BlogHer - Will Racism Pick the President? Plus WOC on Palin - Comments

You dissapoint me

Southerngirl — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 21:03:16 -0500

I thought I was having an honest conversation. Then I get this. Obama's website explains all of his plans in detail. But here is my list. I agree with his economic plan (as do most economist) I agree with his stand on energy independence as does T Boone Pickens an oil man. I agree with his stance on choice, education, and diplomacy first. Tell me how many of John McCain's positions do you agree with?

Michelle

I blog at http://www.mommycan.blogspot.com/

Asking legitimate questions

miteegirl — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 20:52:12 -0500

Asking legitimate questions is "copping a 'tude"? Wow. Interesting. If you can't answer the question, then you can't answer the question. Thanks for admitting that.

What would you like to know about me? And why would it matter?

I live in Illinois, I'm a mom, i was born in NYC to a blue-collar Catholic family (three generations of cops). My dad is in the foundry business. I married late in life, have a beautiful daughter. I went to a Big Ten school for my undergraduate degree and then to a Big Ten school for my graduate degree. I've been everything from a bartender to an executive consultant for the Fortune 500. I teach and own my own small business.

What else would there possibly be that you would need to know?

What does he actually stand for?

Hebrews926 — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 16:28:37 -0500

I went to Obama's website and then I researched his positions and things just do not add up. I don't see how he can do everything that he is promising. Therefore, I do not know what he will actually do.

Absolutely

Southerngirl — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 10:12:26 -0500

I totally agree with you. I was just letting salsa mama know that her argument is a moot point. Supporting whites is all we have had. If Al sharpton or Clarence Thomas were running for president thanks, but no thanks. Barack Obama represents the best of this year's pick to me. I agree with his positions. He is thoughtful enough that I do not see him trowing temper tantrams (like someone else we know). I trust him to make decisions and be able to respect other points of veiw. The other thing is he is smart enough to surround himself with good people because no one has all the answers.

Michelle

I blog at http://www.mommycan.blogspot.com/

Research the issues

Hebrews926 — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 09:03:47 -0500

I would hope that the choice would be based on the issues. I can appreciate you being excited about the first African American running on a major ticket. I think it is wonderful as well. I hope that you would research each candidate and make an informed decision. When the first African American becomes president, we should all want him or her to do a great job. We don't want ignorant people to use race as the reason the person failed. Make sure that you believe Obama is the best qualified for the job and not for him just because of his race. There is to much at stake.

We'll See What Happens

Bill Cammack — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 07:55:22 -0500

Good question, Maria.

I might have agreed with you a few weeks ago, WRT racisim being a major factor in this upcoming election, however at this point, we have to throw in sexism as well.

Barack Obama is 50% black. Sarah Palin is 100% female...... If McCain is elected and fails to serve his entire term, the American people have actually elected the first female PoTUS.

We already saw what happened with Obama vs Clinton.

We'll see if this McCain gamble plays out in the Republicans' favor.

~ Bill
I blog at billcammack.com

question is “above my pay grade”!

Giggle On — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 22:36:52 -0500

Executive experience is……well………geez, you’re right, I dunno how to answer that? I think perhaps that question is “above my pay grade”! Lame answer, ain’t it? It’s a great cop-out, kinda like voting “present”, isn’t it?

Let’s agree on one thing right here and right now before we part ways f-o-r-e-v-e-r.

NOTHING you can say will make me change my mind about Obama and NOTHING I will say will change yours about McCain. Let's stop wasting each other's time, shall we?

The last thing I am interested in is spending time qualifying and quantifying anything to a person who comes across as angry and confrontational as you. What's with the 'tude?

It’s not that I “can’t” answer your question Miteegirl. I won't. Your condescending tone nauseates me and engaging in a conversation with someone who is arrogant wastes precious time in my life.

Your tactic of egging people on may work in cyberspace where you can hide behind a screen name (with no picture) but that crap-ola doesn’t fly so well in the real world, at least not in my world.

Stand up and be counted in real-time! Take off the mask (pass this message to Obama while you’re at it) and show your face.

Adios BlogHer Politicos!

Christa

P.S. If you want to learn about me, click my screen name and go to my site. I'm not hiding.

What choice did we have?

Southerngirl — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 20:37:28 -0500

This is the FIRST EVER African American on a major ticket. As an African American we have not had any choice but a White man. So to ask if we would vote for him if he were white is ridiculous at best. I have been voting for and working hard to get many many a white man elected. To para phrase Dr. Phil, How's that been working for me? Not so well sometimes and sometime great! There has never ever been a choice. Now there is.

Michelle

Along with Sassymonkey's posts

Maria Niles — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 20:35:32 -0500

on Canadian politics, Crunchy Carpets you are helping to demonstrate what looks to be the superior electoral system sanity of our neighbors to the north :)

ConsumerPop Marketing
PopConsumer (Politics, Current Events & Links)
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Granted in Canada our party

Crunchy Carpets — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 20:22:36 -0500

Granted in Canada our party leaders are all white dudes this time around..their local reps are very varied..

Check it out..

2004 - present

Canadian federal election, 2006

Party
Candidate
Votes
%
±%
Expenditures

Liberal
Ujjal Dosanjh
20,991
48.05%

$62,783.75

Conservative
Tarlok Sablok
11,856
27.14%

$68,522.65

New Democratic Party
Bev Meslo
9,205
21.07%

$30,480.62

Green
Doug Perry
1,435
3.28%

$1,279.52

Marxist-Leninist
Charles Boylan
202
0.46%

Total valid votes
43,689
100.00%

Total rejected ballots

This is just in my riding.

Note also how little money is spent!

Look for me at http://crunchycarpets.com or check out the ladies at www.wetcoastwomen.com

Thank you all

Maria Niles — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 20:15:27 -0500

For this terrific, lively discussion.

I'd encourage everyone who is interested in polls and how they can present a distorted picture to check out the website and listen to the radio clips miteegirl posted in her comment. She beat me to the punch :)

Support of people of color for white candidates

Maria Niles — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 20:11:28 -0500

Hi Salsa Mama,

You ask:

Well, I wonder if Obama was white if he would have the support of so many people of color?

People of color consistently vote Democratic regardless of the race of the candidate. Over 80% African Americans have, for decades, voted for white Democratic presidential candidates.

John Kerry received 88% of black votes, 53% of Latino votes and 56% of Asian votes. So I think the answer to your question is, yes, if Obama were white he would have the support of the majority of people of color.

Can't answer the question?

miteegirl — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 19:29:33 -0500

I've been asking this question for a few days now and I have yet to meet a single McCain/Palin supporter who can answer it.

What exactly IS executive experience?

They usually try to answer it in these vague terms, "Um, well, it means that you were a governor!" or "Um, well, it means that you held a leadership position in government!"

But George W Bush had that. Bill Clinton had it too. (And no two people could be more different in handling their terms as President as Clinton and Bush.)

Dear God, even Robert Mugabe has Executive Experience.

So those answers are non-answers.

No one? No one can define the types of skills and specific accomplishments that make up executive experience?

Giggle On? Mary Catherine? American Princess? Why all of the hiding from a pretty straightforward question?

Wow. I would imagine that you would know the answer to this instead of just throwing around an empty term.

Salsa Mama, I have been

BrownImani — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 15:39:21 -0500

Salsa Mama, I have been voting for over 20 years !! I vote in local, state and national elections. Although I could not vote for Bill Clinton because I had a suspicion that he had a morals problem (although I prayed that he would win out over Bush I ) I did vote for the rest of the ticket. I have pulled the big Democratic lever, I have voted for repubs and Indies and Green Party members in the general elections etc. I am an African American. Most of the people I have voted for are white, and that was because of their assessment of the issues and my agreeing with thier solutions for handling them. Black people have been voting for White people en masse for generations ! Women have been voting for men ! Clinton got in office because of the Black vote. We are a large and progressive voting block and wise politicians usually court us if they are smart even though most of their campaigning talk is lies. That's a discussion for another day. The point is that more Black people vote for White people than Whites for Blacks. C'mon...get real.

The Republicans had a Gallup

miteegirl — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 12:20:17 -0500

The Republicans had a Gallup poll bounce after their convention. That is typical in elections. It isn't related to the what the poll results will be closer to election day.

In fact, I have never seen either side so jazzed. Democrats are contributing to the Obama campaign in record numbers and turning out as volunteers by the car full. Republicans are grasping onto some hope for their turnout now that they've turned a moderate ticket into a Christian Right ticket.

In fact, NONE of us knows how this is going to turn out on election day. That is what makes this election result almost impossible to predict. Never have so many traditionally red states become vulnerable at the same time. Never have so many younger and first time voters been so engaged. Never have the pollsters had to deal with the possibility that they aren't getting feedback from people who communicate only by cell phone or internet or text.

Polls have never been very reliable, especially this far out from Election Day. And this year, they are stabbing wildly in the dark.

It's GREAT!

Will Racism Pick the President? Plus WOC on Palin

Maria Niles — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 22:01:17 -0500

Republican pollster Frank Luntz thinks so. He sought to reassure the California Republican delegation that Obama's lead in polls is, in part, an illusion...

Analysts believe voters lied when they said they'd vote for Bradley, when in fact they were unwilling to vote for a black man. Luntz predicted the same thing would happen with Barack Obama. He told California delegates not to get discouraged if John McCain is trailing in the polls, because the Bradley effect will make up for some of that.

The Bradley effect refers to a phenomenon where non-white candidates lead in polls and yet ultimately lose to a trailing white candidate:

Researchers who studied the issue theorized that some white voters gave inaccurate polling responses because of a fear that by stating their true preference, they might appear to others to be racially prejudiced. This theory suggested that statistically significant numbers of white voters tell pollsters in advance of an election that they are either undecided, or likely to vote for the non-white candidate, but that those voters exhibit a different behavior when actually casting their ballots. White voters who said that they were undecided break in statistically large numbers toward the white candidate, and many of the white voters who said that they were likely to vote for the non-white candidate ultimately cast their ballot for the white candidate.

Luntz might be surprised to learn, however, that some racists are supporting Obama. Heidi Beirich and Mark Potok at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, report Not All White Supremacists Oppose [a] Black President (H/T Cecily Walker for the link)

It's not that the assortment of neo-Nazis, Klansmen, anti-Semites and others who make up this country's radical right have suddenly discovered that a man should be judged based on the content of his character, not his skin. On the contrary. A growing number of white supremacists, and even some of those who pass for intellectual leaders of their movement, think that a black man in the Oval Office would shock white America, possibly drive millions to their cause, and perhaps even set off a race war that, they hope, would ultimately end in Aryan victory.

Even without racism as part of the equation, the sheer number of white voters means that, depending on how you slice the data, groups of white voters can be seen as determining the outcome of presidential elections. Shay Riley, writing at The Root believes that White Women Will Decide...

Sen. McCain needs to raise his support [vs. George W. Bush] among whites to 60 percent, and he can do it by bringing more white women into his fold. This is especially true in key swing states, where Sen. McCain is currently polling a five to 20 percentage point gap over Sen. Obama among white voters.

That demographic sweet spot may catapult him to the White House. This would offset the expected increased turnout among blacks and younger voters.

McCain will certainly need to increase Republican share of support of white voters to offset what the party is losing from its already meager showing with African-Americans.

Only 36 of the 2,380 delegates seated on the convention floor are black, the lowest number since the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies began tracking diversity at political conventions 40 years ago. Each night, the overwhelmingly white audience watches a series of white politicians step to the lectern -- a visual reminder that no black Republican has served as a governor, U.S. senator or U.S. House member in the past six years.

However, there is a glimmer of hope for Republicans this election cycle:

Deborah Honeycutt, a doctor from Georgia who is running for a seat in the house of representatives in the November 4 elections, hopes to be the first black Republican woman elected to Congress.

At A Day In The Life Of Tree, Tree writes:

Is it me or should I be concerned at the lack of diversity and the Republican Convention. It looked like the “Old Boys Club.”...

I guess whites in America don’t think racism is a huge issue but for those of us who experience it to this day and had parents who lived through those times and great grandparents who were enslaved, well we have a different perspective on things. So please excuse me if my observation offends anyone but as an African American you see things through historical lenses.

I would be very interested to read what Tree thinks of the choice of Sarah Palin from her perspective as a black, pro-life, Christian mom of a special needs child.

Until then I will leave you with a small sampling of women of color, ranging from conservative to liberal and moderate in between, blogging on Palin

Booker Rising, a "news site for black moderates and black conservatives" shares two views:

Conservative Juliette Ochieng who blogs under the name baldilocks says perhaps McCain is Not So Senile After All and moderate Angela Winters was underwhelmed by Palin's speech to the Republican National Convention.

Here at BlogHer, feminist author, Rebecca Walker writes: The Pitbull in Lipstick Mommy: Five Questions for Sarah Palin.

Liza Sabater of Culture Kitchen was interviewed on CNN.com and shares:

I had the honor again to participate in Melissa Long's livecasting from the conventions. In the first one at the DNC we barely spoke of women's issues. Ironically here in St. Paul and with Palin's nomination the discussion was almost exclusively about her and about women's rights.

Maegan la Mala at Vivir Latino writes: McCain's VP Pick : Palin and the Politica and Privilege of White Woman'hood/ Mommy'Hood

And the always insightful Tami at What Tami Said shares Why Sarah Palin is an abysmal veep choice and what that says about John McCain

BlogHer CE Maria Niles is showing The Daily Show much love for their convention coverage at her blog PopConsumer.

Photo: Billboard in St. Paul, MN during the RNC
Photo Credit: The Zepplin on flickr