Quickly, two points.
1. There’s an implication throughout the entire article that the Black political representation that arose in the 1960s was incompetent because they appealed to Black interests for support. Lets not forget the roles of the Irish and the Polish in the development of American identity politics, and of white political fear mongering that kept qualified Blacks out of office in the first place. Furthermore, though ethnic minorities have played by the rules and fairly and squarely one various political offices, that doesn’t diminish the fact that their presence there offers a unique perspective and was necessary had they been elected or not. For any politician to try to preserve the presence of that perspective is not ludicrous, its only logical.

2. Re: Bobby Rush. He has has been a significant voice in politics affecting Black people in Chicago for four decades. Any inference that his concern for Black representation is shallow because he didn’t support a former political opponent neglects the vast majority of his life. The irony of using the Ford family in your example is that Harold Ford Jr.’s own Senate run was crushed by ads that posed him as a threat to white women.

Just because Barack Obama represents a certain type of political figure, one different not only from Black leaders of the past, but from most historical American political leaders does not mean the necessity for Black leadership and leaders devoted to issues disproportionately affecting Black people is void.

It seems like trying to address the culpability of Gov. Blagoevich, the sanity of Roland Burris, the leadership traits and commitment of Bobby Rush, racial politics in Tennessee and identity politics in general all at the same time may have been a bit much for you in this one article.