"If people in Democratic Party read your blog, I have something to tell them"
Whenever I travel I almost always end up in deep political conversations with people who identify themselves as conservatives and republicans. I guess people feel like they can open up with me. I did at one point want to be a nun and I guess people get that I am not only willing to listen but I take the conversation seriously to the point of it being sacred. To me communication is communion and those 10, 15, 20 minutes to me are sincerely precious.
This is the second time I have been given permission to write about these conversations with pseudonymous attribution. The first conversation I published was the one I had with “The Guy”. I met The Guy during a return trip from Washington DC. I really want to re-publish what he had to say because, honestly, it cannot be repeated enough :
"Michael Moore is right";, he said. I asked him about the coming fight over Roberts and the likes of people like Dobson : "You don't understand, they don't care. These people don't care. This is just entertainment to them. A way to keep the masses fighting with each other. They are out to make billions and billions of dollars, amass incredible wealth and power while we're here, the have-nots of all sorts of incomes, down here duking it out. They don't care about Roberts or homosexuals or dead babies. They only care about power. And that power is money and oil." I sat there quietly, with my eyes wide open. The Guy had told me earlier that he worked in satellite broadcasting media. That means his contracts are in the tens of millions. And this guy looked at Bush as the enemy.
Now it's Mr. D's turn.
I met Mr. D on the way over to the airport. Mr. D works in finance and was taking a plane to Las Vegas to take the qualifying exam for their fire department. To my beanie-wearing readers, Mr. D looked like he could be the love child of Clay Shirky and Cam Barrett. Young, white, affluent. Not your typical red stater but certainly of the kind that matters to the GOP (and unfortunately to any political party) : he's a guy with money to spare in the form of campaign contributions.
Why was Mr. D. leaving an extremely well paid job with gobs of economic perks for a chance to work as a firefighter? Two words : September 11.
After the attacks, he wanted to join the army but due to a glitch he was not accepted. The glitch does not apply for people looking to join the police or fire departments of certain cities or townships. Las Vegas is one of those places and that's why Mr. D has decided to go for saving lives at Sin City. He even described why his move was strategic. The tests are incredibly hard for Las Vegas. Lots of chemistry questions. He felt that in case of another attack, he would be extremely well prepared to help my country.
I honestly chocked a little. I personally have issues with anything done in the name of anything involving the patriarchy, including patriotism. But Mr. D's patriotism wasn't blind. Especially after he shared the following words of political wisdom with me. Words Democrarts should live by :
On the GOP
People in the Democratic Party read your blog? Then please tell them, I'm a conservative and a republican and I don't believe the people running the GOP are either conservatives or republicans. Call them whatever you want but don't call them republicans.
On Hillary
You want my honest to god opinion? If you nominate Hillary you're going to lose. I'm sorry but Hillary? I hate Bush and nowadays the GOP is a joke but Hillary? Let's say she's the John McCain of the Democratic Party. Good on paper but nobody will vote for them.
On the 2008 elections
I know there's a lot of other people in the GOP feeling like I do these days. You want to get our votes? You want to know who I'd vote for? Barack Obama. I'd vote for that guy in a heartbeat.
I truly love these micro-atomic political moments. Democrats think that Hillary has to get all conservative on her ass to win. The problem is not whether she is liberal or conservative, cheery or rageful. The problem is that Hillary is Hillary. Period. But to my surprise, Mr. D echoed what some of my republican friends here in New York City have been saying since the Democratic National Convention. Give them Obama and they'll switch parties in an instant. What
What do all these republicans I've spoken to have in common? They call themselves true consarvatives of the fiscal kind even though socially and culturally they tend to be moderates with liberalish overtones. They all fall in the 30 to 45 age bracket. They are well educated, highly skilled (and sometimes paid) professionals mostly in the banking and technology fields. And they all looove Barak Obama. Actually, I had The Guy tell me, "I hope he doesn't run 'cause I'd hate to see him shot down ... in the literal sense of the word."
What do I have to say to this? I hope Hillary Clinton realizes the presidency is not for her to contest. I sincerely hope though that all the money she is raising ends up used on supporting other candidates, ones who can actually win elections.
Then again, that could turn out to be even more disastrous for the Democrats.
Technorati Tags: democrats, hillary clinton, republicans, sxsw2006
Bookmark/Search this post with:
| 
| 
| 
| 
| 
Conferences | Conservatism | Creative Class | Demographics | Ideology | Liberalism | Politics | September 11, 2001 | SXSW | Terrorism | War | 2008 Elections | Barack Obama | Democrats | Hillary Clinton | Republicans
HILLARY
Submitted by UDAMAN (not verified) on 20 March 2006 - 6:41am.
Most Blacks on the left don't know what is good for them: Hillary Clinton is a born again Marxist hiding beneath a Soccer Mom's veneer.
How can a people so steeped in the schizoid mindset of Socialist Rhetoric with George Jefferson style Capitalism ethics REALLY understand the values and virtues of self-actualization in a DEMOCRACY anyway?
The Clintons AND the Democratic Party have effectively sold Blacks on the idea that they cannot participate in this society without THE WHITE MAN'S HELP. Hence Liberal Blacks, who suffer from a perpetual lack of SELF ESTEEM wallow in vicitimization and entitlement which is fed to them by WHITE LIBERALS and their BLACK CIVIL RIGHTS PIMPS....
I am sure that at the very least 90% of you who read this will be OFFENDED...the other 10% will think.
» email this comment | 0 points
I Hear You Liza
Submitted by JJ Ross on 19 March 2006 - 6:49pm.
"National Public Radio hears you too" --or maybe I should say, NPR hears us all as society or culture.
Political Strategies Shift in New Abortion Landscape
All Things Considered, March 17, 2006For the past decade, Republicans have been on the offense when it comes to the issue of abortion. Pressing a series of popular restrictions, Republicans have painted Democrats as extreme protectors of abortion at any point in pregnancy. But with a dozen states now considering bills to ban abortion outright, this year it's Democrats who are taking the offensive, saying Republicans are the ones whose views on abortion are extreme.
In the past month, the politics of abortion have essentially been turned upside down: Republicans are shying away from the issue and Democrats are eager to take it on. . .
Meanwhile, on CBS's Face the Nation, Sen. Barak Obama (D-IL) was happy to talk about his position."I am pro-choice, but I also think that it's important even as I indicate that I'm pro-choice, to say this is not a trivial issue and we have to listen to the profound concerns that other people have," Obama said.
What's going on is no great secret, said Rachel Lasar of Third Way, a group that develops strategies for Democrats to appeal to political moderates. Politicians in both parties, she said, are seeking the political middle that can produce a majority.
"Two-thirds of voters identify as abortion grays: They think that abortion should neither always be legal nor always be illegal," she said.
. . .Laser said that bans like South Dakota's give Democrats a chance to gain back ground they lost in recent years opposing more-popular restrictions like a ban on so-called Partial Birth Abortion.
"The beauty of the message is if progressives define themselves as wanting to reduce the number of abortions in America while protecting personal liberties, they can at the same time define their opponents as being for reducing the number of abortions in America by putting people in jail," Laser said.
That's exactly what worries Republican Christie Whitman. The former New Jersey Governor and EPA administrator now runs a group called It's My Party, Too, which seeks to promote centrist Republicans. Whitman agrees that the prospect of more laws like South Dakota's doesn't bode well for Republicans this fall.
"People will say if you're a Republican you've got to be not just pro-life, but you've got to be this hard-edged pro-life that doesn't recognize a woman as being, really, once she's pregnant, much more than a vessel," she said. "And that has cost us in the past and will cost us. . ."
» email this comment | 0 points
ABORTION
Submitted by UDAMAN (not verified) on 20 March 2006 - 6:48am.
If most Blacks who slavishly and blindly follow the Democratic Party and their Liberal Platform advocates could see...then they would realize that WHITE AMERICAN LIBERALS put a higher PREMIUM on ABORTION than giving a DAMN about the needs and hopes of PEOPLE OF COLOR....white liberals like yourself are content as long as blacks blindly follow and vote for you...but at the end of the day unless YOU HAVE AN ELECTION DAY...you won't start the school buses...(Katrina)
» email this comment | 0 points
Hillary...
The problem with the Clintons is that both of them are in a very real way narcissistic; Bill Clinton let the Congressional Dem majority die, and never did much to regain it, let alne to stop the erosion of party power at the state level, as long as he did OK. I'd posit that Hillary views the 2008 contest as one that she can win, and doesn't much care if anyone else could do better than her.
Take a look at the structure of Team Hillary. It's a very closely-knit group of people that have worked together for years, very loyal to the chief, loyal in fact to the point that the set-up looks positively Bushian. She's not going to get this kind of reality check from that group, sorry to say.