Letters to the Editor
Mauerback
Published Letters: 10
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Re-vote in Michigan & Florida
[Read the article: Should Florida and Michigan vote again? ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Terry McAuliffe seems to have suggested a revote strategy in Michigan and Florida. That's a very smart strategy for Hillary Clinton. It's a far less cynical and scorched earth approach than simply affirming that the Michigan and Florida delegates ought to be seated (in spite of the fact that a true election was not held there in either state), and best of all (from Hillary's perspective), it puts Obama on the defensive. He can either denounce the strategy and look like he is opposing the democratic aspirations of two important states, or he can roll the dice and agree to elections, the risk being that these are states more favourable to Hillary and he'll probably lose them. If so, it increases the force of her argument that he can't win the big states that Democrats need to win in November. It's a no-lose strategy for her, but I had hitherto thought that naked ambition and typical Clintonian cynicism would preclude her from adopting it.
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Can Democrats learn to talk about race
[Read the article: Can Democrats learn to talk about race?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Not sure I'm as sympathetic as you or Joe Conason are to Hillary's comments on race. The constant reiteration of her appeal to "white working class Americans" as a rationale for why Democratic Party superdelegates should pick her over Obama, is a slap in the face to the party's most loyal constituency -- African-Americans -- and a repudiation of the colour-blind principles the party allegedly stand for. Here's what she's really appears to be saying to party leaders: There's no way that white people are going to vote for the black guy. Come November, you'll be sorry, so you've got to choose me.
The sad reality is that the Clintons have long had a history of playing the race card when it suited them, going back to Bill's first Presidential campaign in 1992, when he raced back to Little Rock, to sign the execution order of Ricky Ray Rector, a black man who was said to have the mental age of a 12 year old. All this to ensure that the GOP didn't play the Willie Horton card on him as they did to Dukakis.
If Hillary is genuinely serious about wanting to reunite the party and ensure that a Democrat gets elected in 2008, she's going to have to adopt a more highminded approach. At this rate, she'll lose policy leverage (yes, I agree that her health care policy is superior to Obama's) and future political viability. She's probably already sabotaged her chances of being on the ticket (if that was an objective). Because if Barack loses in 2008, many people will blame Hillary and the resultant lingering bitter feelings will likely torpedo her chances to secure the nomination in 2012.
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re: Why don't those hillbillies like Obama
[Read the article: Why don't those hillbillies like Obama?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]But when polls show that 22% of all voters in West Virginia openly admitted that race played a role in their decision, and the vast majority of those voters went to Hillary, doesn't that suggest that Obama making regular visits to the Appalachian states won't help him?
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re: The fight over Florida and Michigan
[Read the article: The fight over Florida and Michigan]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The question is not whether the DNC will come to a reasonable resolution of the Florida and Michigan delegate problem, but whether the Clinton campaign will graciously accept anything less than their (unreasonable) 100% maximalist position in which all of her votes get counted, but Obama gets punished for having removed his name from the Michigan ballot. If Hillary decides to appeal the compromise, one really has to question the notion that she will bow out gracefully and put the party's interests above her political ambition. I sincerely hope I'm wrong, but fear the worst.
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re: Joan Walsh: The beatings continue
[Read the article: Scott McClellan: The beatings continue]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Just to say Joan, I can see from the letters page that you've taken some unbelievable beatings from the readers. Take heart: even though I am an Obama supporter, I enjoy reading your analyses, because I do think by and large you are fair and keep me honest,which is why I enjoy reading you (I recognise that I do have some visceral dislike of the Clintons, which sometimes precludes me from giving Hillary any kind of credit). By the same token, Joan, I just hope that you won't dismiss all of us who support Obama as rampant sexists and don't contribute to a process started by the Clintons, which seems designed to delegitimise Obama's impending victory. To be sure, there have been sexist comments, but not many (I think) by Obama himself. It's as unfair as calling all Clinton supporters racists. In fact, Hillary doesn't seem to have embraced the sexist charge until she saw that it was a good way to mobilise votes. Other women candidates have been successful without taking this tack, and ironically highlighting sexism undercuts Clinton's argument that she is the more electable of the two candidates. How can she be more electable if sexism is this strong within the Democratic primaries? What would happen in November? Hillary has lost and what she and her supporters do over the next few weeks/months will tell us a lot about them as people.
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re: Big Weekend news
[Read the article: Big weekend news]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Joan,
What do you mean when you write about "the supposed 'rules' established to punish Florida and Michigan"? Those were the rules, agreed by all candidates and voted on by people such as Harold Ickes. There is nothing "supposed" about them. By disparaging them in this manner, you implicitly delegitimise the process by which Obama is capturing the nomination, which perpetuates the divisions in the party to which you yourself have long called attention. Aren't you letting your own pro-Hillary biases colour your analysis here?