USA Presidential Politics - 2008

[STOGEY]

Originally Posted by melliedee

OMG! Stogey, you're right. I think maybe even men will catch The Curse. I've heard it is contagious.

You're funny, but stranger things have happened.

[STOGEY]

Actually while the old soviet nion was in business. The political higher ups were always spouting how everyone was equal no matter what ethnicity there was. They also spouted about how there wasn't any ethnic unrest, but as soon as the Soviet Union dissoleved there was a problem in bosnia and checlosovakia, which was all about race.

[ryberg]

What Went Wrong? is a worthwhile post-mortem on the Clinton campaign right from the horse's mouth (the campaign insiders, I mean, not Clinton herself). Lots of interesting comments, though it is most interesting to me to see that, unless I missed something, nobody anywhere makes any mention of the playing of the race card or of alienating black voters to such a degree that her early substantial lead among them turned into barely more than single-digit support later on. Lots of blame on Solis Doyle and Mark Penn and on valuing loyalty over capability, as well as on not taking seriously everything from IA to caucuses in general to youth voter turnout to just Obama himself.

Also an interesting summary/reaction to the same here.

Of course, hindsight is perfect, but it all does seem to paint a picture of missing an opportunity on an enormous scale...

Steve

[STOGEY]

Let's Tweak the Media: Obama to Campaign in 57 Islamic States

[ryberg]

George Will makes interesting use of another baseball analogy, but a rather different one, in this piece:

...efforts to encourage Clinton to pack it in are heartening evidence that the novelty has worn off: The female candidate is like all other candidates. This is what equality looks like -- life as an equal opportunity dispenser of disappointments.

When, in 1975, Frank Robinson became major league baseball's first African-American manager, with the Cleveland Indians, that was an important milestone. But an even more important one came two years later, when the Indians fired him. That was real equality: Losing one's job is part of the job description of major league managers, because sacking the manager is one of the few changes a floundering team can make immediately. So, in a sense, Robinson had not really arrived until he was told to leave. Then he was just like hundreds of managers before him...

There's also speculation on who the first female president of the U.S. might someday be over here.

Steve

[horizon200]

Originally Posted by ryberg

George Will makes interesting use of another baseball analogy, but a rather different one, in this piece:

There's also speculation on who the first female president of the U.S. might someday be over here.

Steve

From the South? You mean this girl actually has a shot?

[AndrewII]

Originally Posted by ryberg

Well that, or, if you want to look it up and find out the real, true answer, because he elected to live his life that way.

This is an elementary point covered in his bios. But then so is the point that he's Christian, which he would obviously have to be if he was a member of a Christian church (controversial or not), and yet a number of people still believe he's Muslim (some while simultaneously complaining about his involvement in that church).



Steve

How do you choise to live your life as a Black man?

[StewartG]

Originally Posted by STOGEY

Let's Tweak the Media: Obama to Campaign in 57 Islamic States

Must be hard to be Rush Limbaugh (or a Rush Limbaugh fan) nowadays...

Perhaps he should up his dosage.

[StewartG]

Originally Posted by ryberg

There's also speculation on who the first female president of the U.S. might someday be over here.

Steve

Interesting article. I was surprised (but not really that surprised) to learn that there were twice as many female Democrats than Republicans in elected office nationwide.

I also like the electability statistics. I wonder how a black female Jewish Republican candidate would do?

[ryberg]

Originally Posted by AndrewII

How do you choise to live your life as a Black man?

Why is that hard to understand, especially in a society which forces you into just one category or the other from a very young age? Again my son's school in their system took it upon themselves to categorize my son as solely Hispanic, despite our answer on that point, writing off half his identity for him. I imagine that sort of thing must have happened to a young Barack Obama many times, and in the direction of categorizing him as black, not white. I imagine a lot of people from a combination of backgrounds must have such experiences, as well as the internal motivation drawing them toward onepart of their heritage over another. Geez, I'm 1/4 Swedish and 1/4 German myself, and I'm drawn to those "sides" of my ethnic heritage more than to the 1/2 that is an Anglo-Irish mix. It never occurred to me that anyone might find such a thing strange, though...

Steve

[AndrewII]

Originally Posted by ryberg

Why is that hard to understand, especially in a society which forces you into just one category or the other from a very young age? Again my son's school in their system took it upon themselves to categorize my son as solely Hispanic, despite our answer on that point, writing off half his identity for him. I imagine that sort of thing must have happened to a young Barack Obama many times, and in the direction of categorizing him as black, not white. I imagine a lot of people from a combination of backgrounds must have such experiences, as well as the internal motivation drawing them toward onepart of their heritage over another. Geez, I'm 1/4 Swedish and 1/4 German myself, and I'm drawn to those "sides" of my ethnic heritage more than to the 1/2 that is an Anglo-Irish mix. It never occurred to me that anyone might find such a thing strange, though...

Steve

I do since I believe we are all Americans. Using your race does nothing but devide us.

[ryberg]

Originally Posted by AndrewII

I do since I believe we are all Americans. Using your race does nothing but devide us.

Hey, if ignoring the way society works every day all around us and divorcing history and context from the issue (typically prerogatives only available to white folks) in favor of that kind of nice sounding but rather empty platitude works for ya, well I guess it must be nice... To me, though, it seems to be a view at odds with much of reality, and even rather racist, to suggest that there's something wrong or divisive about Obama himself in this regard.

I guess I must carry an anti-Anglo/Irish prejudice I wasn't previously aware of, given my greater identification with my German-Swedish half. And if my son ends up living Mexico and identifying with its culture or people more, we'll see that he's being divisive and is biased against gringos...

Steve

[ryberg]

Maybe very appropriate timing to mention this piece by Gregory Rodriguez here:

The fear of white decline

Hillary Clinton's outreach to working-class voters signals the group's declining economic security.

Hard to excerpt any particular part of it, but if I had to, I might go with this bit:

More than half of West Virginia Democratic voters -- 95% of whom are white -- said they would be dissatisfied if Obama won the nomination.

Is this white supremacy? No, in fact it might be its opposite, an acknowledgment that white privilege has its limits. With immigration and globalization reformulating who we are as a nation, it isn't the white elites that are threatened by the changes; rather, it's the nearly 70% of whites who are not college educated who figure among the most insecure of Americans. Many feel that their jobs are being outsourced or taken by immigrants -- legal or otherwise -- and that their culture is being subsumed. When Clinton promises to make their voices heard, she's appealing not to Anglo-Saxon racial triumphalism but to the fear of white decline...

Well, except that he seems to trip up and make the same mistake of focusing solely on race, in that last phrase (as in his title), that he's trying to suggest is inappropriate. The real distinction again may be socio-economic, or based on education level, or the Jacksonian thing, or some combination of them, rather than being so focused on race.

Steve

[See Turtle]

Originally Posted by STOGEY

Actually while the old soviet nion was in business. The political higher ups were always spouting how everyone was equal no matter what ethnicity there was. They also spouted about how there wasn't any ethnic unrest, but as soon as the Soviet Union dissoleved there was a problem in bosnia and checlosovakia, which was all about race.

Dude. You've done it again.

Czechoslovakia, led at the time of Soviet disintegration by Vaclav Havel, quite peacefully evolved into the Czech Republic.

Bosnia, as a nation-state did not exist as it was a part of the former Yugoslavia. The battles between Serbia, Bosnia et al predated the formation of Yugolslavia by several decades at least (and likely centuries as the Balkans have never been all that stable). In fact, the animus of the Hapsburgs toward Serbia is widely credited as a large part of the run up to WWI.

Finally, the Balkan confrontations are about race, yes. But they are as much about religion.

[roni]

Tracking Poll: Obama opens up biggest lead ever over Clinton
Posted: 04:35 PM ET

From CNN Associate Producer Martina Stewart
An estimated 75,000 people came out to support Barack Obama Sunday in Oregon.

(CNN)– Amid reports that the Democratic Party’s leaders and largest fundraisers are beginning to take steps to try to bring their party together after a long, hard-fought primary campaign, the latest Gallup daily tracking poll suggests Democratic voters are beginning to coalesce around Sen. Barack Obama.

Obama holds a 16-point lead over Sen. Hillary Clinton in Gallup’s latest daily tracking poll released Monday. He has the support of 55 percent of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters while Clinton’s support is at 39 percent.

Previously, Obama’s largest lead over Clinton was 11 percentage points, in daily tracking polls conducted in mid-May and mid-April, according to Gallup. Prior to John Edwards’s exit from the Democratic nomination race, Clinton held a 20-point lead over Obama in mid-January.

The results are based on a survey of 1,261 Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters using combined data from May 16-18, 2008. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.

Kentucky and Oregon hold their Democratic primaries Tuesday. Obama is favored in Oregon’s contest and Clinton in Kentucky’s, according to CNN’s latest poll of polls in each state.