Letters to the Editor
-
sigmund5
Your personal attacks are insufferable. I am disgusted by this supercilious, vindictive retort and frankly am not impressed by it in the least. Offer your opinions all you want but it is unjustifiable to slap people around in a personal manner.
-
@sesanders
Oh, I am indulging in personal attacks? Jesus H Christ....I think you are incredibly misguided on who can beat McCain, but that isn't the question. This has become a question of who has won the primary and why dumbasses refuse to concede and get behind the inevitable candidate. You are a sanctimonius dork who can't see beyond your nose. How exactly is pursuing a destructive and pointless campaign helpful to anyone? That is the problem with you folk...you refuse to accept reality for personal glory.
-
jebldmm
Either Obama is a fool, or you are.
Any third choices? You neglected to include yourself.
-
KateTexIndex
The KateTexIndex is the weighted percent value representing KateTex's probability of voting for Obama.
The KateTexIndex is currently estimated to be 0.00%
-
Like the Terminator...
...the only way to stop C2 is for her to be submerged in molten steel, and even this may not work. Her technology is that advanced.
-
sigmund5
We used to get a lot of Republicans on the NYT forums posting as Democrats. You don't suppose there's any chance that could happen here, do you?
Where's scorpio69er when you need him?
-
Southern Strategy
walter_map said "Yes. Good thing, too. It may not actually be possible to win the presidency without carrying at least a couple of Southern states. This is why the last three Democratic winners have been from the South."
Exactly. It seems like ever since Civil Rights there is no way for anyone even slightly left of center to win without appealing to the South. Pretty sad situation where the leadership of a nation hinges on not offending some ignorant racists. (I'm NOT saying all in the South are such, just an oversimplification I embrace when feeling overwhelmed and hopeless.) The last Dem president to NOT have a Southern accent was JFK.
OK. So say Obama hangs onto the states Kerry won and then adds an Alabama and a Georgia or two. Game over, right?
I'm just happy because it seems like this is an ingenious way to get over the stranglehold the Southern Conservatives have held our Party in for 40+ years now. Use their racism against them. I mean with the Dem voter registation we've been seeing, if all those people turn out for Obama, who cares what the conservatives in the mountain states think. And I'm not so sure we can totally count Obama out in MT either. Lot of independent minded folk in that state.
I would also like to add my voice to those complementing Salon on the quality of this article.
-
@KateTex
You can feel all you want about who is better than others. The problem is that the political world, despite the "I feel" epistemology of the Salonbog, doesn't wash. The race is over, don't demean yourself further.
I don't doubt your sincerity, but given some of your previous comments, I can't believe you aren't bitching more than me about the lack of discussion of class here. Hilary seems to think that middle class is well above 100K and most likely 250k. That is the deciding difference between the two and points to the problem with Salon.
Once Joan has an article about how class is defined and who gives contributions or why Hilary refused to tax hedge fund managers...I will listen.
-
Abandoning All Reason
Have any of you people ever taken part in a real campaign? It's like Mary Poppins is shilling for the Weathermen here, or something equally creepy. Please try hewing to political reality, which admittedly isn't real reality but has its own discernible rules.
-
Sigmund5
Your post is a personal attack all over again! Anybody who doesn't see things your way is a dumb ass. You said it yourself. This is exactly the kind of intolerance and disrespect that is going to hurt Obama's chances. Obama cannot win in November without Hillary supporters coming to his camp. It's that simple. So Obama supporters should learn to be halfway civil in their enthusiasm, especially toward other Democrats!!!
-
"Have any of you people ever taken part in a real campaign?"
I ran for student government in college about 20 years ago...the experience was very much like the Salon letters section.
-
Ease up, people
Can we please start to make peace here? We're ripping each other apart so that John McCain can come down and pick at our corpses like a Vulture with Karl Rove and Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter sitting in their perches snickering at us.
Obama supporters need to recognize that Hillary supporters are loyal democrats who want what's best for the country and Clinton supporters need to take a fresh look at our nominee and see his qualities, which are many. Don't give up on him as "unelectable," just because Hillary made the argument that she was "more electable." (and you believed your candidate, naturally.)
He's also not unpatriotic, weak, Muslim, or elitist... don't buy into those rovian stereotypes. He's your candidate now. He's OUR candidate now. Make peace with it and climb on board the bandwagon. There's lots of room, and beating the snot out of the R's this fall is going to be a blast.
-
sigmund5
Once Joan has an article about how class is defined and who gives contributions or why Hilary refused to tax hedge fund managers...I will listen.
I'll need to add that one to Hillary's list of sins. Somewhere under her increasing ties to the CFR and the Bilderbergers, not to mention certain high-end right-wing religious groups.
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/09/hillarys-prayer.html
-
Bravo xufapemu -- and here's to happy warriors
Thank you for the attitude adjustment. Way too many of us need to see the bigger picture and let go of our petty disputes to unite.
While I agree that Obama is the (very very likely) nominee, I see no harm in Hillary going through the remaining primaries. Obama AND Clinton are both better candidates than they were 6 months ago and I do think that going state to state, the full country is getting a taste of retail politics that only NH and Iowa used to enjoy. That it stresses out the die-hard politicos is simply too bad. It's good for the party and good for the country to have a good fight, even if it is sometimes a little messy.
Look at John McCain. He got to "unify" his party a full two months earlier. What good has that done him? No one's paying attention to him and he's generating very little heat. That nearly a quarter of GOP voters didn't vote for him in these past two primaries is significant; that it's barely mentioned and that having his primary battle over gives him very little opportunity to address this awful dynamic is even more significant.
One thing I've come to appreciate about certain politicians that I didn't use to; when they become "happy warriors." This was always Bill Clinton's strong suit. He could take a hit and he just got right back up, cracked a joke, and got back in the fight. When he was petulant and whiny, he wasn't likable and people were put off. Most of the time, though, he earned the respect of even many of those opposed to him. You had to give him credit for his willingness to keep at it, to have a sense of humor about it and to look like he was having fun.
Hillary has finally gotten into this groove. As the primaries started, she did seem at times too robotic or imperious. Then, when events didn't go her way, she sometimes seemed overly defensive and whiney. It didn't matter that she sometimes had legitimate complaints, this attitude just doesn't sell. But since Texas and Ohio she seems to have found her groove. Sometimes it's over the top but very often she comes off as someone who not going to let the little stuff get her down. I can't stand Bill O'Reilly and absolutely dreaded seeing her on the show -- but she was maginficent. She was tough without being abrasive - in other words, a happy warrior. She cleaned his clock without creating an enemy in the process. I'm willing to bet there were a number of GOP Hillary-haters who tuned in and had to admit to themselves that she had earned a bit of respect.
Obama has shown sides of this too. When he wiped the dust from his shoulders and pants and lightens up about the crap he's had to take, he's SO compelling. We see that this is a person that can take a lick and isn't going to let it rock him from his groove. Personally, as much as I love him as he is, earnest intellectual wonk and all, I do think he could stand to let the happy warrior out more. The fear that if he's too much the fighter he will be labeled the evil of all evils, an angry black man, is understandable. But if he's a happy fighter who makes it really clear that it's not about him and that, at the end of the day, the process is a long haul and the little stuff won't get you down, I think it'll raise his game all the more.
Here's to us all coming together and doing what we can to enjoy the challenge ahead rather than get all snarky, blamey and holier than thou. Forgive me for the "warrior" metaphor -- as I don't know a better phrase for this. But if we each become a bit of the happy warrior, in what will be a long and often nasty battle in the general election, we can get through it better, more effectively and be less stressed in the process.