Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 384 Editor's Choice: 5
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That's fine.
[Read the article: Make your own candidate]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If you've thought out the reasons why you voted for someone, thought out the counterarguments, and still feel ok with your decision, voting for whomever you want, even longshot candidates, is never a waste.
This is the central fallacy regarding Nader voters in 2000. For whatever reason, Nader voters chose to vote Third Party. Gore didn't have any claim on or entitlement to their votes. Indeed, my guess is, a lot of Nader voters had looked at Gore and passed him over. So be it.
And blaming the 2% of Nader voters in this country for Dubya makes a lot less sense than blaming the 40% of people who didn't even bother to vote.
If someone's taken the time to show up and do their civic duty, they should vote for whomever they want. Mind you, I'd have preferred that you'd voted Obama instead of Kucinich, but that's neither here nor there. The journey is the reward.
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The day in context.
[Read the article: Who won Super Tuesday?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"They can slice it and dice it any way they want, but at this point it's dead even."
Right, but let's keep some historical perspective here. Given Obama was down 20 points nationwide and leading in only 2 states (IL and GA) as little as 2 weeks ago, coming out even against Sen. Clinton is a huge, gimongous victory.
Super Tuesday was conceived to be the Clinton knockout punch -- she swung and missed. Now it looks like we're probably going the distance.
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We're winning in Iraq too.
[Read the article: Making sense of Super Tuesday]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"But if you look at the way the race had tightened over the last two weeks -- the surge of momentum Obama got after winning South Carolina, the endorsements of Caroline, Ted and later Ethel Kennedy, SEIU and MoveOn.org, the predictions that he'd take away Massachusetts and he might even win California -- then it looks like a pretty good night for Hillary Clinton."
I'm sorry, but this rather equivalent to how people say the surge is working in Iraq: Set the bar for success so ridiculously low -- and in obvious contradiction to previous benchmarks -- that success is all but assured.
Two weeks ago, Sen. Obama was down 20 points nationally and leading in only two states: Georgia and his home state of Illinois. Meanwhile, Super Tuesday had been deemed -- by Terry McAuliffe and others -- to be Sen. Clinton's knockout punch. That, of course, didn't happen. Clinton swung and missed, and now it looks like we're going the distance.
Other than the one goofy Zogby +13 poll, which was such an outlier that few took it seriously, there weren't very many predictions going around that Obama would win MA and CA -- until the second round of exit polls. To suggest MA and CA were meant to be Obama pick-ups is, I'm sorry, disingenuous.
I haven't ventured into the asian-american discussion, so I presume you're correct in saying that awful and stupid things are being said by Obama promoters. But, trust me, Obama supporters (Obamamaniacs, Obamatons, "Obamamite dogs") have no monopoly on intemperate and idiotic rhetoric at the moment.
By the way, now that the California primary has come and gone, may I ask who you voted for? (Here in NYC, I voted for Obama.)
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One more thing.
[Read the article: Making sense of Super Tuesday]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"I stated a fact: Obama lost California, despite his own multiracial heritage, because he didn't run a campaign that was up to the challenge of winning a majority of Democrats in this racially complex state."
Also, this isn't quite a "fact" -- more of a subjective analysis on your part. Sure, one could argue that the proof is in the pudding -- Latinos and Asian-Americans went for Clinton rather than Obama, Q.E.D. But it's just as likely, and this goes to my message below, that Clinton won California thanks to a diminishing-but-still-huge lead in name recognition. That's also not a fact, just a possible analysis of the returns.
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So strange, and so sad.
[Read the article: Making sense of Super Tuesday]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It seems the Clintons' preferred method of political cover -- acting unfairly aggrieved -- has been adopted by all too many of their supporters.
Once it was just the vast right-wing conspiracy. Now the vast media conspiracy and vast Obama conspiracy also threaten. Hard to see how Senator Clinton will be able to govern successfully with all these dark forces arrayed against her.
Here's a news flash: Obama supporters don't hate women -- many of them are women, particularly when you look at his support among the under-40 crowd.
Nor are they backing Obama for ill-thought-out, "cultish" reasons. (In fact, as every poll suggests, Obama tends to do better among better educated people, who -- one would think -- would be less receptive to that sort of thing.)
I personally began supporting Sen. Obama over a year ago because I thought he had the best record on campaign finance and ethics reform. I also liked the fact that he's able to energize people across the political spectrum and get them excited about the democratic process again. Over the course of the election campaign, it's become clear that he's the more inspiring, the more progressive, the more electable, and -- given some of the campaign tactics we've seen from the Clintons -- the more principled candidate. He also doesn't suffer from the dynasty problem.
Of course, you can disagree with my assessment of Senator Obama. People differ on such things -- that's the American way. But I don't ascribe Clinton's support to an irrational tide of know-nothings lapsing into quasi-religious fervor (even if Clinton-backers' visceral hatred of Obama reminds me of nothing more than how we all used to feel about Ken Starr.) And neither should you think the same of Obama, or his supporters.
In short, just because people disagree with you doesn't mean they're inherently deluded or "cultish." Grow up, already.