Thanks, Nordette and I hope you're right

Maria Niles — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 21:44:13 -0500

Thank you, Nordette for providing additional context. I agree that it is a good thing that Tinker's desperate attempt failed. I do hope that indeed the outcomes in these races indicate that we are "shifting our thinking and growing up."

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Well, it didnt' work

Nordette — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 14:41:34 -0500

Tinker got what was coming to her, as Maria discusses in her recent post "Identiy Politics is Dead, Long Live Identity Politics." We still have hope that we shall overcome divisiveness.

Nordette is a Contributing Editor with BlogHer.com whose personal blog is hosted on another site at this link. Her most recent post on BlogHer at the time of this comment is "Bernie Mac Dies of Pneumonia at 50"

Are we shifting our thinking and growing up?

Nordette — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 14:35:41 -0500

Great post, Maria, and when I read it I thought of a recent BookTV interview with Rick Perlstein, author of Nixonland.

We still seem to be fighting our political battles using the same language bequeathed to us by Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagon in the 60s even though the reality on the ground is truly a lot less contentious. (BookTV interview with Rick Perlstein)

After analyzing a recent special election in Mississipi in which the Democrat defeated the Republican who used the same old southern strategy for winning (the let's scare the white voters with black people strategy), Perlstein thinks there's a ray of hope that we're stepping into a new way of looking at our culture and politics. He said the Republican ran scare tactic TV ads with typical southern strategy rhetoric like the Democrat refused to denounce Obama for his "hateful, anti-American" preacher, and the Democrat refused to denouce Obama for his statements about bitterness among rural (white) people. Nevertheless, the Republican lost his conservative district, one that Bush won in 2004.

I read your post and considered that possibly Tinker got a taste of this from the black community. She went to an old-school textbook strategy of racial division for winning elections, assuming people feel the same way they felt years ago, but it backfired. And that's a good thing.

Perlstein's still undecided on whether we're shifting our thinking and growing up when it comes to cultural divides and politics, but he's entertaining the idea, he says.

Thank you again, Maria.

Nordette is a Contributing Editor with BlogHer.com whose personal blog is hosted on another site at this link. Her most recent post on BlogHer at the time of this comment is "Bernie Mac Dies of Pneumonia at 50"

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Thanks, Nordette and I hope you're right

Well, it didnt' work

Are we shifting our thinking and growing up?