Earlier this fall, I attended an Obama speech in Washington on tax policy that underwhelmed on delivery; his address was wooden, stilted, even tedious. It was only after I left the hotel that it occurred to me that I'd just been bored on tax policy by a national black leader. That I should have been struck by this was born in my own racial stereotypes, of course. But it won me over.
I don't know what racial stereotypes he has, so I'm really not sure what to make of this. Did he expect a black man to make tax policy exciting and entertaining? Did he expect that a black man couldn't talk about tax policy at all? Was he amazed that black men have come far enough that they're able to give talks on tax policy and be taken seriously? Basically Sullivan is saying that Obama won him over because he doesn't fit Sullivan's preconceived notions of what a black politician should be. And this is supposed to be an endorsement?
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