Letters to the Editor
Picko
Published Letters: 272 Editor's Choice: 11
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skylerdexter
[Read the article: Clinton: "The people... have chosen [their] candidate"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm just saying that if you Clinton folk are going to continue shouting to the skies that you're voting for McCain if you don't get your way, it's going to be pretty hard for people not to conclude that Hillary's supporters were in part to blame for the loss if it happens.
It's absurd to spend months and months running around screaming at the top of your lungs, 'I'M GOING TO VOTE FOR McCAIN! I'M GOING TO VOTE FOR McCAIN! I'M GOING TO VOTE FOR McCAIN! I'M GOING TO VOTE FOR McCAIN!" and then think that, if Obama does lose, people aren't going to remember that you were bragging about bringing down the Democratic ticket.
That's not me planting a meme, that's just common sense.
By the way, I always find it curious that Clinton supporters so ostentatiously proclaim that they're not voting for the ticket if Obama is the nominee, but somehow the Obama people are supposed to automatically unify behind HIllary if the super-delegates give the nomination to her.
Either candidate is going to have a tough time getting elected without party unity - it cuts both ways.
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jebldmm
[Read the article: Clinton: "The people... have chosen [their] candidate"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]OK - make your bed, lie in it.
I'm a straight white male in the top third income bracket - the Republican Party has been very very good to my people.
Personally, I have been much better off during the Bush years than I was in the Clinton years.
I don't really care about abortion, so if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, it's no bother to me.
I don't have children - and I have no immediate plans to have any - so I don't have to worry about the Republicans wrecking my children's future.
I'm too old to be drafted into the army, and I don't know anyone who is serving in Iraq.
So if Obama loses, I'm going to be able to go on in my comfortable bourgeouis existence, drinking lattes and laughing at all the people who are getting fucked by the Republicans.
I really don't have much to lose.
And as the world turns to shit, I'll just bear in mind the immortal words of Voltaire: "Il faut cultiver son jardin."
And I'll just set to work cultivating my garden.
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skylerdexter
[Read the article: Clinton: "The people... have chosen [their] candidate"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Sounds like you should vote for McCain, then!
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1988 revisited
[Read the article: The other 18 million]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The interesting thing about 1988 is that Dukakis won 89% of the African American vote, even though Dukakis passed over Jesse Jackson for the Vice President slot. Nor did African-Americans stay home in that election; they represented 10% of the vote, which is consistent with the percentages in 1984, 1996, 2000, and 2004.*
So African-Americans showed loyalty to the Democratic Party in 1988 even when the nominating process did not play out in favor of the African-American candidate. Now, I know there is a big difference between Jesse's second place finish in 1988 (with approximately 30% of the delegates) and Hillary's in 2008 (with approximately 47% of the delegates by one reckoning). No doubt the closeness of the contest complicates matters considerably. But someone has to win and someone has to lose. If you're going to compete, you have to accept that fact. Obviously being a gracious winner is much easier than being a gracious loser. But there's a nobility in accepting defeat, dusting yourself off, and setting yourself to overcoming obstacles. One of my favorite quotes from Samuel Beckett is "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better." Just as Jesse Jackson paved the way for Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton will pave the way for another woman who - sooner than you think - will win the nomination and will become the first woman president. That's what I always thought Jesse Jackson meant when he said "Keep hope alive!": "Be patient - someday we SHALL overcome."
Now I'm sure someone will point out that this is all very easy for a white male to say. After all, it's easy to encourage other people to suck it up and overcome adversities that you have never had to face yourself. That's a fair criticism. And I can't even pretend that I'm exercising great independence of judgement in supporting Obama - I'm a white, urban, college-educated, moderately affluent male under the age of 40 - so in the end I really only voted with my tribe. But I feel fairly confident that if Obama had lost in a close contest, I - and a lot of my fellow Obamabots - would have come around in the end to vote for our second choice: Hillary Rodham Clinton.
*Ironically, Michael Dukakis got a larger percentage of the African-American vote than The Man Formerly Known As The First Black President ever got. Bill Clinton got 83% of the African-American vote in 1992 and 84% in 1996. Both John Kerry and Al Gore received a large percentage of the African-American vote than Bill (Kerry - 88%, Gore - 90%.) In the 1992 election, African-American turnout was only 8% of the total, which is slightly below the 10% and 11% turnout seen in 1984, 1988, 1996, 2000, and 2004.**
**Here's another suprising statistic - Walter Mondale lost the woman vote by 16%, even though he had the first female V.P. nominee on the ticket. That's the largest margin by which Democrats have lost the woman vote in the past 30 years - usually the Democrats either win the woman vote or lose it by only one or two percent.