Letters to the Editor
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@ yeuxdisis
Ridiculous. I've voted for Obama in three seperate elections and never thought of it as chic (I'm over 60 and do very little considered chic).
This small minded idea that a black man named Barack Obama has an open path to the White House is absolutely laughable.
I guess the fact that Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are black is the reason they both won their respective Democratic primaries. Except they didn't.
Actually, the only Federal nominees that I know of that received their nomination because of their identity are Clarence Thomas and Gerry Ferraro.
And if your "friends" jump on the bandwagon so easily, why are they not with Hillary now since she now has all of the momentum?
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damnthatXranadu
"...Now, we have a black man running for President where it is obvious that ONE (NOT ALL!) of the major reasons he is winning IS indeed because he is black. Everyone knows it. It's as plain as the nose on each our faces. Finally, someone has the guts to say the truth, to say this telling fact and say out loud exactly what the polling data facts say are so, and they're called a racist. What is worse, the candidate running doesn't have the guts to admit it's true. To admit what even HE KNOWS IS TRUE. And, further, not only does he lie about it but everyone else does...."
How about someone with a vision, warranted or not, who happens to be black, running for president? Or, as many commentators here have mentioned, are you one of those hung up on race?
For a candidate who, early on, exhibited the admirable quality of staying away from race to such an extent that pols and the press wondered if he were "black enough", you can't blame Obama for this current mess. Nor, similarly, can you blame him and his purported use of race for Hillary Clinton's being slumgullioned in states, 27 to 14 and delegate count (150 plus in the hole) and for her being behind in the popular vote. Blame an old-school political candidate with an unwarranted sense of entitlement and a desire for higher office so overweaning that it's led her to betray the very ideals she has claimed to live by and that many of her followers actually still believe in. A desire along with a sense of entitlement that has contributed, in great measure, to one of the worst run primary campaigns in modern presidential history.
Faced with losing, she is willing to fan the flames of racial divide that so many new voters thought were nothing but dying embers, trash the Democratic Party and give the shiv between the shoulder blades to the many, loyal black political leaders and party regulars who were still supporting her even after the S.C. debacle. All of this while encouraging a whisper campaign against her opponent's background and heritage--one she passed on silencing prior to the Ohio vote--and giving full-throated roar to the issue of race through the voiced idiocies of Gerry Ferraro leading up to Pennsylvania.
I used to take the Joe Conason approach to the more wacko screeds re the Clintons I used to hear in and around the Fox News Network, particularly during the Impeachment Crisis, but, Gawd help me, I'm finally beginning to actually wonder if it's true that Bill and Hillary trash, and leave for the worse, everything they come in contact with. If even a fraction of her supporters and/or Democrats, in general, think that, someone who cares for her and the Clinton brand-name has got to let her face the question of whether a repugnant scorched earth policy, its nascent beginnings evident in the Palmetto State, is worth having a loyal constituency turn against her in such numbers that they'd make you think that George Bush's name had replaced hers, on the ballot. And whether attempting to win "ugly" is worth trashing what's left of the Clinton legacy.
But, judging from what you've written, you wouldn't get all that, now would you?
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Salon continues to disappoint
The Ferraro debacle continues to show a huge hole in Salon's integrity. Salon is tap dancing around this one to avoid offending the women who support Hillary.
That's what makes Ferraro's comments so absurd. Hillary is a Senator from New York ONLY because she is the wife of Bill Clinton. Her "experience" that she touts is being married to the President. Let's get Rosalyn Carter to run. Or Laura Bush.
I have been heartened to see the comments of many, many women who could care less that Hillary is a woman, they chose Obama because he simply has "chops". Like Bill Clinton and John F. Kennedy, he has the talent to lead. Gore, Kerry, Mondale and Dukaksis AND Hillary Clinton all share the same fate: they are bland. They are not leaders who inspire.
I understand the realities of Salon needing to keep a readership base. But it seems the height of hypocrisy for Salon to criticize politicians for their lapses of integrity while engaging in the same behavior.
Thank God that Ferraro never reached the VP position. Is she really so blind to see that Hillary is where she is because her name is Clinton? And Obama has managed to get where he is despite the fact that he was an unknown with the name Barack Obama? Yes, all those black people in Wyoming and Iowa (do they have black people in Iowa and Wyoming) are responsible for his landslide wins in those states.
Obama is the brightest star to come along for the Democrats since JFK. And the old time democrats and women who are so sexist they want a woman at any costs are going to sink his campaign.
Despite 8 years of Republican corruption, McCain will win. Hillary and her scorched earth campaign will put McCain in the White House.
A woman whose only real credential is she was married to the President, who lost 11 straight primaries, suggests Obama, who has been ahead in delegates for months, should be HER VP,
although she says he is not experienced enough to be the President.
And Salon looks the other way? Very, very disappointing.