush administration and has done more in his lifetime for civil rights than I will ever do. However, he stated earlier this week that he thought that the votes from the Michigan and Florida primaries should be counted because if they were not, millions of minority voters would be disenfranchised.

He stated that:

Refusing to seat the states’ delegations could remind voters of the “sordid history of racially discriminatory primaries.

I’m not arguing with him there. Perhaps millions of voters were disenfranchised by the exclusion of the Michigan and Florida votes. But pushing up the primaries in these two states was the decision of the states, knowing that this was a violation of party rules. What I want to know, however, is if Mr. Bond will have any reaction to the news coming out of New York? While Michigan and Florida do not seem like exclusions due to “them”, the discrepancies encountered in New York seem to be imbued with a darker shade of gray.

What say you, Sir Bond? Was your concern based strictly on the rights of the disenfranchised or are your arguments based more on a bias for a particular candidate? It seems to me that when votes of 118 to 0 magically turn into 118 to 116, someone needs to sound the alarm. Don’t you agree? Or in this particular case, are you siding with “them”?