[QUOTE=Phlosphr]
If anyone does not think there is a split among democrats please venture into the blogosphere or ANY news agencies website and look at the comments to ANY article regarding Clinton and Obama. The hate and vitriol among supposed same party people is palpable.
Obviously we have seen this throughout the primary season: split, upon split, upon split with Obama coming out on top overall. I truly don’t know if it is deep seeded racism, the fact that he is young, or the simple fact that he has beaten a Clinton that makes the true hate-mongers come out in droves to comment on these stories.
Clinton get’s her due as well [in spades] - people coming out of the woodwork calling her every name in the book - I wonder if it is because she is a woman, a Clinton, her manner of speak, I don’t know.
But one thing is abundantly clear, the dems are split, and we need to come together and truly heal this party so we can beat McCain in the fall.
What are the biggest reasons the dems are split? If Clinton and Obama’s plateform is so similar why are we seeing such vitriol for each candidate? Is it because each Candidate is a historical one? Is it the party itself showing us that it is permanently fractured and it’s very infrastructure is contaminated?
What gives? And how do we heal it?
[/QUOTE]
It is telling that among the reasons you wondered about regarding Obama-hating, you left out the actual reason (for many, such as myself): he’s too inexperienced to be running for POTUS and yet he continues to draw huge crowds and is immensely popular. To those of that feel that he is too green (which is not the same thing as merely being young) on the national political scene, it is annoying beyond imagination that he is so popular despite that fact and it feels to us that this is not due to excitement over his policies or his inexperience. It’s excitement due to the fact that he’s a novelty act partly due to his race and other intangibles.
When one side feels that the other side is literally delusional and voting for their candidate for all the wrong reasons (not policy differences, but hype and rhetoric – again, this is how some of us feel; obviously Obama supporters would disagree that this is their reason) but anyway when one side feels that the other is voting for shallow, “pop” reasons then not only is there a rolling of the eyes but among some (perhaps WV) there is in addition to that a sense of affirmation action gone haywire sensibility that we sense; as Obama himself alluded to in his race speech the “notion” (his favorite word) that white liberal eggheads can vote for him to get off cheap with a race forgiveness so to speak that’s purged; and the black community voting for him at 92% due, obviously, to his policy on increasing regulations on the banking industry. :rolleyes:
Finally, we’re also tired of being referred to as racists when we point out that, for example, blacks are voting for him because he’s black to a degree that is not comparable to women voting for HRC just because she’s a woman: and that’s because she’s been on the scene so there’s more to judge by than just that as where this man has been on the national scene for 2 years. Give me a break. It is more acceptable to be sexist than racist. A guy held up a sign at a Clinton rally that said “Iron my shirt!” – haha; now if a guy held up a sign at an Obama rally that said “Shine my shoes!” would that be seen as equal? Not at all. The press would be all over the latter; but nary a word about the former to the same degree. We point that out and…guess what…we’re whining. And so on.
Yes, yes, there’s tons of votes for HRC because she’s female, but not 92% of women or 92% of whites vote for her. Were that to have been the case in state after state, don’t you think racism would be called out?
But when O gets a 92% racial vote, it isn’t called out.
Those types of double standards can make a person crazy and it happens to dovetail with O’s style of campaigning (which is, admittedly, politically brilliant and optimally suited to the current age) of making everything a wash and changing the subject. He says something. It’s pointed out. He accuses you of pointing it out. He wins.
Of course that leads to vitriol. It’s like HRC said right from the start at that one debate “It’s kind of hard having a straight up debate with you, Barack, because you never take responsibility for your votes.”
She got booed for that.
When he started in on Wal Mart, he didn’t get booed.
And so on and so on. It very much reads to some like don’t pick on the little black boy it’s not fair you big mean monstrous bitch!
And that’s what we had with Bush/Gore: don’t pick on Bush, he’s obviously a well-meaning idiot Gore you egghead bully! And now we have Obama don’t pick on him he’s politically correct and even running with a disadvantageous name (as he put it)! That’s just the soft racism of lowered expectations (holy crap, I’m quoting the Shrub) and it’s condescending and demeaning to black people.
Now all of the above can be debated until we all turn mixed-race-colored in the face but the point is just that this is how it feels, how it seems, and is one answer as to why the vitriol is – for some, like me – truly irreparable.
It would be like you coming together with Bush (aside from policies) on a personal level if you find him to be an annoying human being. To me, O seems self-satisfied, smug, superior, and out of line in pretty much every way from acting as if he’s an unannounced moderator at the debates, declaring what is and isn’t appropriate to debate, talking over people, etc. to silly things that nonetheless convey a sense of who he is with his little sweety comments, bitter comments, blah, blah. The man is just thoroughly unlikeable to me.
Can’t imagine ever coming together with that.
And I have NO DOUBT that those that feel similarly (for other reasons) about HRC are of the same mindset. They see her as evil incarnate so how can they ever come together with her no matter what? That, of course, is not counting the sexism and racism that is also at play I’m sure for both but that just overlaps and I don’t think is the main reason people don’t like O and HRC but it’s a convenient reason for O in that it inspires the eggheads to ‘stand up’ for the man against strawman racists when really the bulk of the kickback to him isn’t that, it’s just the fact that he’s too green to be there and the fact that he gets not only a standing but popularity and now apparent complete success seems to be based on things that are so stupid and shallow as to engender contempt for the whole candidacy. Not because he’s (half) black.
And that’s my 20 cents. LOL