Letters to the Editor
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On the bleatings of Anonymous
anonymous is telling everyone to read
http://thecityedition.com/Pages/Archive/Winter08/2008Election.html
I went and looked at it. TIN-FOIL hat Hillary paranoia stuff, folks. The Conspiracy to Get Republicans to vote OUT Hillary.
If you want to make an argument, anonymous, make the argument. Don't leave provacative and silly teasers sitting around about Karl Rove conspiring with Mickey Mouse to beat Hillary. It's just silly.
Why is it just silly? For a simple reason: The Republicans DESPERATELY want to run against Hillary. She will mobilize the Republican base like no other person. The Republicans have only one chance to win, and that's by running against Hillary in the GE. So, they don't want to knock her out in the Primary.
Nope, the Republicans are registering to vote for Obama because..... brace yourself .... Obama has a wide appeal. See, not that complicated.
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@cythera45
cythera45 wrote:
It's a cult, basically. If you disagree, raise any questions at all about their demigod, they swarm you, demonize you, chant in your face. I do think it is turning thoughtful adults off.
I agree. The whole phenomenon has eery echoes of the Rev. Jim Jones supporters when he was at Redwood City CA in the early 70s. People were totally mesmerized after they came away from one of his sermons. It was like they were in the zone or something - with a misty look in their eyes, and a kind of zombie like posture. You see the same thing in Obamaniacs, especially the young.
Like Jim Jones, Obama also has the charismatic, preacher man sermon style. I heard him talking to a crowd the other night, and had to look twice to make sure he wasn't inside a church.
The chanting is another disturbing aspect of supportets. Jones' minions used to do exactly the same thing: chant over and over until you had to leave or withdraw.
Finally, the chanting and demonizing bears similarity to the pod people in the remake of 'Invasions of the Body Snatchers' - I mean the 1978 version with Donald Sutherland. Watch the film and then check the eyes and mode of behaviior of the newly taken over humans. They look just like the fervent Obama supporters!
The resemblance is really frightening. NO wonder so many seniors want no part of his bandwagon.
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Oh, didn't you know?
Diderot wrote:
What will their man do when the right-wing hate machine attacks? Oh, he'll simply transcend partisanship! Sure: he can rise above the fray on the hot air he spews in his speeches.
Didn't you know? It will be a "new" kind of campaign with none of that there nasty stuff! SO we were told by all the pundits that gathered on 'Hardball' this evening. According to them, "With McCain the candidate there will be no cut throat tactics or Swift boating or nastiness. So it is an advantage to Obama".
Right, and pigs fly, and tooth fairies are real.
But we do know that Mark MacKinnon the same guy that ran Bush's 2000 and 2004 cmapaigns is running McCain's. Looks to me like the right wing hate machine will be out in full force.
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droogoy (and I guess cynthera45) proves my point AKA Smith
Now Obama is being likened to Jim Jones and his supporters as cultish slaves. Do you really think that elevates the discussion? Do you not think that is divisive? Maybe you just don't realize that it is? Instead of admonishing Obama's supporters for using divisive language, tell your fellow Hillary supporters the same. Tell them to also cut out the calling us childish and referring to Obama as a kid.
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droogoy and even AKA Smith
I just don't get why you're insulting people like me who have thought long and hard about both candidates, think they're both really good in different ways, and have come down on the side of Obama.
(AKA--I haven't read through the whole thread here, but am referring to your reference to "the Obama people." If by that you mean people who have voted for or plan to vote for Obama: we are not a monolithic body.)
It's just insulting to assume that we who have tilted toward Obama have done so without good reason. I certainly can see why people would choose Hillary. It was a really close call for me, and since Ohio hasn't voted yet, it could change. Why the vitriol?
Please forgive me if I have missed a bunch of junk from Obama supporters. I just had time to read the newest letters, and this is what I'm seeing, and it is just tiresome. If Obama supporters are attacking Hillary supporters (attacking the candidates on issues is just fine with me) as unthinking or shrill based on nothing but the fact of their support, then I condemn them too.
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@ droogoy
To be fair, not all Obama supporters are like that. We do see Obama people post in these threads who speak to the issues and who care about issues.
I actually think the more dangerous Obama supporters are people who actually are some of the crossover voters who are extreme Hillary-haters. Sure as the sun's gonna rise, those voters will vote for McCain in the fall.
Hillary-haters usually fall in three groups as I see it:
1. The same Starr-chamber-like Republicans who went after Bill Clinton because he was taking their dreams of a continuing Republican regime away from them.
2. Men who just plain don't want to see a woman as president and probably take all the frustrations that they cannot resolve with their wives or other women in their lives out on a cardboard creature of their imagination called Hillary.
3. People who can't forgive her for her war vote and other votes that they don't like regarding military choices.
Can a Hillary-hater also become an Obamaniac? I suppose so. Strong feelings of hate could prompt strong feelings of love. However, I think this is not really the usual Hillary-hater. Instead, Obamaniacs are probably pretty similar to young people who adore Ron Paul, of which my daughter is one. They are looking for someone who will speak particularly to them. They are looking for something or someone to believe in who in no way reminds them or their baby-boomer Mom or Dad. I also subscribe a bit to the Steele theory. (Another story.)
Those preacher cadences of Obama's are probably pretty new and amazing to people who have never been to the type of church that employs such techniques. As someone brought up in my early years in a Southern Baptist Church with an actual revivalist preacher for one particularly memorable year, I am totally immune to the "Jesus" appeal, but I sure do recognize the language of revivalism. I can stand it. As long as he doesn't start preaching dominionism, I will vote for Barack if he is the nominee.
Obama won't work as well for evangelical whites, especially if McCain chooses someone like Huckabee as a running mate. Those folks already have Jesus.
Not to put too strong of a point on it -- because I don't want to get into a debate on the issue of electability -- but you can find in much of what I have said here the reasons why I feel that Obama cannot prevail over John McCain.