Letters to the Editor
Happy Friend
Published Letters: 117 Editor's Choice: 2
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Huh?
[Read the article: Obama advisor Power resigns]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Why are these idiots saying that Powers should apologize to the poor? Because she accused them of hearing Clinton's "stories"? So now the Obama campaign cannot suggest that Hillary is distorting Obama's economic positions to curry favor with people in financial distress? Oh, to be the eternal victim.
And man, people need to STFU about "Latte Liberals." I imagine that that is the phrase we are going to hear a lot of in this election cycle. It is the height of stupidity. Way to do the GOP's work for them by associating populist politics with all that is effete and European.
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Oops
[Read the article: Obama advisor Power resigns]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I got her name wrong and called her "Powers." I did read her book A Problem from Hell years ago and it was brilliant. She shows more intellectual prowess in the book than Hillary ever could.
I work around a lot of educated people who do not habitually drink lattes. Most of them support Obama. The few Clinton supporters are all ladies who, in my estimation, are less obsessively well read about politics and the world. As far as I can tell, Hillary's prime appeal is her womanhood. Even considering that, most of the women here are for Obama anyway. In my experience, there really does seem to be an inverse correlation between knowledge/education and a tendency to support Hillary. The data on the primaries seems to point to the same conclusion.
I think that a microcosm for this whole, fallacious mindset can be found in that Gloria Steinem Op-Ed where she basically said that white women have it worse than black men. A lot of high school students could rattle off statistics about black man vs white woman poverty rates, college enrollment, prison "enrollment" etc. that would disprove Steinem's craziness.
When someone who is as educated as Steinem and who speaks for as many people as she does, says something so absurd, it opens a door into the flawed thinking of a large number of people.
Thank God Obama's lead in delegates was basically untouched by Ohio and Texas. In all likelihood, what Hillary is doing is only hurting Obama in the general, not that that isn't bad and not that she probably cares.
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Hey Doc
[Read the article: Obama advisor Power resigns]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You parsed my words in a misleading way just so you could get all preachy. My point was that my personal experience and the electoral data tell the same story - Hillary draws support disproportionately from women and people who are less informed. In my experience, which involves only a few dozen people that I have actually talked politics with recently, she especially draws support from women who are not exactly wonkish on political issues, yet preoccupied with gender issues. I am sorry if my observations and the electoral data make you angry.
You can call me an elitist or a jerk. Considering that I have only a bachelor's degree from a state school, make very little money, and do not come from a wealthy family, I am not sure how I could be an elitist. As far as being a jerk, well, that's subjective. I could probably do a better job of being a nice guy all the time, but I do what I can.
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Hillary's Support
[Read the article: Obama advisor Power resigns]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"No mention I can find of any inclusion of MEN who are "less well educated" or poorer, yet working blue-collar guys are an important part of Hillary's strength."
I do not work with any men who do not have college degrees. Of the people I work around almost all are for Obama (men and women). All of the people who are most knowledgeable about politics are for Obama. That includes men and women. The few Clinton supporters are all women. They also seem to be concerned more more by gender issues, than, say, trivial things like the Iraq War. Maybe my writing this makes me a jerk.
I acknowledge that Hillary gets some votes from working class men. I am not sure why. I am guessing that it is a combination of name recognition, Hillary's rhetorical focus of policy initiatives aimed at workers (before all of her rhetoric became about how bad Obama is), a little bit of distrust of Obama as an unknown quantity, a little bit of anti-intellectualism, and yes, a dash of racism. I think all of those factors to varying degrees largely explain her support among white men.
What is interesting and telling is that Obama does so much better than Hillary among the educated. Maybe you can make the argument that education makes you less wise, but honestly that sounds more like a Republican argument to me.
And yeah I think that if Hillary lost all of her knee-jerk, must-vote-for-the-woman-candidate votes, she'd be toast. I really believe that the goal of feminism should be for women to to be able to succeed or fail based on their merit, not their sex. By this measure, Hillary's stupidity in voting for the war, her lack of charisma, and her insanely high negatives outside of the party should disqualify her as a candidate. And yet she lingers, like a pantsuit wearing Ahab...
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Genius!
[Read the article: Geraldine Ferraro still needs to apologize]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Obama is a genius. He is the smartest person who ran for president this year. He is also the most charismatic. He gives the best speeches. He writes the best books (as opposed to having crappy books ghost written for him). These qualities might have something to do with his insurmountable delegate lead.
But maybe if your Hillary, you can pander to to disaffected white guys in South Philly and Western PA by having a surrogate imply that Obama is an incarnation of the affirmative action hire who has the great job that they deserve.
This is a new low for Hillary's campaign and I am thoroughly disgusted. I cannot believe that she has any supporters left. It is disgraceful.