Who do you LEAST want to see elected president this year.
40% – John McCain
36% – Hillary Clinton
20% – Barack Obama
More good news for Obama!
A disturbing side note: 12% of the people who chose Obama did so because they believe (incorrectly) that he is a Muslim.
I’m pretty sure, however, that this won’t translate into any sort of disadvantage when it comes to votes because I’m confident that anyone who believes this nonsense could never actually figure out where their polling place is – or even how to fill out the voter registration form in the first place.
I’m just watching last night’s SNL on the Tivo and it’s full of political stuff. But by far the best segment was this rant by Tracy Morgan about Barack Obama…
“Bitch may be the new Black, but Black is the new President, Bitch”
(huff post has links to some of the other video as well)
(Note the Clinton and McCain statements were virtually identical.) From HuffPo…
But as the CBC report and others makes clear, the core of the story turned out to be false. The Canadian government contacted Goolsbee to clarify Obama’s position on trade, not the reverse. Although Goolsbee did meet with Canada’s Chicago consul general George Rioux (not, as was reported in the original leak, Ambassador Michael Wilson), there’s no evidence that he ever described Obama’s position as mere political posturing. Instead, Goolsbee responded to Canadian questions by clarifying that Obama wasn’t pushing to scrap the agreement entirely, but that labor and environmental safeguards were important to him. The memo was simply inaccurate, as even the Harper government now acknowledges after a firestorm of criticism by opposition parliament members, who’ve accused the Harper government of trying to help their Republican allies across the border by trying to take down the likely and stronger of the Democratic candidates. In response, Harper called the leak “blatantly unfair,” pledged to get to the bottom of it, and said “there was no intention to convey, in any way, that Senator Obama and his campaign team were taking a different position in public from views expressed in private, including about NAFTA.”
Ironically, the day before the story hit American TV, Brodie, told reporters questioning him on trade that “someone from (Hillary) Clinton’s campaign is telling the embassy to take it with a grain of salt. . .That someone called us and told us not to worry.” But that never made the headlines and no one raised it in the campaign.
I think there has been some misunderstanding over my posts yesterday morning and Tuesday evening about racist attacks on Obama apparently having a significant effect on the results of the Ohio primary.
People will have differences of opinion about candidates on valid policy issues. Poor, rural voters feel that Clinton is stronger on NAFTA/trade – I get that. I think they are wrong in their judgment, but I won’t vilify someone for disagreeing with me on an issue of policy judgment. That is, after all, what elections are supposed to be about. So, if someone picks Clinton because they feel she is better on policy issues, I may be disappointed but I can’t really complain.
But when voters choose someone because of their race or gender, no matter what the permutation, that disappoints me very much. For a movement that is about equality of opportunity, we should not be leveraging racism or sexism to win elections. It is wrong, and it should not be tolerated.
It looks like, barring a miraculous stretch run by Clinton, or a brokered convention, Obama will still likely end up the nominee. If Clinton manages to finish strong and win the nomination by convincing more voters that she’s better on policy issues than Obama, then I’ll gladly support her in the general. But if she gets there by exploiting racism, or via a “smoke-filled-room” brokered convention that ignores the wishes of the Democratic Party electorate as laid out by the pledged delegates… well, I’m going to have a hard time pulling the lever for her and being able to live with myself.
In the end, I’d rather be spending my time talking about McCain cozying up with Rev. Hagee, or the benefits of Universal Health Care, than having to deal with racism and sexism coming from other liberals. It’s depressing, because it’s polarizing a group who, just a few months ago, were all excited about the collection of great candidates we had, and the great position we are (still!) in to deal 20th century attitudes a crushing blow, and it’s wrong. Let us get back on the right path.
Tensions are running high in Democratic circles between the supporters of senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama — and nowhere is that more evident than on the internet.
Some of the more explosive blog posts making the rounds today concern a charge from a couple of diarists on the Daily Kos that the Clinton campaign deliberately darkened Obama’s skin color in a recent television ad.
Doing this is divisive and unnecessary. Blogging about it is divisive… but I don’t think unnecessary. I just wish this kind of stuff wasn’t out there to begin with. It’s right out of the GOP playbook, and while the common argument is that he’ll have to weather it then if not now, what’s being ignored is the fact that this will turn off a LOT of Obama voters in the general election should Clinton win the primary. Liberals, as a group, should be better than this. It’s disappointing when the Clinton campaign isn’t.
Honestly, I expected a narrow Clinton win here in Ohio (after all, if there is one thing we’re good at, it’s fucking things up for the rest of the country), but I was a little surprised by the margin. As I pointed out last night, exit polling wasn’t exactly flattering to Clinton voters, as it implies that they are voting based on the gender and race of the candidates, and not on the merits. (To be fair, black voters went overwhelmingly for Obama, and I certainly suspect that a good portion of that is race politics – but that doesn’t change the fact that 56% of all voters who said race mattered voted for Clinton.)
And now that we have actual results, we can see that down at the extreme southern end of the state, in counties such as Scioto, Lawrence, Jackson, Gallia, and Scioto, Clinton earned 80% of the vote. Thru much of Appalachian Ohio she won 70% of the vote. In most of the rest of rural Ohio she won 55-60% of the vote. So why such a large margin in Appalachian Ohio? We’ve all seen that religious based attacks seem to work down there. Norah O’Donnell and Adam Verdugo have even more damning numbers. And Ohio is one of the few states where white males have gone for Clinton rather than Obama.
I went back and took a look at the 2006 Gubernatorial election results, and while there’s a complicating factor in that Strickland is from Appalachian Ohio (and it was a general, not a primary), the white candidate again won by a margin significantly higher along the Ohio River than in the rest of rural Ohio.
It pains me to say it, and I’m open to alternative suggestions, but it seems pretty plain to me that racism is alive and well in Appalachian Ohio, and it contributed to Clinton’s margin of victory.
Watching the basketball game, but I was looking at CNN’s exit polling and something interesting jumped out at me…
Despite Clinton supporters claiming that Obama and his supporters are sexist, of people who answered the question “was the gender of the candidate important to you?” in the affirmative went for Clinton 57% to 43%. Voters who answered “no” split nearly down the middle. Additionally, of voters who said that the race of the candidate was important, Clinton was winning 56-43. Of voters who said race wasn’t important, voters split down the middle.
Hillary Clinton told reporters that both she and the presumtive Republican nominee John McCain offer the experience to be ready to tackle any crisis facing the country under their watch, but Barack Obama simply offers more rhetoric. “I think you’ll be able to imagine many things Senator McCain will be able to say,†she said. “He’s never been the president, but he will put forth his lifetime of experience. I will put forth my lifetime of experience. Senator Obama will put forth a speech he made in 2002.†Clinton was referring to Obama’s anti-war speech he delivered in Chicago before entering the United States Senate.
This is getting ridiculous. Too many people on the left are interested in tearing down Obama rather than trying to build up Clinton. There are unhinged claims that Obama isn’t liberal, that he’s sexist, and worse. Of course, there are some idiots out there who support Obama and are willing to say some wretched stuff about Clinton – but my impression is that Obama supporters are mostly interested in supporting Obama, and Clinton supporters are mostly interested in attacking Obama (modernesquire being a notable exception).
I am so sick of this internecine bullshit. I like both candidates, but I prefer Obama. That doesn’t make me some kind of sexist right-winger who has bought into a Cult of Personality, and I’m tired of Clinton supporters implying that. It’s condescending, rude, and fails to address the merits of either candidate.
So when I wish Clinton would drop out, it’s not because I’m a sexist bastard who doesn’t want a woman President – or even someone who thinks Clinton would be a bad President. I look at the current delegate counts, and the national polls (which show a strong preference for Obama), and I think an Obama victory looks more likely every day – and the sooner we have a Democratic candidate selected, the sooner we can stop sniping at each other over petty, made-up bullshit, and the sooner we can start concentrating on how to get the Democratic nominee elected in November, whomever it is.
We’ll see how things go today. That’ll play a big role in determining whether or not it’s time for Clinton to concede.
How unfortunate: a Southern Ohio voter who is interested in Obama is concerned that he’s Muslim.
Of course, our pals in the right-wing blogosphere here in Ohio are more interested in “winning” by smearing Obama (by using his middle name, when he doesn’t, and other things to perpetuate the false “Muslim” smear) than in the truth. Many of them are upset at McCain for condemning these kinds of smears. (I don’t use my middle name colloquially, so if someone else was, I’d think they had some kind of ulterior motive. Especially if my middle name was “Hussein”. The “it’s just his given middle name” defense rings hollow; your intent to associate him with radical Islam and with Saddam Hussein is transparent.)
This overlooks the unfortunate fact that “Muslim” is a dirty word in America, despite the fact that Muslims actually like us.
Both men cited the teachings of various libertarian heavyweight philosophers, most notably John Stuart Mill, whom I heretofore believed to be an inventor of breakfast cereals. There was some back-and-forth over the practical vs. the philosophical approach to politics, and Flanders said that in this election, for him, “the No. 1 issue is who will get us out of Iraq.”
OK, I’m thinking, if you really mean that, there’s only one major candidate you can support. But there’s no way you are going to stand there and say you support him.
Editorial writer Steve Greenhut told Flanders he thought he was really making an argument for not voting. Not true, Flanders said, and then he did it. He said the words, “Barack Obama.” As in, that’s who any true freedom-lover should vote for.
At that moment, I thought the wailing ghost of R.C. Hoiles would burst through the ceiling and the floor beneath us would split into a ragged, cleaving maw we’d all tumble into – swallowed whole by the earth. Better no company at all than one whose CEO supports a Democrat for president.
But there was a hush as Flanders reasoned that Obama is the best candidate to work on four top libertarian reforms: 1) Iraq withdrawal, 2) restoring the separation of church and state; 3) easing off victimless crimes such as drug use; 4) curtailing the Patriot Act.
As someone whose intellectual position in college was “left-leaning libertarian”, I can totally relate. Liberals, in general, are a lot better at protecting the liberty of the individual than conservatives. I just wish more libertarians would manage to figure that out.
So, I may not be the best person to ask since I came into this debate feeling much more positive about Obama than Clinton, but if you were to ask – and I assume since you are reading my blog, you are asking – I think Obama won. For starters, he feels way more sincere than Clinton. His answers were substantive, and most importantly he didn’t seem to have to run around trying to spin old positions like Clinton has had to do repeatedly with previous statements and votes about the war and about NAFTA. (She’s come the closest I’ve seen to owning up to making a mistake in the original Iraq vote in her closing statement tonight, thankfully.)
That 15 minute mess on health care at the beginning seemed interminable. I did not like Brian Williams’ final question, but I thought both candidates handled it very well.
In my final analysis, I’m still for either of these candidates over any of the three GOP candidates still running, tho my strong preference is for Obama.
I don’t feel bad about deciding to pass up the opportunity to secure tickets to the debate, especially since State Route 315 is closed due to treacherous road conditions. I can’t say I’d be looking forward to driving home from Cleveland tonight.
Stay tuned for audio of Eric pontificating on the BBC!
It is my opinion that Hillary Clinton and her campaign are afraid of Cuyahoga County. Hillary is going to have to approach Ohio like a Republican and try to win the rural parts of the state in order to try and win. It is going to be interesting to see what location will be acceptable for Clinton to debate Obama in Ohio.
This morning I see that Jerid at BSB may have the definitive answer and catches Hillary in a blatant lie. As I read it I stood and applauded video capture technology. Maybe she thought we bloggers wouldn’t see two different NBC affiliate broadcasts. She forgot about dee Interwebs though! Doh!
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Um. Busted! But why?
Jerid confirms Kyle’s suspicions and puts a nice bow on it all:
It’s about African American turnout, baby.
If there’s a debate, the resulting excitement, attention, and visit by Obama at Cleveland State University (in Stephanie Tubbs Jones’ 11th CD which is over 50% African American) will help shoot black turnout through the roof, much to Hillary’s detriment. If there’s a debate in Youngstown, which is a smaller city with far fewer African American voters, whatever black turnout bump occurs doesn’t hurt Hillary as much.
The numbers don’t lie. In 1992, when there was no black candidate on the presidential primary ballot in Ohio, the turnout in what is now the 11th Congressional District – where CSU sits – was just over 58,000. In 1988, when there was a black candidate on the ballot, 112,000 people voted in the district that is now the 11th, about double the ‘92 showing. It’s likely the turnout in the 11th CD will be similarly higher in 2008, if not bigger. And if there is a debate in the 11th CD the week before the election, it will only go higher still. It’s the equivalent of Hillary going into the hornet’s nest and smacking it with a baseball bat, screaming “catch me if you can.”
This is going to be hugely embarrassing to Team Billary – and not just in Ohio. I’m getting flooded with emails from people in other states, some coming in to help the Ohio campaign out. All eyes on Ohio at the moment. Bad time to have people looking.
Just spoke with Cole Hatcher in OWU’s media and community relations department. They don’t have final confirmation of a Chelsea Clinton visit tomorrow, but they are aiming for a lunchtime visit. There is a rather large students for Obama delegation at OWU and they have been pretty active lately. If it’s lunchtime I might swing over, but no promises.
Might not make the party @joingles but will donate any new PB ad revenue for next week to the foodbank in honor of St Pat http://ow.ly/1jL5V6 hours ago
New Blog Post: : Catholics Supporting a More Progressive Political Agenda http://bit.ly/bscBlw6 hours ago
I think you're a few days early with the St. Pat's celebration @joingles. Be sure to save up some celebrating for the actual holiday. ;) 7 hours ago
Not a big dancer, but know EXACTLY how you fell @joingles. Totally tired while traveling (and delayed) but arriving suddenly wakes you up! 7 hours ago
