Letters to the Editor
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The Solution: Obama steps down from run, retires from public life
and is never seen again.
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I Live By the Wisconsin Border
Actually the state of Wisconsin is similar to my state of Illinois. It is heavily rural as well as blue collar.
Obama has been doing very well with white voters across the nation. But, after his win in Wisconsin and going into Ohio, I think the whole mood changed.
There were a couple things coming together. The media's desire to create conflict and drama. Rev. wright and the out of context bitter remarks.
What began as taking Obama to task abit to create conflict became a feeding frenzy and punishing Obama for Rev. Wright while at the same time the media becoming addicted to the story.
The fact is that most voters do not want to hear about it. They don't care. But, the media's addiction to Rev. Wright and talking about it to death, is turning voters off. They figure why vote for Obama if they have to listen the media talk endlessly about the man's pastor. Or race in general. On and on about some storyline regarding race.
the media turned Obama into the scary black candidate. And would not let it go. It simply turned off white voters in general.
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Who, we learn from our mistakes?
Working class voters had many opportunities to learn from their mistakes. The reelected Reagan, they helped elect the first Bush in 1988, they voted for the present disaster of a president twice by large margins over the Democratic candidates, and all McCain has to do is keep repeating "gay marriage", "I'm a patriot" and "Bomb, bomb, bomb, Iran" and they'll vote for him in the fall, against their own interests and economic survival prospects. Why should people who chose to remain ignorant, who willingly fall prey to demagogues and charlatans, who often hold bigoted and racist views against people of color expect to receive any respect from others? regardless of two stolen elections, Bush wouldn't never have been president if it hadn't been for the working-class white vote. Indirectly,due to their ignorance, they gave us Iraq, a virtual police state, ten trillion dollar deficits, looming depression and everything else the last 8 years entail. We need to find a way to win elections without those people and stop pandering to them.
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@cythera, PTgirl
You're both racist Republicans, right?
Cythera, you admitted last week that you're Republican supporting McCain. In a discussion of Dems you have no standing. Get your sheet washed for your next meeting. Proud T, you talk like a racist and you're from Texas were the Dems aren't going to win anyway. So what's the point of someone who's a Dem listening to your racist fantasies?
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Double Post, sorry
sorry to double post but, read ClareA's post.
The disconnect between the blue collar and what the media and bloggers stereotype blue collar to be.
They are not monolithic.
But, it is true that while Obama has plenty of detailed policy, it is never talked about.
In Illinois Obama was known as a bit of a wonk. So, it surprises me that throughout the campaign the media makes him out to be some policy lightweight and Hillary to be Ms. Wonk. In reality they are about the same on the level of wonkiness.
The media obsessions and pre-fabricated storylines are disrespecting the blue collar voters. They are like everyone else. Labels in general are disrespecting. Blue collar people would be more receptive to Obama id the media talked about his policies and quit obsessing on his race and pastor.
People are fed up with the media;s shallowness to both candidates. They are sick of hearing about pastors, race and gender. They simply want someone to fix the problems.
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@ pantanal
While I get your anger -- working class people have given their worst enemies (and all of our worst enemies) the margin of victory consistently -- the blame doesn't lie entirely with them.
At some point, Democrats stopped working for those people. While the GOP is worse for them, Democrats started taking corporate money in amounts like never before and just stopped fighting for the public square. Democrats accepted the memes of small government, low taxes, expensive military, deregulation, corporate consolidation, and just stopped funding things that helped working class people. That left the choice (at least publicly) between a vague party that distinguished itself only on social issues and a party that looked straight forward and bold (however disingenuous).
Working class voters, polls show, don't care about homophobia and abortion that much -- but liberals lose if those are the only issues on the table. If working class voters were given a clear choice between a Republican and a Democratic candidate who was truly progressive in the traditional sense of the word, Democrats would walk away with the victory. But a real progressive would have to be a very talented politician because s/he would have to reverse a lot of sacred-cow assumptions that have probably become dangerously ingrained (e.g. the rest of the world is about to kill us; government is useless; unregulated capital is the next best thing to god; taxing rich people = taxing everyone).
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if only
obama would have a sex-change operation...
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Actually, Ohio and Pennsylvania are the different ones
I lived in Ohio for over ten years. The Klan was very strong there in the Twenties and it's remnants are very strong there today, as they are in Pennsylvania. Both have strongly Southern-culture rural areas (Ohio's rural areas from Columbus to Cincinnati are so Southern that the bottom half of the state should be considered Southern- in Cincinnati and Ironton the accents are so strong you mistake them for Kentucky).
Indiana has a strongly Southern-culture (including a legacy of slavery and lynching) rural southern part of the state. The upper part is Midwestern (as is blue collar northern Wisconsin- and Northern Wisconsin is not liberal or progressive- I live here, I know.) Obama does well in the Midwest, and CLinton never came North. Midwestern rural also can sometimes have a big problem with strong women (I've seen that up close and personal) and will go male over female). So I'm thinking that Indiana's hybrid nature will make it a close race.
There's elitism in both the Clintonistas and the Obamaites. Working class people are not monolithic. Many have been economically destroyed by the combination of exporting jobs and illegal immigration. Interracial relationships are actually more prevalent in some working class areas and are changing the demographics' attitudes as we speak (I'm seeing that, too).
They are churchgoing, but not necessarily fundamentalist (that's a stereotype). The person who said Ohio white rural are not like Wisconsin white rural workingclass is correct. Appalachia IS SOuthern in it's culture. while Wisconsin is German/Norwegian/Swedish/etc). On the other hand, Appalachia's been traditionally discriminated against more by whites (and describing Clinton's support as "largely white working class" is a shortcut by a lazy media- her support, like Obama's, is far more diverse than that). I've know non-racist Appalachians and racist Appalachians. You can NOT just shove them together and pull predictions out of your ass this way.
I also think that Clinton wants the superdelegates to give it to her, or to be VP. If Florida and Michigan are given to Clinton, there would be a 15th Amendment disenfranchisement lawsuit that would kill the Democratic party. Like it or not, the RULE FALL EQUALLY ON EVERYONE, AND THOSE PRIMARIES DID NOT FOLLOW THE RULES. I wouldn't have a problem with a revote (Clinton gets to pay for it) with EVERYONE on the ballot, because I think Michigan will split for Obama and Florida for Clinton (although some Cubans may never forgive the Elian Gonzales and thing and may vote in the Demo primary just to get payback, so Florida is not as certain as people think it is. There's a large Haitian population there, and the snowbirds are unpredictable. Military dislikes Clinton because of the Clinton drawdown in the 90s, so that to makes Florida unpredicatable. I'll give it to Clinton on the basis of the snowbirds).
I can live with Clinton in the general, but a lot of people will be teed. I'd rather see Gore or Edwards drafted if the SDs are going to ignore the popular vote (and without Florida or Michigan, Clinton can not catch up in the popular vote). An Edwards draft would tee off far fewer, most blacks could live with him with Obama as the VP, and the election goes Democratic. I doubt Edwards would go for Clinton as a VP, given his Daily Show performance ("Carville might bite me" was the funniest line in that).
Edwards has to be the VP for EITHER to get working class credibility.