Steven P. BarrettBLACK CANDIDATE/WHITE CANDIDATE: IT ALL COMES DOWN TO THE BLUE COLLAR WHITE VOTERS
August 13th 2008 18:00
By Steven Barrett
Senator Barack Obama, you're about to have your head handed back to you on Election Day. And I'm saying this as a Democrat.
It's not going to come down to what your middle name is. It's not going to come down to anything racial against you. It's a matter of class warfare. After all, white male voters will vote for anybody provided he or she gives them the assurance that their freedoms will remain safe; their families and their livelihoods will be protected and their intelligence will be respected.
Sir, you have a very big problem. And while I'd like to say all of it's not your fault, and it surely isn't, but you''ve played very much a part of the shaping of the Democratic Party as it exists today.
It's not that all of your economic ideas are terribly wrong, either. We do need to raise some taxes for increased defense spending (especially if you're sincere about fighting the Afghani war to a complete victorious conclusion.) Who can also deny the sad-sack shape of our roadways and other parts of our infrastructure. Necessary repairs will help increase jobs -- which, from one Democrat to another, let me say that if you ignore this basic fact of life in favor of the more esoteric dreams of the environmental fundamentalists -- you'll get clobbered and deservedly so. (I'll get back to this later.)
For the past forty years, 40 years! -- the Democrats have steadily embraced every nonsensical far out liberal idea that's come down the pike; almost to the point where they've become an accepted part of the "apple pie, mom, etc." symbols of American culture. This, however, disregards a grave and widening gap between the party and the spiritual and moral valules of so many blue collar workers.
We've had all the gay-rights, abortion rights and now transgendered rights we can handle shoved into our arms. But in the meantime, we'd rather see you and the party pay more attention to our riighs as spouses, parents, citizens and workers to know that our families will be protected from shoddy and dangeroiusly non-reguted companies using prisoners as "workers" thus under-cutting our job security and endangering our children.
For every positive visit you make to a factory, your party's platform minions and ideologues undercut you and especially the American working class population -- once the rock solid base of the Democratic Party -- with all their grandiose ideas promoting this or that nonsensical pet politically correct notion. Wake Up Senator: They're doing you in!
Isn't THIS what you and your party should be paying more attention to than extra-legal considerations that have been demanded by a (disproportionate wealthy) special interest group on behalf of all things, "gay marriage"? And here you are giving a green light to your platform commitee in its bull-headed drive to ditch marriage as a union between men and women. Sir, this is not what people in the voting bloc you need so badly to win are looking for in any candidate. This is the nonsense one expects from pinheads seeking and representing the votes of predominately liberal Democratic college towns like Amherst, MA and Berkeley, CA.
There are so many ares you need to get a grip on when it comes to learning more about blue collar voters. But I' not at all confident you're capable of getting it. And that's because for so many years you've been a liberal player in a more (radicalized and probable marginalized) liberal party. There's the liberalism of FDR, Harry Truman, LBJ and Hubert Humprey and even George McGovern and Mike Dukakis -- but you've pole vaulted way beyond any limits they would've never given a moments thought to.
To give you and anyone reading this an idea of how far your party's strayed from the blue collar voters -- and stayed straying -- let me take you back to 1982 when Quebec was building a huge dam and hydroelectric plant. The blue collar workers in Massachusetts were all for it. But at a MA State Democratic Issues Convention in Sprinfield, they had to fight like hell to get the pinheads and green fundamentalists from realizing that their narrow views were going to kill more jobs than save animals or protect the hunting rights of the Inuit Indians living in that area north of Quebec City. New England had a major stake in the dam which promised to reduce costs and provide jobs to workers willing to go up there to support their families back home.
While I can't recall the final outcome, the very idea that such an argument broke out and continues to break out within your party demonstrates that the Democrats had better pay more attention to the need to protect jobs than the rights of baby-killers and a very well-entrenched, not to mention, out of touch elite whose overall values reek to most American voters.
If you don't believe me: Waiit'll Election Day and you can join the growing club of the most liberal candidates ever nominated from Dukakis to yourself. No, I'll take that back on Dukakis in fairness to him, and even when it came to protecting marriage as a hetereosexual estate granted by God and instituted into law by people, Bill (and Hillary) Clinton stand head and shoulders over you.
Senator Barack Obama, you're about to have your head handed back to you on Election Day. And I'm saying this as a Democrat.
Sen. Barack Obama
It's not going to come down to what your middle name is. It's not going to come down to anything racial against you. It's a matter of class warfare. After all, white male voters will vote for anybody provided he or she gives them the assurance that their freedoms will remain safe; their families and their livelihoods will be protected and their intelligence will be respected.
Sir, you have a very big problem. And while I'd like to say all of it's not your fault, and it surely isn't, but you''ve played very much a part of the shaping of the Democratic Party as it exists today.
It's not that all of your economic ideas are terribly wrong, either. We do need to raise some taxes for increased defense spending (especially if you're sincere about fighting the Afghani war to a complete victorious conclusion.) Who can also deny the sad-sack shape of our roadways and other parts of our infrastructure. Necessary repairs will help increase jobs -- which, from one Democrat to another, let me say that if you ignore this basic fact of life in favor of the more esoteric dreams of the environmental fundamentalists -- you'll get clobbered and deservedly so. (I'll get back to this later.)
For the past forty years, 40 years! -- the Democrats have steadily embraced every nonsensical far out liberal idea that's come down the pike; almost to the point where they've become an accepted part of the "apple pie, mom, etc." symbols of American culture. This, however, disregards a grave and widening gap between the party and the spiritual and moral valules of so many blue collar workers.
We've had all the gay-rights, abortion rights and now transgendered rights we can handle shoved into our arms. But in the meantime, we'd rather see you and the party pay more attention to our riighs as spouses, parents, citizens and workers to know that our families will be protected from shoddy and dangeroiusly non-reguted companies using prisoners as "workers" thus under-cutting our job security and endangering our children.
Factory Visit
For every positive visit you make to a factory, your party's platform minions and ideologues undercut you and especially the American working class population -- once the rock solid base of the Democratic Party -- with all their grandiose ideas promoting this or that nonsensical pet politically correct notion. Wake Up Senator: They're doing you in!
Isn't THIS what you and your party should be paying more attention to than extra-legal considerations that have been demanded by a (disproportionate wealthy) special interest group on behalf of all things, "gay marriage"? And here you are giving a green light to your platform commitee in its bull-headed drive to ditch marriage as a union between men and women. Sir, this is not what people in the voting bloc you need so badly to win are looking for in any candidate. This is the nonsense one expects from pinheads seeking and representing the votes of predominately liberal Democratic college towns like Amherst, MA and Berkeley, CA.
There are so many ares you need to get a grip on when it comes to learning more about blue collar voters. But I' not at all confident you're capable of getting it. And that's because for so many years you've been a liberal player in a more (radicalized and probable marginalized) liberal party. There's the liberalism of FDR, Harry Truman, LBJ and Hubert Humprey and even George McGovern and Mike Dukakis -- but you've pole vaulted way beyond any limits they would've never given a moments thought to.
To give you and anyone reading this an idea of how far your party's strayed from the blue collar voters -- and stayed straying -- let me take you back to 1982 when Quebec was building a huge dam and hydroelectric plant. The blue collar workers in Massachusetts were all for it. But at a MA State Democratic Issues Convention in Sprinfield, they had to fight like hell to get the pinheads and green fundamentalists from realizing that their narrow views were going to kill more jobs than save animals or protect the hunting rights of the Inuit Indians living in that area north of Quebec City. New England had a major stake in the dam which promised to reduce costs and provide jobs to workers willing to go up there to support their families back home.
While I can't recall the final outcome, the very idea that such an argument broke out and continues to break out within your party demonstrates that the Democrats had better pay more attention to the need to protect jobs than the rights of baby-killers and a very well-entrenched, not to mention, out of touch elite whose overall values reek to most American voters.
If you don't believe me: Waiit'll Election Day and you can join the growing club of the most liberal candidates ever nominated from Dukakis to yourself. No, I'll take that back on Dukakis in fairness to him, and even when it came to protecting marriage as a hetereosexual estate granted by God and instituted into law by people, Bill (and Hillary) Clinton stand head and shoulders over you.
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Comment by Anonymous
Debates will run on for years about whether or not Bush was on the dime that awful morning, but we can rest assure that Obama wouldn't be near a penny.
On that, I'm hitting the sack.
"And if I die before ... " Lessseee, do I need UN approval for even saying this publicly. It could ruffle some very sensitive feathers .... Tsk tsk.
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Comment by Steven Barrett's OpEd Blog
FDR stood up to the big boys and big businesses that always put themselves ahead of their country -- ALWAYS -- BUT, he also stood up for the small businessman and working people. A lot of conservatives today decry big government, but all too conveniently forgetting how dismally backwards many parts of this nation would've remained had it not been for many of the large electrification programs started by the New Deal. Those projects created thousands of jobs which put millions back into the pockets of individuals who supported their local businesses and so forth.
Today's liberals are more concerned with getting elected and staying elected (because it's a great job if you can get it, said the Gershwin brothers) and as a result, they're more "in tune" with the pollsters and push-pull focus group gurus than they are with the real needs of the people out there and this is yet another example of where today's liberals have traded their souls for votes -- or worse, campaign reelection dollars. They've forgotten how to govern with their hearts towards the needs of the average-earning American worker. And notice I said "average-earning" workers. That's another danger for a free society: when we allow our so-called elected and non-elected leaders to get in the habit of plunking people into classes like "average" and "upscale," -- we're in deep trouble.
From FDR to the people we have now, it was a long slide downhill when it comes to the decline of real robust and caring liberal leaders/policies. But I suppose a good time to mark its decline was when Hubert Humphrey died in 1977. And without the likes of Daniel Patrick Moynihan and others like him, the Obamaites will continue running that party into the ground. Recall back that little story I related about the electrical worker and the MA Democratic Party's hand-wringing session over the Quebec project. It was telling because of the enormous ideological imbalance the MA Democratic Party has over the rest of the national party. The DP's chief anchors are Washington, San Francisco, Berkeley Hollywood, Manhattan's Upper East Side and Cambridge/Amherst, MA.
FDR's Main Street? That was left behind long ago. Hell, even George McGovern's shaking his head more often these days. Maybe it's his Upper Plains roots still speaking loud enough. But are the Party's poohbahs listening anymore? Fat chance.