Just a while ago, on the comment thread of some posting on his blog Holmes & Co., Rick Holmes voiced his frustration with the seemingly relentless demographic analysis that has been brought to bear on the Democratic primary contest between Obama and Clinton.
There's something demeaning and disrespectful in all the demographic slicing and dicing perpetrated by the consultants, pollsters and media analysts. "Why can't Obama connect with white working-class Pennsylvanians?" "Why can't he "close the deal" with older white women?" We don't hear it as often, but similar questions could be aimed at Clinton: "Why doesn't she appeal to young people and African-Americans and folks with graduate degrees?" These questions always have an undertone of racism and sexism that - even if it's true about some voters - is insulting to this voter.
I have to say I share in that frustration. White voters, black voters, old and young, male or female, college educated and not. Every contest result thus far has been dragged onto the table and vivisected for "voting tendencies." It's sorely tempting to point a finger at one side as they have tried to read more meaning into one contest result over another. Maybe that's where this will end up-the whole race might end up being about the race as some demographic dry run -it's not like I can control it, but I guess I'd like to nudge discussion in a different direction.
I remember arguing with my dad about politics once (actually we did it a lot). To take the use of understatement to a ridiculous extreme, let's just say my dad was no fan of Bill Clinton's. The only thing that could get him more riled than talk about Bill and Hillary was talk about Ross Perot. Let's say he wasn't a fan of Perot's populist protectionism either. In the particular argument I'm remembering my dad had returned to this theme. We were on the phone and he was on the subject of Perot. He'd run through his usual critique, but then he went on to fulminate on how Perot really bugged him -how only an idiot -a complete moron -only a fool could have been swayed by Perot's blathering pseudo-folksy talk -and those silly diagrams! Only a complete and utter moron!
In this one particular discussion I recall I chose a Socratic approach. I asked my dad why this upset him so much -this "moronic appeal" of Perot's.
Well -isn't that obvious?, he said, Perot stole his votes from George H. W. Bush! Obviously his message was an appeal to Bush voters more than Clinton voters! He corrupted the results. He gave the election to Clinton!
Maybe you can guess my response.
So you're telling me, Dad, that without Perot messing things up, Bush would have taken the Complete and Utter Moron vote?
Silence on the phone...
OK, you got me.
I guess I bring up this story for a couple of reasons. One is that my dad hardly ever admitted when I "got him" so I've been gloating about that particular instance ever since, about fourteen years now. The other is to point to the danger of letting the political debate devolve into discussions of demographics and electability -and the projected voting tendencies of arbitrarily defined groups.
There's a few things I learned from my father -before I started proving how much smarter than him I was. He used to love "a good argument" -the kind of discussion where you stated your case and defended your principles and where you heard the other side too. In those "good arguments" -even when neither side convinced the other of anything-you learned something. You refined your own thinking and you maybe found some respect for the other point of view. (That hardly ever came up when we argued about Clinton -I don't think those were our "good arguments" - but that's a whole other post). My dad and I agreed that that "good argument" was an ideal worth holding and sharing, that it just might be the heart of our country's democracy.
My dad also taught me a couple of things about what is currently being discussed as "elitism." My dad was an engineer and, in his line of work, he used to tell me, he could as easily find himself working all morning with a back hoe operator and all afternoon with a college president. He told me how he had encountered fools in board rooms and wise men on the construction site. And he'd found them both out with a willingness for a "good argument."
That willingness wasn't always necessarily born of an open mindedness, per se -or even what you would call tolerance. Sometimes it was quite the opposite -but it was never patronizing. It was a willingness to challenge and confront differences with conviction and candor.
As I think of it now I realize that this was probably why he admitted that I "got him" that night on the phone those years ago. He'd stopped defending his own thinking and he'd started second guessing the thinking of others. He had strayed from the argument of why he thought he was right and he'd wandered into wondering how his side might have won. By his own standards, he had lost that particular argument with his son and he knew it. The funny thing was I could tell that in some small way he was pleased that he had.
http://www.notsilence.blogspot.com
Tom driscoll is an opinion columnist, poet, performiing songwriter (let's just say he writes).
is that he stated he "Wants to be Another Ronald Reagan". What I remember of the 80's with firing FAA workers, Iran-Contra, Freedom Fighter's Saddam Hussein & Osma Bin Laden, S & L scandle, runaway debt, I don't think the country need to repeat these crimes.
As for Hillary, recently stating that she would blow away a non-aggressive UN Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty signer Iran- if they were to attack Israel, is part of the continuing mis-guided foreign policy blunders this country of inept administrations create.
I'm voting for Mike Galvin, the congressman from Alaska who is the only candidate that will withdrawal from Iraq when elected president.
by
Stanimal (0 articles, 4 quicklinks, 25 diaries, 682 comments)
on Tuesday, April 29, 2008 at 8:46:00 PM
You're comment is a great example of the exact opposite of the "good argument" I was trying to describe. I won't ask you to agree or disagree with Obama or Clinton or anyone else in the context of this post. But for cryin' out loud don't argue with ghosts and goblins of your own imagining and then pretend you're part of a real discussion. Obama never ever said he wanted to be the next Ronald Reagan.
Here's a post I wrote on the subject when that phantom first floated.
It is obvious that this country has been ripped off for too long, and that the suckers are harder to blame. A real argument might start dealing with the crooks and the nice system of rackets that they have set up - particularly the media.
by
John Hanks (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1409 comments)
on Wednesday, April 30, 2008 at 8:03:25 AM
So, what exactly did you interpret he wanted to be, with the context of Ronald Reagan's name attached to it?
I'm not interested in candidates that are out-hyping one another, I want some action and accountability. What you have with any of the mainstream candidates is the same with a slightly different display.
Stop these illegal occupations of foreign lands, and hold the people responsible for these misguided foreign policy snafu's. Get rid of all rouge government departments like the CIA, and cut the Pentagon budget to 1% of GNP. Start exporting things the world needs, which is not weapons.
Set an example of how a republic is supposed to operate with transparent accountability. If you demand the rest of the world forgo nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, how about the US lead the way.
Show some leadership by building efficient mass-transit, and start reducing the human footprint the world must bear.
Stop the China bashing without regards to what or how the US developed and continues to do so today with its imperialistic agenda.
Perhaps then there will be less argument, and more getting along with our fellow human.
by
Stanimal (0 articles, 4 quicklinks, 25 diaries, 682 comments)
on Wednesday, April 30, 2008 at 1:32:18 PM
For some reason blogger wont drag up the article on Barack/Reagan on my own blog.
It is archived here as well
click here I think there are varying degrees of legitimacy to your complaints. All of the topics you mention are worthy points of argument. I just wonder if you haven't made it harder to address any one point by bundling them together into a comprehensive indictment.
There's that old saying about perfection being the enemy of progress. I guess I'm advocating a progressive argument.
peace
by
Tom Driscoll (32 articles, 1 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 15 comments)
on Wednesday, April 30, 2008 at 1:59:20 PM
Yes, I admit that Obama is wanting the sense of "Inspiration" that Reagan pontificated, which was pure Bullsh*t.
The media put the public into a trance about a B rated actor, who Never starred in a major motion picture. His "Family" values were based off a family with the 2nd wife. His policies of bloated government was and runaway spending was anti republican, one that deserved impeachment, Treason and War Crimes charges.
His firing of FAA employees and deregulation that led to the S & L scandle was the beginning of union busting and the illegal transfer of wealth.
There is NOTHING worth repeating of the Reagan years, and if Obama wants to use a cowardly turn-coat republican as his mentor, well he doesn't deserve my vote either.
by
Stanimal (0 articles, 4 quicklinks, 25 diaries, 682 comments)
on Wednesday, April 30, 2008 at 6:53:44 PM
Obama isn't embracing Reagan as a mentor either. He's pointing out that Reagan captured the attention of the country and garnered a great deal of support by shifting the debate from the mechanics of effective policy to the ideals and theories of our national identity. I think Obama and a lot of other people, perhaps even you, Stan, recognized that the theory and the practice of the REagan revolution were often at odds. Obama is saying that that deeper examination of the country's ideals and aspirations is necessary again and he is suggesting that that can be done from an honest open progressive perspective rather than a fearful and fraudulent conservative one.
by
Tom Driscoll (32 articles, 1 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 15 comments)
on Thursday, May 1, 2008 at 7:20:58 AM
was to proclaim not to "Negotiate with "Terrorist", yet his election committee sent funds to the Iranians to hold the hostages till after the 1980 election. What's the first thing Senile Ronnie does when sworn in, is unfreeze Iranian assets. Then there was Freedom Fighter Saddam Hussein and Osma Bin Laden the "repunuts" now call "Terrorists", and the Iran-Contra-Cocaine shenanigan.
283 Marines killed in Lebanon, and to then invade Grenada as a heroic deed, capturing some Cuban laborers.
Talking tough to the USSR and just being in the right place at the right time when the USSR came apart. But Not till leaving a mountain of debt that the US is still only paying the interest on. The SOB had nothing to do with the collapse of the USSR, which wasn't a Communist country to begin with.
There was the Ann Buford and James Watt snafu's, the S & L scandle, and on and on ....
How does one draw inspiration from circumstances like these?
Oh, from Chuck Norris, Slyvester Stallone and Bruce Willis films where they are a lone US soldiers taking down impossible odds of enemy guns blazing to a glorious "Mission Accomplished", and Tom Cruise "Top Gun" movies where an officer takes a lot of showers and can still be clean for the kill, whether that be a seductive senior officer or a boogy over the Pacific.
Obama does not talk about a withdrawal from Iraq and makes statements to be willing to pre-empt a illegal incursion into a country to chase suspected Al-CIAda, an organization that the US set up and has financed since its inception.
Goes from a working class neighborhood to a more affluent one in another part of the country and belittles its inhabitants.
Talks about helping the working stiff, then reassures the corporate world that nothing will change on his watch.
Hillary talks tough to appease the "Christian" vote that if Iran, a country that hasn't attacked anybody for a couple thousand years, attacks Israel, she will obliterate them, and make no mention of when troops will be withdrawn from Iraq.
Mc Cain who is willing to stay stay in Iraq for 100 if necessary.
And you label me as thick?
Anybody with proper cognitive skills can see that these "Selected" candidates are just more of the problem, not the solution.
by
Stanimal (0 articles, 4 quicklinks, 25 diaries, 682 comments)
on Thursday, May 1, 2008 at 9:23:52 AM
It seems you either want to throw up your hands or throw a grenade. I'm not inclined to do either. I don't think you advance anything much by convincing yourself of the evil-doing of others. Certainly not peace or justice. I'm sorry if I offended with the "thick" comment but I think seeing only evil is just as misguided as seeing no evil. It's just the other side of the same blindness.
by
Tom Driscoll (32 articles, 1 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 15 comments)
on Thursday, May 1, 2008 at 9:42:30 AM
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