With James O’Keefe out of commission, who’s going to give this scandal the coverage it deserves?
A major survey conducted by The Washington Post, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University found that 80 percent of black Democrats are as interested or more interested in the midterms than they were in the 2008 presidential election, when their enthusiasm helped propel Barack Obama into office.
This year, 62 percent of all black Democrats say they’re likely to encourage others to support certain candidates, according to the survey, compared with 47 percent of white Democrats and 57 percent of all Republicans.
Should black people be allowed to vote in federal elections while we have a black president? I’m not suggesting that black people should be denied the right to vote, but that there are certain cases in which their stake in the matter may be too great.
(h/t Reader K)
Maude
Obama is talking to AA’s? You know what that means don’t you? Obama hates white people.
Nick L
Don’t forget Pat Robertson’s analysis of the fall of apartheid in South Africa:
Spaghetti Lee
I too am worried about black people voting in the interest of fellow black people Raul Grijalva and Rush Holt. If only we had someone around to seduce them…
Poopyman
Don’t worry, Mark Kirk is on the case.
PigInZen
Excellent snark. +1
Alex S.
Black people vote? What went wrong???
MattR
I ‘ve got nothing witty to say on this topic. I’m starting to get worn down by the universal dickishness of Republicans. Based on the time of the post, all that’s left is this.
kindness
Will Pat Sajac ever live down his assholiness?
I hope not.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
This sounds like a job for Michael Steele, GOP minority outreach superhero!
[cue dramatic music]
Michael?
[drumroll]
Michael?
[longer drumroll]
Helloooooo, paging Michael Steele, paging…
MattF
It’s racism. And it’s racism that violates the civil rights of white people. And denying this violates the free speech of Americans who are only defending themselves, as they have the right to do.
beltane
Based upon a very informal analysis of my friends and acquaintances, many AA’s hate the teabaggers with a steady, burning passion, and are especially pissed off by the “Obama is a Kenyan Muslim” line of reasoning. I know this group of voters is not as important to the national media as the crazed, scooter-riding Glenn Becks cultists are, but many of them will gladly crawl over broken glass to vote for Democrats and against the devil-spawn Republicans.
Nick
But But But, I thought Obama’s base was unenthused! Turns out his base is fine, it’s HIllary’s base that was unenthused.
licensed to kill time
Strapping young bucks with their t-bone stakes
in the matter too great
whatchagonnado?
no vote for you!
Martin
DougJ, you can’t say that the journalists didn’t get this one right.
Alex S.
@Nick:
Ouch, that is too true.
Tom M
Given your interest in snark, should you be allowed to blog about this?
Let’s vote.
beltane
@Nick: Are you calling them bitter?
Martin
@Alex S.: I agree, that’s a great observation.
Suck It Up!
@Nick:
No its the “base” that’s depressed not the base.
BGinCHI
So, when the election doesn’t turn out to be the Greatest Tea Party Day Ever (!!), and AAs, Latino/as, blue collar Dems turn out to actually vote, what’s the media going to say?
Prediction: they’ll spend NO time assessing their role in the whole circus, no time wondering how they were part of the whole bullshit fake grassroots “movement.”
Yeah, they’ll wear the juice.
Steve
Since black voters are very enthusiastic, my takeaway is that regular Democrats are less enthusiastic than normal.
Mnemosyne
@BGinCHI:
They’ll find the one or two tea partiers who did make it to Congress (because it’s inevitable that a few will slip by unwary voters) and use them to declare that the media was right all along.
DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.
@Steve:
You mean hard-working white Democrats?
Davis X. Machina
I can only guess, because I’m whiter than Maggie’s drawers and live in America’s whitest state, but after two years of this shit, were I AA, I would crawl over broken glass, through live fire, to vote for anything with breath in its lungs and a D after its name, just to show the cocksuckers.
On-site voter suppression may have to be characterized as a hazardous profession. They’ll have to do it upstream.
Xecky Gilchrist
47 percent of white Democrats and 57 percent of all Republicans.
i.e., approx. 57 percent of white Republicans.
dmsilev
@BGinCHI: Some fraction of them will scream (or “think out loud”; same thing) about “election fraud”.
If your scenario comes to pass (and I certainly hope it does), I give it roughly 30 seconds before the phrase ‘vampire ACORN’ escapes from Glen Beck.
dms
BGinCHI
@Mnemosyne: You’re probably right. Though even that sounds like hard work for those lazy bastards.
Cermet
I agree completely if the reverse is also required – whites can not vote when there (or in this case, maybe I should use their) is a white president. Works for me.
Mnemosyne
Aha! I knew someone had linked to where the NY Times was fluffing the tea partiers today, and it was Elizabelle in one of the threads down below:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/15/us/politics/15teaparty.html?_r=1
ricky
Even if this were true, far too many Black voters have been
packed into heavily Democratic House Districts to make much difference even if their turnout exceed its average by 50%.
Might stave off a Senate loss or two.
freelancer
DOUG! Doug! Doug!
Live chat with Chuck Todd starting like RFN!
Go now!
ETA: Nevermind, that was at 4pm EST. Crap.
artem1s
@Cermet:
you win the thread!
BGinCHI
@dmsilev: I hope Fox News just goes quiet as the anchors/actors just sit there with their stupid mouths open.
Maybe Steve Doocy will do the honorable thing and off himself.
ricky
@DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.:
Scrappy Democratic voters.
The proper term for white Democratic voters is the same as for white receivers in the NFL. Scrappy. Rhymes with crappy.
But you knew that.
Poopyman
@Davis X. Machina:
That’s why God meant for us to have electronic voting machines.
ricky
@Mnemosyne:
No, half will blame it on Dewey’s pollsters and the other half will ignore it as if it were a missing weapon of mass destruction.
Bob L
@BGinCHI:
Unless the results are something truly earth shattering, like say a 50 point Dem gain in seats, the Media will just ignore the results and go on with the narrative they’ve been pushing.
Brachiator
@Steve:
Because black voters are “irregular” Democrats?
Larry Signor
I’m confused. Sajaks political ramblings are akin to a plumbers diagnosis of ones gall bladder disease. Someone please help him back on the bus before everyone is late for the casino buffet.
lol
@Bob L:
A Democratic *gain* of seats would just reaffirm we’re a center-right nation and that President Obama has an obligation to reach across the aisle to the remaining Republicans.
MattR
@ricky:
Can I vote for bad polling due to cell phones? (There is almost definitely a real effect there, but they will completely overstate it)
djheru
@BGinCHI: My takeaway is that this is great news for republicans in general, and especially conservatives.
ricky
@Brachiator:
Actually white Democrats call themselves “regular” Democratic voters except if they are REAL progressives. Then they call themselves the Democratic base, pronounce themselves pissed, and promise not to vote.
BGinCHI
@lol: Governing party ALWAYS loses seats at the midterm, and it’s usually worse if they already control both houses too.
So, if the election simply turns out to be within the norm, what will all the gnashing of teeth about the Tea Party and all of the rhetoric about “Obama taking away our freedoms” have meant?
That the MSM has NO FUCKING IDEA WHAT IT’S TALKING ABOUT.
Just loop the miners coming out of that mine and run a Breaking News chyron and find other jobs. Maybe ones that actually increase the quality of life.
Zifnab
With all these close elections lining up between Senators, I can’t wait to see which election – decided by a 1% margin – is 100% legitimate and which election absolutely demands a recount because not enough good white Christian land owner ballots were counted.
curious
@Brachiator: right. when national journalists talk about black democrats, they are referring to a category of voters entirely separate from “regular” democrats, or “reagan” democrats, if you will. their votes still count, sort of, but their opinions mostly don’t.
Midnight Marauder
@ricky:
Um, not quite.
lamh32
I kinda feel it! I listen to my local morning show on urban radio and the biggest national “urban” radio shows on my drive to and from work, and they never go a day without telling people to get out and vote…”Our President needs you!!!”. The President has been on at least 2 of the nationally syndicated Black radio shows, that get the widest audience of Black people, and the first Lady has done the largest of these shows as well. That’s not including Tim Kaine, Congressman Clyburn, Valerie Jarette, and various members of the administration, have all been interviewed on these shows.
Also, I have heard at least 3 different GOTV radio ads sponsered by Texas Dems & other national Dem org on urban radio tellling people to get out there an vote.
Antecdotally, I had a co-worker who is young, urban, and who I wasn’t even aware was politicially active, and she asked me what question I would ask the President if I had the chance. Suprisingly, she is very active in OFA and she was going to a OFA tele-chat in her neighorbood. She signed up for OFA during the campaign, and she still receives and reads the emails sent.
So, I can say that yes, WE ARE ENGAGED. if this engagement actually translates to getting out and voting, or voting early (I bet a lot of AA may actual vote early), then yes, MSM and GOP may be up for a rude awakening!
BTW, the “truest” part of the article is this statment:
cat48
If DEMS do hold the house, I want black folks to continuously remind everyone that Dems would have NO power if it weren’t for them, because they are the base & by God there wouldn’t be a Dem in Congress or the WH if it weren’t for them and all the damn work they did to get them all elected. I want it said with absolute certainty and the proper huffiness!! Early & often!
BGinCHI
@Midnight Marauder:
Joint Center?
That dude sounds high.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@BGinCHI:
Don’t worry, when the Tea Party wears out its welcome, they’ll just come up with another astroturfed rebranding effort.
I stake my claim now to predicting the emergence of the “Pilgrim Party” in which people in South Carolina and Georgia, many of whom are the biological descendents of the cavaliers and border marchers of western and nothern England circa 1649 will with no sense of historical irony whatsoever parade around wearing Pilgrim hats, carrying muskets and loudly exclaiming how Obama is tyrannizing them like Charles I did the Puritan faithfull, and must be dealt with just like Oliver Cromwell did back in the day.
With any luck this game will continue working backwards in historical era by a few centuries each time, until we get to “what have the Romans ever done for us?”.
gbear
It’s enough to make them start drinking again.
Oh wait. Not that AA…
Omnes Omnibus
@curious: Come on, you have Black Democrats, which speaks for itself; you have Liberal Democrats, who tend to be pointy-head, latte drinking, intellectual elitists; you have Union Democrats, who belong to unions and are unAmerican; and you have regular Democrats, some of whom are Reagan Democrats. Only the regular Democrats count. Duh.
Bob Loblaw
@lamh32:
Are you schizophrenic? It’s not often you see somebody double post within a single post. Well done.
Midnight Marauder
@BGinCHI:
Very well played.
Violet
@lamh32:
Good stuff. Glad to see the President and others working to GOTV among various Dem constituencies. I hope it works.
Omnes Omnibus
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:The Pilgrims were Separatists, not Puritans. I guess that is central to your point.
BGinCHI
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: I like this. They’ll eventually get back to being Jesus and then they’ll have a really hard time trying to figure out whether Obama is The Jews or The Romans.
My guess is they’ll go with the former. They already have the outfits for that (see Ohio, Iott).
lamh32
This is slightest OT, but it pertains a little. If ya’ll think that Obama has 95+% approval by AA, then Michelle Obama has 200%+…
So does Sarah Palin REALLY wanna try to take a jab at FLOTUS? I saw on MSNBC, that she made a jab today alluding to Michelle Obama’s “proud…” statement from the 2008 campaign. Andrea Mitchell showed the clip, after the clip, you can hear in Mrs Greenspan’s voice, that she was not “amused” by Mrs Palin.
Sarah Palin may wanna rethink jabbing at FLOTUS.
She don’t want NONE of what would come her way if she tries some shit like that again!
Bob L
@lol: Exactly, why hasn’t Obama closed the deal and gotten a 250 seat majority in the House? It’s 1978 all over again.
lamh32
@Bob Loblaw:
yeah, that was bad. it was only after I saw it, that I realized what I had done. That’s what happens when you cut and paste without editing
Davis X. Machina
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: Let ’em come up to Southie, and try that ‘Cromwell’ shit.
Jaysus, that’d get ugly in a hurry….
Brachiator
@curious:
So, black Democrats aren’t the base, and aren’t “regular” Democrats. And Latino Democrats apparently don’t count either. So even though these two groups, added together, would ultimately form a numerically dominant coalition, still only white Democrats’ opinion matters to national journalists.
This will soon be the new 5/3 rule.
Lurked
I went canvassing last weekend for the first time ever and they sent me (middle-aged white woman) to an AA neighborhood. Everybody on my list whom I was able to contact vowed to vote except for one elderly lady who said she was having surgery shortly beforehand. (I left an absentee ballot application with her but I doubt she’ll send it in.)
Violet
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
I’m waiting for the No True Scotsman party. Mel Gibson can wear blue face paint and be their leader.
Steve
@Brachiator: It’s not that they’re irregular, it’s just that it would distort the results to treat them as normal voters.
Violet
@lamh32:
The wingnuts jab at Michelle all the time. I had the radio on in the car for about five minutes this afternoon and heard whoever is filling in for Hannity. His caller was talking about Michelle Obama breaking the law by “canvassing for her husband inside a polling place” and how this isn’t being covered by the media AT ALL. The host then agreed that she’d probably broken the law. It was all very casual. The concept of the First Lady being a lawbreaker is not shocking; it’s the fulfillment of a belief.
curious
Omnes Omnibus: i clearly haven’t been studying “hardball” enough. by the way, they’re “unionthugs” (always one word), even the nurses.
Brachiator
@Steve:
It’s not that they are irregular, it’s that they are not normal. OK.
Distort the results of what?
Omnes Omnibus
@curious: Thank you for the correction. It won’t happen again.
Paula
@lamh32:
The local Dem election center seems to get a regular stream of people every time I pass — not overflowing @ times like in 2008, but still promising. For the record, I’m in the blue university liberal-leaning heart of a predominantly conservative town in Orange County.
But if I read teh interwebs, OFA is a feckless institution that does nothing and the DNC has effectively closed down all local organizing. Go figure.
Paula
@Brachiator: Well, to be fair, this is the implicit assumption of almost everyone (even the progressive blogosphere) regardless of whether they speak in those terms specifically.
Bob Loblaw
I have been wondering why people were assuming black voters would regress to the mean this year. There is no demographic more favorable to solidarity calls. Hispanics, sure, their turnout is still going to blow compared to other demos. White people will definitely not vote D in the same numbers as ’06 and ’08. But anybody who thought black people would only vote for Obama and somehow not for people who would help Obama as well are ignoring the entire black voting tradition. They’re going to look out for their guy, just on the principle of the thing.
My guess is that it shows up most heavily in the governor races (which nobody ever pays any attention to for whatever reason even though it’s a redistricting year). Sink wins in FL, Strickland wins in OH (even though Portman likely splits the top of the ticket, Fisher sucks that much), and Barnes wins in GA, all due to the black vote. And wins in TX and SC are very much a possibility. Plus Senate wins in CO for sure, and maybe, just maybe PA, KY and NC.
lamh32
@Violet:
yes they do, but many AA do not listen to RW radio. Sarah Palin did it in a televised speech and the jab was reported on MSNBC, and is other places.
That’s why I mentioned the percentage of AA approval. All the blogs I’ve been to today are talking about it, even some of the more progressive AA blogs, that are more critical of the President are discussing it.
Basically, you can criticize Obama for this, that, and the other but you cannot do the same for Michelle.
All I’m saying is that if ya think attacks on Obama are great motivaters for AA, then wait and see what attacks on Michelle are the “wee Michelles” (as we call them) would do.
gogol's wife
@Mnemosyne:
I wrote to the public editor to complain about this one. I’ll get my usual response (none).
Martin
I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that we’ve passed each other on the way to lunch.
Is that the dem election center at the bottom of the footbridge?
Paula
@Martin:
dammit, yes. And I should get back to work. :P
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Omnes Omnibus:
Umm, as a matter of fact many of the Pilgrims were Puritans. Many of the names in New England are derived from localities in East Anglia and the ports of southern England which were Puritan strongholds during the early 17th Cen. Try looking up the origins the name of the town of Old Saybrook, CT sometime. [hint: it was named after two of the most prominent Puritan lords back in England].
And those who came across the Atlantic had by no means washed their hands of affairs back in the old country. Here’s an interesting bit of historical trivia: Between 1640 and 1650, half of the students in the graduating classes from the newly founded Harvard took ship back to England to go fight in the English Civil War. It can’t have hurt that in 1637 Charles I tried to revoke the charter of the Mass. Bay colony, but never got around to enforcing his edict, as shortly afterwards he became kind of busy with other more urgent problems closer to home.
Martin
Heh. Now I’m all curious.
Joshua
That thing by Pat Sajak may have been the looniest thing I have ever read on politics. By his logic, people who work for oil companies should have been barred from voting for Dubya, and prostitutes shouldn’t be allowed to vote in the Louisiana Senate election.
Svensker
@Violet:
My wingnut cousin and his band of screeching monkey friends were screaming about this on FB this morning. They hate Michelle even more than “Barry” it seems. Wonder why?
Mnemosyne
@lamh32:
Speaking only for my late-30s/early-40s white lady demographic, wingnuts attacking Mrs. Obama would backfire BIG TIME with white women (and probably Latina and Asian women, too). She was visiting one of the offices across the street from us and three of us sat on our lawn for an hour hoping to get a glimpse of her (and we were the lucky ones who had the time — even though we never saw her, everyone else in the office was envious that we had a chance to potentially see her).
Republicans already have a pretty big gender gap between white men and white women — can they really afford to lose those votes with attacks on Mrs. Obama?
ETA: And Sarah Palin is about as unpopular with white women as Michelle Obama is popular. Big big mistake on the Republicans’ part.
Princess
@lamh32: She has 200%+ support from me too. Amazing woman. I got to hear her speak once. I have never been so proud in my life of a first lady as I am now (hee) [though Hilary was pretty cool too].
Steve
@Brachiator: Distort the results of our efforts to assess how Democrats who aren’t motivated by mindless ethnic pride feel about the upcoming elections.
BGinCHI
@Paula: if I were out there I’d pick you both up and we’d go to Costa Mesa to Hi Time Wine. Bestest place to spend money.
http://www.hitimewine.net/
Then a drink at The Swallows Inn down in San Juan Capistrano.
RedKitten
AAs could make up 75% of the American population, but the Republicans and MSM would still bitch about them “skewing” the vote.
ricky
@Midnight Marauder:
Thanks. Hope he is right and thus stands me on my head appropriately corrected.
Violet
@lamh32:
What if Michelle did something that was actually criticism-worthy? How would that go down? I just love, love, LOVE Michelle. I can’t imagine her doing anything that was actually worthy of criticism since she seems so savvy and cool and honest. But we all make mistakes.
I’ve seen them called that and just love it. So perfect for them. Although they’re individuals and may not like it as they get older.
Jay
In re: the column to which DougJ linked, the word “himbo” was made for Pat Sajak.
And Scott Brown.
Paula
@Steve:
Oh my god, really … ?! That better be snark. If not …
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA … I’ma have fun waiting for the verbal abuse coming your way.
@Martin:
Careful. You have no idea who’s behind the anonymous blog comment. For all you know I’m a crazy wingnut troll. :D
@BGinCHI:
Oooh. Thanks for the rec! Are you native to OC? I’m an ambivalent resident uprooted from Los Angeles for work, so I have awful OC snobbery … And I fucking love Chicago, BTW (if that’s what the CHI stands for). Went there 3 times within the last 4 years.
Violet
@Mnemosyne:
Agreed. She’s awesome. She’s as popular with women as Sarah Palin is NOT popular with women. Sarah Palin criticizing Michelle is just stupid on her part. She’s not going to win over any women that way and she needs all that she can get.
Mnemosyne
@Steve:
You should probably quit while you’re ahead, because you’re starting to get into ugly territory.
FlipYrWhig
@Nick:
I don’t know if it’s totally true, but it’s totally fucking hilarious.
Steve
@Paula: All my best lines are stolen from my wingnut Facebook friends.
Mnemosyne
@Steve:
Phew! I have to admit, I was getting worried (and confused) for a minute there.
Steve
@Mnemosyne: The original post talks about taking away black people’s right to vote, and I’m the ugly one?!
Omnes Omnibus
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: There is a difference between the Pilgrims who came to Plymouth in the 1620s and the Puritans who came to the Mass Bay Colony and the rest of New England primarily in the 1630s. The Pilgrims were Separatists, interested in having their own church outside the Church of England. The Puritans, on the other hand, were interested in purifying the Church of England-those were also the ones who went back and fought for Parliament. The substantive beliefs of the two groups were quite similar. On a personal note, three quarters of the people involved in the Salem Witch Trials, accused, accuser, judge, minister, etc., are direct ancestors of mine.
cat48
I read in one of those articles this a.m. that in Prince George County, Md., they have small billboards that say “We Got Your Back, Obama” I like that!
Unfortunately for him, Michael Steele lives in the area where there are the most signs. heh
MeDrewNotYou
@Mnemosyne: The Right’s hatred of Michelle is something I don’t really understand. The same thing happened to Hillary when she was FLOTUS, so I don’t think its a race thing. In fact, judging by Limbaugh’s attacks on Chelsea Clinton and the bitching by some over Sasha or Malia’s (I forget which) “ghetto hair-do,” any Democratic president’s family is fair game to them.
If I had to venture a guess, I would say it ties into the total legitimation and demonization that Republicans push on Democratic presidents. The man is scum, his family’s trash, ACORN cheated to win anyways, so he deserves no respect.
RedKitten
I also agree. Attacking Michelle is just plain stupid. The woman is classy, gracious and smart, but women can relate to her and aspire to be like her. She’s everything Palin is not.
Midnight Marauder
@Paula:
I hear this a lot, and it strikes me as a rather odd line of analysis. Granted, OFA may not have been as proactive as some people would have liked over the past almost two years, but they’ve been doing a tremendous job of targeting certain communities and demographics and keeping them involved in the political process.
Barb (formerly gex)
@Paula: I thought we were just mocking the usual media mendacity that breaks it down and says how the Republican would do if you didn’t count the black vote.
Paula
@Steve:
Well, it’s either a stunning display of my cynicism about progressives or a sign of how far the snark has been buried on BJ that I didn’t get it …
EDIT: Or both.
Brachiator
@Steve:
Still confused. The Tea Party movement is largely about mindless ethnic pride. Isn’t that the flavor of the day?
Could it be that black voters are not distracted by the foolish sense of self-destruction that seems to infect some progressives (motivated by mindless ideological pride), who want to whine and stay home and give their opponents an advantage? Could it be that black voters clearly see that the impact of their numbers might be magnified in key races where groups of voters stay home or defect to the Republicans, still a minority in some districts or whose votes might be split between mainstream and Tea Party candidates.
Barb (formerly gex)
@MeDrewNotYou: Well the Christian values part of the right doesn’t take kindly to women like Michelle and Hillary. Not close enough to the barefoot and pregnant model of womanhood.
jeffreyw
I bet y’all missed my spicy noodles, now din’t ya?
Midnight Marauder
@MeDrewNotYou:
I really think a large part of why the right-wing hates Michelle Obama so much relates back to this moment:
Black women don’t get to make public statements like that in this country in the eyes of a certain group.
Steve
@Paula: I find one has to be really, really dry with the snark to slip it by anyone around these parts. So really it’s my own doing.
WaterGirl
@Midnight Marauder: I think they would have hated her anyway, that was just something they could pounce on.
curious
@Steve: bingo. the neutral, reasonable democrats.
Violet
@Midnight Marauder:
Very true. I rarely hear Michelle discussed on rightwing radio without this comment being tossed in the mix. In the few minutes I heard that “Michelle is breaking election law!” discussion on Hannity, they managed to toss in how she’s “proud.”
I think somehow the use of the word proud, coming from a black woman, pushes additional fear-buttons in them. How can a black woman be proud? She should be subservient and stay one step behind. Okay, no, two steps: one for being a woman, one for being black.
Paula
@Brachiator:
Well, you know, it’s not “mindless ethnic pride” if you see yourself as a default American — i.e., white, Christian, and straight. It’s everybody else that’s deviant. You’re “angry” because you oppose taxes and government welfare that give all these deviant Americans a leg up they don’t deserve, being deviant. You, on the other hand, are holding up the Republic as God and the Founding Fathers intended with your own bare hands.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@beltane:
I hope the various Dem campaigns crawl over broken glass in terms of AA GOTV efforts because yeah, if I were black and saw this kind of shit being hurled at the first AA president, I’d be doing whatever it took to get everybody to the voting booth next month.
Tonal Crow
@BGinCHI: No. If the teabaggers lose, the media will immediately pivot to claiming that the Democrats (and especially liberals) lost because they didn’t gain 50 House seats and 5 Senate seats.
BGinCHI
@Paula: Have friends out there and visit a lot (weather, mtns, ocean).
Hi Time is off the charts good if you like wine. Swallows is a great place that could almost make you like the OC.
Yeah, Chi is nice. Flat, but nice. I mean, we’re thugs, but what else is there to do?
Violet
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
I’m not AA, but I’d crawl over broken glass to vote for Dems against the teabaggers. I think I’m going to vote early just to make sure it gets done. Don’t want any election day mishaps.
Steve
@MeDrewNotYou: The Right was far more successful at spreading the Hillary-hate to the mainstream. Hating Michelle is solely for the hardcore righties. Maybe Michelle is just more likeable (although Hillary is likeable enough), or maybe it’s that she made a conscious effort to avoid some of the things that made Hillary a controversial figure. Either way, she’s been spectacularly successful and bashing her is a one-way ticket to marginalization.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Omnes Omnibus:
Oh, now I get your point (1620s vs 1630s and later). I was using the term “Pilgrim” loosely, not with anything like that level of precision, but rather just trying to simulate the way I imagined the Tea Party folks and news media would use the term. That’s the problem with snark sometimes, it messes with your terminology.
MeDrewNotYou
@Midnight Marauder: That’s certainly a reason, but I don’t think its the whole answer. Hillary was treated the same way as First Lady; she was the butt of all their jokes, she’s deeply involved in all these criminal conspiracies. Hell she even shot Vince Foster or gave the order to do it.
Barb might be on to something: both women are intelligent professionals that are their husband’s equals. That could also explain some of the animus towards Nancy Pelosi (another thing which confounds me).
Midnight Marauder
@WaterGirl:
Obviously they would have hated her anyway, because she is a) a human being; b) she enjoys oxygen; and c) she is alive. Regardless of those pesky details, however, I can’t imagine the black wife of the first black POTUS saying “this is the first time I’ve been proud of my country” did her any favors with the 28% dead-enders.
AxelFoley
I see the snark is strong in you, DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice. Well played, sir.
Omnes Omnibus
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: I figured that, which is why I put in the Doughy Pantloadesque comment about it being central to your point.
Linda Featheringill
davis X machina
Amen.
I do suspect that voter suppression will be a problem. I hope some people are working to prevent that from happening.
Violet
@MeDrewNotYou:
It is somewhat baffling, though, that they hate on Hillary, Michelle, and NANCY SMASH, when they revere Sarah Palin, and love women like Nikki Haley and even Christine O’Donnell.
Sarah Palin is a classic grifter, but she’s managed to keep getting herself elected and moved up the power ladder, so you can argue that she’s got some talent or ability. Nikki Haley seems to be a smart, competent woman. O’Donnell…well, that’s another story. But if you listen to rightwing radio or peruse rightwing sites you’ll see them talking about how they love strong women and the left hates strong, competent women. It’s weird.
I think the main issue at this point is an attempt to demonize anything that isn’t them. Michelle is Barack’s wife so she gets demonized. If Michelle were a conservative politician, or the wife of one, she’d be held up as an example of excellence. It’s not about her personally, although the attacks are personal. It’s about us vs. them.
Amir_Khalid
@lamh32: Michelle Obama strikes me as having the tools — in particular, the popularity and the credentials — for a really distinguished post-FLOTUS career. I think that, if she finds a big enough cause, she could have the same kind of impact as Hillary Clinton or Eleanor Roosevelt and Rosalynn Carter. In fact, I would be disappointed if she didn’t.
Also, I can’t think of a Republican FLOTUS who has come anywhere near these ladies.
Barb (formerly gex)
@MeDrewNotYou: When you really take a look at homophobia, it is misogyny dressed up. That’s why gay men have it worse than lesbians. Women are lesser, and for a man to take dick like a woman is demeaning to manliness everywhere. Once you realize this, you can see how the sexism and homophobia go hand in hand. Man must be king of the castle, you see. And right wing white men feel like that is being taken away from them.
Any suggestion that a marriage is made of two equal partners is horrifying to them.
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir_Khalid: Betty Ford is the only one who could compare.
FlipYrWhig
@Amir_Khalid:
Betty Ford.
FlipYrWhig
@Violet:
I.e., “Black Pride.”
Linda Featheringill
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
And what happened to Cromwell?
You’re right, of course. They wouldn’t continue reading the history to find out about that.
Rick Massimo
It’s charming that you think James O’Keefe is out of commission. I’ll believe it when he pulls his next prank, Breitbart starts screaming that THIS time it’s for real and no one is covering it, and Our Media Stars CONTINUE to not cover it.
FlipYrWhig
@Barb (formerly gex):
That’s one of my favorite Amanda Marcotte points: that opposition to same-sex marriage is not just a matter of “OMG teh buttsecks” but, at root, opposition to the notion of equal partnership.
(But I’m pissy with Amanda Marcotte today because she picked at the “lifestyle choice” phrase we just had a row about over here.)
FlipYrWhig
@Linda Featheringill: Didn’t Cromwell just kind of die in office?
Midnight Marauder
@MeDrewNotYou:
True, the Right does have incredibly extreme levels of hatred for both women, but again, I think they come from very different places. On the subject of equals, I think that relates more to Hillary’s situation, as she and Bill were quite open in discussing how they were “co-president” and such. Then you had the debacle with “HillaryCare” and it was easy for the Right to create this narrative of Hillary being some kind of power hungry, ball busting harpy.
Whereas with Michelle Obama, they seem to actually hate her for the person that she is, not because she is actively involving herself in policy matters and disputes; not because she’s out in public every day as a polarizing figure; but because she is a woman who is black and happens to be the First Lady. Not only that, but she had the unmitigated audacity to say that she has never been proud of the United States of Fucking America her entire adult life. “But that would be during Reagan! And Bush I! And Bush II! And during the Contract With America!”
It’s a much more personal kind of hatred with Michelle. For crying out loud, her biggest policy initiative is trying to eliminate childhood obesity.
Barb (formerly gex)
@Violet: Hillary, Michelle, and Nancy are accomplished and successful and make them feel small. The right wing ladies are bimbos that give them boners. And even the one that is smart probably gives off the proper submissive to men signals that make it acceptable.
Origuy
@Omnes Omnibus:
Have you seen the show “Who Do You Think You Are?” They do genealogies of celebrities. One of Sarah Jessica Parker’s ancestors was involved in the Salem Witch Trials.
You can watch them online. I’m not the sort who cares much about celebrities, but the history was interesting.
Brachiator
@Paula:
Yep. But there are countless degrees to this foolishness. Many self-styled progressives (many but obviously not all of them white) see themselves as the base that got Obama elected and so the only ones who matter. Blacks and Latinos and anyone else, well, it’s good that they voted, but their opinions don’t matter.
And how soon we forget that Hillary Clinton supposedly had the black vote sewn up because of her husband, and black voters supposedly didn’t see Obama as being really “black.”
And so now, the conventional wisdom is that all voters simply aren’t motivated during midterms and yet when we find that a group is highly motivated, their possible motivations don’t count because now the presumption is that it’s just their foolish pride.
Linda Featheringill
@Paula:
Shhhhh! Don’t tell them otherwise.
[Are there people who really think that the Dems wouldn’t fight like hell to get folks to the poll? Or can they just not comprehend “community organizer” tactics?]
FlipYrWhig
@Barb (formerly gex):
I only halfway mean this as a joke, but I don’t know who you mean. Who’s the smart one?
Barb (formerly gex)
@FlipYrWhig: I was giving the original commenter the benefit of the doubt on Haley.
ETA: Although to be fair, she could give off the proper dominance signals for the right wing as well. Wetsuits, dildos, diapers, etc.
arguingwithsignposts
@Violet:
FTFY
Violet
@Barb (formerly gex):
Yeah, it’s definitely about the boners with those three. But there are other accomplished rightwing women, like Kay Bailey Hutchison, for instance.
I dunno. It feels personal, maybe because the rightwing makes personal attacks on them, but I do think if Michelle wore the other team’s jersey they’d love her. At some level it’s our team vs your team stuff.
Origuy
@FlipYrWhig: He did. After Restoration, his body was exhumed and posthumously executed.
Omnes Omnibus
@FlipYrWhig: Yeah, but after the Restoration, his but was exhumed and symbolically executed. Beheaded, body thrown in a pit, head displayed. Eventually, his head was buried at his Cambridge college.
ETA: Damn you, Origuy.
Mnemosyne
@Linda Featheringill:
Oliver Cromwell died a natural death and Charles II was invited back by Parliament.
Of course, you don’t want what happened to Cromwell’s corpse to happen to your corpse but, on the other hand, he was already dead, so what did he care?
(You may be thinking of Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII’s right-hand man, who did end up losing his head. Over one of Henry’s marriages, of course.)
FlipYrWhig
@Brachiator:
I think this is a bit like the way music snobs always want to take credit for being into some band before it was cool, and everyone else just jumped on the bandwagon. So it’s like, “Sure, African Americans were _obviously_ gonna back Obama, but _I_ had to dip into the underground shit to find out about him. I was supposed to like Hillary, but I wasn’t gonna get caught up in that mass-marketed shit. But now, pfft, I don’t know what happened, that guy used to be cool but now he’s a total fuckin’ sellout.”
Amir_Khalid
@Omnes Omnibus: @FlipYrWhig:
Yes. Betty Ford. I should have remembered. I suspect many of today’s Republicans would regard her activism in liberal causes with suspicion, or even hostility.
Barb (formerly gex)
@Violet: Sometimes one just sneaks through. I wouldn’t give them any more credit for those other women than that.
This is where the really crazy libertarians note that women’s suffrage isn’t all that it is cracked up to be.
FlipYrWhig
@Origuy: @Omnes Omnibus: @Mnemosyne:
Oh, right, I totally forgot about that. I would hang my head in shame but now I feel a sudden urge to take care of my neck.
Linda Featheringill
@Svensker:
Well, she is a very attractive lady.
Freud would say that irrational hatred [not based on actual harm done or threatened harm] is based on sexual attraction that one does not wish to admit to oneself.
So now we know their secret. :-)
Barb (formerly gex)
link to the suffrage reference above.
Mnemosyne
@Linda Featheringill:
It would explain their absolute obsession with her naughty, naughty bare arms.
Omnes Omnibus
@Origuy: I have not seen it. Wasn’t the show put together by Henry Louis Gates, or was he just one of the participants?
Violet
@arguingwithsignposts:
Lulz.
Linda Featheringill
@Mnemosyne:
Oops. Wrong Cromwell. Thanks. :-)
FlipYrWhig
@Amir_Khalid:
I just saw this in the Wikipedia entry on Betty Ford:
Violet
@Mnemosyne:
And her legs that one time she wore shorts on vacation at the Grand Canyon.
Barb (formerly gex)
@Mnemosyne: Also matches the pattern of right wing homophobes…
Ash Can
@Violet:
To them, “strong, competent” women are pretty, prominent women who conform to right-wing ideology. They look the way they should, say the things they should say, and do the things they should do. When the rest of us “hate” “strong, competent” women, it means that we’re calling these women in particular, and the right wing in general, on their bullshit. We’re pointing out that these women aren’t all that strong or competent at all; we’re irked that they and the right as a whole are trying to pass them(selves) off as having those qualities. The RWers then get all butthurt that their feminine ideals aren’t respected by us. (Which, of course, makes us point and laugh all the more.)
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: If I remember correctly Oliver was a great grand-nephew of Thomas.
Brachiator
@FlipYrWhig:
RE: Many self-styled progressives (many but obviously not all of them white) see themselves as the base that got Obama elected
And this reminds me of my favorite bit of recent snobbery (from an Apple products user website). This was a reaction to the announcement that Apple was going to start selling iPads through Target and Sam’s Clubs: “What is the motivation for Apple’s move into down-market retail outlets like Sam’s Club? As another reader commented, these moves cheapen the Apple brand.”
Barb (formerly gex)
@Brachiator: I have this theory that the country can be united in its hatred of hipsters. Everyone, even hipsters, hate hipsters since hipsters never admit to being hipsters.
As humanity gets over every old prejudice, it finds a new scapegoat. Who will be after the gays I wonder? Hopefully hipsters.
Violet
@Barb (formerly gex):
Are the Muslims before or after the hipsters? I’m confused.
Barb (formerly gex)
@Violet: I was hoping we could skip hating on them, but obviously not. Sigh.
Violet
@Barb (formerly gex):
Well they’re already being hated on, so I figured they must be on the list somewhere.
If we could hate on people who deserved to be hated on, like bullies or rapists or child abusers, that would be a refreshing change.
FlipYrWhig
@Brachiator: @Barb (formerly gex): Yup. The hipster thing is always funny to me because I’ve never been close to cool. It seems like the essence of hipsterdom is that you should always be the last one to discover something, because by the time it filters down to the next person it’s totally cheapened and tainted. And I really do think the contours of the Disaffected Obama Fan Base are like that: it starts out with self-congratulation that you were too cool to fall for Hillary, the Nickelback of candidates, but now it’s become regret that Obama turned out to be the Coldplay of presidents, the act that only uncool people still think is cool.
FlipYrWhig
@Violet: Those Muslim hipsters think they’re so cool, with their Chuck Taylors and their kurta shirts and their skinny jeans and their skullcaps…
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Wikipedia says you are correct. I have Wolf Hall on my Kindle waiting to be read (though apparently Mantel ends the story well before Cromwell’s troubles). Ebooks make me nervous, but the 800-page paper copy just said “massive wrist pain” to me.
Mnemosyne
@Linda Featheringill:
I am slightly (ahem) obsessed with Tudor history, so things like that leap out at me.
Amir_Khalid
@FlipYrWhig: Betty Ford’s a progressive through and through. I wonder, what lf she hadn’t married a Republican politician?
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: I just finished Wolf Hall a couple weeks ago It’s pretty good.
ETA: There is a sequel in the works that should cover the rest of his life.
arguingwithsignposts
@FlipYrWhig:
Now, FYW, why you hatin’ on Hillary like that?
And what is McCain? The Creed of candidates? (I know Palin is the Insane Clown Posse of candidates, right?)
Darkrose
@Mnemosyne:
Wolf Hall is why I got the Kindle. Trying to read the hardcover was actually quite painful, because I just couldn’t hold it comfortably.
Omnes Omnibus
@arguingwithsignposts: McCain is Hank Williams, Jr., not the man his daddy was and way passed it by now.
quaint irene
Why is James O’Keefe out of commission? Please, please, please tell me his ass got nabbed for parole violation.
Omnes Omnibus
@Darkrose: I am old school; I read the damn book.
quaint irene
Was one of Sarah Palin’s recent comments along the line of ‘I’d rather be in Alaska then in some stuffy political office.?”
Did she explain how her one political office IN her beloved Alaska was too much for her to complete even one term?
It strains the brain how there are still people who seriously believe she’s gonna run for Prez. The woman can’t last out a three hour book signing.
FlipYrWhig
@arguingwithsignposts:
Nah, McCain isn’t enough of a godbotherer to be Creed. McCain is like Rod Stewart or something. Vaguely scuzzy and a shadow of a former self that used to be a critics’ darling but wasn’t really any good to begin with.
chopper
@beltane:
this. seriously, before the teabaggers really came into play i thought black voters were going to wring the necks of entitled white liberals, given how quickly so many of the latter walked away from obama. i’m not saying the firebaggers etc were being racist pricks for holding a candle for clinton and demanding super-purity or whatever, but if i were black i’d sure be pissed – thanks guys, for all your support. we finally get a black president and you give him all of two weeks. you sure held on a lot longer for big dog though, didn’t you? that’s kinda odd.
luckily the teabaggers, an even bigger, douchier group of dumbass white guys, showed up.
maus
@licensed to kill time:
I was shocked and at the same time unsurprised to read recently that “the Buck” was a minstrelsy character who was “proud, sometimes menacing, and always interested in white women”. God i fucking hate dogwhistles, I hope Lee Atwater is the bloated, friendless sack of cancer he was in the end, but in hell for eternity.
I only thought it was a clever non-race related euphemism for N*, not a JUST AS DEROGATORY word that people of past generations completely ignored with the media’s assistance. Scum, scum, scum.
maus
@quaint irene:
Typical teatard response:
“But that’s what we need! An outsider/maverick!”
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=77970685595
Princess
@Mnemosyne: And I thought they believed everyone had a right to bare arms in this country.
Loved Wolf Hall btw
arguingwithsignposts
@maus:
face/palm
arguingwithsignposts
@arguingwithsignposts:
Reading over that again … “Recent polls indicate …” WTF? How do polls of public opinion have fuck-all to do with the afterlife?
rikyrah
@BGinCHI:
The Joint Center has done the most sustained of Blacks and their voting habits and what’s important to Blacks politically. They’ve been doing it for decades.
rikyrah
tell it, lamh!!!
as the Black Snob wrote so many months ago…
criticize President Obama on the merits, and folks shrug and go ‘ it comes with the job.’
but, step wrong towards FLOTUS? the WeeMichelles? Mama Robinson?
how did Snob put it?
WE.WILL.CUT.YOU.
plain and simple.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@BGinCHI:
Fix’t
rikyrah
you speak the truth. I know a whole lot of Black folks that don’t ‘appear’ to be interested in politics, but, as one of my friends says to me:
‘ Just cause we’re not out there yapping like the Teabaggers, doesn’t mean that Black folks – as a group – aren’t WATCHING EVERYTHING’.
Amen.
the fundamental lack of respect – TOWARDS THE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT -just cause a Black man now has it – HAS NOT ESCAPED OUR NOTICE.
George Bush could go into a Black event TODAY, and his ass would not get booed. He might not get applause, but Boos?
No. Because, he was the President of the United States.
watching those teabagging mofos spout off about ‘ Mooslim’ and ‘ Kenyan’ thinking……
‘ anti-colonialist thinking’?
IMO, if you aren’t White, and aren’t anti-colonial…
W-T-F is wrong with you?
rikyrah
I’m just going to have to break it down from where it sits with me and my AA female friends.
Barack Obama was never supposed to have married MICHELLE.
How could he?
They hate her because she’s Black.
Not ambiguous light-skinned curly haired ‘ is she Black or not’ Black.
No, she’s Black – her ancestors were in the hulls of those slaveships Black.
No, she’s not the daughter of any elite.
She’s the daughter of a city worker and a housewife, both only high school graduates.
She grew up in an apartment above a Chicago Bungalow.
And, in one generation, they went from living in an apartment above a bungalow, to having 2 Ivy League educated children, one who lives in the White House.
Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama represents the Black community that the right-wingers deny exists in this country: the millions, generation upon generation, who were always hard working and industrious and only needed the ‘ OPPORTUNITY’ to show what they could do with their talents.
Add into it that everything from Michelle Obama reeks – ‘I’m a self-respecting Black woman’….
and, it drives them crazy.
She has a husband who loves her, two adorable children, gets along with her mother and even brought her to the White House….
it drives them insane.
I said when Barack Obama was elected that I was far more excited to see Michelle Obama come to the White House than him.
I LOVED it when Michelle Obama ‘ kept it real’ about the ‘first time in her adult life she was really proud of her country’.
Nobody Black had to wonder what she meant.
AT ALL.
well, ask the right wingers who are ‘ good Blacks’…all they’ll name is bootlicking slave catching Uncle Ruckus types.
Svensker
@rikyrah:
That was beautiful.
Violet
@rikyrah:
Thanks for posting that.
Princess
@rikyrah: I love this. I remember watching the Inauguration and every time the camera would pan onto Michelle and the two girls, and her mother, tears would come to my eyes. I was excited and thrilled about Barack Obama, but it was the others who made me cry with joy.
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
That’s one of the reasons they hate the president, as well: more than most people, he chose to be Black. After a lot of soul-searching (detailed in his book), he chose to settle in a city where Black people had gained a lot of political power, marry a Black woman, and become part of that community. He climbed to the presidency through that community, not by playing up to the white power brokers.
He didn’t have to do it. He chose it. That’s a big reason why they hate him, and Michelle, too, because she’s probably the biggest symbol of the choice that he made.
He rejected the white world, and now they’re pissed.
BGinCHI
@Odie Hugh Manatee: Man, your keyboard is WAY better than mine.
Thanks.
Triassic Sands
It’s obvious to me that with an African American in the White House African Americans have a conflict of interest and should not be allowed to vote. Naturally, this only applies to AAs; with a white president white people have no conflict of interest — probably because that’s just the way things are meant to be — and should be allowed to vote at least twice.
Unless they’re Democrats.
asiangrrlMN
@rikyrah: This is wonderful. I agree, too, that she represents what the right would rather ignore. And, I totally understood her ‘proud to be American’ comment as I felt the same way when Barack won the primaries. For the first time, I felt that maybe there was a place for me in this country (not feeling the love so much these days, but whatever).
@Violet: But, she got passed over as a candidate for VP without a thought. She’s allowed to exist, yes, but doesn’t get much support from the party. They like their women pretty, dumb, and starbursty for the most part. They can’t deal with strong women.
@Nick: This! A thousand times this! Some of us tried to discuss this before how people of color have remained steadfastly in Obama’s corner, but somehow, we aren’t considered the base.
I love Michelle Obama. I see great things in her future. I’ve never heard of the wee Michelles before.
ThresherK
But there are other accomplished rightwing women, like Kay Bailey Hutchison, for instance.
Just like that “hands” ad, only for Sen. Hutchison: “You were the most qualified, but they had to give the VP nomination to a MILF.”
davidj
@rikyrah:
As a person who grew up in the same South Side Chicago, “middle class” black environment as Michelle Robinson: this.
But actually, I don’t think Barack “choose” to be black any more than I, or my light-skinned straight-haired sister who’s his age, did. In our day, in Chicago, if there was any hint of (relatively recent) African ancestry, you were black, and you were not allowed to forget it. Nowadays people can be “biracial”, as my children and their cousins are, but the previous generation, including the young adult Barack Obama, was still subject to the “one-drop” rule.
But living in Chicago _was_ a choice. And there black people are, at the end of the day, just another ethnic group, differing from others, WASP, Polish, Irish, Mexican, whatever, in degree, not kind. (This is reflected in the fact that African-Americans have indeed achieved a roughly proportionate share of the political power there.) And the place is congenial for people who, like both Obamas, comfortably embrace the ethnicity they’ve been assigned.
Yes, Michelle is totally Black. She’s also totally Chicago. And her husband is as “African-American” and as Chicago as someone who was not born into either can be. (Although he’s literally African-American by parentage and visibly, and thus socially, Black, he is, unlike his wife and my humble self, not descended from slaves and thus not “born into” that milieu, even if he didn’t have much choice about winding up there.)
(Chorus: “That Toddlin’ Town”. I’ve spent my adult life in another city which I like a lot, but Chicago’s still some kind of home.)
davidj
@Mnemosyne:
I guess I’m really responding to Mnemosyne, rather than Rikyrah (with whom I wholeheartedly agree) about Barack Obama’s choices, which I agree are excellent. Even if some of them, like being black, weren’t really choices, still, the _way_ he accepted them was cool.