Letters to the Editor
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Joan Walsh
You are the best commentator on the scene today. Smart, honest and impartial.
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The EXELON DEAL of Mr. Obama
another problem with the Obama campaign: Its supporters' reliance on their, and their candidate's, obvious moral and political superiority to win the election.
Obama's OBVIOUS MORAL SUPERIORITY IS NOT SO OBVIOUS. Not in the light of the Exelon deal.
-EXELON giving Obama big campaign contributions and making Mr. Axelrod a consultant;
-Obama rewriting the nuclear bill and removing the compulsory and immediate reporting requirement of nuclear leaks;
-Representing, in fact misrepresenting to the Iowa caucus his bill as an achievement and one which was passed;
Where is the CHANGE? Same old empty promises, misstatements. Remember "compassionate conservatism"??
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Democrats should get along
We Democrats need to stop fighting one another and focus on defeating Republicans. We have two terrific candidates -- either of the two will be far better than John McCain. Yes, about half of us prefer Obama and about half Clinton and the split will need to work itself out over the next few months. But, we can work it out in a constructive and positive way with both candidates talking about what they plan to do and how they plan to do it. Most Clinton supporters that I interact with will happily support Obama should he win. One would think that most Obama supporters would happily support Clinton over McCain. We should all stop the hateful rhetoric toward one another and work toward getting either Obama or Clinton elected in November.
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You are on to something...
I am a supporter of Hillary Clinton's and have been since the beginning of this election. I have not approved of the free pass Senator Obama has been given by the press and have grown increasingly weary of his Utopian-tinged rhetoric. I do like the man very much, however, and I believe that he has much to offer this country. He is a great public servant who will only be made greater with the passage of time.
He is becoming a victim of his own good press, however.
I have used the terms "canonization" and "saint" often when writing or discussing his candidacy, and with the public anointing he has received at the hands of the Kennedys, the other O, and Maria Shriver (among others) I feel such usage to be apt. People are beginning to doubt this man, and mainly because he is being packaged as a messiah and not the political animal that he truly is.
Two weeks ago almost everyone I knew was voting for Barack Obama, but this past week there has been a shift. People do not like to be told who to vote for, nor do they like to watch anyone publicly lynched. Barack Obama is being thrust down our throats and people are beginning to rebel. That is why he lost California. That is why is he lost Massachsetts. Several people I know have now rejoined me in the Hillary column out of pure disgust. And the trend is becoming clearer nationally: See the new gallop polls if you doubt it.
There are no saints in politics, and for the press and his supporters to so anxiously clamor for his canonization reeks of paternalism and very few people approve of being dictated to...
Thank you,
Robert Sandy
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Multiracialism
I have to agree with Joan about the groupthink mentality overtaking true Obamelievers. I did vote for him and I am from California. I gave my vote to Obama because an Obama win would strike a larger note than a Clinton one would; a message saying, no more political business as usual.
That being said, the reality is that Obama is business as usual. You don't have to look to hard to find a political platform not very different from Clinton's. You don't have to look much harder to see a leap-frogging political trajectory, based more on caution (and more often political cowardice) than actual hutzpa. I simply can't believe that Obama wouldn't have voted to give Bush authority to start the war if he had been in the senate. All of his political manoevers since then indicate someone at least as politically self-conscious as Clinton.
Lastly, on the Multicultural issue that Joan brought up; indeed, Obama would be the crown jewel of multiculturalism if he could simply lose the race euphemisms (the skinny kid from Kansas, or whatever he said at the 04 Convention). Obama is dark-skinned, but he is not the descendant of slaves. His refusal to ever talk about his skin color has left people to wonder if he is worried about being perceived as half-black, or even half-white. Indeed, Obama could have handily won the Latino vote in California, if he had appealed to voters as a true transnational and multiculti--a half sister who is half-indonesian, a wife who is African-American, a father who is transnational immigrant from Kenya, and a mult-state and multi-nation upbringing.
But he has chosen to downplay those attributes, and it could be at his own peril.
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Hmmm . . . this sounds familiar:
There are no saints in politics, and for the press and his supporters to so anxiously clamor for his canonization reeks of paternalism and very few people approve of being dictated to...
Wow. Sounds exactly how many Dems felt when Clinton was the one being canonized and her approval was being dictated.
The Super Tuesday aftermath has done little other than to make me pessimistic about our chances in November.
We're going to lose.
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It's right to ask why he didn't win California
And yes, he didn't successfully reach out to Latinos. He started late in the game in California, lost a lot of early voters and really didn't reach out to the right community leaders until it was too late and they were with Hillary. I'm sure he narrowed the gap some in the last week but not with the right groups and he needs to keep that in mind.
The good news for Hillary is that clearly her ground game and name recognition is still very powerful for the Latino vote. The bad news is that her pull in that community is really only going to matter once in the 6 weeks and that's in a state with a large African-American, anti-Hillary sentiment, Texas. To put a positive light on this, she has already sent down a team to Texas to start her ground game so Texas is still up for grabs and if she can keep it to a tie or better it'll be a victory assuming February goes as her staffers expect it to go.
The good news for Obama is that Texas is the last state that will have a large Latino community outside the June 7 PR election. He can take some of the lessons of California and apply them to Texas. He won't be spread thin by 22 states so he'll be able to offer personal face time and he's got a bit of anti-Hillary sentiment to help him along in the non-Latino community. Lastly, the best news about this all. The state that has proven his biggest challenge so far is one that is a lock for Democrats in the general. If he gets the nod, there's no doubt that most of the leaders in CA who backed Hillary will back Obama. The bad news for Obama is that the time he spends working hard on the February races will detract from the state with the highest # of delegates of the remaining states. He needs to win nearly every contest between now and 3/4 in order to meet expectations. This means he'll be spending less time in Texas with the previous Latino issue and less time in Ohio while those two states are what Hillary will be focusing on for a longer time. We saw how this hurt him in Cali and it could do the same in Texas. To put a positive light on this though, he's not going to be in 22 races in the next 30 days and the races are not all on the same day