Like so many of Dean’s words, his quote was a bit inartful (perhaps NASCAR stickers would have been a better issue). Mind you, it was fine the dozens of times he said it before he was a front-runner, but the losers suddenly objected. Dick Gephardt, who for a time seemed Dean’s greatest threat in Iowa, responded that “I don’t want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks.” He wasn’t. Kerry, for his part, opined that “I would rather be the candidate of the NAACP than the NRA.” He was. Kerry engaged in a broad generalization; at least Gephardt had the integrity to spurn these fulcrum voters.
These working class, southern pride types were just too dang stupid to realize that they should be Democrats, after all. Don’t you realize that there’s something the matter with them? Kerry and Gephardt didn’t want such voters, they told Democratic voters. Nosiree. It’s not the Democrats’ problem if people won’t vote Democratic…it’s the voters’ problem. At least during primary season.
Then the general election came, and either these voters became smarter and better suddenly, or something was fishy in the primary. Suddenly, John Kerry found a love for huntin’. Suddenly, John Kerry discovered a love for NASCAR. Once the nomination belonged to Kerry, these working-class white became useful valuable smarter different.
We seem to have a pattern developing. Just as a Republican earns his party’s nomination on the back of immigrants, so do Democrats win nomination on the back of white working-class voters.
Today, we have many Obama-ites similarly sneering at Clinton’s supporters, donors, and funders. They revel in the racism that declares that her supporters don’t count, and would never vote for a Democrat anyway.
Then, once the nomination is in hand, what do you think Obama will do? Think there’ll be more blue jeans, more basketball photo ops? Do you think he’ll wander into event wherein people drive in circles?
More to the point, do you think the people here who hate Clinton’s pandering to this bloc of voters will mind it when Obama panders?
(Funding for this post graciously provided by my blog Quriltai on the Shore, which is funded by posts like these.)
The real danger in this delicate time is to refuse to get back together with your democratic brethren.
Has it occurred to you that “sneering” at Clinton's supporters is the most obvious false flag operation that republicans would use to try to turn a primary spat into an insurmountable schism?
It's time to set aside our differences.
(That said, and with respect, I don't like your poll. Pandering / Losing is the type of dichotomy one might expect on Faux News)
One is that Clintonites will not get back together with their Democratic brethren.
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p>Two is that Obamaites will not want Clintonites to get back together with their Democratic brethren. We’re clearly not needed.
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p>As for the sneering, whatever my opinion of folks such as HR’s Kevin, jconway, Charley on the MTA, and John from Lowell, I don’t think that they’re Republicans doing a false flag.
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p>(There are plenty of false, pro-Obama dichotomies on MSNBCright now, I’d point out.)
But we have an election to win.
Are you in on this or not?
Do I want someone other than John McCain as president? Yes.
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p>Do I want to work a few hours a night after 10, 11-hour days, or one weekends alongside snide, condescending true believers when I could be helping other Democratic candidates who want to win by getting the votes they need to get? Not really. Doubt I’m the only one.
But it should be noted that a sledgehammer is not the recommended tool for getting barnicles off of your keel.
Is that too obscure an analogy?
used that very same sledge on clinton supporters? time to feign some love for the other half of the party. can you do it, jconway, et al?
What I am tired of is that none of the Clinton supporters see reason. Your calling to unite the party now-it could have happened several months ago since this conclusion has been forgone since the Potomac primaries. Obama was winning white blue collar voters until Hillary Clinton exploited the racial fears generated from the Wright controversey-and I resent her tremendously for dividing the party on racial and socio economic lines.
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p>I defended Dean when he made that statement, and my comments against the so called slobs I demeaned are not against all white working class voters but the ones that would vote against Obama merely because he is black. That is the message I am getting from the Hillary campaign is that we need to pander to people who should be reviled-people that dislike black people.
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p>I think its undemocratic and unbecoming of our party to throw minorities under the bridge and alienate them by overturning the will of the electorate to annoint a candidate merely because she is white. This is what Hillary Clinton is sounding to me.
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p>Do I hate the white working class? Of course not. I am a white son of a working class mother and father, first in my family to go to college, etc. We fit many of the sterotypes of the so called Clinton supporter but we feel Obama in fact is more fitting with our values, that he has better judgement, and if anything he can build the multi racial coalition we need to run this country.
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p>What I hate is the white working class voter who resents minorities, votes against his economic interests, votes to go into foolhardy wars, despises programs that help poor people and minorities, hates paying taxes, but then demands special priviledges for his class.
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p>These are the hypocrites I cant stand-they tend to vote Republican-and I do not want to pander to their fears. Can Obama offer them an agenda that helps their group out as well? Of course. Any progressive candidate will help working class voters and Obama has serious progressive bona fides. And the best thing Clinton can do is to endorse Obama now, or at least campaign on her own positive things. Continuing to pit race against race is a strategy that will cost us this election and has certainly started to cost her any respect she might have earned from running a great campaign.
It's a collect call. Will you accept the charges too?
If by charges does it mean Obama should adopt some Clinton populist rhetoric and policies-perhaps. If it means he should adopt her recent race baiting rheotric and fear mongering tactics, her foolish gas tax policy, and other efforts of pandering to poor people by abusing their ignorance of economics, then no.
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p>At this point it is up to Clinton to accept the charges. Obama has been willing to unite this party for months, she is the one who has been dividing it on class lines and now racial lines. She can undo the damage simply by stopping the attacks against Obama and running a clean campaign through June. Im realistic, she probably won’t drop out, but if she starts using unifying rhetoric rather than this stupid us vs them populism then maybe we can unite as a party and I might even accept her on the ticket.
Right now the two campaigns are likely negotiating some deal or another in a smoky back room. That outcome is beyond the control of people like us, but I'm sure neither campaign will support an outcome that even gives the impression that principles are being compromised.
What we need to be concerned about is helping those democrats who are still hesitant to stand together understand that we are all here for pretty much the same reasons.
I am the one making the appeal.
[tap tap] …is this thing on?
Working class people feel as if the wealthy, more affluent members of the Democrats look down upon us. We also feel they are out of touch with our needs at times. Take for instance their support toward amnesty for illegal aliens. If you were working class, you would see this as a slap in the face because your losing your job while a section of the country wants to allow it to continue. I am the son of an immigrant and I feel that its a slap in the face to my mother who played by the rules. Same goes for my Latino friends whose families all came here legally. Its not that we hate immigrants as it is that were the ones competing for low wage work. We don’t have degrees to fall back on so when someone comes here willing to work for half the pay, we lose our source of income.
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p>The “Obama” camp wanted to give the children of illegal aliens in state tution. That is another slap in the face to us because our kids are the ones who go to State Schools. By giving their kids in state tution, were increasing the labor pool and it will be the working class’s kids who will be working for lower wages. How about amnesty for illegals? Our people are getting driven out of cities we lived in for generations due to overcrowding and cities like Cambridge care more about people who broke the law to come here.
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p>Now understand this, the “Obama” camp will call us closed minded for believing this. Were not closed minded, were trying to protect our jobs. They could have avoided this resentment by acknowledging that Illegal Immigration is a problem on both sides and that we need to focus first on making sure American’s quality of life isn’t hurt then we can work to allow new people into the country. However, the way we see it was a bunch of people who work white collar jobs telling us were closed minded and should accept losing their job and then paying for someone to do it.
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p>I think the major reason working class people feel anger towards Obama is because we feel like our voice really doesn’t count. Imagine having someone who lives in a million dollar home in Brookline talking about affordable housing. Another problem is the fact that working class people are being given a bad rap out of the Rev. Wright controversy. I find it funny how were the ones being called racists when you rarely see African Americans living in wealthy liberal towns like Acton, Brookline and Newton. Hell, I am white and working class and my god father is black and my fiance is Brazilian. However, if I were to say I didn’t like what Rev. Wright said, I would be called a racist.
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p>If you want the white working class people to jump on board with Obama, then he should get people like them to talk to us. Even though its not true, the average white working class person thinks of a wealthy trustfund hypocrite living in a Mansion talking about how the care allot. We picture these people caring more about the plight of someone in a third world nation then someone in Springfield. I am just telling you how it is, these are my people and this is what they think.
The “immigration issue” is difficult to discuss because it requires the dreaded *nuance*. But in starkest terms the bottom line is that we have labor laws to protect our workforce and that is where we can find a resolution.
You cannot fix the problem by starting in the emergency room. You cannot fix the problem by starting in the classroom. The immigration issue is a labor issue and it starts and ends in the workplace.
On this matter, there is virtually no daylight between Clinton, Obama, and McCain. The point is that Democratic party is interested in finding root causes to solve problems, rather than putting out public relations efforts. The Republicans want this to be an issue for decades because they can capitalize on racism and xenophobia. The Democrats have an interest in actually finding a solution so that we can tackle bigger problems.
I'm not sure if you noticed, but Hil sort of became a champion of working class people overnight somehow. In fact, it is tough to gage how big this bloc is for her, but I had never before associated the Clintons with the plight of the working man. It was a huge chunk of working man that helped W into office in 2000.
The fact is, this is our ticket. This is the best chance we've got. The working man can find relief in an Obama presidency or they can be screwed for another term.
What do YOU think is the best message to convey this?
You’re like Delilah, but with better music, or maybe more an Art Spencer type.
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p>Anyway, I’ve been together with a wonderful woman for three months now, and we’re so happy..can you play some Amy Grant dreck for us?
But I'm tempted to award points for making me google “art spencer”.
Came up with nothing but a Rhode Island radio host.
Is that what you were going for?
I thought I was the master of obscure references, but I'll admit that I've been bested.
My call for peace, love, and unity stands. Slap my cheek of you like, I'll turn the other.
I don’t disagree with your call for temperateness on both sides at all. But the specific wording did remind me of Spencer and Delilah, two evening radio show hosts that reach SE Mass, who spend all night taking calls from middle-aged women who love their husbands and children and want them to play God-awful music dedicated to them. Everything is sunshine, rainbows, and love with those two.
That we could a few frickin' rainbows about now.
… is a likely problem. The trick here is that these voters need to be convinced, not merely pandered to. There really is a problem when a large voting block doesn’t vote its self interest. But that doesn’t make them idiots or assholes. Politicians know they can design their rhetoric to try and get this resulting voting behavior. These votes don’t happen in a vacuum after all. Irrationality is not always the result of stupidity or malice and this situation is a perfect example.
These voters are completely rational decision-makers, they just have different priorities and beliefs.
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p>Bluntly and briefly put, these are folks taking Pascal’s advice, and are in so many ways voting based on the next life, not this one. Which makes me think the trick isn’t convincing them to be Democrats because of pocketbook issues, but dealing with those larger social/religious questions.
… and not irrational if they were satisfied with the results. But thats not what is happening here is it? The frustration for people like JC comes from recognizing the irrationality of repeating a voting pattern that creates results the voters didn’t want.
This:
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p>
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p>is what has been at the root of the Democratic Party’s failure to win elections for President during the past 40 years, and it’s still continuing. As long as that’s the case, the Democrats won’t win elections at the Presidential level.
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p>The fact that the working-class has mostly turned away from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party is what has contributed to the Democratic Party’s failures, and there ‘ve been many mistakes made by the Left that’s helped make that possible.
with people who keep sticking a fork in your collective eyes.
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p>Even though my candidate is not likely to get the nomination, I’m still a Democrat, and hoping for a dream ticket. Yet, on today’s morning news…I see Senator Kennedy, who stated that Obama should pick someone “more in tune with his appeal for the nobler aspiration sof the American people,” and that “if we had real leadership – as we do with Barak Obama – in the number two spot as well, it’d be enormously helpful.” Ah, if this isn’t the goose calling the duck “fowl.” I am old enough to remember 1980, Teddy boy.
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p>So…still insulting my candidate, after all the support the good senator has received from women over the years. Bite me, Ted. What this very good Democrat is likely to do…is vote for a Democrat. A write in, probably my father-in-law. (You’ll love him as a candidate, gang – he’s smarter than most politicians and served in WWII, Pacific theater)
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p>The deal is – many women supported Hillary for a million good reasons, and still see her not getting the respect she deserves. We still have Obama supporters (sore winners?) still insulting the Clinton supporters, still laying bogus claims of racism while they play the classism card.
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p>Count me as very tired of the “silly season” already. I’m voting for Dad.
I’m voting for a Democrat, too…but not your Dad, my Dad…he was Iwo Jima, purple heart, sempre fi…and Ted Kennedy couldn’t shine his shoes.
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p>(And unlike Ted, he will not ask me to hold a sign, make a call, give him money, apologize for his misbehavior, or vote for who he tells me to)
and he is more supportive and caring of this woman’s concerns and issues than Kennedy, Kerry, or Obama put together. He is a principled and trustworthy human being. More than I can say for the aforementioned.
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p>BTW, did you see that yet another Obama supporter referred to Hillary as the Glen Close character in fatal attraction. Tic…tic….tic….and then let’s guess what happens next? Obama supporters play the “Roe” card, like we haven’t seen that before.
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p>And for the record…I’d vote for my mom if she were still with us.
“And for the record…I’d vote for my mom if she were still with us.”….
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p>Me,too. (and so would my Dad)
Let’s retire, or at least question, the assumption that racism and republican votes are concentrated in the white working class.
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p>Bush won college graduates nationwide, both times. And the lower your income, the more likely you are to vote democrat.
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p>Out of white cultural elites, money elites, middle class suburbanites, and the working class, in my experience, the most open racism is among the middle two. The first group, cultural elites, are scrupulously non-racist, but their understanding and exposure to how poor minorities live is very limited, sometimes leading to embarrassing and condescending assumptions. The people in the last group more often live and work among minorities, and understand them as equals – on an instinctive level, born of shared experience – more than any of the others.
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p>I think when people talk about racist white working class voters they are really talking about a section of middle class suburbanites. The media in this country have confounded the difference between middle class and working class (admittedly, there’s no bright line distinction). Bill O’Reilly says he grew up working class (in Levittown!) because his father “worked” — as a middle manager in insurance.
My experience growing up in a shop town in MI is that people may work in the same place, but they by and large segregate themselves socially and geographically. Not that there isn’t some mixing, but self-segregation is still the rule. ANd the segregation happens at the behest of all groups, not just the whites. So whatever understanding working class people of various hues may have of each other, I think too often comes from observing each other across the lunch room rather than walking through life together.
Yes, I’m dealing in generalizations from my own experience. And it’s a relative statement in a couple of ways. One is that I’ve just seen more open racism among middle class acquaintances than working class ones. And two, working class people who might not know the fine points of race-sensitive speech, but who live near and work with minorities, shouldn’t be demonized because better-off people arrange their lives such that their only interactions with minorities are as service providers and charity recipients. (And that’s not meant as a description of anyone in this conversation nor of the average white Obama supporter, but of a class of folks who are as much a product of our race problems as anyone else.)
my experiences are balanced by yours, and that the situation is more hopeful in some places even if it is still a bit pathetic in others.