Letters to the Editor
cabdriver
Published Letters: 594 Editor's Choice: 8
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George Allen and "macaca"
[Read the article: The baseless, and failed, "move to the center" cliche]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]To those doubting that Allen's "macaca"(sic) remark was intentionally racist: have you heard him say it?
He sounds like a drunk at a whites-only private country club, scolding a waiter.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r90z0PMnKwI
(dubious bonus: the comment section)
[click my highlighted screen name for link]
The term "macaca" = "macaque", another widely used name for the rhesus monkey (Rhesus macaque.)
Anyway, Allen's a footnote now. Maybe him and Gingrich can get a tap-dance routine together. One can hope, anyway.
On-topic: another terrific column, Glenn. Man, can you write.
When are the Beltway Democrats going to get it? It seems like every election, they turn off millions of potential voters who should be integral to their natural constituency- "the set of all voters waiting for a reason not to be cynical"- supposedly in an effort to reach out to "Reagan Democrats"...?
The "Reagan Democrats" are a category that Dem strategists seem bent on reifying into permanence as the de facto arbiters of American elections- even as their numbers dwindle, replaced by a youth vote with consistently more liberal political leanings. (And I think a poll measuring the present political leanings of under-30 voters who went for Bush in 2000/2004 would be highly in order.)
The "vital center" is in a different place, this year.
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Note:
[Read the article: The baseless, and failed, "move to the center" cliche]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"If I was Obama I would prefer Hume, Wallace, et al attack me for standing up for the constitution rather than being just another flip flopping politician."
Flip-flopping on an issue is a vital talking point for anyone debating a candidacy who gets a legitimate opportunity to bring it up- especially when the flip-flop lands on the same side as their side, the opposition.
For one thing, when validly brought up, the point is unassailable (as any ordinary person who has tried to defend a candidate who has clearly flip-flopped already knows, such weaseling doesn't get very far in face to face political arguments among regular folks- in contrast to studiously polite & innocuous television moderators, who typically permit partisan spokespeople to perform all manner of unconvincing contortions without interrupting or showing signs of skepticism.)
Also, as was pointed out in Glenn's article, political flip-flopping (for any reason other than a reasoned, principled, and well-explained change of mind) makes a candidate vulnerable to doubts about their integrity and character- which are typically much more damaging than a controversial stance on a given political issue.
As George W. Bush has demonstrated time and again, unprincipled resolve beats unprincipled vacillation.
Finally, strictly regarding a position on a given issue: any time someone reverses course on a matter to agree with the side taken by the political opposition, it obviously reinforces the legitimacy of that opposition's stance. This is especially true when a political opposition gives up a challenge to the status quo set forth by a sitting administration. After all, if the party with the incumbency has already taken the proper course, why vote in an imitation?
This is especially true when the matter at hand is related to bedrock issues like Constitutional values, rather than more relative issues like funding priorities.
Funding issues are amenable to negotiation (except for Republicans, as the record of the current president and his Congressional acolytes has clearly demonstrated- "he [Obama] will generally try to compromise rather than confront. Virtually all Republicans are for this"- souriscriant, are you joking?)
By contrast, matters of Constitutional values and principle are non-negotiable. Or they should be. One either stands by their beliefs on such issues, or they change their beliefs.
But on such matters, no one gets to change their legislative votes, while claiming to maintain beliefs to the contrary.
That's what John McCain just did, with his recent votes and statements on the issues of torture and prisoner treatment, and Guantanamo Bay.
The score was decidedly in Obama's favor...now what?
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@souriscriant
[Read the article: The baseless, and failed, "move to the center" cliche]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]From your previous post:
"Note that protecting the Constitution and ones individual liberties is not something that is yet asked about. And the only open-ended poll, while some people may have included this as under "other", it is apparently less than 4%
The politicians will care when people care..."
souriscriant, I just went to the original site of your link. What it demonstrates to me is that the pollsters who write the questions don't care.
http://www.pollingreport.com/issues.htm
(originally supplied link wouldn't track)
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@Mike Sulzer
[Read the article: The baseless, and failed, "move to the center" cliche]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]And here is a case where a reasoned, principled, and well-explained change of mind back to his initial position would be justified.
As well as entirely welcome, for many of us out here in the voting public. Perhaps a crucial number.
On the topic of the massive data archive turned over by the telecoms to the NSA (& by all indications, to the non-nonexistent Total Information Awareness program): any chance of getting that erased from their files?
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@souriscriant
[Read the article: The baseless, and failed, "move to the center" cliche]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If the poll that you copied in your latest comment is the particular poll that you were referring to in your previous message, you got the percentage of respondents to the category of "Other" wrong.
It wasn't 4%, it was 28%, making the unspecified "Other" the second highest category, after the "Economy/Jobs" (34%).