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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
For somne days now I have been doing telephone polling through our local Obama office. I am not quoting the net results of all those doing this voting, just my experience.
First, the phone numbers I worked with were older citizens (I'm 76 myself). I talked easily and casually with most of the respondents. We asked nothing of the respondents unless they were willing to drop by HQ, get materials, learn Obama positions. Ages ranged from 65 to 87. Our local population is small town or rural, predominantly caucasian, and votes Democratic in almost all elections. I doubt if this is the usual Obama voter profile. Still, it is a good portion of who we are in non-urban Wisconsin.
!. 67% of those contacted verbalized support for Obama.
2. Many were grateful for the chance to speak out and liked being discussants.
3. A fraction expressed resentment at being asked their preference in the election. Some had voted absentee early.
4. A very few pointed to their "right to life" convictions as a reason for rejecting Obama.
5. One person puzzled me by stating he was voting for Palin for President.
6. Perhaps obviously, most of the persons called were retired persons.
And our district always votes in higher proportion than the balance of the state. In our primary balloting we voted for Clinton in majority. I hope this is interesting.
If McCain steals the election and if we are unable to emigrate I think we should all stop paying federal taxes. What's that called? Um....taxation without representation? Pay state and local taxes, but do not give a red cent to an illegitimate federal government. The are only about stealing our money, so this is one good way to send them a message.
I often read, in Salon Letters and elsewhere, that African American support of Barack Obama, which is supposedly at 95%, is inherently racist and, therefore, any criticism of the residual racism evident in White small town America, which is notably smaller than 95%, is inherently unfair. What is never mentioned is long-standing Black support for the Democratic party since the days of FDR. What is rarely mentioned is the fact that the Republicans have little to offer African Americans and have made little effort to change that perception. But, what I resent, as a Black person who will vote for Obama, is the implication that we have somehow missed the disaster of the Bush administration and the 12 years of Republican dominance in Congress (before the 2006 coup)and that we have not also been moved and inspired, as many White people have been moved and inspired, by the passion, brilliance and vision of the Senator from Illinois. No, the seemingly comfortable assumption is that we Black folks are going to vote for him simply because he is Black.
Make no mistake. I am very excited (in a cautious concern for his life way) and amazed that a Black man has moved the nation in the way that Obama has. Senator Obama's socio-political ascension is so unprecedented as to make words like "unprecedented" wholly inadequate. But I seriously doubt if that alleged 95% African American voting bloc is so blinded by his skin color it ignores the platform on which his candidacy stands. Still, I recognize it is, somehow, much easier to think of us as a one-note, monolithic, melanin-bound people who would never consider the issues of a presidential campaign, just as I recognize that racism isn't relegated to small towns.
OBAMA 2008
This small-town ex-Navy guy liked the McCain of 2000 and probably would have voted for him in 2008.
His pick of Sarah Palin was reckless and poor judgment, and so I was far less enthusiastic. But it's his ad campaign that moved me into the Obama camp. In a battleground state like Wisconsin, his campaign is advertising heavily, about 6:1 being negative, maybe more.
The lies and distortions are bad enough. What pushes me over the edge is the "uplifting" photo of John at the end with his "I've approved this message" copy. The photo of John's face from below looks like they're preparing him for Mount Rushmore!
McCain in 2000 was an honorable ex-warrior; this is anything but that. He and Cindy should have to watch these commercials from now until November. His dishonesty, coupled with the image of John, is a deal-breaker. I feel like his first wife.
I find that interesting, GaryVan, thanks.
I wonder if the person who said he was voting for Palin for Prez could've had some kind of vision or something?
2012 is an important year in some calendars.
Actually, I do have an honest to God hoot owl in the woods behind my house. Occasionally stops by for a visit. Makes more sense than this one.
Salon could definitely profit by upgrading the letters pages.
Obama should tone down, if not drop the kind of "save the middle-class" rhetoric he has been using for this whole election. This is not a matter of bending any kind of truth about class in America either, but facing up to the fact that middle-class is working class. When our economy tanks, it is not simply the lower-class who suffer, though their suffering is not as readily mitigated, especially after decades of neo-liberal and neo-conservative "structural adjustments."
The middle-class exist precisely for this kind of tension, and though Obama is on the upper end of that tax-bracket, he too WORKS for a living. Obama needs to stress that: working-class does not belong to the machinists and dock-workers only, but to a vast part of the population alienated from itself by the upward surge in wealth over the last at least eight years. This is a positive in-road for more skeptical Leftists, too, because if pulled off right it is a step towards rebuilding working-class solidarity.
The beautiful and sad part of this suggestion is that it isn't a matter of political conniving. It's a matter of being honest about an important issue, and it both connects him to unlikely voters and gives the true working-class an anchor for its interests, if not in Obama (I am not blind to his corporate backers) then in the campaign itself.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
