Letters to the Editor
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@manos
Bitterness? LOL!!! I would invite anyone in Salon to compare my letter history with that of our dear friend, manos99. Facts are facts, my friend. And posts -- like emails -- can only be deleted by the admin :). The evidence speaks for itself.
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This I dread,
Is drink the bitter dregs friend red.
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On a more constructive note...
To all of you Salon readers desperately using the results of these primaries/caucuses as arguments for or against either candidate, I offer you another take that should make you sit back, take a deep breath, and have another long, sceptical look at the forest. From slate (Damn! I love that site!):
http://www.slate.com/id/2186204/nav/tap3/
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Billcap
"C'mon, tell me you don't know just how disingenuous this is. Both Kobe Bryant and I have played basketball. Ergo, we're the same? Yes, both have won . . . but to anyone who looks beyond a shallow glance it's obvious that one wins more caucuses than primaries and one the other. If we're going to have serious debate, let's at least debate seriously."
Actually, Obama has won 15 primaries with delegates at stake, Clinton 13.
You can laugh at the thought of Kansas or Idaho voting for a Democrat, but it isn't my candidate that says that the Democrats have to win Oklahoma and Texas to win the presidency. Personally, I think the 1984 presidential race is a good case study in how full of crap the "red state/blue state" meme is.
Also, what is the right level of democratic process in a nomination contest? Clinton supporters claim that caucuses don't bring out enough voters and they claim that open primaries bring out too many voters. What exactly is the magic number? Anyone can participate in a caucus, even people out of state can send a surrogate, if there is lower turn out it isn't because the process is undemocratic, it is because not as many people are motivated to participate.
But hey, the Clinton campaign can feel free to keep talking about how voters in Washington are too rich, voters in Virginia are too black, and voters in Kansas are too red. I'm sure it won't come back around an bite them when it comes time for superdelegates to make their decisions.
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This story is an embarrassment.
You, and everything else I've read so far on Mississippi, go to the subtotals but never actually give the election outcome except as a "W" and a "L." The whole number puts the subtotals in context. "Polarizing" is a very dramatic term-- things pushed to poles. But what you, in fact, describe is a close competition around a mostly common position. The vast majority of Democrats will vote for the Democratic nominee in 2008. So, your story is horrifyingly misleading. The only one I can think of who might conceivably benefit from this mis-analysis is Clinton-- a kind of snotty implication that Obama cannot win among the Euro-American majority, and that a vote for Obama is imprudent.
The day is coming when the entire Salon political staff is going to have to write mea culpas for the months of unnecessary agony you have put us loyal readers through on behalf of Clinton.
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The analysis is slight, but embarrassing?
I know, I know. The headline should read "Obama wins by a landslide... as predicted". While that may be the most obvious characterization, it's not the most interesting aspect of this primary (and other recent primaries).
CBSNews has posted the exit results, and along with such telling morsels as the "white ethnic" vote and the huge, Rush-inspired Republican crossover for Hillary, it certainly appears that the rift within the Democratic party is growing. 55% of Obama voters would NOT be satisfied with Clinton as their nominee, and 72% of Clinton voters would NOT be satisfied with Obama as theirs. The notion that everyone will fall into place behind the Democratic nominee come Fall strikes me as wishful thinking. And I believe the worst is yet to come.
I know my own thoughts on the subject have changed considerably over the last few weeks, and I can no longer envision myself voting for Clinton. Time will tell, of course, and I have a history of holding my nose and voting for the lesser of two evils. But if Clinton is the Democratic nominee, I'm no longer quite so convinced that I know which candidate that would be.
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Pay More Attention
Kate-tex and the other folks who think Obama has played the race card need to pay more attention.
The recent Ferraro kerfuffle is no accident. Instead, it's all part of the "Clinton Southern Strategy" - divide and conquer, based on race and fear.
In 1988, Ferraro said identical things about Jesse Jackson:
“If Jesse Jackson were not black, he wouldn’t be in the race,” she said.
Do you really think it’s a coincidence that Ferraro is saying the same stuff now, and saying over and over again? If Ferraro were really a "loose cannon" do you think she'd still be talking about it nearly a week later? Wouldn't the Clinton campaign have put a muzzle on her by now, or at least rejecting her comments a little more forcefully than saying "we disagree with her"?
By now, the pattern is clear: send a surrogate out to say something scary about Obama, then apologize for it, but let it hang in the air and, if possible, reinforce the charge while denying it.
Don't get suckered by the Clintons into allowing racism or fear to determine who the democratic nominee is. They started way back with Kerry and Shaheen, and never really stopped. It's really pretty despicable. And it's precisely the kind of crap we're hoping to do away with after 8 years of Bush-Cheney-Rove.
And there's really only one way to put an end to it. Obama in '08.
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stewsburntmonkey
"Yes. And I know this because my tinfoil hat allows me to read the minds of all the hundreds of thousands of republican voters who have done so. Thanks to my fantastic abilities, I'm also able to state with absolute surety that: Actually there are exit polls that bear this out, but let's not have facts get in your way. . .
Don't claim them, cite them. And don't cite me exit polls that they'd lean toward voting for McCain over Obama, because that isn't the same thing. So please, cite me the exit question where they were asked "are you voting for Hillary because you think she'd be easier to beat". And after that, show me what a huge percentage answered yes. I'll wait . . .