— Sen. Barack Obama, D-IL, in what was billed by his campaign as a “major speech on race” in Philadelphia today shocked the Democrat party by announcing he has abandoned his bid to become the nation’s first black president.
“After a lot of prayer and conversations with my wife and Pastor Jeremiah Wright,” said Sen. Obama, “I have decided that the United States is not ready for a black chief executive. So today, I’m launching a campaign to simply become President of the United States, without regard to race.”
The son of a black, African father and a white, Kansan mother, Sen. Obama said he will formally suspend his attempt to achieve “a Civil Rights milestone”, and will put all his efforts into “making sure Democrats have a nominee who can challenge John McCain man-to-man.”
A spokesman for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign said she would petition the Democrat National Committee to “nullify all of the primary votes cast for Sen. Obama because voters thought they were doing something historic, rather than simply choosing the most qualified candidate.”
“Think about it,” the unnamed Clinton staffer said, “if Geraldine Ferraro had suddenly announced in 1984 she was running for vice president as a man, the Mondale-Ferraro ticket would have lost in a landslide.”