Let's not "make history" with these candidates!

Good morning, Gloria,

I agree with quite a bit of what you've said. Before I proceed, I want to be very clear that I am not trying to, nor am I interested in, calling Hillary or Obama, or black voters or white voters, "racists". People may include race as a factor in their decision-making, sometimes for what you and I would consider to be legitimate reasons (though I'm not 100% sure there are any) and sometimes for reasons based on ignorance or fear. I simply want to discuss politics as it is...which doesn't require deep analysis of the motives behind peoples' choices.

Yesterday I heard Terry McAuliffe thank George W. Bush for being the greatest galvanizing force in recent memory for the Democratic Party. He has a point. But, it's much easier to win election when people are voting FOR you rather than against the other guy. Just ask both of George W. Bush's last two opponents.

I don't actually believe Obama is a galvanizing force. He may have been at some point, but not now. Sure, there are plenty of people besides blacks who will be upset if Obama doesn't get the nomination, but no group as important. The second-most upset group will be college students, and they don't matter much despite all the hype (just as there was in 2004) about the upcoming rush of participation in elections by young people. If you want to break it down by race, I think whites on average would be ambivalent, Latinos might actually be happy since they tend not to support blacks very much, and I have no opinion about how Asians would feel, though I don't think they are an exceptionally important voting block or very different in how they vote from the American population overall.

One group which hasn't been mentioned a lot is "the Jewish vote". Jews (like me) are a small percentage of the population but tend to have a higher than average likelihood of voting. One study I read suggested about 50% more, so, for example, a Jewish population of 2% in a state would have a voting impact as if they were 3% of the population. This could be a big deal in Florida (about 4% of the population, but much higher % of seniors and voters.) And, even though the percentages are smaller, the Jewish vote could make an important difference in PA and OH. We're talking about fairly small numbers, but in elections as close as some recent contests have been, it's interesting to see the Democrats about to nominate the worst possible choice for Jewish voters.  There's a very interesting article about Obama's problems, not helped by an endorsement by Hamas, at:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/article/20080512/EDITORIAL/134701177/1013

As far as "getting the white vote", I said that Obama wins caucuses, regardless of how white the state is. For a variety of reasons, caucuses are likely to have minimal participation from people who might not vote for Obama because he's (half) black. Winning "white states" caucuses is not representative of anything with the possible exception of showing that college students in those states were motivated to help Obama. And I remind you that Obama won't win most of the caucus states in November.

New Hampshire is not a caucus state, but it is very early and very politically active, so it's not too surprising that Obama would do OK there. Again, it doesn't really matter in comparison to the states I mentioned in my prior note.

You're right that Hillary plays the race card at her peril, but it doesn't mean she's wrong if you look at the electoral map. It's true that the race has been unorthodox so far, but that doesn't mean that Obama's losing almost all the "swing states" isn't worth considering.

I'm not saying this stuff because I like Hillary. I can't stand her. I can't stand Obama either, although he seems like less of a back-stabbing, lying, cackling, worthless typical politician. Instead, he's a naïve, union-loving socialist, slightly atypical politician who has very few ideas and those he has are mostly quite ridiculous, anti-capitalist, and, despite his cries to the contrary, anti-American.

This country is probably ready to elect a black as president; it's certainly ready to elect a woman. I'm somewhat confident, however, that we won't elect this particular woman candidate, and I hope we're not stupid enough to elect a black guy just because he's a black guy, given that he's patently unqualified for the job. I'm all for "making history", but not at the expense of our economy, our health care system, and our national security.

I have an idea...I'll work with you to get Condi Rice elected. How's that for making history?

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