So I was wrong - or half wrong
Barack Obama managed to run a close race in Indiana, losing by less than 20,000 votes out of well over a million cast. I predicted he'd lose by 10 percentage points, but it was only two.
So where did I go wrong? South Bend and Fort Wayne, both with a large population of Catholics. I seemed to forget they also have a great many educated people.
I was dead on target in those rural areas laced with small towns and in the once prosperous larger cities that have lost their industry. There you find the people who want a president who looks like their next-door neighbor. In more precise terms, someone with a white skin. Neighbor is this year's buzzword for "no blacks allowed." In those small towns, farm areas and rusty factory towns they use a less acceptable word than blacks.
Those places also have a high percentage of old people. Racial prejudice runs deep in the majority of them although they'll proudly tell you of the nice black folks they know. They wouldn't vote for them, of course. If Obama wins the nomination, many of them say they will vote for Senator Hothead, John McCain. They mean it, too, so don't look for the Democrats to unite behind Obama as some talking heads predict.
Those older people are near the end of the line. The next stop on the road is the cemetery. Young Americans, at least for the most part, are better educated and far less prejudiced against someone based on nothing more than skin pigmentation. So in the near future, attitudes will be different in this country. Barack Obama is a little ahead of his time, a pioneer blazing a trail for things to come.
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We all have our prejudices. I admit being prejudiced against Hillary Clinton. Not because she's a woman - I was for her at the beginning - but because she and Bill are too eager to park their shoes under a White House bed again. Their desperation has become unseemly. Should a former president of the United States be going door to door in North Carolina begging people to vote for his wife? Not if the dignity of the office means anything. Perhaps it doesn't, or shouldn't, considering some of the men who have held the job.
posted by Dick Stodghill | 5/07/2008 11:06:00 AM
3 Comments:
I was wondering how you would react to Obama's performance. But your analysis makes sense. As for Hillary, in the beginning I favored her also. I liked Bill Clinton when he was president and thought his wife would make a good president. But I lost respect. They fell into the same trap as the rest who want the office so bad that they sacrifice their self-respect, and in so doing, lose respect.
No, I don't want the hothead as president either, but can Obama win. The bottom line, I would prefer Hillary over McCain. It will come down to the usual, voting for the best of the worst.
Abe
To tell the truth Dick, I thought you had messed up big time when you picked Hillary to beat Obama by a wide margin in Indiana.
Had it not been for Rush Limbaugh and his battle cry to his brain dead listeners, Obama would have won. But Rush convinced 22% of the Republicans in Indiana to not vote in their own primary and to vote for Clinton in order to weaken Obama.
Obama is going to be the Democratic nominee and he is going to whip McCain by a pretty good margin.
I can't say as I'm a huge fan of either but when a young, good-looking Obama stands at a debate with the Hothead, the Hothead is going to look at least 250 years old...
Unless we come to learn that Obama is the anti-christ between now and November, he's the next President...
I hope you are right, Jeff. I am still concerned that too many Americans, especially those in my age group, harbor racial prejudices that they seldom utter aloud. I underestimated what the big city voters would do in Indiana so I hopeI'm wrong again.
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