Letters to the Editor
Picko
Published Letters: 265 Editor's Choice: 11
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"For another, it assumes that Clinton is a racist."
[Read the article: Quote of the day]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]No, it doesn't. It assumes that Clinton is not above using other's people's racism to suit her ends.
There was a story in Newsweek right after the 2004 election which claimed that Bill Clinton counseled John Kerry to back anti-gay marriage initiatives in various swing states as a way to carry them in the general election. Now, I don't think for a second that Bill Clinton is a homophobe, but I don't doubt that he would use homophobia for his political purposes if he felt circumstances required it.
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Akron Mike
[Read the article: Quote of the day]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You must have missed this War Room story from earlier this week:
"Quarter of Clinton supporters would vote McCain over Obama"
"Interesting result from a recent survey conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press: If their favored candidate is not the Democratic nominee, a quarter of Hillary Clinton's primary supporters would defect and vote for John McCain in November, while only 10 percent of Barack Obama's supporters would do the same.
"This discrepancy seems to be explained by Pew's demographic breakdown of the potential defectors, as the groups most likely to jump are also Clinton's bases of support: "One-in-five white Democrats (20%) say that they will vote for McCain over Obama, double the percentage who say they would switch sides in a Clinton-McCain matchup (10%). Roughly the same number of Democrats age 65 and older say they will vote for McCain if Obama is the party's choice (22%). Obama also suffers more defections among lower income and less educated Democratic voters than does Clinton."
"Here's another interesting thing -- the Clinton campaign is promoting this stat, both in an e-mail from spokesman Phil Singer and in an item on its "Delegate Hub" Web site."
So this kind of cuts against your assessment of the brattishness of Obama's latte-drinking supporters, doesn't it? In fact, it is Clinton's supporters who are more likely to bolt if they don't get their way.
I seriously don't understand what the Clinton camp hopes to achieve by demeaning and insulting Obama's supporters. The level of derision that has been heaped upon us throughout this campaign is not calculated to make us enthusiastic supporters if Clinton wins the nomination.
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jebldmm
[Read the article: Quote of the day]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Only a racist would think to darken somebody's skin in order to make people less likely to vote for him."
I don't think that's true. I think all it would take is the knowledge that dark-skinned blacks are subject to greater prejudice than lighter-skinned blacks. With that knowledge, a person who was not themselves racist but willing to use racism to manipulate voters could use photo-darknening as a tool in their repetoire. In the same way, I think some of the Republicans who use homophobia to win votes aren't themselves homophobic. For instance, there's some anecdotal evidence that George W. Bush is much more tolerant about homosexuality than his political campaigns suggest.
As for your assertion that there is every indication that Hillary Clinton is the kind of person who would find this tactic deeply offensive, you clearly have a much higher opinion of Hillary's ethics and scruples than I do. I see every indication that she's exactly the kind of person who would play off of people's prejudices if she thought it would work for her.
As for the story about Clinton, Kerry and homophobia, I'm willing to admit that it may be apocryphal (I can't remember if Kerry confirmed that the conversation had taken place; I think the source may have been an anonymous third party). It certainly rings true to me. Of course, I generally think of Bill Clinton as the guy who threw welfare recipients under the train in order to get re-elected, so I'm probably inclined to believe a story like that. Just like I think of Hillary Clinton as someone who voted for the Iraq War in order to position herself to run for president...
As for the notion that the gay marriage issue is not driven by homophobia but instead by love of "tradition," I would respond that a lot of Southerners defend their attachment to the Confederate flag as a matter of "tradition," but if you don't think there's a certain measure of latent (and sometimes not so latent) racism tied up in it, I think you're being seriously naive. I think someone as savvy as Bill Clinton knows that if he's campaigning against gay marriage, he's throwing his lot in with the gay-bashers and homophobes. You see, the brilliance about the civil union/gay marriage dichotomy is that it allows politicans to have it both ways: "I don't support gay marriage, but I support civil unions" is another way of saying "I don't want to lose the votes of homophobes, but I also don't want to lose the votes of people who find homophobia offensive."
I don't think we're ever going to see eye-to-eye on this. I don't believe your contention that Obama has "divided the nation along racial lines." Given that a substantial portion of Obama's support is from white people, this charge just seems prima facie false.
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juneausmog
[Read the article: Clinton camp uses "monster" comment for fundraising appeal]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Well, why don't you condemn Notorious W.E.S., if you find meanspirited derision so depressing?
Notorious W.E.S. is responsible for more knee-jerk derision of the Obama campaign than one hundred Obama supporters combined.
I never see any Clinton supporters condemning Notorious W.E.S. (and if you think I'm exaggerating how snide and nasty Notorious W.E.S. is, please see his past 2163 postings).
Every time I think I'm ready to reconcile myself to the fact that Clinton might be the nominee, I read a post by Notorious W.E.S. and think "Well, fuck that. Maybe not."
W.E.S., if you want to get Hillary Clinton elected, you are really not helping the cause.