Letters to the Editor
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Reminds me of an interview with Russ Feingold
This article reminds me of something Russ Feingold wrote a while back regarding a tour of the southern states he made before he finally shed his presidential ambitions for 2008. I can't remember the specifics of what he said, but the gist was that the people he met lived in an accepted state of poverty, insofar as the "white male" would rather vote for someone who will guarantee their right to own a gun over their right to affordable health care, or a pro-life candidate vs. a candidate promising new roads or more housing opportunities.
I was struck by this, that there is a segment of the population who are not only content to live in poverty and uncertainty, but through their voting patterns, are condemning the rest of America, or at least a large portion of it, to the same fate.
So I still marvel at the lame attempts of the Democrats in the past couple of election cycles to pander to this group that has no interest in affordable health care, a good education, or a renovated national infrastructre. Let them vote for their "family values" candidate (whatever the hell that means anyway) whose state is last in the nation on jobs and education. It's tragic.
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Stop pandering to them
The average southern white male will not vote for a Democratic presidential candidate even if the Democratic party focused all its social agenda to help him improved his economic circumstances. All a republican candidate has to to do his utter the words guns, gays, foreigners and Jesus, and those bozos will vote for a republican and against their own interests. A [ortion of them will start voting for a Democratic candidate only by default, i:e when the economic collapse that is inevitable due to the Bush policies triggers a deep depression in the Bubba states. Even then, many of them will remain stupid and ignorant enough to continue supporting conservatives. Let them remain in their profound state of ignorance and stop pandering to that hopeless block.
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re: Russ Feingold
What condescending claptrap. This is the same Russ Feingold who believes he and the government know better than you about when and how you should ration your political speech. The McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill is an unconstitutional monstrosity but perfectly reflects the elitist mentality behind the Feingolds of the world.
The people he met lived in an accepted state of poverty, insofar as the "white male" would rather vote for someone who will guarantee their right to own a gun over their right to affordable health care, or a pro-life candidate vs. a candidate promising new roads or more housing opportunities.
"Accepted state of poverty!!!" Give me a break. Just because some people are satisfied to live in ways that Feingold considers "poverty," e.g., they don't drive a Lexus or vacation "at the shore," even though most of them probably fall nowhere near the official poverty level, probably have more than one car, a flat-screen TV, and own their own homes.
And, yes, some people consider the government's duty to protect the weak and helpless, most especially babies in the womb, is more important than something like roads and houses. Such reasoning is unfathomable to elitists like Feingold. Worse, it sets up a false dichotomy: why can't we protect life and have roads and houses. Feingold thinks we're too stupid to notice this.
pander to this group that has no interest in affordable health care, a good education, or a renovated national infrastructre
Everyone would like affordable health care; we just don't trust the Hillarys or Russ Feingolds of this world to deliver it. And who is the primary group standing in the way of good education in this country? The National Education Association, one of the most politically corrupt unions in the world but one that has Democrats like Feingold eating out of their palms.
It's attitudes like Feingold's (and yours) that ensures the Democrats will continue to lose a certain demographic for generations. You don't understand it, make no effort to understand it, and paint oversimplified caricatures of it.
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And yet another reason
Even then, many of them will remain stupid and ignorant enough to continue supporting conservatives. Let them remain in their profound state of ignorance and stop pandering to that hopeless block.
-- pantanal
And yet another reason Dems will never get this vote. Not only does he display a deeply profound ignorance, pantanal actually thinks white men don't notice when they're talked about like this.
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Lovebirds Don't Take Chances
"Lovebirds" (an odd tag given the views expressed so far if ever there was one) presents an interesting contemporary anomaly. A strategist certainly, but with no underlying value or point of view that has any meaning that I can see so far. (I'm sure he'll correct me if I am wrong.) One wonders if he and Mr. Rove went to the same school.
Why have a "Southern Strategy," or any political strategy of any kind if the point is only to win votes with nothing else at stake? That makes you smart, professional, and nobodies fool, but what broader social value does it serve? Why not go to the race track or bet on the next derivative? Why take the time to write about politics if that's all that it's about?
This is aside from whether the actual strategizing is correct. I can see why his or her response to being given wealth is simply to hide it so nobody will know, and possibly try to take it away. Wealth for the conscientous provides opportunities. That's how people who create their wealth understand it, at least the ones who want to make a difference to somebody other than themselves.
I'm going to be interested to see if you ever "come out" and take some sort of stand during the election. It's a part of the dialogue because their are so many who play the same game these days. They are above it all, on their perch, never wrong,
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Being a white male myself
I don't refer to all white males of course, only to certain white southern males, typically without a college education, blue color, and with racist and xenophobic attitudes. Those who claim that this type of person is a liberal invention are lying, because there are ten of millions of them around, unfortunately. My point is that there's absolutely nothing a Democratic candidate can do to get the support of the average southern white male. All the policy papers, speeches and programs wouldn't convince those people to vote for a Democrat, regardless of how much better their lives would become. All a Republican candidate has to do is bring up the race card, claim the Democrat is trying to take their guns away from them and mention that the Democrat supports gay rights to get their vote, and this isn't going to change.