Letters to the Editor
Rocky57
Published Letters: 211 Editor's Choice: 4
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"Racial Pride" as the be-all-to-end-all? More Excuses
[Read the article: How Hillary Clinton botched the black vote]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"A lot of you are lying your asses off. The vast majority of blacks are voting for Obama out of a sense racial pride and hoping to be part of electing the first black POTUS. Period...."
Racial pride is certainly part of it but it certainly isn't the whole story...and a reasonable person should know that. The Clinton's are losing 9 to 1 because they didn't know the black electorate as well as they thought they did and, as is so often the case with white-black interaction in this country, they didn't know themselves well enough re the matter of race as they thought they did; hence, they came off looking like klutzes and as far from the bi-racial travellers they probably fancied themselves to be.
They attempted to "darken" Obama, marginalise him and patronised the electorate they thought they knew so well [a miscalculation that led to that minstrelsy of a dialect show Hillary gave to a southern black woman church group, in 2007]. As I've often noticed, the African-American community seems to be able to cut through the bs and see things for what they are--especially, in presidential election years, where it is seemingly uniquely situated to be able to recognise a pig-in-a poke [the latter day GOP] for what it is--unlike many traditional Democratic electorates that have, it appears, no trouble with voting against their interests--and, in this current election cycle, the directors of a racial kabuki play in three acts.
You want to blame someone for the lop-sided AA votes against Clinton's candidacy? Blame Mark Penn and, yes, Hillary for having willingly allowed herself to have been a part of his insulting travesty of a campaign. Now, she's boxed in with a part of the Democratic electorate that has, with the exception of the Roosevelt administration and, perhaps, the Kennedy/Johnson years, never failed to pull off the dextrous feat of kicking themselves in the ass when it comes to voting their own interests in a Presidential campaign year.
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@Rocky57
[Read the article: How Hillary Clinton botched the black vote]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Stop spinning. Racial pride is most of the story and you know it. Obama's getting supermajorities in the black community of 90+%. The vast najority of whom are not hothouse blogosphere flowers and they, at best, only know vaguest or barest details of the "after SC" type spin you're pushing. Please. The easiet way to get into an argument in the black community today is to either insult his/her mother or tell him/her you're not supporting Obama."
I sense another GOP provocateur.
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@Jeffersonian
[Read the article: Was Hillary channeling George Wallace?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"...She sounds like David Duke. I know she's not a racist, by any definition, nor is Big Bill with The Big One, but they are Machiavellian to core. She'll say anything to peel away some super delegates. Anything. Imagine what they say in private. Disgusting...."
Actually, it could be argued that what Hillary Clinton [and Bill, as well] is doing is no different from what Bill's home state governor of the '50's, Orval Faubus, and Alabama's George Wallace did.
Both Faubus and Wallace were, at various times at the beginning of their respective careers for state wide office, keelhauled on the question of race. Both men were--well, relatively speaking--progressives on matters of race and, actually, populists who championed the "little guy". They knew blacks in their states and had cordial relationships with black leaders. And, both got "out-segged" in contests and lost. That is, they were branded as veritable "nigger lovers" and racial accomodationists by opponents who went on to beat them in elections for office, in their respective states.
What did they do in order to rescusitate their political careers? They vowed never to be "out-segged" again and, in effect, rode "segregation, now; segregation forever" to the highest office their states had to offer. Blacks and others who knew Faubus and Wallace have said and will tell you, today, that both men had cordial relationships with blacks and had the capacity to entertain progressive ideas, ala Lyndon Johnson, about schools, roads, other infrastructure buildup and cooperation between the races but each man took the low road to fulfilling their respective political ambitions.
Questions of race, like matters of economics vis a vis inflation, have to be viewed in the context of events and the passage of time. Given that, how does an honest observer, as I assume even Joe is [given his rightful defense of and steadfast belief in the Clintons dating from the days of Bill's administration], view Hillary's current utterances and activities?
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@Taliesan
[Read the article: Was Hillary channeling George Wallace?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"...Hillary lost the black vote not simply through Obama suddenly looking viable - she lost is through running a campaign that marginalised every voting block that constitutes the Democratic "Safe" core. That is what this statement did, it marginalised every person who isn't an uneducated blue collar white person in America...."
Bingo
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Taliesan (to aka)
[Read the article: Was Hillary channeling George Wallace?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"...But you have decided your vote not based on the candidates, not based on policy and not even based on which of them you feel you could have a beer with - you have based it on what some of the one candidate's supporters have had to say to you...."
I believe that, more often than not, the more obdurate on the matter of the obama candidacy and the ones more ready to devalue his candidacy as something having to do with an alchemy of race he, himself, has conjured up and some cult-like following amongst those campaigning for him are GOP trolls and 'bots bent on sewing primary season-long mischief.