Letters to the Editor
Joan Walsh
Published Letters: 438 Editor's Choice: 15
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From Joan Walsh
[Read the article: The Brazile-Begala smackdown]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]banyantree, I paraphrased Brazile's comment about the party not needing to rely so much on white working class and Latino voters, because it's expanded to include young voters, urban voters and some suburban voters, in the introduction to the transcript. Did you miss that? There was no transcript of that segment of the hour available when I posted, though I believe there now is, and I'll look for it and grab it. But I did not leave it out: I know exactly what provoked Begala. I like Donna and I can only imagine it didn't come out exactly the way she meant it.
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From Joan Walsh
[Read the article: The Brazile-Begala smackdown]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Hi Carol, thanks for asking about what I said on Hardball. I said a lot of what I said here last night: Obama's speech was great, and his success in winning over the portion of the Democratic coalition that has doubts about him will depend at least partially on how he treats their candidate, Hillary Clinton. And he knows that; he was awesome last night.
As I've said for months, Obama's terrific, but some of his supporters, not so much. There are a fair number of sore winners on this thread. There are also a couple of people who really do seem like GOP trolls posing as Obama supporters. The nastiness on both sides (there are some "Clinton supporters" who probably work side by side with the creepiest "Obama supporters" in a basement somewhere) are just going to be good news for John McCain.
I'm actually taking some time to think about my next post on the election. I do believe Clinton is near the end, and I want to think about what happens next. I disagree with people who thought this was not a worthy post; the debate between Brazile and Begala defines the race at this point.
I should also note that of course, blogging isn't my job at Salon. I had a full day of meetings about some other great things we have going on, which we'll be rolling out shortly. Thanks for your patience.
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From Joan Walsh
[Read the article: The Brazile-Begala smackdown]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]HealThisNation, that's really quite unfair. Weathermen? Really? I'll find a transcript and post it tomorrow. If I looked sad, it was because I'd just read these letters.
I have said repeatedly that I think the Obama campaign is good old fashioned Chicago politics, and the media ignores their version of hardball. And I said it again today when Chris suggested that McCain v. Obama was going to be clean politics on both sides -- I said that was inaccurate about McCain, as well. The people who want to believe we're about to have a race between two political saints are really going to have a hard time come the fall.
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From Joan Walsh
[Read the article: The Brazile-Begala smackdown]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Thanks, 08YesWeCan!
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From Joan Walsh
[Read the article: The Brazile-Begala smackdown]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]lateagain, you're actually one of my favorite posters, and this was a really wonderful post. But I wasn't feeling sad about what the letters said about me, but what they said about this race. I think about all of this more than most of you (but maybe not you personally) will ever know. I think the tribalism, to use your word, is lamentable, but also real. When I was getting down on these letters over the weekend, I also reminded myself: You wanted to have a conversation on race? Well, there it is, baby! It ain't pretty, but actually, a lot of good things have come of it. There are some great letter writers in both camps who are really baring their souls, their biases, their backgrounds, their political analyses. Some fervent Clinton and Obama supporters talk to one another, stil, with respect, even affection. On balance, given how ugly it is (and it is ugly, the history of race in this country is ugly), we might be proud of ourselves when this is over.
Geraldine Ferraro comes up a lot in these threads. I was on vacation, folks. My daughter is a senior in high school; we took a long-planned week's vacation in Arizona, watching spring training, as we've done every year since 1996. I've written about it often. When she was in 7th grade, I promised her we'd spend a week her senior year, and we did. Right before that, I went to the PolicyLink conference in New Orleans, and I cut into my official vacation (poor me! working in New Orleans!) to write about it, and then I went silent. I truly thought I had said that publicly. But if you go back, I wasn't selectively ignoring Ferraro, I was resoundingly quiet. (Although my best friends, all Obama supporters, made me talk about it non-stop on vacation). I admit: I did choose not to weigh in on Geraldine Ferraro from my vacation. I love my job, but not that much.
Thanks for asking!
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From Joan Walsh
[Read the article: The Brazile-Begala smackdown]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]DaviddesJ, not sure what you're talking about. Here's what I wrote:
The transcript below doesn't capture what Brazile said to tick off Begala: She suggested Barack Obama might not need to worry so much about the white working-class and Latino voters that are going with Hillary Clinton, because behind Obama, the party is being remade by young voters, urban voters and suburban voters.
"might not need to worry so much" is a pretty good paraphrase of what she said, given that I was writing before the transcript was available.
Unfortunately the Hardball transcript still isn't up: They're listing May 7, but it's actually May 6! I do feel justified in challenging Chris (and the lovestruck MSM generally) about about how uncommonly clean both the Obama and McCain campaigns will be, given their faceoff today about whether McCain is "losing his bearings." Watch for their matchup to get nastier.
artieshawjr, classy post as always. Joe Conason has a great column tonight criticizing Clinton for her bewildering comments about hardworking Americans, which seemed to identify them as white. I'll be writing about it tomorrow. Still, no need to call her a slut.
I really only had a couple of people in mind when I suggested there might be Republican trolls posing as Clinton and Obama people, and you know who you aren't.