According to CNN, Obama leads Clinton 1629 to 1486 delegates, has won more states, and leads in the popular vote, and is well on his way to closing out the primary election. As such, Patty Solis Doyle, Clinton’s former campaign bigwig who was ousted for, well, incompetence, is offering up the new fusion ticket with Obama and Clinton. Small problem- Doyle wants the candidate trailing in delegates and states won and popular vote to head the ticket (via Marc Armbinder):
If you can’t figure out why Obama would decide to give up his lead and agree to be the Vice President, you just don’t think like a Clinton supporter. The reason you would do this is simple- because it would be awesome:
It just never stops. I can’t decide if Hillary is running a Presidential campaign or a push to employ more SNL writers.
*** Update ***
Bonus dementia from Taylor Marsh commenters:
Good Gravy!
Let Hillary pick her own VP.
hadenough | 04.07.2008 – 12:22 pm
***This is not something that I would like to see. I am not a fan of Barack Obama, and this will make it much more difficult for me to vote for Hillary. I think that if this were to happen, the Democrats will lose a lot of support in November. I don’t want Barack Obama to even have a chance at being president. What if something were to happen to Hillary while she was president? Barack would then become the president and I would not like that one bit. Please don’t sign the petition!
Nomobama | 04.07.2008 – 12:26 pm
***Please go to the Marc Ambinder site and post a comment. It is very pro-Obama and nasty towards Hillary. Big surprise. I just said “Hillary should definitely choose her own VP”. So go make a comment for our girl.
hillgirl | 04.07.2008 – 12:35 pm
***Any ticket with Obama is damaged goods. This ship for this idea has sailed.
Hillary should be free to pick any VP she wants to.
This is not about making nice- it’s about winning in November.
titan90 | 04.07.2008 – 12:39 pm
In the alternate universe in which Hillary supporters reside, not only is Hillary winning, but Obama doesn’t even deserve second place.
Seriously, what is going on? Is this a cult? Are these people drugged? Should we start to worry now, or when they start wearing identical black suits with Nikes?
Jen
Is “Hail Mary” one of the stages of denial?
The Moar You Know
Why can’t it be both?
Dennis - SGMM
It would be awesome. The ticket would have Obama’s charisma, his grass roots organization, his fund raising ability, his oratorical skills and Hillary’s…, and Hillary’s…, and Hillary’s…
Damn it, it’s her turn!
Ninerdave
Equally as strange are the calls from Hillary supporters that he should concede. He can run again in 2016.
jrg
Ohh, that is a tough one… Willingness to overturn a popular vote in order to win an election?
rob!
FAIL
John Cole
Hell, Hillary does have a lot of good qualities. If I could have 1/100th of her drive and ambition and determination, it would be “awesome.”
You have to give her some credit for her work ethic.
Jake
Meanwhile, very serious/smart people continue to make arguments for Hillary’s electability using more counterfactuals. Check out publius’ post:
I’ve been thinking for awhile now that Team Clinton’s arguments are akin to arguing why the score doesn’t matter in a basketball game. Nice to see someone follow through:
“Well, look, it’s true that by most objective metrics Kansas beat North Carolina. But, the Jayhawks’ lead was only made possible by certain eccentricities in college basketball scoring. For instance, shots from a sufficient distance back are awarded three points rather than two. This seems unfair. The teams should never have agreed beforehand that these shots would count for three points. Thus, if you take all the threes that Kansas hit and make them all two, then it’s a much different story.”
jake
Clinton/Obama 2008 – The Age Before Beauty ticket.
flyerhawk
Perhaps if you read Sean Willentz you would understand how Hillary is really winning.
TheFountainHead
Stuff like this just sets my brain into a suicidal tizzy. Like that Lewis Black joke about your brain attempting to analyze a statement overheard from someone else’s conversation. You end up dead on the bathroom floor.
Jen
The repeated analogies where UNC = HRC are driving a stake into my heart. A dull, pink stake.
flyerhawk
Jake posted to Publius’ evisceration of Willentz’s stupidity.
Keith
How did Al Gore get left off that unity ticket? Somehow in this bizarro world, I thought the Powers That Be would figure that the will of the people is for Al Gore to be the nominee in spite of not voting for him, with Hillary as his strong, serious VP able to cast tie-breaking votes in the Senate on Day One, and Obama grateful to take Secretary of State.
Bey
If we had some bacon, we could have some bacon and eggs. If we had some eggs.
These forays into a fantasy land where Clinton will win the nomination are the last, desperate narratives of people in denial. They are to be pitied, and then ignored.
Ninerdave
Used to for me too, FountainHead, then I learned to embrace the absurdity of it. Now it’s priceless humor.
Fwiffo
The thing is, other than trying to quell the sour grapes of the HillaryIs44 crowd, what would be the point of picking Hillary as VP? And if somebody is seriously threatening to vote for 100 more years of war out of spite, what are the odds a VP nod is really gonna bring them back from the edge?
Seriously, what does she bring to the ticket?
If he wants to reinforce his progressive cred, she is not the best choice. If he wants somebody with populist appeal, Sherrod Brown or John Edwards would be a better pick. If he wants to reinforce the “change” or “outside the beltway” thing, he really shouldn’t choose the Clintons.
If he wants to court cross-over votes, why not pick somebody who actually has cross-over appeal (e.g., and God forbid, Chuck Hagel)?
If he wants to bolster his executive experience, he should choose a governor. If he wants to bolster his foreign policy cred, he should choose somebody like Bill Richardson. If he wants to bring “experience” in the general sense, he could pick somebody like Biden (God forbid) or Dodd.
If he wants to pick a woman, why not pick one who has lower negatives? If he wants to court Latinos, Bill Richardson would be the obvious choice.
If he wants to pursue an electoral vote strategy with his VP pick, Virginia or Ohio would be a bigger get than Arkansas.
Again I ask, other than making the “unity” people swoon with swoonyness, what does she bring to the ticket?
Gerald Curl
I propose a nickname: Sean “Wish in One Hand” Willentz.
whack
Wait, I thought she wanted to run with Sen. McSame.
TenguPhule
The possibility to begin the executions of Republican Traitors en masse.
SATSQ MMII.
John Cole
WTF is your problem? It would be awesome, like the movie said. What else do you need to know?
Brachiator
The Sean Wilentz piece is not only a special kind of teh stoopid, it also contradicts the Clinton maenads who try to insist that all the media hates a Clinton. But I was particularly taken with this bit of nuttiness that Wilentz trots out:
Did someone do away with the Electoral College when I wasn’t looking?
Jen
This reminds me of Eric Idle in “Life of Brian” wanting to have the right to have a baby. “You haven’t got a womb, where are you going to keep the baby, in a box?”
Ninerdave
That just cracks me up to no end.
Hope we don’t loose the nomobama vote! That would be catastrophic!
Jamelle
Yes. That’s about right.
I always found the “Obama has a cult” accusation to be pretty hilarious, considering that Clinton supporters are closer to having drunk the kool-aid than any Obamaphiles I’ve ran into.
cleek
Hillary attracts the dumb and conspiracy-minded ?
Rick Taylor
*rolls eyes*
Well that “cute” little skit is deliberately obtuse! If you were to make it accurate, there’d be some really big muscle-bound dude in the next room that the winner of this contest was going to arm wrestle next. And only the bald dude from this animation could beat him; see, the big muscle bound dude would take the other guy in this skit and whip his ass. The only reason the wimp in this skit even seems to be winning is because he’s been cheating, taking advantage of the rules, you know working out a bunch and drinking protein powders. I mean of course he’s winning taking all those protein powders, the scary thing is he’s only winning by a little even with his unfair advantages, that spells real trouble in the contest with the big dude. So the bald dude’s just telling him, look, let me come in first, and then we can go and beat that bald dude *together*! And unlike Obama who’s arrogant, and more concerned with himself than with the party, the other guy can see that right away!
Simple enough for you?
zmulls
Clinton’s strengths are her work ethic, her incredible energy, and her determination to know more about the nuts and bolts of any issue than you do. These are true strengths and in the legislative arena make her formidable and admirable. As a Senator, she needs to court and to compromise, and she has been doing that. But as President, I’d expect her to retreat behind a door with some other smart people and come out with stuff she expected everyone to do.
I have admired a lot about her, but watching this campaign has gotten me pretty upset at her tactics and upset at her management decisions. Her team keeps making stupid mistakes, saying rude and inflammatory things and blaming the other team.
No, I’m voting Obama in PA. The speech put me over the top.
As for VPs, I think Obama ought to pick Clark or Zinni, someone with hefty military background.
The only VP I think McCain can pick that would give me cause for concern would be Condoleeza Rice, and I don’t think that option is off the table for him.
Kevin K.
I think it’s cute how Taylor has been spending months and months hacking away at Obama’s reputation and now she’s confused as to why her spittle-flecked, chum-fed followers, who she’s carefully molded with a steady diet of Obama-bashing to loathe the piss outta Barack, won’t buy into the notion of a unity ticket. These lunatics are so tweaked they’d rather support a Clinton/Rumsfeld ticket than a Clinton/Obama one.
jake
Jesus Christ, Sam I Am enters politics:
I do not like Barack Obam.
I do not like him, no thanks ma’am!
I would not like him in a shoe,
I would not like him painted blue.
I would not like him on a pony,
I think that he’s an awful phony.
I will not vote Barack Obam.
In my face my thumb I cram.
ThymeZone
I have noticed how often the John Adams series has made mention of the Founders’ disdain for “factions” taking over America.
Faction love is basically the same thing as cult behavior, isn’t it? Aren’t the two parties just big factions, organized into machines? Hasn’t the Obama-Clinton contest become a struggle of factions within our party?
Isn’t all fair in love, war . . . and factions?
Isn’t that four questions in a row? Now, five? Er, six?
Oh dear ….
Dennis - SGMM
Damn straight! The School Board of Chappaqua, NY, should have unified leadership.
Jen
I’ve thought about this, but it seems to me it would just make the McSame = Bush characterization even easier. I mean, what, she’s going to steal the A-A vote from Obama?
Jon H
I can’t help but think that the Clintons are keeping at it because they’ve already mortgaged her Presidency, and if she loses she’s going to have to pay back a whole lot of something.
Bey
That’s exactly what they are over at H44. The whole “our girl” thing says it all. Scary, deranged, and ready to rend anyone who disagrees with them. Talk about your vagina dentata….
Yikes – they give us feminists a bad name.
SpotWeld
…I wonder if we’ve finally found out where all the Ron Paul suporters went.
zmulls
Not steal — siphon. A lot of swing states are won at the margins. Don’t you think McCain could siphon off 5% of the African-American vote with the first African-American woman on the ticket — even a conservative one? (And with McCain being the “straight talkin’ maverick moderate” the media will make him out to be)
You chip away here, you chip away there, and you get the 50.1% you need to get all the electoral votes…..
Rick Taylor
[fixes typo]
Gack! *fixes typo*
Rick Taylor Says:
rolls eyes
Well that “cute” little skit is deliberately obtuse! If you were to make it accurate, there’d be some really big muscle-bound dude in the next room that the winner of this contest was going to arm wrestle next. And only the bald dude from this animation could beat him; see, the big muscle bound dude would take the other guy in this skit and whip his ass. The only reason the wimp in this skit even seems to be winning is because he’s been cheating, taking advantage of the rules, you know working out a bunch and drinking protein powders. I mean of course he’s winning taking all those protein powders, the scary thing is he’s only winning by a little even with his unfair advantages, that spells real trouble in the contest with the big dude. So the bald dude’s just telling him, look, let me come in first, and then we can go and beat that
baldbig dude together! And unlike Obama who’s arrogant, and more concerned with himself than with the party, the other guy can see that right away!Simple enough for you?
Krista
Anybody know how to clean Diet Pepsi off of a monitor?
4tehlulz
>>Seriously, what is going on?
Dunno lol
Svensker
Wondered where that came from — just got an e-mail from a Clinton supporter friend who says he’ll vote for McCain if Obama “steals” the nomination, based on the winner-take-all theory. I’d say what’s wrong with these people, but then lotsa folks voted for Dubya in 2004, so we know at least 50% of America is pretty screwed up.
Jen
I don’t, personally, no, but it would be interesting to see polling on that.
Don’t forget this lady!
jenniebee
No, but she’d immunize the McCain campaign from charges of racism for whatever sleaze they were to roll out. If McCain runs a variation on the “Harold, call me!” ad and then puts Condi in front of microphones to say that no, she doesn’t think it has anything to do with race, the campaign is only calling attention to , then the narrative can snap back away from what a sleazy ad McCain ran to how sensitive Obama is and how willing he is to “play the race card.”
So no, she doesn’t siphon African American votes away, but she would let people assuage their consciences about being skirred to vote for somebody who might turn out to be an Angry Black Man after all.
Walker
Is this spoof? It is so hard to keep the spoofers straight from the serious people straight on this site.
Anyway, Notorious P.A.T. did a much better job of mocking this bogus argument on the previous thread by wording it in terms of UNC’s loss to Kansas:
Xenos
Maybe we can stage the return of Comet Hale-Bopp and hope that things just naturally take their course.
cbear
In other news–
–From Cliff Schecter’s new book:
“Three reporters from Arizona, on the condition of anonymity, also let me in on another incident involving McCain’s intemperateness. In his 1992 Senate bid, McCain was joined on the campaign trail by his wife, Cindy, as well as campaign aide Doug Cole and consultant Wes Gullett. At one point, Cindy playfully twirled McCain’s hair and said, “you’re getting a little bit thin up there.” McCain’s face reddened, and he responded, “at least I don’t plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt.” McCain’s excuse was that it has been a long day. If elected president of the United States, McCain would have many long days.”
Couple the above story with McCain’s nasty joke about Chelsea—and he’s definitely passed that C-in-C threshold, although I don’t think its the one Hillary was referring to….
Yep, I’m sure that would work out real well.
rawshark
Two successive refreshes without a WordPress crash. Happy day!!!!!
Punchy
I want O-face to pick a reasonable VP just to get elected, then allow FoxNewsers’ heads to explode when he makes Chuck D Secretary of Defense and Flavah Flav to be the Sec of State, in which he’d every press conference with a “BOYIEEEE!”
Calouste
Clinton is reduced to arguing that she should have won the game because her team got more batters on first base, even though Obama’s team got more over the homeplate. And those homeruns shouldn’t really count either.
bobbob
Don’t you understand? He’s a black Muslim and she is a white woman. A black man and a white woman. There is nothing that upsets white people as much as seeing a white woman and a black man together.
Rick Taylor
Yes it is a spoof. I thought the reference to winning by building up your muscles would give it away. And thanks for the reference.
Zifnab
If she thought she would have done better in a winner-take-all election she should have A) lobbied for that back when they were making the delegation rules or B) run as a Republican.
It’s also worth noting that in a winner-take-all Republican system, Hillary Clinton wouldn’t have any super-delegates to her name (as they wouldn’t exist) and she’d still be behind in the popular vote and the money game.
If we were playing Australian Nigh Time Indoor Quiddich, Rose Perot would be ahead 14A to eleventy-one and Harry Potter would be someone’s running mate. Who the fuck cares?
Jen
Steve Benen is kinda reading my mind w/r/t Condi Rice.
Punchy
If true, can I release Soriano and pick her up on waivers? He’s killing my batting avy and not giving me any BBIs, either.
DougJ
Wes Gullett.
Is that his real name?
BH Buck
Following Ninerdave’s and Jake’s leads:
SO IT IS TRUE! (…what they say about Hillary’s supporters)
taodon
What does this even mean? Sen. Obama is ahead by 94,000 votes even WITH Florida and Michigan included. So, by what stretch of the imagination can Sen. Clinton have “winner takes all” anything? What kind of psychotic spoof is this?
BH Buck
How about two white men?
Two burly, muscular, white men… sweaty… with muscles BULGING…
Erm, excuse me.
Mary
John Brown investigates who Taylor Marsh really is. (I could have sworn the first picture was Cathy Jones of This Hour Has 22 Minutes, but apparently that’s Marsh).
According to Brown, her history as a professional writer includes writing an advertisement feature in the LA Weekly and writing a book about working with Danni Ashe that was published by a vanity press. Her radio show history? Some paid time on a Las Vegas station. That is, she paid them, just like the people selling colon cleanser buy time on Toronto talk radio in the middle of the night. Oh, and she has a podcast.
So she’s a blogger, basically, and while there are many damn fine bloggers out there, most of them aren’t calling themselves professional writers and radio hosts when they aren’t.
I wonder if she was ever under sniper fire in Las Vegas?
Jen
I’ll I’m sayin’ is, it’s after 3:00 over here, and nary a word from pluk or myiq. Check their bunkbeds.
libarbarian
Rick, you didn’t catch all the errors
Oh, and please explain how “working out and taking protein power” is “cheating”? Normally we consider exercise and nutrition to be standard practice amongst good athletes. It’s freaking ironic that you are praising Clinton by equating her with the athlete who doesn’t work out or eat well.
Your right – shes the political equivalent of a fat-ass slob who has no chance of beating either opponent but thinks that she deserves the spot in the finals simply because shes been in the sport so damn long.
She is going to lose the nomination and when Obama beats McCain it will be fun to watch all you “Obama is unelectable” morons scramble to find reasons why he won and why we still should have gone with Hillary anyways.
Andrew
For every black vote that a Veep Rice would get for McCain, they’ll lose 2 bible thumpers who hate lesbians.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
The SpoofForce is strong in Darth Taylor. Darth DougJ is still the master – but he’d better sleep with one eye open.
libarbarian
WOW – I am clueless.
Ignore my retort :)
Adam
So on the Wilentz thread, some of the Taylor Marsh folks were referring to themselves as “Marshans” — is that a spoof? I’m too frightened to go look again.
Kevin K.
Yes, the trigger man was Josh Marshall.
over_educated
In other news… I just discovered Wil Wheaton reads this blog, so I am going to assume he is an obama supporter.
Martin
In the interest of party unity, I propose that we ignore Hillis44 and Taylormarsh as being anything more than a fringe group of lunatics as we would the Malkinites. Just as the Malkinites are not representative of conservatives in general, hill and taylormarsh are the tattered remains of Clinton’s supporters that somehow have tied their entire persona to Clinton winning and see an Obama victory as equivalent to a visit to Room 101. I’m surprised we haven’t seen Clinton fanfic porn stories out of these sites yet. Even suggesting that most Clinton supporters think like this is pretty dishonest.
If we want to pick on a somewhat more representative set of Clinton supporters, I recommend mydd who have managed to weed out most of the real nutjobs and maybe openleft. And of course BTD and Jerome individually are more than serviceable targets.
zmulls
You know, I feel I have to rush to Taylor Marsh’s defense. And at the moment, I’m not particularly inclined to, because of where her site has gravitated over the last several months.
And I’m not particularly concerned with resume padding. She actually has had some interesting experiences in the sex industry, took the trouble to write them down, and has a *lot* of interesting things to say on sex and gender in our society.
*Prior* to the current unpleasantness, she had a good site. She writes well, she does do some legwork (see several posts around this subject), she’s committed…
Go back about a year in her archives and read a few posts. Smart, funny, engaged, passionate — it was a great blog. And the few times I had the time to download and listen to her podcasts, I enjoyed them (I rarely have time for any, though).
She’s deserved a platform, I’ve always thought. But I’m sorry that she’s currently taken the stance she has — not so much pro-Clinton but rabidly anti-Obama — because if/when Obama gets the nomination it will be hard for her to turn the boat around. I can’t bear to read the comments section over there right now.
The Taylor Marsh of a year ago deserved more attention — but nobody’s going to get to hear that Taylor Marsh because she’s now the go-to Obama-hater for the talking heads.
Someday this war’s gonna end…
Mr Furious
Jen, FTW!
Wilfred
If I spoke like that to my wife, she’d shoot me – and be right in doing so. That’s one of the most slanderous things I’ve ever heard and the 3 reporters who hide behind anonymity on that one are bigger fuckheads than McCain.
Dennis - SGMM
Sadly ironic, isn’t it, that they don’t understand that “their girl” would pull out their teeth with a rusty pair of pliers if she thought it would win her the presidency.
Billy K
So…some of you are surprised that a solipsistic narcissist with entitlement syndrome would attract followers that are solipsistic, narcissistic and have a feeling of entitlement?
David
Zifnab: If we were playing Australian-Rules Indoor Quidditch, there would still be no decided winner and all the candidates would be covered in welts and bruises.
…now that I put it like that, though, why the hell not?
The Grand Panjandrum
Jesus! Where’s The Cat in the Hat when you need him?
And from that publius post linked above here in John Cole’s EPIC comment.
Can we now title this nomination process Fear and Loathing (Indian Jones style) on the 2008 Campaign Trail?
Jen
It was pretty tasteless, but fortunately that gets you bonus points around here. Thanks!
MNPundit
Again, it’s because those HRC supporters hate Obama with a passion that most of us reserve for Karl Rove.
Brachiator
The sad thing is that this is not from an “ordinary” crazed Clinton supporter, but from respected historian and writer, Sean Wilentz. Although he is obviously, and openly, a Clinton supporter, it is rare to see a notable partisan go to such rhetorical extremes in an attempt to support his preferred candidate.
So his stuff gets even nuttier. After playing “Fantasy Primary Campaign” in order to demonstrate Senator Clinton’s theoretical delegate lead, Wilentz then tries to show that since Obama’s real popular vote lead is very thin, he should just throw in the towel and capitulate to Clinton (italics added):
Wilentz engages in a peculiar one-two punch here. A theoretical lead in delegates combined with just coming close in the popular vote is sufficient, in his eyes, to make Clinton “look like the almost certain nominee.”
Except, of course, none of this is true in the real world.
What comes close to being flat out despicable is how Wilentz twists facts to try to suggest that Obama’s candidacy is not legitimate because in following the rules, he is denying Senator Clinton her divine right to the presidential nomination. Further, Wilentz is suggesting that it is somehow Obama’s responsibility to disavow the Democratic Party’s nomination system.
In short, Wilentz suggests that Obama is wrong to claim any delegates won in a caucus, and should not take any of the delegates apportioned to him. On the other hand, Senator Clinton has every right to claim candidates won in Florida and Michigan, even though she herself had previously agreed that these contests would not count.
Zifnab
w00 for Mac Hall fans.
les
I think Condi is perfect for Grampa Mac. Her only training or expertise (aside from shilling bs for young King George) is the cold war and Soviet politics, which is the last thing McCain remembers clearly. They’re a perfect fit.
Wilfred
I don’t America is ready for another black man running for national office.
Jay B.
Just as the Malkinites are not representative of conservatives in general,
Says you.
Justin
Did it ever occur to any of you Clinton haters that her supporters might, in fact, think she is the best person for the job (currently in the election)? I was going to vote for Obama, but given that neither of them has promised to leave no residual forces and Clinton favors banning private contractors (Blackwater), the score on the issue of the war seems to be leaning in Clinton’s favor. And Obama has drifted rightward on health care policy, among other things. Obama constantly quotes Reagan (“government is not the solution”..) while Clinton is promoting a sharp contrast in vision (“It takes a village”).
It may be difficult for Clinton to “win” according to the DNC rules, but it is equally difficult for Obama to win! Neither of them can without superdelegates at this point…
Also, excuse me for not being shocked (shocked!) that the Clinton campaign might, you know, get down and dirty in their campaign tactics every now and then. The Republicans do it every day, are still engaged in a swiftboat campaign against both our candidates, and they rarely if ever pay a price for it — there is a reasonable argument to be made that we need someone who is willing to fight dirty. We’ve tried reconciliation already folks, and Dick Cheney said “go fuck yourself.” It’s time to be growd-ups and realize that we can’t retire this constitutional crisis into the history books through the saavy use of unity ponies.
There will be no ‘unity’ in January 2009, whether Obama is in the White House or not. Just like at the beginning of 2007, the people who predicted bipartisan ponies arising from the Republican party will be eating crow. I hate to play into an unfortunate meme, but if Obama really believes the Republicans are going to join hands with us and sing Kumbaya, he’s being incredibly naive. And I think you all are, too.
By the way, I know NO Democrats supporting Clinton who would vote for McCain in the fall. I have, however, heard a lot of “Obama Democrats/Obama Republicans” say they would never vote for Clinton because they “hate” her.
Let’s try to keep it civil and remember who the real enemies of democracy are, ok?
Justin
I also want to point out something that hobbled my thinking for a long time. A lot of the progressives I’ve seen favoring Obama heavily conclude that Clinton represents DLC triangulating centrism. I rationalized things this way for a time too, until i realized — news flash – they are *both* DLC centrists! This is why you should have voted for Edwards, people.
EnderWiggin
Best post or comment I have seen here in a long while. It is long time for all sane people to start ignoring the looney tunes and move on the Obama v McCain.
Billy K
Try taylormarsh.com. They have much looser standards for reality perception over there.
mentaldebris
I would give her some credit if she had used her drive and ambition and determination against Republicans in the Senate when she had the chance to make a difference. Against another Democrat and to the possible detriment of the party? Eh, not so much.
P.S. You need to stop writing such great blog posts. Every time kos links to you, you “go off the air” for me. I’ve since learned that patience is definitely not one of my virtues.
Billy K
You’re a lunatic, dude.
jake
I think the “logic” behind all of the cries for Obama to stand aside goes a little like this:
1. There is absolutely no way in hell America will elect an African-American.
2. America can’t survive another four years of Republican mis-rule.
3. America will elect a Caucasian female (this is my take on their logic.)
4. Oh noes! By refusing to stand aside Obama is endagering the country.
I say “logic,” maybe “justification” would be a better word, but that seems to be the trend among some of the less hinged Clintonistas.
You might want to pick another example. I assume you don’t know that until very, very, recently her top camp. strategist was CEO of Blackwater’s PR firm.
OniHanzo
Damn, if only that were true, Justin… you wouldn’t look like such an unbashed Clinton flunkee.
From the WaPo.
HyperIon
interesting POV and it made me laugh
rawshark
Way too harsh. Justin’s comment was reasonable. Or maybe I’m just burned out by the pluks and myiqs.
There are no democrats that will vote for McCain. Hell, I’m a republican and the choices for me are Obama or Clinton, in that order. Not that I’m voting. McCain is winning Arizona anyway. I did the symbolic ‘republican voting for a democrat’ thing in ’04.
Davebo
Sure it was reasonable. It was demonstratively wrong, but quite reasonable.
OniHanzo
I really am exhausted of pissed-pants progressives, flagellating themselves with the idea that only someone who can do the Beltway tapdance will save us from ourselves.
Seriously, Justin, campaign for the Republicans. Most of us who consider ourselves progressives and Democrats are goddamn tired of you lot cutting the Democratic Party off at the heels, fellating Bush in a way that would make Joementum blush with embarrassment.
We don’t need you. We never have. Please, and I say this as politely as I possibly can, fuck off already.
Rick Taylor
Brachiator wrote:
When this was posted on Talk Left, I wrote something along the lines of, wow, exclude the caucus states in which Obama excelled, count Florida and Michigan even though he never campaigned in either and you couldn’t even vote for him in Michigan, and Obama is still in the lead in the popular vote?!? He’s doing even better than I thought.
I wouldn’t mind except it feeds the narrative that may cost us votes in November; that Obama’s nomination is illegitimate. There are a lot of posters on pro-Hillary blogs who say they can’t vote for him under those circumstances.
Cue the contrarians, “When did Clinton ever agree that these contests would not count?” Ok, she never uttered the words, “I agree these contests will not count.” However when the DNC sanctioned the contests she never uttered a word of protest when it might have meant something. She even went so far as to sign an agreement not to campaign or participate in the sanctioned primaries, and mentioned offhandedly in an interview that of course the Washington primaries wouldn’t count. We feel that agreeing not to participate in primaries that are unsanctioned by the DNC implicitly includes not turning around and declaring yourself the winner of said primaries and pushing to have the delegates seated to eke a narrow victory over your opponent. We’re just crazy that way.
Rick Taylor
Justine wrote:
Go to taylormarsh. Taylor herself has said she’ll support the nominee, but among her commenters it’s largely an argument between those threatening to sit out the election and those planning to vote McCain.
Martin
Of course it did. I have no problem with 99% of the Clinton supporters. I take issue with the ones that play SimElection and decide to toss Godzilla into the election to show that Clinton really should be winning if Chicago and Denver got trampled and burned to the ground. I don’t remember Obama supporters ever doing that. If anything they buckled down, volunteered more, phone banked more, gave more.
And if I have any animosity toward Clinton it has nothing to do with how she has treated Obama. I could generally give a shit. My animosity stems from how Clinton has treated me and it follows from why Bush or Lieberman draws my ire. I’m tired of voters being dismissed as insignificant or stupid. Now, to Clinton’s credit, she’s really not running a very different campaign than what we saw pre-2004. The difference is that Obama has changed what many of us expect out of a candidate and
PennClinton just hasn’t figured out that our baseline has changed.And if you think this is a candidate-specific thing, look at where the supporters are lined up. DKos has been the home of the 50 state strategy for 4+ years now and is firmly behind Obama. The animosity toward Clinton there started when ‘insignificant states’ was trotted out after Super Tuesday. I won’t say things were all roses before that point, but that was a sea change moment. That was Clinton attacking a core principle and the Pennisms after that only made things worse. Clinton gets attacked because she paid loyalty to red-state/blue-state. That meme has to die. The Democrats can’t win another election with half the country feeling as though they are viewed with derision by the Democrats – and Rush will drill that point home if Clinton is the nom and runs the 50% + 1 strategy. The point of the strategy isn’t to somehow win Utah, but to make voters in swing states, rural areas of blue states, and conservative independents feel as though they are welcome in the party and have a voice.
But if you think Clinton is the best candidate, then great, make your case. I haven’t heard that case made in a rather long time – instead it typically comes down now to how unfair the process is, the media is, or how Obama can’t win due to biases in the electorate while ignoring equally large biases in the electorate that hurt Clinton. Adding to this is no recognition that Clinton appears to be lining up behind the same electoral strategy that led Gore and Kerry to victory. Does any Clinton supporter recognize that problem?
Psycheout
VOTE NEITHER!
Taylor Marsh, a Reagan Democrat, soon to be a McCain (or Brownback) Democrat, totally rocks! America needs more Democrats like her.
chopper
then yer friends aint the dems what been polled recently, cause recent polls have shown a higher percentage of bridge-burners among the hillbots than the muppets.
just sayin’.
Brachiator
Nope.
I don’t hate Clinton, but have asked and never had answered what makes her the best person for the job. Instead I’ve seen nonsense like “we’re getting Bill back,” or “she will work hard” or “it’s her turn” or “it’s time for a woman president.” Senator Clinton herself has thrown up a nonsensical smokescreen of outright lies and imaginary “thresholds” that she has passed instead of proving that she is in fact the best candidate.
I have not been impressed by her performance during the debates, and I have either watched them or read the transcripts (yes, I am a political junkie).
In short, I don’t view Senator Clinton as the best candidate when compared to any of the Democrats who have run this campaign season, and have yet to see anything that would change my opinion. I see her as superior only to Mitt Romney, and he was an empty suit.
Huh? Clinton, like Nixon, apparently has a “secret plan” for ending the war, but this does not mean very much.
This is simply not true. Both candidates have been consistent in their statements on health care.
Again, another untruth. I am not aware of any speech in which Obama has simply quoted Reagan. On the other hand, Bill and Hillary are both on the record of praising things about Reagan.
I know that some would prefer a Democrats’ Only club, but that is not the way to win an election, nor is pretending that there were a sizable number of voters who liked Reagan even when they disagreed with him.
This may not be the case, depending on the outcome of the remaining primaries. However, barring a miracle, Senator Clinton cannot win without superdelegates or a backroom deal. Their situations are not equal.
So, Clinton can be just as dirty as Bush and Rove, and this is a good thing? We can be angry that Bush stole an election, but happy that Clinton is trying to steal a nomination?
But a hard-working Clinton will be able to overcome any GOP intransigence? Okay.
Few are claiming that Obama will be able to overcome every obstacle thrown in his way. And perhaps we are too far away from the days of the Kennedy Administration. But there were people who jumped at the opportunity to work for JFK. People appear to be just as ready to do anything to work for Obama. I simply do not see the same eagerness to get on board on the part of Clinton’s supporters, who seem to be content with a return to old-style politics.
I count as an enemy of democracy anyone in any party who would have the nerve to say that a vote in which only her name appeared on the ballot is a fair representation of the people’s will. Especially after this person agreed neither to campaign nor to participate in that state’s vote.
But that’s just me. Your mileage may vary.
dbrown
I have a friend who was solid republican, a strong supporter of bush and he is so angry about what bush and other republicans have done that he will vote even for hillary before he’d ever vote for a republican – that says a lot – this guy was (and I use that term) a rock solid bush supporter
Martin
Cue the contrarians, “When did Clinton ever agree that these contests would not
Actually, she did:
And her reply:
Martin
Actually, she did:
And her reply:
Martin
Actually, she did:
And her reply:
jake
John, feed the damn hamsters already.
Martin
Heh. This site really blows up good when DKos links it on their front page.
John Cole
I asked for help the other day and all you jackasses did was make Red State fund-raising letters.
Big help.
Rick Taylor
Martin:
Oh my, I missed that line! I’m sure they’ll find a way out of that one too, but that’s useful.
And hamsters? Why are we talking about hamsters?
Psycheout
Hahahahaha! You’ve been trolled!
I’d personally take the guy who quotes Reagan over someone who quotes the Village People.
Seriously, “it takes a village” promotes “a sharp contrast in vision?” Long live idiocracy!
Hillary Clinton: worst non-president ever. Clinton fanfreaks: worst people ever. What a bunch of losers.
On the other hand: Obama fanboys: stupidest crack heads ever.
See you fools in November!
Pb
John,
Switch to Scoop. Or SoapBlox. Or a recent version of anything. Or friggin’ stone tablets already. Just feed the hamsters.
rawshark
I recall people offering some advice about other WordPress products.
Pb
Verily; I believe the full quote is “it takes a village to steal a primary”.
Indeed. Good luck holding your nose for that old RINO — or did you forget about that already? :)
Tax Analyst
I always just call IT for that. I tell ’em “Something’s wrong with my monitor, guys.
Tax Analyst
But Condi certainly has plenty of negatives of her very own, you know. A crappy record as Secretary of State and a major enabler of Bush’s dysfunctional and disastrous Middle East fiasco’s.
Plus I just don’t think the lady has enough back-bone to stand up to the questions she would be asked in what would be a pretty rough & tumble General Election campaign. I don’t think her brand of bland, euphemistic statements that she has gotten away with as SOS will satisfy a public that is pretty dissatisfied with how the Iraq War has been managed.
Justin
Taylor Marsh this, Taylor Marsh that. What does Taylor Marsh have to do at all with what I wrote and the perfectly valid argument that I made? This is an ad hominem and nothing more. I don’t read Taylor Marsh, and find the entire outlook of the site disgusting. So enough of that.
Technically, you’re right, Obama has never been a member of the DLC. But that does not mean that he does not practice the same kind of cautious (crippling) “centrism” and “bipartisanship” that the DLC is known for. I’m not saying Clinton doesn’t, also, but I really think you all are intentionally looking away from this fact.
Also, I would really appreciate it if everyone would stop accusing those who have the nerve to make a case for Clinton’s candidacy of being victims of propaganda that cannot think for ourselves. Besides, if you think the media is loaded with pro-Clinton propaganda you are as crazy as those who still think there is a “liberal media.” It’s accepted as truth that Obama is the favorite of the Village–have any of you ever considered that maybe in a way you have been misled to a degree? As for the suggestion to fuck off, because my vote or voice is ‘not needed,’ I really do hope you’re joking. I rarely just butt into a conversation on here and I am not a troll, I commented because I think this is a very important point to make and things seem to be getting a little one-sided here (mush like, sadly, Daily Kos, Ed Schultz, Randi Rhodes, TPM, etc etc). It’s not necessarily a good thing when everybody decides in “Unity” that “the bitch should dropout.”
Honestly, up until a few weeks ago, I was leaning in Obama’s direction (I think the moment we frivolously choose sides we lose our leverage and influence), and yes, I have been disappointed in some of the things Clinton has done and some of the positions she has taken. She said that Rev. Wright “would not be my pastor,” which I thought was abominable (to go along with the ‘anti-american’ smear), but as they pointed out recently in the Nation, Obama pretty much threw him under the bus too (saying what he said was “wrong and divisive”).
I think there is a solid case for Clinton as the best nominee for the Democratic Party and the best person in the race for the job. I tried to summarize it but obviously some people didn’t get the point. We can try again if necessary.
John just put up a post about how he jumped the gun on the hospital story. Several of you in the comments made my point for me by using cheap gender bullshit (“Justine”) and through sheer honesty (that you never considered that Clinton or her supporters might be genuine). I really do think there is an irrational hatred of Clinton that is at least partially rooted in misogyny or sexism. Like I said, in the same way that Andrew Sullivan admitted his hatred for the DFH’s blinded him into thinking the Iraq war was “centrist” and “serious,” I feel like so many of you are losing it because of your hatred for “the bitch.”
I am not your enemy, though, and I never wanted to be. Priorities, people. Solidarity.
Psycheout
Best Secretary of State ever. Tax Analist is obviously a scared concern troll.
What’s black and female and can beat the defeatocrats? See you in November, losers!
Psycheout
Like I said, vote NEITHER. Write in Sam Brownback.
Psycheout
Note to Justin: the bitch should dropout. Any questions?
Justin
I remember when the DNC decided to strip MI and FL of their delegates, it made sense at the time, because of the rush to move up primaries, but I remember thinking to myself that it would be suicide to try and disenfranchise two entire states from the nominating process. I could have given you a fair guess at the time that they would cave and the delegates would be seated. Right now everyone is just hoping that those states won’t matter, and that by the time of the convention one candidate will have a larger margin of victory. But if it comes down to the wire, Obama’s candidacy would be no more legitimate having discounted two entire states’ votes (if no revote is performed) than Clinton’s would by having an unfair election.
Justin
Psycheout makes my point for me again, though he is an extreme trollish example.
Justin
Nevermind, I just realized you are a parody.
Billy K
Just because he didn’t use nasty words and write it in the blood of unicorns doesn’t mean it was reasonable. A troll is a troll. Justin was just polite – not that I don’t appreciate it.
See, Justin, you started off all wrong for someone trying to be “reasonable” or “making a case.” You started off by lumping everyone together as “Clinton-haters.” Most of us are not. We just don’t like the way she’s running her campaign. This is all well-documented, so I won’t go any further. Just understand that your comment started out aggressive and presumptuous, so you got back the same.
Then you trotted out some unquantifiable and meaningless statements; “Obama has drifted rightward on Health Care,” “Obama quotes Reagan.” You capped off that paragraph by quoting a phrase Clinton borrowed 15 years ago. It was all meaningless, but you tried to pass it by as solid reasons for voting for Clinton.
Then you resorted to a pointless remark meant to make it seem as if this contest were deadlocked, “neither can win at this point.” This, of course, is the kind of straw they sling over at Hillaryis44 and Taylor Marsh. And you already know how those sites are regarded here.
Then you go on to absolve her of playing dirty against someone from her own party. It’s OK, of course, because Republicans do it!
Rolling toward the conclusion, you mock Obama for trying to work with the opposition party – a party that isn’t going away, no matter how many seats we take this year. Worse, you accuse him of being naive. Poor man is just in over his head, isn’t he? They call this a “concern troll.”
Then you use anecdotal “evidence” to cast Obama supporters as the ones filled with hate (despite what the polling on the subject says), and you wrap up by telling us to be civil.
How’s this for civil? Fuck you, troll.
jake
Heh. Sorry man, could you get on Scoop (The GOS’s host)? Or is it just a matter of needing more funds?
jake
Oops. What Pb said.
Metatations
You obviously didn’t listen to (or read) his speech. He did not say that Wright was divisive, just the content of the speeches spinning ’round on the mighty wurlitzer. He explicitly stated that he accepts the man for the good he has done for South Chicago, and refused to condemn him for his (understandable) outrage with the persistent legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.
If there is one thing your comment has proven, it is that trolls are incapable of understanding nuanced arguments.
Soylent Green
I’ve got no problem with you holding that view, Justin.
But she isn’t going to win with elected delegates and she isn’t going to win the popular vote any sooner than the Cubs are going to win the World Series.
So all you really have is your super duper dels and the dream of turning them against the majority’s choice. You want respect for your view that Hillary is the best option but you persist in serving up that steaming load of dung that Obama’s run is “illegitimate.” That argument turns your righteous defense of your candidate into an even bigger pile of crap. You want me to support Hillary? Convince me that she’s the best. Every other gambit is an insult.
The primary in my state is on May 20th. I have been “disenfranchised” from selecting the nominee for as long as I can remember. So this time around, for breaking the rules, FL and MI are SOL. Suck on it.
Justin
Billy K,
Maybe I was a bit unfair and used too many generalizations. For that I’m sorry. I don’t mean to lump all Obama supporters together, I should know better. After all, I considered my decision made only a couple of weeks ago, and I figured it had to be Obama.
That said, I’ll try to address what you said:
Obama *has* drifted rightward on health care, and you need look no further than the brilliant liberal economist Paul Krugman to verify that. Also, it was recently reported that the reason Obama did not automatically get the Edwards endorsement was because, in contrast to a conversation he had with Sen. Clinton, Sen. Obama got into an argument with Elizabeth insisting that his plan was universal (she didn’t think so) and criticizing Clinton’s plan (similar to Edwards’. I honestly think Sen. Clinton has the most progressive (and in my mind correct) position on health care reform of the two.
In re: Reagan, I’m not talking about his admiration of Reagan’s accomplishments, referenced far earlier in the campaign. That was not what I was talking about, it was things like this coming out of his campaign, the pointless pox-on-both-houses kind of pat commentary in his book, and his insistence on addressing the nonexistent social security “crisis.” And there are other examples of Obama going out of his way to use right-wing talking points (I know that there are times when Clinton has seemingly done so as well, but if they both do it Obama can’t be a saint who’s “above politics.”
The contest is essentially deadlocked; correct me if I am wrong but the nomination is decided in a first-past the post system according to delegate count. If neither of them can win outright without superdelegates (or in other words, get 2023 pledged delegates), that is a deadlock to me. Why do you insist on referencing Taylor Marsh and Hillaryis44? I never read either of those sites and trying to smear my arguments by association is pretty sleazy. In fact, Balloon Juice is one of the blogs I DO read regularly, not those.
Please spare me the holier than thou crap and read this. Also, have you wondered why he threw his pastor under the bus? Obama knows how to play dirty too, and yes, knows how to lie, he’s just a bit more subtle about it and the media is less apt to call him out on it because in general the Village is more sympathetic to his candidacy. I really do feel where you’re coming from, and in another time and place i would be arguing your point on this. On the one hand I don’t think the Clinton campaign has been as cynical and manipulative as you think they have been (hence the gun jumping going on around here), but yet if she was willing to fight dirty to prevent Blackwater from operating on the streets of the U.S., yeah, I’m sorry but I think the ends would justify the means. You can’t just sit there and be so naive as to think the Repulicans will play fair. You CANNOT assume that. Remember John Kerry in 2004, reaching out to the Republicans to run an honest campaign? How did that work out? I’m not saying be dishonest, and the ends most CERTAINLY does not always justify the means. But sometimes it does. Besides, have you noticed there’s a double standard? Clinton may have exaggerated a story from the 90’s and she is a monster, she must drop out — but John McCain repeatedly tries to lie us into a war with Iran, and he’s still honorable and “serious.”
You’re not making any sense – of course the Republicans aren’t going anywhere, that’s part of the point I’ve been trying to make! The past 8 years–no, the past 30 years!–are not going to be wiped clean through a new era of bipartisan cooperation. Did you miss 2007, when everyone predicted that with Dem majorities and Bush a lame duck, the Republicans would “start talking” and work with Democrats? As anyone with an ounce of sense who has followed the news will tell you, it didn’t happen, and they are more entrenched than ever. Now as you said, they aren’t going anywhere, and in the Senate they will be able to block bills unless a cloture vote can be achieved. How will President Obama move public opinion such that he will get those Republicans to back down? The track record of reaching out to Republicans in bipartisan cooperation has been one of repeated “go fuck yourself(s),” as you should well know. It’s here that I would much prefer a President Clinton, who already has a track record of calling the Republicans out– flat out–on their bullshit. Will Obama be as strident? Ask yourself why liberal Democrats who believe in single payer health care would probably be ‘bipartisan’ and sign onto Obama or Clinton’s middle of the road reform – because they feel like they have to. And that’s the only way that the Republicans, who are getting more extreme by the day, will reach out in cooperation: if they have to.
Clinton’s stridency and her willingness to call out the “vast right wing conspiracy” (sounds prophetic now) is why they fear her, and it always has been; she is the most threatening thing that they have encountered in a while and those big Republican “macho men” tremble thinking of Hillary cracking their testicles in a nutcracker. It’s hilarious. Remember how they said “yeah, bring Howard Dean on! we want to run against him because he’s a big lefty!” Well I don’t know if you recall, but it was actually Dean that they feared facing the most, because he would make the boldest and most sweeping criticism of the Bush administration. Rove preferred Kerry if I recall…and look what happened.
I think it’s perfectly valid of me to wonder if Barack either 1.) does not really believe the unity stuff and knows how entrenched the Republicans are or 2.) *Actually believes it*, in which case we would likely see a repeat of the same triangulation-phony-bipartisan-bullshit that many are trying to avoid (ironically) by forcing Clinton out of the race? Has no one else wondered if he really thinks there will be an awakening of post-partisanship? At the very least, I think it’s very revealing that Clinton’s motives are *always* questioned but that few have bothered to ask this important question. And before you try to accuse me of subtle racism (treating a black man as a naive “boy”), keep in mind that I’ve been one of the people countering that kind of smear for the past 6 months in everyday conversations.
Something to think about…
and BTW – I am not a troll, concern or otherwise. I’m participating in the discussion and adding my perspective on this issue where I think it’s important. I’m a proud liberal who cares about this country and who doesn’t want to see his party pick a candidate for bad reasons. I’m not saying all Obama supporters have bad reasons–like I said, there is a STRONG case for either candidate–just that there are a lot of Obama supporters who seem to hate Clinton for less-than-honorable reasons.
And please remember that I do not intend this in any way as a smear or a character assassination of Senator Obama. He would make a fine President and a much better one than John McCain. This is a primary and it is THE time to talk about these things. Afterwards will be too late.
Justin
Soylent,
I have been in the same position in my state for years, but it looks like every state is going to matter this time. I think you’re being a bit hasty and shortsighted in saying they are SOL. I agree that since obama was not on the ballot, it’s a questionable result, but what are your suggestions for fixing that other than “Hillary should drop out”? I would suggest a revote so that a proper election could be held, but both states have rejected that idea haven’t they?
DougJ
Or check those boarded up row houses where Marlo be stashing the bodies.
Sorry, I watch too much of The Wire.
Soylent Green
He didn’t do any such thing. He distanced himself Wright’s more inflammatory remarks while stating very clearly that Wright was like a member of his family. He explained with great eloquence the anger felt by Wright’s generation (which is old enough to remember how awful America used to be) and how he, Obama, hopes we can start moving beyond those old enmities.
And if he had said nothing to repudiate Wright, you would be bitching that Obama failed to throw him under the bus (a phrase I hope never to hear again in another election cycle, give it a rest already).
I don’t hate Clinton, never have. I hate what she is doing to the party’s chances, hate her 51% strategy, hate her fluffing of McCain over Obama, hate the willingness of her followers to distort reality beyond all recognition.
But by all means, continue not to troll here.
Rick Taylor
Justin wrote:
I agree with you here; I make it a point not to accuse someone I disagree with of being blinded by their support of whatever. It’s a constant on both sides. Even BTD, who complains when people call him a Hillary supporter doesn’t hesitate to slam someone he disagrees with as being blinded by their support of Obama. If I disagree with someone, I do them the courtesy of assuming they came to their conclusions through stupidity rather than bad faith. :)
There’s no doubt about the bias in the media, some of the things I’ve seen have made me squirm (and John has posted about some of them), but that’s only part of the picture. It’s also the case that Hilary is an amazingly popular politician plugged into a huge network of supporters including those in high places, as well as being an extremely intelligent passionate woman. Most everyone expected her to win going in, and that Obama is actually beating her is a big testament to his political skills, even with the media advantage.
That’s funny, that’s one of the things I wasn’t particularly angry with Hillary for. Wright shouldn’t be an issue in a sane campaign, and Obama handled it well I thought, but I can understand if Hillary wants to distance herself from it; it’s part of Obama’s history not her. Also, she did it after Obama’s campaign released a picture of Bill Clinton with Wright at a meeting of pastors concerning the Lewinsky affair. I thought that was a low blow, given that up to that point her campaign had done a good job of keeping their mouths shut about the issue.
I thought so too, at one point, I even voted for her. Certainly they’re both excellent candidates. But it’s irrelevant by now. My vote is cast, I think the outcome is near certain (and if it isn’t it still will be), and the measures she’s gone to to try to win have appalled me, over-riding the reasons I had for voting for her.
I know we’re just going back and forth, back and forth, but I disagree here. Otherwise the legislature of a state could invalidate any elections simply by electing not to hold primaries. Boiling it down, that is essentially what happened here, they refused to hold primaries during the time period designated for them.
Justin
You’re right that Wright should not be an issue — but I thought it important to note that everything he said was 100% true and there was not one smidgen of “anti-american” or “hateful” statement contained therein. Watch it and then read Obama’s comments.
If anything, this is a video that all Americans should take a few minutes to sit down and watch. Even non-religious ones like myself. Andrew Sullivan, of all people, pointed out this week that the much-maligned comments about the government deliberately introducing AIDS into the African American community may not be true, but that perception is understandable. It’s not fantasy, for example, that the U.S. government refused to provide clean needles to the inner cities. And that the Tuskegee experiment actually happened.
Anyways, I agree with you that once Obama had essentially distanced himself from the statements of Wright, Hillary had to. It’s disappointing because it’s one of those teachable moments, but like I said that’s what we get for voting for 2 cautious centrists.
By the way, for the benefit of others who denied this, here is what Obama said:
Again, I’m not trying to say Obama is a right-winger, but if he really believes this then he is the one who has a profoundly distorted view of this country. White racism isn’t endemic? The entire Republican (and part of the Clinton supporters’) battery of attacks against Obama has been tinged with racism, from the overt to the subtle. And the whole ‘illegal immigration’ xenophobic nonsense…He can’t believe this, because he has himself been the victim of the smear campaign regarding his name, his heritage, his skin color, etc. And ‘conflicts’ in the Middle East (presumably the Israeli-Palestinian one) are the fault of the ‘perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam?,’ and have nothing to do with “Stalwart” allies like Israel? I don’t think even George Bush makes that assertion.
Wright’s statements are not only “wrong” but “divisive,” that’s what he said. Just like all those bitchy Democrats pointing out that we torture people is “divisive.” Uhmmm…I thought Obama was supposed to be the liberal on foreign policy? This kind of rhetoric is straight out of Rudy Guiliani’s campaign book.
Essentially, if he doesn’t believe all that, he’s being very sophisticated and calculated (and smart) in his response. If he does really believe all that, then isn’t that a problem? This is actually a prime example of why I think the distinctions people make between Clinton as a “politician” and Obama as a saint are nonsense.
Again, I hate to bring this topic up, but I don’t see it as a “negative” for Obama if you just watch the video, it is one of the more “patriotic” speeches i have heard from the pulpit in a long time.
Justin
Sorry, here’s the video link, as if you haven’t heard about this enough already. If you never did watch the full video, check it out.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=QOdlnzkeoyQ
Martin
But that’s an instrumental point. Clinton has been adamant about not having a revote while her staff have been accusing Obama of being the one blocking it.
And as Rick points out, you can’t give states carte blanche authority here. What’s to stop them from moving primaries ahead to Labor day or to set up some bizarro election approach? As it is you have Clinton supporters clamoring for caucuses to be abolished. Who would enforce that? Why the same DNC rules that Clinton agreed to but now has reversed herself on. There are so many contradictory positions being bandied about by the Clinton folks that it’s absurd. FL/MI shouldn’t be disenfranchised but we should follow popular vote (which negates the choice of at least 11 caucus states). The DNC shouldn’t be able to set a rule that leaves out FL/MI, but caucuses should be done away with, presumably by DNC rules. All or nothing is the better delegate system, but popular vote is more democratic.
Does NOBODY recognize that these arguments are just sheer insanity? It’s just a constant stream of utterances in support of one candidate that fly in the face of all logic. And this is where it gets insulting. We’re not so stupid to fall for this shit, yet it keeps coming and coming. And some of us are pretty damn sensitive to this crap after 7 years of Bush telling us that we don’t torture people on the same day that someone is testifying to Congress that we do.
Justin
Of course it’s sheer insanity, because the U.S. electoral ‘system’ is sheer insanity embodied. Surely we’ve all figured this out by now, that all the hodgepodge state laws that count votes in so many different ways make it damn near impossible to tell who actually won in a close election. I don’t see how this is Clinton’s fault; it’s the legislatures of FL and MI that refused a revote. What are either of the campaigns supposed to do about that?
Of course you can’t give states carte blanche to manipulate the primary process however they choose, which is why it seemed to make sense to strip those states of their delegates. But in a hotly contested primary, where EVERY state will count in terms of the result, you just cannot find a simple, straightforward way to count the votes of 2 states while also making them not matter.
Stop blaming this on Clinton and “man up” to the issue at hand (pun intended). What would be an acceptable solution? I really don’t think Clinton is going to back down on this. And why should she? Some of the states where she is predicted to perform the best have yet to hold an election.
We have plenty of time to run a ‘national’ albeit 2-vs-1 campaign right now, and sort out this nomination process fairly. Trying to force Clinton out of the race is counterproductive and is sure to cause more damage to the Democratic party than any extended primary.
And remember, it’s not even long according to historical standards. I hate to cite realclearpolitics, but here’s some facts:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/04/post_28.html
Also see here:
http://www.correntewire.com/why_wont_that_stupid_bitch_quit_watch_8
Soylent Green
which is why I’m going to blather on endlessly about Wright.
except that I am.
but I will anyway, blah blah woof woof.
Hey Justin? GMAFB.
Soylent Green
Yeah, Pennsylvania, which she will win in the single digits, if she wins it at all.
And North Carolina, where we both know she is going to get clobbered.
Indiana is a toss up.
No chance in Oregon, but she’ll take Kentucky, so those two are a wash.
End result, no gain for Clinton, much more likely a net loss of delegates by June.
Your candidate is the “hope” candidate, because hope is all you’ve got.
Justin
Soylent,
I made every effort to qualify what I was saying and not set someone off, but I think you were just looking for something. And I was not making a criticism of Obama’s pastor, nor of his choice in pastors. This is not a Republican smear or Taylor Marsh propaganda or whatever – take off your tinfoil hat for crying out loud! Obama could have said anything and chose to say that what Wright said was *wrong* and *divisive.* Do you really think that what he said was wrong? Again, watch the video.
What I was saying is that if he thinks Rev. Wright is expressing something fundamentally incorrect, which is what he said, then that’s pretty scary because it’s practically a word for word reiteration of right-wing talking points about American race relations and foreign policy. He’s basically conceding that his pastor is outside the realm of legitimate discourse, which quite frankly is insane to say because he said nothing remotely controversial. If it’s ‘divisive’ and wrong to point out *facts* about American foreign policy and to highlight the pitfalls of a “revenge” mentality (false association between Iraq & 9/11, anyone?) then what the hell have we become?
None of this is to say that Sen. Clinton performed admirably in the wake of this — she disowned the honorable Rev. Wright too. The point is that while Obama may have made some insightful comments about the state of race relations, if he does not think white racism is endemic in this country (of all countries) he really does have his head in the sand. If he doesn’t believe it, then he’s just triangulating and (surprise!) he’s not “above politics” after all. Because it would be silly to be a public official and try to be “above politics.”
Martin
I’m not saying that it’s Clinton’s fault that FL/MI got stripped. I’m saying it’s Clinton’s fault for reversing a position that she agreed to and empowering FL/MI to present this as some kind of injustice by backing a problem that the states themselves created against the DNC.
As to the revote, Clinton has been adamantly opposed to that:
Who ultimately killed these plans is a story we’d likely never know, but we do know that early on Dean offered Florida nearly a million dollars from the DNC to cover a caucus, and we do know that not only was Clinton opposed to it, but her Florida Chair and Florida state party member Wasserman Schultz was also opposed to it. We know that the Clinton campaign took an all-or-nothing approach with Florida delegates. Did Obama? Maybe. But his claim was that he’d go along with what the states and the DNC worked out and the has been a consistent viewpoint from the DNC that something should get worked out. I think this has descended into a game of chicken with the DNC on one side and the state parties and Clinton on the other. The parties want to succeed on moving outside the calendar, because they won’t get another shot at this if they back down, and that’s a position that works in Clintons favor, so they’re gambling that she’ll carry enough weight in a protracted fight to get the delegates seated as-is.
And again, do you realize that this isn’t true? The bill that moved the date was introduced by a Democrat:
His bill was willingly combined with the bill to require a paper trail on ballots which is the one that finally passed. Florida Democratic party could have applied to be one of the two additional states (which SC and NV eventually got) but never bothered to apply. In mid 2007, Florida thought that they and Michigan would be large enough to overcome the DNC calendar and continued to hold the line, assuming that candidates would still come and campaign and spend their money and if the delegates didn’t count no big deal. It was in response to this that Dean put out the 4 state pledge that Clinton signed that made it clear that the delegates wouldn’t count (see my post above) and agreed to not campaign, thereby taking the wind out of FL/MI plans. By Sept 1, candidates could no longer remove themselves from the FL ballot but still could in MI, and NH Democratic party asked the candidates to do just that as a show of good faith that they wouldn’t later try and contest the delegates. Clinton didn’t do that but explained her decision in a NH public radio interview that she didn’t need to remove her name since it was clear the delegates wouldn’t count.
Now, people keep arguing that the Democratic party has a huge problem with FL/MI voters, but the GOP stripped half of the delegates in both states since the 4 state calendar was a joint effort of the DNC and GOP (so much for parties not being able to cooperate). But nobody mentions that. Instead some Democrats are happy to scream to high heaven how Florida voters are being robbed by the Democratic party. Any screaming by Republicans even when FL/MI would have had a major role in their primary? No – because it only hurts the party.
Now, neither FL or MI Dems were railroaded into this. They both wanted this. FL Dems voted overwhelmingly in favor of this and Dean never expected them to overturn a decision that they couldn’t possibly overturn in a vote. Instead the DNC asked the party to make a good faith effort to move the date, which they never did. They pretended to, but FL DNC members documented the effort and made it available to the committee and when the FL reps met with the DNC and claimed that they were railroaded into this in spite of all of their efforts to the contrary, there was a stack of documentation that clearly showed they were lying.
But rather than accept any of this, Clinton keeps pushing the false story and Clinton supporters, rather than actually look at the facts here, keep adding to the party divide. FL and MI dems are thrilled to have you guys on their side. Their repeated lies on this issue wouldn’t work if they didn’t have all of you repeating them constantly.
Why not? Do Clinton supporters even realize that the DNC (by approval of most states) was offering states 10%, 20%, and 30% delegate bonuses for moving their primaries later to April/May/June respectively? The influence of each state was open for negotiation by a willingness to support a longer primary process. Had California moved their primary back to June, the effect of either FL or MI (or around a dozen smaller states) would have been completely wiped out anyway.
Seriously, if you are going to make these arguments you need to work a bit harder to really understand all that is going on here. A lot of Clinton supporters seem to think we’re running a general election (or worse, an election type that doesn’t even exist in this country) and are now outraged that the reality of what the party (and the GOP) has been doing for the last 35 years doesn’t match their completely wrong assumptions of how this is supposed to work.
Martin
I’m not sure how you can claim that white racism is endemic in a country with the following poll results:
Do you think America is ready for a black president or not?
Yes No Unsure
All 76% 22% 3%
Whites 78% 20% 2%
Blacks 69% 29% 2%
Even with survey bias considered, racism can’t possibly be endemic when the overwhelming majority of blacks suggest that the country is ready for a black president. That reflects not only the survey respondent’s view, but their opinion of their fellow citizens. Now, that’s not to say that racism isn’t still a problem and that race bias isn’t a more widespread problem, but the evidence suggests that racism isn’t endemic at all. If it was, how on earth could Obama even have gotten this far?
Martin
Cool. Let’s try that again…
Do you think America is ready for a black president or not?
Yes No Unsure
All 76% 22% 3%
Whites 78% 20% 2%
Blacks 69% 29% 2%
Justin
Martin,
Your points are well taken, and you should know that I’m not arguing with the structural changes that were made to the Democratic primary process over the past 35 years; for example I’m glad delegates are seated through proportional representation in each state and not through winner-take all as in the GOP race. And I understand very well that Democrats in these states were excited about increasing their states’ influence in the primary; Democratic legislatures & Democratic governors were in on it together.
One question I have is that although you said Clinton was on record opposing a caucus revote, what about a regular primary? Because from what I remember Obama favored a caucus & Clinton favored a primary, and in the end nothing happened.
I think the phenomenon you’re observing is not limited to Clinton supporters but is being associated with them right now because of this circumstance. It’s the residual anger of having the 2000 election be essentially stolen by a party-line vote on the Supreme Court to stop counting the votes.
You’ll find that perspective among a lot of people, a lot of people who have been around for longer than 35 years. Blame it on people actually believing in the democratic process, I guess. You start talking about throwing out the results of an election or just patronizing people by giving them a seat but making sure their state doesn’t actually “matter” and people get pissed. Not hard to imagine.
Justin
Martin,
You’re really pulling out the Republican talking points now. I seem to remember hearing about Hannity getting so excited about Obama’s candidiacy because it would *prove* — once and for all to those DFH’s — that racism was over and that we really had equal opportunity and a tolerant society.
In order to believe that racism is not endemic to our society, you have to ignore every occurrence of the “Muslim” or the “Madrassa” smears, you have to ignore the fact that to this day a whole lot of Americans still think “those people over there” (iraq implied) attacked us on 9/11. You would also have to ignore the fact that in many parts of the country we have de facto segregation, the the condition of the inner cities, and the fact that extremist racial hatred groups are seeing their largest increase in membership in decades. You have to ignore the Minutemen, you have to ignore Tom Tancredo, you have to ignore Andrew Sullivan oddly championing the Bell Curve & then doing an about face & supporting Obama because apparently he looks black but he’s apparently not like those other “uppity” blacks, you have to ignore the fact that we still count the bodies in Iraq at 4,000 instead of close to a million. You have to ignore the lack of response to Katrina and the emphasis on “law and order” when families were not bothering to leave Wal-Mart a check in the abandoned cash register for the food and supplies they got there.
Martin
The only way a primary would happen is if the taxpayers paid for it and that wasn’t going to happen in either state. But Clinton had no objection to caucuses before Iowa, in fact she had consistently praised the process in Iowa. But if you read her statement, it’s not caucuses specifically that she is objecting to:
She objected to a primary, a mail-in, a firehouse, a caucus, or anything else. She wanted the result that she knew she would get.
Fine. But this is a problem that has been known since August 2007 at least, and among the loudest voices for FL/MI to fix the situation came from DKos, primarily those that are Obama supporters. That was the day of the DNC meeting and Adam B has been a die-hard Obama supporter since day one as he had Obama as a law professor and has sung his praises for 4 years.
If this is residual anger, where was it for the 6 months when there was time to do something about it? Once the results were known, you can no longer make an unbiased argument. Even if you think you are making an unbiased argument, the result is biased and you can’t divorce the case for/against caucuses, FL/MI, or anything else when the neutral argument has been polluted with non-neutral results. That was the problem in FL in 2000. It wasn’t a Broward county on the line but the whole nation. Had we not known how everyone else voted, FL wouldn’t have happened as it did. It would have been an unbiased count and the outcome of the election might well have been totally different. So by arguing for FL/MI, people are actually repeating the very mistake that happened in 2000. Surely we learned that those ‘never could have forseen’ arguments are horribly short-sighted. How much of a problem could a single ballot type in a county in Florida be? How likely is it that FL delegates would still be needed by the convention? Seriously, I’ll grant that nobody could have forseen FL 2000, but Florida Democrats just zoned out after that and didn’t think that their state party tossing their delegates out the window would be a problem? And suddenly voters in California who kept their party in line and stayed on 2/5 or later should be sympathetic? Sorry, but the whole point of a democracy is that you eat your own dog food. Florida Dems have a say. They elected the people that made this decision. They have the ability to be involved and informed and if they were asleep at the switch then they have to live with that consequence.
I didn’t make that argument – the Democrats that drove the FL and MI date changes did. The same rationale that I referenced from Ring above was made by MI Dems, but more prominently which is why there is less debate there. They never tried lying to voters about how they got in the spot they did. But in all of this, there is anger at Dean, the DNC, Obama, Obama supporters and almost NONE for Florida or Michigan Dems. Why not? Why no calls on them to solve the problem? Both states could presumably have held a caucus if the state party was willing to pay for it. Both states fought that. None of the people the anger is being directed toward are hampering this – it’s primarily happening by the state parties, even with Clinton on the record in opposition to a revote, and nobody is putting pressure on them.
My point here is that many voters, and specifically Clinton supporters don’t actually appear to be interested in the voters. If they were, they’d be jumping on the people that can solve the problem rather than the ones that can’t. They’d be outraged at Clinton’s statement. Instead, they want the result that they want. They want to overturn the agreement that 50 states came to (even Florida voted for the 4 state plan) and that the candidates all agreed to. They don’t care about Michigan voters that wanted to vote for Obama and they don’t care about the voters that knew the delegates wouldn’t count and either didn’t vote or voted Republican. And many of the people that are arguing strongest for FL/MI due to voter disenfranchisement will instantly argue that they need to count for the popular vote, overlooking that such a count disenfranchises every caucus state – almost a dozen of them. They don’t really care about setting this right based on their actions. They want what they want and I don’t see any reason why that should be tolerated.
As I said above, every argument which has been leveled about how this ought to be handled or have been done different directly contradicts some other argument made by the same people.
Martin
But you are combining a couple of different things. Katrina was as much about neglecting the poor as anything else. We can argue that those are too often the same thing, and many would agree, but that’s not necessarily an issue of racism, rather of bias and lack of opportunity. People in this country have never cared about West Virginia or Kentucky either. Poor white people aren’t valued much more than poor black people. And ignoring Iraq casualties is simple nationalism. We wouldn’t count Canadian casualties either because we care fuck-all about anyone but us, and we barely care about us. And the 9/11 vs Iraq thing is simple ignorance, not racism. Muslims are no less regarded than atheists in this country (and there are a lot of white and asian Muslims, by the way).
But the other points all fail to support your case. Yes, they are examples of racism, but they also all failed. No more than about 10% of the population accepted the Muslim smear. Obama still carries strong favorables even in a general election. The Minutemen are a small fringe group and have also failed at everything other than getting local news to pay attention to them. The extreme racist groups are incredibly small in a nation of 300 million and Tancredo and Sully (and I’ll offer up Buchanan) are all individuals. Nobody is arguing that 20% or so of the population aren’t racist (and that’s nearly enough people to control a major political party), but that’s not an endemic problem. In fact, you’d probably find that all of those subpopulations overlap to a massive degree. In reality, that makes it a solvable problem by simply marginalizing them rather then empowering them. If you do that, social pressure, education, and simple attrition to the grave will continue to drive their numbers down. Sure, there will always be a population there, just as there are people that still insist that the sun revolves around the earth but you don’t need to eliminate the problem, just make it small enough that’s it’s easily managed. We’re not there yet in some places, but we definitely are in most.
Justin
I wasn’t commenting on whether or not anyone had “accepted the Muslim smear,” and I wasn’t saying that all of those things were 100% about racism. That would be overly simplistic & there are a number of simple factors (like never looking at a map) that would cause your average person to be susceptible to the suggestion that, to follow the example, invading and occupying Iraq was a response to an act of terrorism. But beyond that, racism has been encouraged and cultivated over the last 8 years.
I totally agree with you that racism is a ‘managable’ phenomenon, but you can’t manage anything without observing it and pointing it out first. Racial prejudice and human suffering are the common threads that connect all those examples. And obviously there are plenty of white and asian Muslims…there are great many Muslims all over the world of different cultures and lifestyles and beliefs even, but you would not know that from our national political discourse.
I guess I’m saying that we aren’t managing it very well. John has written here for some time about the outright racism being peddled in ‘mainstream’ Republican circles today. But that’s just the point, that it’s getting mainstreamed into our discourse. “Illegal immigrant” used to be a staple of white supremacist discourse (for a time at least we used the more humane term, undocumented immigrants). After all, “illegal” immigration is only a misdemeanor, right?
You can’t just divide up all these separate but related things & call them “isolated incidents” or “a few bad apples.” Not when there’s something systemic going on in the culture. I’m not trying to encourage cynicism at all, it’s just that to deny that racism is endemic really is to sort of turn a blind eye to a great deal of history. There is most certainly a “new racism,” which makes itself out to look respectable, but which gets its ideas right out of old white supremacist ideology.
jake
Martin
It’s not getting successfully mainstreamed, however. Yes, the terminology is getting picked up, but not the meaning that they want. Sure, Dobbs and Tancredo have shored up support for their side, and it’s enough for some short-term policy changes, but long term it fails consistently. Most Americans are in favor of naturalization and that number generally is going up. Now, we’ve largely replaced ‘goddamn Mexican’ with ‘illegal immigrant’ in our racial codebook, but that’s progress because it’s moved people off of something that was outright bigoted to something that is assumed to be bigoted. In a decade or less, that assumption will be mostly gone and the terminology will again shift. Just because they are trying to retain their ability to be racist doesn’t mean that they are being successful at it.
Is the GOP supporting that? Absolutely, but to a smaller degree than before. McCain couldn’t get away with standing in Philadelphia, Mississippi and giving a speech on states rights. And let’s not lose sight of the racists in our own party either. They were easy to forget about until MyDD whipped themselves into a lather about racist black people who pretend to be preachers in order to hate America. Those diaries raced up the rec list there for about a week or two. But the GOP supports it because that 20% is a big group in politics. Hell, even 5% is a big group, and the GOP has a vested interest in keeping those people as racists because it keeps them in their camp, so they’ll feed it as much as they can get away with. They’ve always done this kind of division (and the Dems as well in the past) but they back off when it is no longer politically expedient to do so and that keeps happening. The GOP has softened their position on gays a LOT in the last decade because they’re seeing that it’s a losing position for them. That’s happening not because people keep screaming out about gay bashing and such, but because we’ve just mainstreamed homosexuality. So rather than bitch about the homophobes, we mostly just make them look out-of-touch and idiotic. I think that’s where Obama sees us going with racism in this country. We still need to have that dialogue, but the dialogue can’t be based on accusations from both sides.
But many of these things *are* isolated incidents puffed up by people who have an audience. Islamofascist didn’t enter our vocabulary organically, it was planted there by a select few to try and draw out outrage about 9/11 into a larger racial/religious struggle. They are leveraging people’s innate tendency to protect their own group, but they have to keep working harder to draw it out – it just doesn’t stick for long. The fact that it doesn’t stick for long is what we need to recognize. But they do as reminders that racism is still out there, rather than indicators that it’s getting worse or even remaining strongly entrenched. The systemic thing is that racism is going away. Hannity would have us believe it’s gone and would point to anecdotes to prove his point – or worse, to lynch the reputation of someone like Wright to make his case that whites are the victims here. Some others, and I think a liberals fall in this camp, feel that racism is a bigger problem than it is because they can now see more evidence of it than before, but that’s due to better access to information, not to a change in society.
You can look at Katrina as a racism problem, but truly if you put a bunch of poor white people in that same situation the government would have reacted just as ineptly – mainly because Bush’s government is inept and because the GOP hates poor people as much or more than they hate black people. Poor people just serve as reminders that conservatism is a failed ideology. And we can talk about why so many blacks are poor, but it also ignores why so many whites are poor as well. The the fundamental problem here is that poor people are almost assured to stay poor – so if your family was poor in 1964, you’re probably still poor in 2008. That’s true in Louisiana and it’s true in West Virginia.
Actually, it comes up very little in our national political discourse. Remember, we just elected a Muslim to Congress in 2006. It comes up from *some* avenues – Limbaugh/O’Reilly/Coulter/RedState, etc. and we talk about it because they are talking about it, but most people aren’t talking about it. They might wonder about it because these big important people™ are talking about it, but most people aren’t talking about it at all. It’s guys like Hannity that are giving the perception that racism cuts across society more broadly than it actually does. If it really was a problem in our political discourse then the madrassa thing would have stuck with more people. That we even went down that avenue tells us we need to keep working at it, but it proved to be a dead end and we need to recognize that too.
LanceThruster
Over at some of the pro-Hillary blogs, it is clear that to not support HRC is to be a traitor to the cause. Keith Olbermann has now been deemed personna non grata.
Justin
Of course words like “Islamofascism” don’t enter the vocabulary organically. I think we basically have the same goals in mind but you’re arguing with a position that I’m not taking. You’re arguing that the relative success or failure of racist ideas and memes in society can be measured by whether people “accepted the madrassa smear,” for example, or by whether they voted for Obama. That is a logical fallacy that proves nothing, and at best it’s only one point that you might use to make an actual case that racism isn’t endemic. Obama is not the referent by which all discussions about race must begin and end in American politics, and I wish you would stop making him out to be such. To give you an illustration, if a white person thought Obama’s candidacy was a great thing because he is part African American, yet on the other hand he was “clean” and “safe” (things that have been said by prominent individuals during this race) then it is reasonable to conclude that this is based on a (conscious or unconscious) racist notion that can be seen as far back as the case of Booker T. Washington. He, too, was championed by whites who wanted a “safe negro.” I’m really not trying to offend, but I think you have a very limited understanding of what racism is and what the history of it is. You should really read David Neiwart’s blog more often.
BTW I’m from Kentucky so I know very well of that which you speak. But if you do know this area then you should know that racism is far from dead, and while I appreciate you trying to be optimistic you seem to come very close to just defining it away.
Justin
And Rev. Wright’s message back then in 2001 – that it was a time for self-examination – is no less valid today.
Martin
Far from it. I’ll be quick to defend that in certain parts of the country, racism is in fact endemic, so I don’t for a minute deny that it’s true there. However, Kentucky is not the nation and what you find in Kentucky and perhaps 30% of the geographical U.S. you won’t find in but perhaps 20% of the populace. I live in a county in California that has approximately the population of Kentucky and racism is a rather uncommon thing here. I voted against Gilchrist in a local election here and even so you really don’t find all that much racism toward Latinos either. Like I said, the Minutemen are such a small and fringe minority of the population that they aren’t worth losing the larger view over.
I’m the last person you would accuse of trying to define it away. More than anything else, I think it needs to be brought out directly and discussed directly, but you don’t do that with the suggestion that most Americans are racist, especially when most aren’t and would take offense at the notion. This only works if we are honest, and that’s not an honest take on the overall state of the nation today.
I don’t deny that Obama is something of an ideal candidate, but is ‘safe’ what the electorate is choosing or what certain people think we are choosing? The truth is we have no idea how other black candidates would have fared, but I think a lot of people that remember civil rights have a different notion of what those who came since civil rights think. The electorate is not dominated by 50 and 60-some year olds like the pundit/surrogate class is.