Letters to the Editor
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@elephantman
I'll even give you a head start! Hot off the presses:
1. If elected President, McCain promises to fight evil.
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Hillary win stay in
for a while.
I am an Obama supporter but frankly i am uncomfortable with calls for her to drop out. The reality is that wherever we have a vigorous campaign, we sign up 100's of thousands of new folks on both sides. People we will need in the general. This is why even Obama is not opposed to her dropping out - it forces him to campaign as hard as possible and really allows him to get his brand out there among people who really don't know him.
Being from Florida, I regret we didn't have a campaign here.
Imagine for a moment she was dropped out. What do the primaries look like in the remaining states? I can tell you, being from Florida where we THOUGHT our votes wouldn't count, LOTS of folks might not even get involved. That's not good for the party.
Let her go on. Meanwhile, Barak is shifting his message toward the beginnings of trying to unify the voters behind DEMOCRATS - a sale he'll need to make strongly over the next several months. So i think its best to just leave it. Hillary will call it quits when she's good and ready. Barak will continue to meet the people we, as a party, need to begin winning over for GE success and all this will work out OK.
I don't know. I think she's starting to see it too but i think that for things to "look right" and feel right for her supporters (who we will need in the GE just as she would have needed Obama's supporters), we need to let it run its course and not pressure her. I think the pressuring is unfortunate.
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Old joke..
What's the difference between Rush Limbaugh and the Hindenburg?
Rush Limbaugh is a flaming Nazi windbag and the Hindenburg was a tragic airship disaster.
Please leave the race Hillary and let your supporters down today instead of a month from now.. It's time to start making the McCain campaign (also not swimming in money) spend some money instead of getting a free ride watching the Hillary in denial show on the sidelines. Vote Democrat or die trying.
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Reality Counts
An interesting question would be to know what percentage of respondents knew what the words "conservative," "liberal" and "moderate" actually mean.
In many people's minds, the word "liberal" has degenerated into a generic slur, so it's not surprising that people wouldn't self-identify as "liberal," even if they hold views that qualify them as such. That's why liberals have lately taken to calling themselves "progressives" since it makes them sound less objectionable.
I imagine quite a few liberals call themselves "moderates" because it has a more pleasant connotation. I'm an Obama supporter, and I would probably call myself a moderate if asked. But if you asked me what Hillary Clinton is, I would probably say "center right" - which means I'm probably really a liberal.
Also, what do these terms mean when Bill Clinton was habitually referred to as a "socialist" or "liberal" by his political opponents? I think we can all probably agree that Bill Clinton was neither.
Further, is it really clear that Obama is a significantly more liberal candidate than Hillary is? Indeed, on some issues Hillary attacks Obama for not being liberal ENOUGH. For instance, witness her newfound economic populism. So what is it--is Hillary a liberal, a conservative, or a moderate? Hillary has taken the novel position of attacking Obama from the left on economic issues, while at the same time taking some of the same stands of John McCain.
I would be interested to see the results of a poll which asked what classification voters ascribed to the respective candidates. Early in the process, Obama was the candidate who supposedly appeals to disaffected Republicans and swing voters. Now he's being painted as the arch-liberal? I begin to think these ideological tags are mainly used for propaganda purposes because of their associative baggage instead of actual descriptions of political ideologies.
What about McCain? Is he a conservative or a moderate? Well, I guess it depends on whether he's trying to suck up to the Republican base (in which case he's a true-blue conservative) or swing voters and the pundit class (in which case he's a moderate).
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I Hate to Go There, But ...
Truth is, the experts are the Clintons. Bill Clinton is the only Democrat to win the presidency since LBJ except Carter, who got elected on a fluke, was a disaster and got defeated on reelection. The Clintons know how to take it to the Republicans and beat them.
-- Mickey Kovars
Unfortunately the secret to success can't be "Have a Billionaire Republican run a third-party campaign," because how often does that happen anyway? Again, meaning no disrespect, because I voted for Bill Clinton twice (along with a lot of other younger voters Clinton supporters are now discounting -- there's gratitude for ya), but how often are you going to win a presidential campaign with 43 percent of the vote? At least Carter got a majority.
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Yes Picko!
In the US everyone is middle class and moderate politically.
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@ KStone
So just mentioning his middle name name is obsessing over it, huh? Funny...
Well, how many other candidates have been referred to with all three names? I don't think I read too many stories about John Sidney McCain III, or Johnny Reid Edwards, or Michael Dale Huckabee. Hell, even Hillary Rodham Clinton put a lid on the use of her middle name when she realized that making that symbolic gesture of independent womanhood didn't play so well in the heartland.
So, yeah, I think that compulsively mentioning one candidate's middle name and not the others' is a little weird. Even obsessive, one might say.
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how many other candidates have been referred to with all three names?
You just reminded me of George Herbert Walker Bush. He sounds a lot more patrician with that four name action going on.
My evil talkradio station today mentioned 'Barack [pause] Hussein [pause] McGovern Obama'. They're trying to get a two'fer going.
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In fact, it was one Democrat (Tom Harkin of Iowa), who whined constantly about "George Herbert Walker Bush" in his own bid for the Democrat nomination in 1988.
So yes, there is precedent for making political fun of your opponent's name(s). And yes, Harkin was doing it as a form of class warfare -- attempting to ridicule the notion that a patrician east-coast family would give a child four names.
Not recognizing, of course that President Bush 41's namesake was his paternal grandfather, George Herbert Walker, for whom the United States Golf Association's Walker Cup is named. Not that Harkin would have had any time to do his own fact-checking, of course. He was too busy covering his tracks from the time he lied about being in Viet Nam, and a fighter pilot. Embarassing since George H.W. Bush and Geroge W. Bush were both fighter pilots.