Given the overall mood of the political blogosphere . . .
I posted this as a comment over at Anglachel's blog earlier, thought I'd repost it here (for a more positive take, see here: http://www.taylormarsh.com/archives_view.php?id=27616) (from an electoral horse-race point of view, NC was about what I expected and Indiana
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Given what Obama has claimed vs. what he has done (re: the nuclear bill he supposedly helped shepherd through while helping gut all the safeguards, claiming no money from lobbyists and specifically oil lobbyists, etc), quotes from debates won't mean much to me, but if you have *votes* that he made that look good, that I will pay attention to.
I'm probably a lost cause for convincing me Obama is not awful, but I'm always willing to look at evidence, and even if I was convinced the man was a sociopath (I'm not; I just think his campaign tactics are sociopathic, and yes, I do see a clear difference there) I would overlook this if I thought he would do a good job, or simply an adequate job given the situation we are now in (which I think is actually harder than doing a really great job would have been in 2000, if that makes sense--barely squeaking by now will require more skill than sailing the seas of awesomeness would have before things got so thoroughly wrecked). Since the nuclear power issue is a killer for me, as I view this as fucking up the entire future of the world in a way that may not be fixable (and one reason you will never have to worry about me voting for McCain, as he is more outspokenly pro-nukes than Obama), if you could actually convince me he'll put the emphasis on solar and away from nukes and clean coal, that might affect what I would do if Obama won the primary.
I had previously thought my vote would not matter anyway, but as it turns out, I could be wrong. There's a high % of latinos in Cali. I spend more of my non-home time w/Latinos than any other demographic group, probably. The vast majority who care about the race tend to hate Bush for destroying the economy, and to somewhat equate McCain w/Bush, but they also tend not to be favorably inclined towards Obama, especially since his supporters went on air everywhere out here after the Cali elections blaming his defeat on racist Mexicans. This fairly large Cali demographic group is up for grabs. His campaign wasn't wrong about their ability to put states into play that normally aren't . . .
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his supporters went on air everywhere out here after the Cali elections blaming his defeat on racist Mexicans
WtF!? Now *that* I hadn't heard. I wish I had an extra lifetime to analyze this race.
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Probably the stupidest thing I heard came from a political scientist at one of the SF universities, can't remember which one, who said he was shocked at the hispanic vote and wondered what happened to all the solidarity between latinos and AA's that had been formed through such things as their shared battle against whites in the prison system. I dunno what the hell that idiot was thinking, or what prison solidarity he was talking about. I have friends who have been in prison, and unless they've been lying to me for years, there is no such solidarity. And the sheer stupidity of implying most latinos, esp most *voting* latinos, have some sort of prison record . . . (none of the people I know IRL heard that--Sasha and I were listening to a SF radio station when we heard it--but I do think it conveyed the sort of ignorant crap being spewed) One would think it would have offended AA's too, even AA Obama supporters, but none called in to the show to complain.
Not feeling well right now, so may be this weekend sometime before I'm able to get back to you more on the perceptual thing.
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Future candidates are going to have to learn to better guide their supporters. I desperately wish Obama had come out a month ago and said "cut it out. Leave the attacks to us, they are part of the process but you don't need to be attacking each other."
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The other thing, when people said they opposed her because of her vote on this that or the other, or because they blamed her in part for something Bill did policy-wise, I don't think that pissed off the Hillary supporters. We might have disagreed or been dismayed, but that isn't the same thing as feeling insulted. It's the people who ran around with the personal attacks, including the personal attacks on the Clintons--and that came from people at the top of his campaign, starting w/Jesse Jackson Jr talking about Hillary crying about her hair, not about Katrina, and then the racist crap . . . and then there were all the personal attacks on Hillary supporters . . . simply defending the Clintons can get you called "racist" really fast (I have first hand experience w/this). I kinda doubt you said anything like that . . .
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Nobody I know gives a damn who had sex with who or who slept in what bedroom. For all we care they could fucking aardvarks as long as it was consensual on the part of the aardvark. I personally was really pissed at the people who kept badgering Chelsea about the Lewinsky matter. (Although I think she missed an opportunity to turn it around and say straight out that they are blaming the victim).
Most of the racism I *have* encountered in this race is from people denying that race or gender have anything to do with it.
As far as blaming/crediting Hill for Bill's work - If I were president my wife would be at my right hand as an advisor officially or unofficially. I'd be an idiot to exclude her. I sense the same situation with the Clintons. Two married lawyer/politicians, she can't have an outside job for security reasons - I couldn't possibly believe she had no input.
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It is one of the extreme weirdnesses of this race that *democrats* are buying the media narrative of the two candidates without checking further, so no one knows he voted for a gas tax holiday 3 times in Illinois, for example (which seems to have had good results, it should be added), and she gets flamed by either Frank Rich or Rich Cohen-- Iforget which--for voting for a flag-burning amendment, and they declare this is why they absolutely can't vote for her, and they don't mention until a small later addendum that their guy Obama voted for same (and I agree this amendment was stupid and wrong; I'm sure both Hill and Obama think so too).
I dunno what the hell the Chelsea attackers and the "we believed the drummed up right wing scandals of the 90's" people like that Insomnia dude who posted on "progressives" a few time are . . . like I said, I think some are Republicans masquerading as Obama supporters , but I think others are Kos people, and the majority at that place has always been both misogynistic and non-liberal (anti-Republican, yes; truly liberal, no) in its thinking, even tho it did used to be worth checking out just because it became sort of a magnet because of its popoularity--they probably love Obama because he's all about branding and marketing, and so are they . . .
Re: Hillary/Bill working together -- I assume this also. I have always thought she seemed the more genuinely liberal of the two, or at least more committed to liberal economics. Going back to before their joint presidency, she supported micro-lending programs a decade before I'd even heard of them, and once defended a Black Panther, for heaven's sake, both of which entail more than just following the crowd on what is popular.
But ultimately, he got voted in, not her, and it was his views that I'm assuming prevailed when they differed; certainly, my wife and I don't agree on everything (and she almost always turns out to have been right on those differences). I expect her to be better on government regulation in general and on more progressive on LGBT issues than he was, tho for what it matters as an excuse, I'm 100% sure he would have been more progressive on social issues but for having been essentially in a really nasty position where the conservatives were out for his blood and congress was blaming him for their every trouble--still, huge mistake on his part w/DOMA and telecom dereg--I can understand/justify everything else about his presidency--which was on the whole a very good thing, I still think--except those two.
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