Letters to the Editor
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rbbrown207
I don't have enough of a net worth to be an elitist....
You write:
You SOBs certainly didn't have the misfortune to have been born in the hills of WVa, Kentucky, or Appalachia. The people who live in those places are often honest, good hearted souls, who are just trying to get by in this world. They many be poor, they may not have a good education but they are not stupid and due your derision. I certainly would like to see the tables turned and you arrogant elitists have to deal with the hand these people have been dealt and see how you like it. Get off your high horse. If Obama can't connect with these voters it is not their fault.
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You have a valid point. Who's fault is it? Maybe the Bush administration for putting three trillion dollars or so into a quagmire in Iraq that has only caused escalating deaths, ill-will around the world and our country further into debt. On the other hand, approximately 20% of West Virginia citizens, according to government statistics, have a difficult time reading at a fourth grade level.
Do you think that I think this is funny? I don't. I think it's disgusting. And I think that a Democrat with a plan for education, whether it is Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, is what the residents of West Virginia deserve.
You may think that it is okay to call Obama supporters elitist SOB's but I don't think you've actually talked to many of us. I've spent a lot of my adult life without health care, or with inadequate health care, and I'm sickened by a Republican run government that can't afford to educate people or take care of them when they're sick, but it can afford them to fight endless wars in the middle east (one is brewing now with Iran) or to incarcerate them.
What kind of country are we? We need people like you to care about Democratic ideals. Race and gender aren't gon't to be solved in this election, but treating all people like they matter, regardless of what they look like or who they're voting for, would be one step in the right direction.
peace.
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@gadfly1
I want you and other Hillary Clinton supporters to understand that I was never going to support her in her run. Not back when the rumors of her running for POTUS were circulating around her Senate race in 2000, and every year since. And I have ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS voted Democrat. I just don't want to go back to the Clinton years. And it's not because she's a woman. I know the Clintons are talented and brilliant, but I don't want to go back in time. And I think a lot of Obama supporters started out the election season this way. We were not going to support her unless we absolutely had to.
In addition to the hard-core Obama people, we are the Kucinich, Edwards, Biden, Dodd, Richardson, Gravel, and even Nader people who want someone different. And THAT is why a young unexperienced and equally brilliant bi-racial man is poised to have a shot at it. But I have always defended her. To hear Clinton supporters say that by not supporting her we are un-Democrat-ic feels a little too authoritarian to me. And I remember when the insults started flying from the right and from dyed-in-the-wool Clinton people that we were Kool-aid drinkers and so on. To me, a white women in her 30's who lives in the ghetto in Brooklyn, this is not about race or gender. Obama has empowered us, instead of telling us that he knows best and is going to just fix everything for us. He's put out the call, "you want change, you gotta work for it, and IT IS possible!".
I know a lot of people have full time jobs and families and they can't go out and be active, so this part of Obama's message doesn't resonate so strongly with them, but I really feel like Clinton's strategy for winning is not uplifting or empowering to me. And I don't necessarily like the attitudes of a lot of Clinton supporters and I know they feel the same about Obama supporters. But you seem like you want to hash it out and that is very hopeful to me. Because to me, this really is about moving forward and away from the last 20 years. And in my opinion, because Obama has offered to us a voice in the process, we are going to hold him to that and other elected officals, and it may not be a sea change, but I really think it is progress. I have no illusions about Obama, but what I like most about him is that he has come the most close to telling it like it is, and I am more comfortable with that than the old school ways of politicking.
Ugh. I wish we could do a little healing, I am so disturbed by the blatant anger of some of these posts. Thanks for being willing to hear someone out.
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If you say it, it must be true
"The only thing I've said about the WV and KY primaries is that they just don't matter. Obama could lose 100% of the vote in both states and he'd still be the nominee, so kvetching about whether Hillary could win there is pointless. This race is over."
Way to play the "lowering expectations" game. I guess all those people voting in WV today should just go home because MikeLP said their primary just doesn't matter.
In reality, of course it matters. You are just arrogantly trying to pretend that it doesn't because it's not likely to change the eventual outcome.
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Clinton might win WV... but not enough to make a difference
I think that people are going to find a change in latitude among the voters in the remaining states. Clinton is in very close proximity to Bush in brown nosing the voters and superdelegates to make people believe in what she says. But people aren't buying it anymore, which was made clear by her Indiana "win". Any chance of victory in this contest has dwindled to nothing. She thinks that she has a broad base of support, but I think that she's going to get a dose of reality once this primary is over. She has an advantage in the state, but I think that she's underestimating Obama's charm, sincerity, and mission to improve on the government that has failed us for 8+ years. After the betrayals of the Bush administration, the people are ready for someone who wants to make things better for the government and the people, who is looking out for them. They don't want someone who wants to launch another war, destroy the economy, and create an even more colossal deficit. We need this country to change and the only way that's going to happen is to have new and innovative political system of government and try to solve the problems that the old politics have created. Washington is broken and Obama wants to fix it.
Clinton remaining in this race, as pointless as it is, is only going to discredit her even more than it already has. She's even at risk in the Senate, which will not do well by her. Her whole political career is on the line.
She's going down, but not in a blaze of glory... it's far too late for that.