Letters to the Editor
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Buckwheat?
Wow, W.E.S., you've stooped to racist name-calling.
Very appealing.
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When did black folk stop being working class?
Are they drinking lattes now?
And, as I saw the stats, by the way, Obama did slightly better with the white working class in PA than in OH. Granted, in Ohio there was that whole Dittohead crossover thing, so either Hillary won with the help of reactionaries in OH or Obama was closing the gap in PA. Spin as you will.
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@ skylark
"Leave it to the Democratic Party to clumsily get its feet tangled in a web of avoidable chaos. I think it's time for both major parties to disappear and let new parties arise which will be more inclined to do the people's business."
Chaos enhanced by Rush's operation...and Democrats are LETTING them!
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Stalemate?
It's not a stalemate. Barring BS maneuvering Hillary has lost.
Hillary can't win without shenanigans, so the continuation of the race, and the accompanying boost for McCain is solely her fault.
If she cared about her country, or her party, or anything other than herself she'd accept her defeat and we could all move on.
Go Hillary! Nuke Iran!
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2-1 tv ad advantage - big whoop! If hillary had the dough she would have spent it, too.
For example, exactly what benefits did Obama's better than 2-to-1 financial advantage on television buy him in Pennsylvania?<<<
It whittled a 23% lead down to 9.6 in 5 weeks is what it did. The more people saw him (outside of the racist white hicks and women of a certain age who are projecting themselves into the race) the more they supported him.
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Wrong, Walter.
First the Iraq War is still the issue for many of us, because it was/is so deeply amoral, and so rooted ultimately in a sense of "might makes right" irrationality. Obama is the only serious presidential contender other than Dean to come down squarely against it, and from before it started. Obfuscating Hillary's vote to authorize force by referring to her speech is nonsense. She was trying to cover her ass with that speech, but everyone with a decent memory of that time knows that by the winter of 2002-2003 it was absolutely clear that a vote to authorize force was rubber-stamping the administration's already-made decision for war.
Second, you can talk all you want about the vagueness of Obama's rhetoric and his "empty" inspiration. In fact, however, he is running against a pervasive cynicism that has infected our society.
There is no one more pathetic than someone foolish enough to devote themselves to a humanitarian cause.
Greed is good.
The only way to live is to screw your neighbor.
Compromise and compassion are signs of weakness and to be despised.
The strong are admirable because they can kick ass.
He who dies with the most toys win.
And so on. I have observed these attitudes and watched them metastize since I attended an elite private high school in the late '70, through college in the '80s, right until today. Obama, although he is of course ambitious and thinks highly of himself, challenges these attitudes. Clinton is the very embodiment of them, in private at least - see Theda Skocpol's comments on the meetings she attended with Clinton following the 1994 Democratic loss of the House of Representatives.
To put it bluntly, the baby boomers as a whole (with many honorable exceptions) are a major problem here. One of the most pampered, fortunate generations in human history, they have made idols of greed, power, fear, and conspicuous consumption. Not coincidentally, most of them won't vote for Obama.
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@ Nigata
I'm with you till you lay it all on the Boomers.
Where I live, my fellow Boomers and I are all for Obama, so it's not that simple either.
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You Just Don't Get It
Wow, W.E.S., you've stooped to racist name-calling.
Very appealing.
-- Whispers
No, no, no! That's just an example of how clever his insightful wisdom can be, as others have defended him elsewhere. That it looks like racism is just his winking nod to the latte-sipping intelligensia he's out to entertain while gently tweaking the noses of.
That or he's just Notorious A.S.S. going Notorious A.S.S. on you, one or the other.
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I appreciate your thoughtfulness, klwatkins
I'm not sure where the "Obamabot/Hillbot" thing came from. We found out a few threads back that one of the foremost Hillary supporters here accidentally admitted he was a Republican. I suspect that among the true believers for both candidates there are plenty of non-Dems trying to stir up the pot. It's clear from the line of stories here at Salon and throughout the MSM that there are story after story attempting to continue the primary fight. In truth, it now becomes harder for the Clinton camp because her chances of winning are minimal.
I hear a lot of accusations of cultish behavior against people who support Obama, but most supporters I know are like klwatkins. They looked at him and his record and his position on issues and find him the more appealing of the two remaining candidates. klwatkins is a white, working class woman. Myself, I'm a retired white, working class man. I went through the candidates to the left of the two remaining before I settled on Obama. The dealbreaker was Hillary surrounding herself with anti-labor people and being untrustworthy on anti-labor issues.
While she claims to want to get us out of Iraq her past record and her recent threat of committing nuclear genocide against a nation without nuclear weapons is, uh, disturbing. Like her support of Kyl-Lieberman, this kind of rhetoric gives our current President cover to commit a similar attack on Iran on his way out of office. That is either very stupid on Clinton's part, or it's a calculation that puts her on the opposite side of humanity than me.
While Clinton's public statements about universal healthcare sound noble, her actual plan, mandating private citizens to pay private companies for health insurance, will drive costs up and is likely to be unconstitutional. Better to go directly to a single-payer plan that doesn't put the government into the position of forcing you to buy from a private company. It saves money for the citizen and is constitutional.
Of course, it would cut out the industry that has dumped so much money into this campaign.
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Over all, a fairly even-handed assessment
But I do wish Salon writers could watch out for the loaded language, where they turn an otherwise positive comment into a negative. Here, once again, I see more of an interpretation that Obama supporters are the immovable objects in this equation.
Well, in the past week, I've met several Hillary supporters who are supporting her "Because it's time for a woman President."
"Okay, but what about this point or that point?"
"Men have had the power long enough. Time for a woman."
"Okay, I'm not trying to change your mind. I'm just trying to have a discussion, here. What about issue X? It could be that neither candidate has a good enough answer right now."
"All I know is it's time for a female to be president." And etc.
Each of these Hillary supporters seemed to have no vision at all beyond that one core idea. Time for a female; end of story. No more discussion.
The problem with the title of this piece is that they are not in a stalemate. Hillary has been checkmated; she can't overtake Obama's lead. She can't win, but she won't concede. Her only strategy is to take it to the superdelegates and hope that they give her the nomination in spite of her having lost through the regular rules of the game.
So, ultimately, I find this endless replay on Salon of the same old story to be really frustrating. The camps are obviously set in, and the basic tone of all these articles seems to be that the Obama supporters should just stop being so obstinate and vote for Hillary. How about writing something about the policy's of each candidate. Why one person is better in one area, and the other person might be better in another. How can we find common ground?
I feel like I keep writing the same letter. Salon is uniquely placed to elevate the discussion. Let us discuss our mutual vision for 2009, as we try to undo the damage wrought by the neo-con nightmare. Let's show those blue-collar workers and the college-educated people alike how we are not as different as we might think.