Letters to the Editor
xufapemu
Published Letters: 362 Editor's Choice: 7
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@ AKA Smith
[Read the article: Playing the bin Laden card?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Just before the NH primary Hillary made appeals to women. When she showed emotion after the question of how she gets up everyday, women responded very positively.
The problem is, what made more appealing to women, or made women come to her defense turned some men away from her.
I'm not condoning sexism or rationalizing it, I'm simply saying its a reality and her campaign has never been able to neutralize it to the extent that Obama's has.
President Clinton says that they've never complained about rough treatment, but it isn't true. And in the end SNL did her no favors.
Like the first of anything (Jackie Robinson is a good example) the first female or black candidate must take every slight, every sexist or racist dig and never bring it up. Mr. Clinton said "the boys were tough on her". Imagine if Michelle Obama said "the white people were tough on him". When asked about the sexism or racism, the trailblazer must minimize it, not use it as an excuse for failure; even if it is the reason.
Mrs. Clinton needed to be as gender neutral as possible. Obama's campaign understood this from the beginning concerning race. Mrs. Clinton's campaign never really seemed to grasp this.
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Also @ AKA Smith
[Read the article: Playing the bin Laden card?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Obama may criticize the media, but he has not blamed it on race.
Again, the Clinton campaign made the media criticism on the basis of gender and sexism.
That hurt her in ways her campaign could ever know.
Try to imagine if the Obama campaign said the ABC was asking him "gotcha" questions because the media is inherently racist.
How do you suppose that would effect his campaign?
I assume you're a woman. If so, you might be looking at the issue of sexism through that prism. Change it to race and you may get a sense of how identity politics have hurt Mrs. Clinton's campaign.
The problem is, for her, its too late in the game to change perceptions.
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@ cabick
[Read the article: Playing the bin Laden card?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You're right in saying that the Obama campaign is using distrations against Clinton.
I'll be the first to say that it's absurd for the Obama campaign to decry these petty issues while at the same time playing them.
What the Obama campaign wants to distance itself from is Gen. Walter Stewart's specific remarks. Regardless of how hard they fight, neither Democrat should ever cross a line that questions the ability of the other candidate of performing the duties of the Commander-in-Chief. Gen. Stewart's remarks crossed that line and Obama's campaign quickly denounced them. Questioning a fellow Democrat's ability of being C-in-C is different from slinging mud, however hypocritical that mud slinging is.
And it's a far far cry from the candidate herself doing the actual damage to the party's possible nominee.
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@ cabick
[Read the article: Playing the bin Laden card?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]And it's a far far cry from the candidate herself doing the actual damage to the party's possible nominee.
i appreciate your measured response to my previous post.
meanwhile, to your point here, i'd argue that a) obama personally has done a great deal to damage clinton, still yet possibly the party's nominee (like it or not) by arguing among other things that electing her is sort of a lateral move from electing a republican -- no matter that her platform is more progressive than his -- and that b) having your surrogates do your dirty work while you maintain a pious front is arguably a bigger crime than doing the dirty work yourself.
to that second point, here's the single thing that upsets me most about the effects of the obama campaign thus far: many of the obama supporters i know are convinced that bill and hillary clinton are racists and therefor deserving of any and all opprobrium heaped upon them.
that's an absurd and deeply immoral charge, one fostered by obama's staff and helped along by the candidate himself, not to mention one deeply damaging to clinton should she become the nominee.
I'm actually an old guy who's managed two state Senate campaigns in IL, so I know politics is rough; even (or maybe especially) at the lower levels. But the thing you never do is have the candidate take a stand or make a remark in a primary that hurts the party's chances in the general.
No doubt about it, surrogates throw a lot of punches. Its where the hatchet work is done. But with surrogates its "healable". The candidate has plausible deniability. When a candidate makes the remarks, its damn hard for the candidate to repudiate later when responding to a Republican attack ad. So, there is a difference between surrogates and the candidate making remarks.
As to not backing a candidate because supporters are rude I can only say, toughen up. I've been called more names than I care to mention by Clinton supporters and would still happily support her in the fall. I would be ashame to have Republicans pick more Supreme Court Justices, ignore the housing crisis and health care, start more wars simply because some pimple faced Obama supporter living in his parent's basement called Hillary a bad word.
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@ cabick II
[Read the article: Playing the bin Laden card?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Wow!!
I reposted your entire comment in my post.
This internets has me baffled!