Obama '08?

I think it's time to back off. BBB was expressing that there remains sexism, specifically in certain cultures, and she's right about that. I don't know if it's fair to then say that Obama is getting his male votes by default -- I think that minimizes Obama's talents. But I don't think she's attacking all men. Ok? Truce?

Re: cyc

Well, she certainly was leading among white men in the opinion polls until last November, when her campaign first started tanking.. I mean, she was 20-25 points ahead in the polls at the time. Same in September, October... White men were opting for her over Obama back then too.

So what changed? Did they only remember how they couldnt possibly vote for a woman two months later?

Again - I'm sure there are bigoted men who would never vote for a woman, even within the Democratic party, and who now vote Obama. Just like there are bigoted whites - men and women - even in the Democratic party, who now vote Hillary rather than the black guy.

But saying that the very reason Obama is now winning white guys over is sexism implies that you think most of the men preferring Obama do so because they couldnt stand a woman President. Do you really believe that?

Re: Dys


Why is it hard for you to believe that men could feel the same way about Obama, then?

I found a graph:



So, Clinton wasn't winning white men outright in every state. And in some she lost them altogether. But in many state she STRONGLY won white men. This doesn't jibe with your theory at all.

Cycloptichorn

I agree with fbaezer, there will be cross-over votes for the dumbest reasons, but in the end probably doesn't amount to a hill of beans.

There's Something About that Grin ...
Liberal remorse.

By David Kahane


I'm beginning to get a bad feeling about this.
Call it buyer's remorse, or fear of the unknown, or simply Pinch Sulzbergeritis, but doesn't it feel like our nice secure liberal world just left its orbit this week? As Hillary waddled off the stage in defeat Thursday night after the debate, with Barack Obama grinning from ear to ear to ear to ear, I could the sense the Old Guard passing, the end of an era, the moment when old First Ladies never die, they just ?- aw, let's just cut to the chase: We're gonna lose. And we're gonna lose bad.

I mean, what the hell was the New York Times thinking, running that half-sourced farrago of a Barbra Streisand hit job on John McCain that snarked and sneered and amounted to… what? That eight years ago a sitting senator spent some time with a lobbyist who bore an uncanny resemblance to his wife… and you just know, deep down, that there was some canoodling going on, don't you? Come on, admit it. Even though we can't really prove it.

Every wing nut in America's been saying for weeks that the Times's endorsement of John McCain in the New York primary was just a ruse, that the minute he had the nomination secured they'd drop the pose of Best Friend and turn out to be Worst Enemy. Problem is, we've all seen that movie a hundred times: For crying out loud, it's the plot of Phantom Lady, and that movie came out in 1944! Not to mention the Peanuts comic strip, where Lucy yanks the football away from that helpless schlimazel, Charlie Brown, and he lands flat on his tush.

Maybe they thought they could get away with it. After all, intrepid Times reporters have been prancing around these past few years like Mr. Peachum in a road-company version of The Beggar's Opera, happily receiving stolen goods, exposing national secrets, and making returning vets look as homicidally nutty as Bobby De Niro in Taxi Driver. And Bush, the human punching bag, lets them get away with it, even when they spit right in his eye. Lincoln and Woodrow Wilson would have hanged the editors and burned down the building long ago: Chimpy McDeath just grins and takes it.

But in McCain they might have picked on the wrong guy. Someone who started his day with bamboo shoots up his fingernails every day for five years in Hanoi isn't likely to be scared by Bill Keller and his minions; and, if you ask me, McCain could win the election simply by promising that on Day One he puts James Risen and Eric Lichtblau in jail and padlocks the Times for treason. Talk about red meat for the Right!



Besides, who are we go get all exercised about sex? We were able to convince half of America that Bill Clinton got impeached for a Monica Lewinsky special, when in fact he got rung up for perjury in front of a federal judge in the Paula Jones case. And the miracle of the 2004 election was that we were able to turn a hapless congressman no one had ever heard of named Mark Foley into the poster boy for sexual predators, when all he did was send a few risqué e-mails to youngish male pages. As opposed to the real-life adventures of Barney Frank and Gerry Studds and, well, you get the idea.

If it feels good, we do it, and defend our right to do so. You don't ?- but we know you want to, so we nail you for hypocrisy. Is there a double standard? You bet your booty there is ?- we're the good guys!

The other thing that's bothering me is this Barry Hussein Jr., guy. How long is the Punahou Kid going to be able to skate on The Audacity of Hope and The Hope of Audacity? When you actually look at his voting record ?- and we sure hope you never do ?- you notice that basically he's more or less of a commie, not that there's anything wrong with that. Some of my best friends are commies, er, "progressives."

But the whole cool thing about being a far-Left liberal is that we're like undercover secret agents, who have to shield our real goals and motives from you, the suckers. How far would we get if we actually came out and said that we want to nationalize health care, raise taxes to confiscatory levels on the filthy rich who make more than $75,000 a year, preemptively surrender in Iraq, and flood the country with illegal aliens and then turn them into citizens in a transparent attempt to get votes and keep the Ponzi Scheme solvent?

O.K., so both Hillary and Obama are saying exactly that. But you take my point, which is this: The reason Hillary had to go was, well, to put it kindly ?- she was a dreadful candidate. That grim Nurse Ratched visage, that hectoring, flat, midwestern drone, the stubby finger-pointing: She was every guy's first wife and his first mother-in-law rolled into a pantsuit. Sure, a lot of you conservatives have been saying that for years, but the scales finally fell from our eyes when along came B. H. Obama, Buffenblu extraordinaire and the pride of Honolulu, someone in whom we could invest our hopes for change. Someone who could lead us into that brighter future where things change but hope never dies. Someone who could finally liberate David Shuster and Chris Matthews from the tyranny of the Clintons, and let them stand proudly, shoulder to shoulder, in the brave new world of tomorrow.

But now the magic is beginning to wear off. Instead of the second coming of Jesus Christ, some of us are beginning to sense the second coming of Jim Jones. Instead of a new redeemer, we're looking at an undistinguished first-term senator with no paper trail, a wife with a major-league chip on her shoulder, a politician from the insalubrious precincts of Bathhouse John Coughlin and Hinky Dink Kenna's old hometown of Chicago.

As another famous Illinoisan once said: You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time. And then he suspended habeas corpus and went on to fight and win the Civil War.

Do-over, anybody?

?- David Kahane is a nom de cyber for a writer in Hollywood. "David Kahane" is borrowed from a screenwriter character in The Player.

Re: Dys


Good graph. From pollster.com, reliable source. Lists the share of white men won by Hillary (HRC) and Barack (BO) in every primary so far - data based on exit polls.

Thanks for bringing it - to be honest, I hadnt realised that Hillary had actually outright beaten Obama among white males in no less than twelve states - while he won them only in 11 states.

I hadnt realised/remembered either that Hillary got an absolute majority of white men in eight states, ranging from New York and New Jersey to Oklahoma and states across the South.


So, BBB, the "voting statistics" say that there were plenty of states where Hillary won the white male vote. You told Cyclo to look up those numbers to "correct his thinking", so what do you think now?

Whatever.

Stuff like this is why Obama is going to win; Hillary would NEVER have anything like this, ever!

http://www.burntorangereport.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=5066

Cycloptichorn

In election 2008, don't forget Angry White Man
Gary Hubbell, regular columnist with the Aspen Times Weekly.
February 9, 2008

There is a great amount of interest in this year's presidential elections, as everybody seems to recognize that our next president has to be a lot better than George Bush. The Democrats are riding high with two groundbreaking candidates ?- a woman and an African-American ?- while the conservative Republicans are in a quandary about their party's nod to a quasi-liberal maverick, John McCain.

Each candidate is carefully pandering to a smorgasbord of special-interest groups, ranging from gay, lesbian and transgender people to children of illegal immigrants to working mothers to evangelical Christians.

There is one group no one has recognized, and it is the group that will decide the election: the Angry White Man. The Angry White Man comes from all economic backgrounds, from dirt-poor to filthy rich. He represents all geographic areas in America, from urban sophisticate to rural redneck, deep South to mountain West, left Coast to Eastern Seaboard.

His common traits are that he isn't looking for anything from anyone ?- just the promise to be able to make his own way on a level playing field. In many cases, he is an independent businessman and employs several people. He pays more than his share of taxes and works hard.

The victimhood syndrome buzzwords ?- "disenfranchised," "marginalized" and "voiceless" ?- don't resonate with him. "Press ?'one' for English" is a curse-word to him. He's used to picking up the tab, whether it's the company Christmas party, three sets of braces, three college educations or a beautiful wedding.

He believes the Constitution is to be interpreted literally, not as a "living document" open to the whims and vagaries of a panel of judges who have never worked an honest day in their lives.

The Angry White Man owns firearms, and he's willing to pick up a gun to defend his home and his country. He is willing to lay down his life to defend the freedom and safety of others, and the thought of killing someone who needs killing really doesn't bother him.

The Angry White Man is not a metrosexual, a homosexual or a victim. Nobody like him drowned in Hurricane Katrina ?- he got his people together and got the hell out, then went back in to rescue those too helpless and stupid to help themselves, often as a police officer, a National Guard soldier or a volunteer firefighter.

His last name and religion don't matter. His background might be Italian, English, Polish, German, Slavic, Irish, or Russian, and he might have Cherokee, Mexican, or Puerto Rican mixed in, but he considers himself a white American.

He's a man's man, the kind of guy who likes to play poker, watch football, hunt white-tailed deer, call turkeys, play golf, spend a few bucks at a strip club once in a blue moon, change his own oil and build things. He coaches baseball, soccer and football teams and doesn't ask for a penny. He's the kind of guy who can put an addition on his house with a couple of friends, drill an oil well, weld a new bumper for his truck, design a factory and publish books. He can fill a train with 100,000 tons of coal and get it to the power plant on time so that you keep the lights on and never know what it took to flip that light switch.

Women either love him or hate him, but they know he's a man, not a dishrag. If they're looking for someone to walk all over, they've got the wrong guy. He stands up straight, opens doors for women and says "Yes, sir" and "No, ma'am."

He might be a Republican and he might be a Democrat; he might be a Libertarian or a Green. He knows that his wife is more emotional than rational, and he guides the family in a rational manner.

He's not a racist, but he is annoyed and disappointed when people of certain backgrounds exhibit behavior that typifies the worst stereotypes of their race. He's willing to give everybody a fair chance if they work hard, play by the rules and learn English.

Most important, the Angry White Man is pissed off. When his job site becomes flooded with illegal workers who don't pay taxes and his wages drop like a stone, he gets righteously angry. When his job gets shipped overseas, and he has to speak to some incomprehensible idiot in India for tech support, he simmers. When Al Sharpton comes on TV, leading some rally for reparations for slavery or some such nonsense, he bites his tongue and he remembers. When a child gets charged with carrying a concealed weapon for mistakenly bringing a penknife to school, he takes note of who the local idiots are in education and law enforcement.

He also votes, and the Angry White Man loathes Hillary Clinton. Her voice reminds him of a shovel scraping a rock. He recoils at the mere sight of her on television. Her very image disgusts him, and he cannot fathom why anyone would want her as their leader. It's not that she is a woman. It's that she is who she is. It's the liberal victim groups she panders to, the "poor me" attitude that she represents, her inability to give a straight answer to an honest question, his tax dollars that she wants to give to people who refuse to do anything for themselves.

There are many millions of Angry White Men. Four million Angry White Men are members of the National Rifle Association, and all of them will vote against Hillary Clinton, just as the great majority of them voted for George Bush.

He hopes that she will be the Democratic nominee for president in 2008, and he will make sure that she gets beaten like a drum.

... and regular columnist for the National Review (thats where this piece was from).

Because there is noone as qualified to tell us what remorse or other sentiments liberals are experiencing right now than a NR columnist.

Premature Post-Mortem
Do not write off Hillary Clinton (yet).

By John Hood


There'll be time enough to write the post-mortem on the Hillary Clinton campaign. But some pundits can't seem to wait another couple of weeks. They want it over now. Some just hate the Clintons. Others want to spare the Democratic party any more lasting damage from the nomination battle. They're wrong, though. The Clinton campaign is deeply wounded, but the mortal blow has yet to fall.

March 4 may be the date. If Barack Obama wins either Texas or Ohio, Clinton will lose her last chance to arrest his momentum. The Obama camp has tried to set the bar higher ?- that Clinton must not just win the major prizes, but win them overwhelmingly. I don't think that's accurate. The delegate count is close today and will be close after March 4 no matter what the vote margins are. That's not what will settle the issue. Clinton still has a shot at winning a healthy majority among the super-delegates, and even at seating additional delegates from Michigan and Florida. None of it will happen, though, if Clinton doesn't do something dramatic.

Here's the drama I see playing out if Clinton managed to hold on to her (declining) leads in the March 4 states. Winning even narrowly in Texas and Ohio ?- plus perhaps in Vermont and Rhode Island ?- would garner massive media coverage and breathe life back into Clinton's staff, donors, and volunteers. Sure, the net gain in delegates would be small, but the momentum shift would be significant. Don't discount the strong self-interest that the mainstream news media has in keeping the primary race going. It will overwhelm the partisan interest that most media elites have in seeing a unified Democratic party.

Meanwhile, the Clinton campaign will actually continue to make arguments against the Obama coronation, some of them potentially persuasive. For example, it will argue that while Obama has won more contests, Clinton has won the big states, including the key battlegrounds of Ohio and Florida (yeah, I know, but it'll sound plausible). Through surrogates and independent expenditures, the Clinton team will keep pressing the argument that Obama is untested and unready in a world of dangerous adversaries and evil Republican hatchet-men. Meanwhile, Clinton herself will assume the role of victim and flash her emotional petticoats. Obama's condescending treatment of her at several points in Thursday night's debate shows that he can be suckered into the role of Man, rather than a man, so expect the Clinton team to try it some more.

Most Democratic pros I know support Obama, but they remain fearful. Despite ?- or perhaps I should say because ?- of the extent of conservative disdain for him, John McCain was the Republican nominee they least wanted to see. It has also occurred to many of them that, even though by many measures 2008 should be a Democratic year, the party has chosen to take a huge risk ?- to nominate either a freshman minority senator with an odd-sounding name or a former First Lady that half the country dislikes. So while Obama has captured their hearts, Clinton still has a shot at capturing their heads. Is she really more salable to the public as a steady hand in a time of peril? Are there enough closet racists out there to cost Democrats key states? Would a foreign-policy crisis this fall give McCain a clear opening to cold-cock the newbie? Is he truly vetted the way Hillary is?

The Clintons only have a couple of weeks, but they do, indeed, have those weeks. Any size win in Texas and Ohio on March 4 will be seen as a political comeback, and if followed by wins in Pennsylvania in April and North Carolina and Indiana in early May, the dream of a Clinton Restoration would stay alive.

Rats.

?- John Hood is chairman and president of the John Locke Foundation

Smug 'n' Smiley [Kathleen Parker]


"I love watching Obama's face while Hillary is speaking. He matches her smugness with this little chin-raised smile that says: You may have done all your homework, Miss Priss, but Teacher still likes me best."

You could just link to The Corner instead of reposting everything from there, without links, Finn.

Cycloptichorn

Cyc
Cyc, you failed to include the pollster's comments along with the graph you posted. They are:

February 15, 2008
White Men With Obama Since The Beginning

Much was made this week of Obama's performance among white men in Virginia. Indeed, his support with white men was seen as both the key to Obama's Potomac Primary victories, as well as a sign of broadening support to include those formerly in Clinton's base. Others are skeptical, even worrying that while male superdelegates might tip the scale toward Clinton.

In fact, Virginia was neither the first state (nor even first Southern state) where Obama bested Clinton among white men. Nor was it the state where he won this group by the largest margin. Obama has been doing well with this group since the beginning of primary season.

Below is a table of the Clinton/Obama vote among white men, from exit poll data from every contest thus far. The table is ranked in descending order, with the state showing the largest Obama margin at the top.

Compared to Virginia, Obama did even better with white men in Utah, New Mexico, and California (setting his home state of Illinois aside). This pattern is also not a function of election type or overall outcome. Obama led with white men in states with primaries and states with caucuses, and in states that he won and states that Clinton won.

Further, the country doesn't exactly fall into an obvious North/South divide. While Obama tends to do less well with white men in the South, he still led with the group in Georgia (in addition to Virginia), and trailed with the group in New Jersey and Missouri.

Finally, it's also worth reminding ourselves about the contest that started it all - the Iowa caucuses. Among white men in Iowa, Obama garnered a 10-point lead over Clinton, and an 8-point lead over Edwards.

A friend of mine who lives in Texas, and a political activist, told me that a larger turnout will benefit Obama. I think that's going to happen.

What?

OK, so you admonished Cyclo to look up the "voting statistics", which would show that the white males always already voted for Obama over Hillary. That turns out to not be true. Hillary won more white men than Obama in slightly over half of the primary states so far, for which there are exit polls.

So, confronted with those actual numbers, you now post a copy/paste from some opinionated columnist, based on nothing than the guy's say-so?

And it's a column that says actually nothing about those Democratic primary voters? I mean, come on. Yes, there are four million Angry White Men in the National Rifle Association, and all of them will vote against Hillary Clinton -- but exactly how many of them are Obama supporters? Most of those guys wont vote for the black guy either. As argument for your earlier point that the guys voting for Obama now are doing so out of sexism, this doesnt even make any sense!

Re: Cyc


So what? His own commentary doesn't jive with the graph included in his article.

You should really retract your earlier statement. It matches a lot of the sour grape comments I've been reading around the web lately.

Cycloptichorn

Re: Cyc

And how do they change a whit about the actual voting statistics? Those voting statistics that you told Cyclo to look up?

You told him that white men had never voted for Hillary - you know, because of how they wouldnt vote for anyone without a penis. Thats why they are voting Obama. You told him to look up the statistics about it.

So he did. Those are exit poll numbers there - the only measure we have of the actual voting by demographic group. And they show that Hillary beat Obama among white men in 12 out of 23 states for which there are numbers. That is more than half.

I mean, come on. The actual votings statistics prove you wrong. No amount of this or that guy's musings or opinions you paste in change anything about that. Doesnt that change anything about your thoughts?

How can you claim that the reason Obama is winning so many male supporters is sexism when in the primaries so far, Hillary won the white male vote in more states than he did?

Who Won Super Tuesday?
06.02.2008
Who Won Super Tuesday?
--John B. Judis
The New Republic

It's hard to say, but if you put a gun in my head, I'd say John McCain and (very slightly) Hillary Clinton, but the elections revealed weaknesses in McCain and in both of the leading Democratic candidates. McCain blunted Mitt Romney's challenge, but he failed consistently to win over conservative voters. Hillary Clinton won the big states she had to win, and arrested Barack Obama's momentum, but she is going to have problems with white male voters. Obama is having trouble with white working-class voters and Latinos. Here is a rundown.

McCain beat Romney in California--that's the end of Romney. But McCain continues to depend on moderate, non-evangelical Republicans for his victories. In California, conservatives made up 62 percent of the primary electorate; McCain only won 30 percent of them. In Tennessee, 73 percent of the voters were conservatives; McCain won 22 percent. In Missouri, 65 percent were conservatives; McCain won 25 percent. In these states, McCain failed to win a majority of Republicans. And he might face a revolt of these conservatives in the fall. They won't vote for a Democrat, but they might not vote at all.

One group that is clearly dissatisfied with McCain are Republican evangelicals. In Tennessee, which Huckabee won, 73 percent of the primary voters described themselves as born-again Christians. McCain won 29 percent of these voters. In Missouri, 54 percent of voters described themselves this way; McCain won 24 percent. The other group that doesn't like McCain is Republicans who think illegal immigration is the most important issue. In California, 30 percent of the Republicans thought it was; 23 percent voted for Republicans; in Tennessee 25 percent thought it was the most important. Only 21 percent went for McCain. It's not clear how McCain can win these voters over.

Hillary Clinton won most of the big primary states, including California and Massachusetts. Obama won several important states, including Missouri and Connecticut, and, perhaps, more delegates, but many of his victories came in states like Georgia or Alabama that Democrats will not win in November or in caucus states dominated by left-wing activists who are unrepresentative either of the party or the fall electorate.

Clinton got pasted among blacks, but she should be able to win back those voters in November. What's more troubling is her vote among white males and among independents. In California, Clinton lost white men by a whopping 52 to 34 percent. She lost white independents by 58 to 30 percent. In California, 6.5 percent of those voters who didn't vote for Clinton said that gender of the candidate was "an important factor." One must assume that the actual percentage is higher (voters don't like to admit to prejudice) and that many of those voters who would not want to vote for a woman, but who potentially could vote for a Democrat, did not vote at all in the primaries, but will be around in the general election. [/u]

Obama, as I previously noted, had trouble with white working-class voters. In New Jersey, which a Democrat pretty much will have to win in November, Obama won only 31 percent of the white vote. Over 11 percent of those who voted against Obama (a group that might also include some Latinos) said that race was an important factor in their vote. Here, too, one must assume that the actual percentage is higher and that it would be even higher among voters in a general election. Democrats can win a state like Connecticut without winning these voters, but it won't win most of the big Middle Atlantic and Midwestern states without them.

If the economy plummets, and Iraq goes up in flames, or if there is a conservative revolt against McCain, then Clinton or Obama could win with some ease in November, but if conditions are muddier, and if McCain is able to win over the Republican base, then the Democrats could be in trouble. McCain should be able to hold the Deep South and much of the Southwest against a Democrat. He will do well among Latinos in the Southwest (especially, perhaps, against Obama). In states like Nevada, Colorado, and New Mexico, he could build a coalition of Republicans, independents, and a share of Latinos.

Democrats will have to win the Far West, the Middle West, the Northeast, and the Middle Atlantic states, and perhaps pick off a border state like Arkansas or Tennessee. White working-class voters make up a majority in many of the key Midwestern and Middle Atlantic states. If a Democrat can't win a majority of these voters in a state like Pennsylvania, Missouri, or Ohio, they'll have trouble winning the election. And as February 5 indicated, both Clinton and Obama are going to have trouble with these voters. Who would have more trouble? My feeling is that it's a standoff. Hillary has less of a handicap than Obama, but she is not his equal as a politician.

BBB
Sadly, there are a lot of women who would never vote for a woman on a strictly gender basis.

BBB

Re: BBB


Are you serious?

You aren't even attempting to be even-handed on this issue unless you admit that there are a lot of men who would be the exact same.

I don't know what's up with ya today BBB, out of character for ya

Cycloptichorn