Letters to the Editor
AlecsMom
Published Letters: 556 Editor's Choice: 15
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@AKA Smith
[Read the article: Was Hillary channeling George Wallace?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]How is it that Obama is the nominee "because he is black"
Explain that logic becuase I thought he was the nominee because he has beaten Hillary in delegates, votes and states.
Anyone who thinks the superdelegates process is dumb and unecessary, I agree. But don't posit this result on party influece. Obama is where he is due to the voters. Perhaps you might wish that the Democratic Party stalwarts were different from what they are: urban voters, black voters, more educated, feminists, working women, union blue collar, activist members of a variety of other ethnic and social groups such as Asian, latino and GLT.
We can now also add (thanks to Obama) many young voters new to the process. This last portion could deliver Democratic regimes for decades. Research shows that how we start out voting, tends to maintain consistency over time.
The main problem with Hillary's logic is that older, blue collar white voters have a nasty habit of voting Republican. They are NOT as reliable as other groups. Furthermore, as Hillary's older, whiter demographic recedes in population, which it is doing now, younger and more diverse groups will dominate. To burn them, so to speak, would be to erode the party.
Some Republican operatives already know this and support more immigration-friendly policies such as George W.'s guest-worker policy. However, the rest of the GOP is fighting tooth-and-nail against it. McCain will have to go back to the latino community and explain how he is going to work for them because they already feel marginalized by some of the GOP rhetoric.
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@ShawnWM
[Read the article: Was Hillary channeling George Wallace?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If blacks are their own worst enemy, then what of the lower income whites who have supported Reagan & 2 Bush presidencies? Or are you going to dispute that this is the case? At least Black people aren't that foolish but this is the group that Hillary believes is make-or-break...contrary to all evidence that they're not. They vote Republican half the time.
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The Problem with Hillary's Claim..
[Read the article: Was Hillary channeling George Wallace?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The problem with Hillary's claim that she can hold onto the lower-income white voters is this:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-05-08-westvirginia_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip
"Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly 2 to 1, but President Bush won here in 2000 and 2004. "It was because of three things: guns, God and abortion," says Danny Jones, the Republican mayor of Charleston, the state capital.
"The people in the last election were persuaded by the gun issue," said Robert Dennie, a retired Union Carbide employee, a Democrat who cast an early vote Tuesday for Clinton in Charleston. "Everybody has wised up."
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The reason why Hillary is doing fairly well among lower income whites in WVA is because, right now, the economy is very bad for them. Does that mean that they would stay with her when the Right Wing attacks her viciously in the fall? I'd like to think so, I'd like to think they "wised up". The record suggests otherwise and as we've seen, the Republicans have been giving her a pass in favor of attacking Obama. That won't last if Hillary's the nominee. These are people who are remarkably persuaded by OTHER issues. Hillary Clinton may sound a populist note and win voters now, but that could easily change in the GE as the abortion or some other "values" issue is brought front-and-center.
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@ShawnWM
[Read the article: Was Hillary channeling George Wallace?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You wrote:
"However even at it's worst it's been nowhere near the 91-99 percentage as we see blacks lock-stepping for Obama.
That's a mighty big difference.
It's also ironic that now that many of the "Reagan Democrat" whites HAVE learned the hard way to vote their wallet again, blacks have decided not to.
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But how are blacks voting against their interest? Obama is running a fairly progressive agenda and blacks are happy with that. So are young people and urban voters and more educated voters. I have faith in Obama to at least fight for a more progressive agenda. I have said many times in Salon forums that I felt that Bill Clinton failed in some ways to forward a more progressive agenda and largely due to his personal sideshows.
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Obama Now Has More Supers...
[Read the article: Was Hillary channeling George Wallace?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I just found this. I apologize if someone else already referenced this news. Obama now exceeds Clinton's superdelegates. Obama is the nominee and Clinton's very clumsy radio interview yesterday probably hastened that fact.
ABC report:
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/05/obama-now-takes.html
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I have a question...
[Read the article: RNC debuts attack against Obama]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]For John McCain. How in the world does he propose undoing the damage wrought by GW Bush?
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@saintzak
[Read the article: Obama basically concedes two upcoming primaries]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You wrote:
""and Hillary gets the core voters who will show up in November"...
...who will vote for McCain.
Barack Obama is putting together a new group of voters that the Democrats can nurture and build on.
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the Hillary camp keeps missing that part. These are among the least faithful voters of the Democratic Party.
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Revisionist History
[Read the article: Rumsfeld blamed generals for lack of forces in postwar Iraq]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I guess that's the fallback position if you have worked for the Bush admin and are blamed by many for failures. In this case, toss the generals who had to suffer through your stupid post-war plan under the bus. I wonder how many generals will come out to defend themselves after this exposure?
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Respect and Courtesy
[Read the article: Can Democrats learn to talk about race?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I couldn't agree more that we need respect and courtesy. However, I certainly don't equate Obama's well-intended if clumsy remarks about blue-collar whites to Hillary's clear efforts to draw racial lines between herself and the "black candidate". That was not a well-intended remark. Clinton was signaling the supers to ignore the will of the voters and to toss aside the legitimate nominee in favor of capitualting to fear and bigotry. Obama was trying to provide a context for the attitudes he faces, Hillary was playing politics.
To be clear, I don't think Hillary really intended to imply that blacks were not hardworking or that only whites were hardworking. I think she simply had difficulty voicing a clearly contraversial topic and got caught up in her own words. That however should have been a signal to leave out racial terminology and perhaps just stick with "working class voters."