The NPR News Blog asked “Why Does Clinton Turn Some Women Voters Off?” Here’s my answer:
I am a 36-year-old white woman in the fuchsia (sp?) state of North Carolina. I used to love Clinton when she stood for strong, independent, professional women as a First Lady who wasn’t going to be staying home and “baking cookies.”
As a politician, though, I have grown disinterested as her policies veer more and more toward the center-right. Her support for the war cinched my distaste for her. I would never vote for a Republican over her, but I would take just about any other Democrat including Barack Obama.
By the way, I heard on NPR this morning that older white women were especially inclined toward Clinton. Not so in my family! Both grandmothers told me last night they are excited about Obama and voted/are voting for him in their respective primaries (NY and TX).
Thats right. War is the number one reason for me too.
But my other problem is the way that the corporations have lined up behind her as the presumptive nominee and eventual Pork-Distributer n’ Chief.
It’s sick. We have one party in this country, with two factions. No one epitomizes this bleak scenario more than Clinton and Bush.
If Hillary gets the nod, I write in Ron Paul for president and Kucinich for veep.
Go Obamaramacabanamodana…
I still think a hawkish corporate Democrat is better than a racist anti-this-war Republican, tho!
Have you read Obama’s book? I was just looking at the reviews on the Red Room, an online media site for readers and writers. http://www.redroom.com/author/barack-obama
No I haven’t read either of his books, but I did read Hillary Clinton’s book a few years ago and found it somewhat interesting.
Just wondering if you have heard about this bill.
http://www.washingtonwatch.com/bills/show/110_HR_1302.html
Focusing on the races of the candidates and the voters is a technique the Clinton campaign and the corporate media have used to try to hurt the Obama campaign. It hasn’t worked.
Your reasons for voting against Ms. Clinton are similar to mine, a mostly white male.
I’m a white female voter. this is my first year voting and I’m so happy I’ve had the opportunity to vote for Obama.
He stands for, and has the strength to be the positive message America strives for.
Go Obama!
I assume you’re calling Ron Paul racist, Ruby– and that would be incorrect. His VP choice was Walter Williams, economics professor at George Mason (who is black) and I personally met the head of his South Carolina campaign, Gloria Frazee (who is black). We started talking because we have the same name, and she and her son were so happy to be helping out Dr. Paul’s campaign and so excited about him as a candidate.
The head of the Austin NAACP said that he’d known Ron Paul for more than 20 years, and he knew he wasn’t racist. Those newsletters were ghostwritten and he wasn’t aware of the content being sent out. It’s a management problem, yes, but he is certainly not a racist.
Not that I would ever, ever, ever vote for him anyway, but a lot of clearly racist material was published in “the Ron Paul Political Report.” Either he OK’d it, or he’s completely irresponsible! http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/10/paul.newsletters/
Why I don’t support Obama, reason #!
From Paul Street at BlackAgendaReport
‘Join the movement to end the war’…by caucusing for Barack Obama.”
But for my money the worst example of Team Obama’s taste for truly audacious deception is their effort to appropriate the spirit and support for the antiwar movement.
Listen to these two sentences from the cover of a shiny new mailing that I just got from the Obama campaign in Iowa: “From the very beginning, Barack Obama said No to the War in Iraq. Join the movement to end the war and chance Washington” (Obama for America 2007).
Yes, you read that correctly. “Obama ‘08” is equating caucusing for the junior senator from Illinois with joining the antiwar movement.
Never mind some basic facts of history. In late July of 2004, for example, Obama admitted to the New York Times that he did not know how he would have voted on the 2002 Iraq war resolution had he been serving in the United States Senate at the time of the vote. Here is the relevant Times passage: “In a recent interview [Obama’ declined to criticize Senators Kerry and Edwards for voting to authorize the war, although he said he would not have done the same based on the information he had at the time.’ But, I’m not privy to Senate intelligence reports,’ Mr. Obama said. ‘WHAT WOULD I HAVE DONE? I DON’T KNOW.’ What I know is that from my vantage point the case was not made'” (New York Times, 26 July, 2004).
“Obama admitted to the New York Times that he did not know how he would have voted on the 2002 Iraq war resolution had he been serving in the United States Senate at the time of the vote.”
Obama has never opposed the “war” (naked and one-sided U.S. imperial aggression) on the same terms as the actual antiwar movement. His much-ballyhooed “antiwar speech” in Chicago during the fall of 2002 followed much conventional wisdom in the foreign policy establishment by criticizing “dumb wars.” It said absolutely nothing about the obviously criminal and imperial, oil-motivated nature of the great international and human rights transgression Cheney and Bush were preparing for Iraq and the world community.
Why I cannot support Obama, reason #2, 3, 4, 5…….
Ever wonder why the “progressive” (as he repeatedly describes himself) Obama dances for Wall Street on the (fake) Social Security “crisis” (Krugman 2007) and sounds like Mitt Romney and Rudy Guliani in decrying the specter of “government mandated” universal health care (Krugman 2007)? Curious about why the avowed environmentalist thinks that nuclear power should be considered part of the solution to America’s energy crisis and has recently joined Hillary in voting for the extension of the corporate-neoliberal North American Free Trade Agreement to Peru?
“Obama’s campaign was bending with fierce plutocratic winds fanned by giant global investment firms and corporations.”
Follow the money. Obama’s presidential campaign has received nearly $5 million dollars from securities and investment firms and $866,000 from commercial banks through October of 2007. Obama’s top contributor so far is Goldman Sachs (provider of $369,078 to Obama), identified by Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) investigators as “a major proponent of privatizing Social Security as well as legislation that would essentially deregulate the investment banking/securities industry.” Eight of Obama’s top twenty election investors are securities and investment firms: Goldman Sachs, Lehman Bros. (number 2 at $229,090), J.P. Morgan Chase and Co. (# 4 at $216,759), Citadel Investment Group (#7 at 4166,608), UBS AG ($146,150), UBS-America ($106,680), Morgan Stanley ($104,421), and Credit Suisse Group ($92,300). The last two firms are also known to be leading privatization advocates (Center for Responsive Politics 2007a).
Meanwhile, Obama’s presidential run has been “assisted” by more than $2 million from the health care sector and nearly $400,000 from the insurance industry through October of 2007 (Center for Responsive Politics 2007b). Obama received $708,000 from medical and insurance interests between 2001 and 2006 (Center for Responsive Politics 2007c). His wife Michelle, a fellow Harvard Law graduate, was until a recently a Vice President for Community and External Affairs at the University of Chicago Hospitals, a position that paid her $273, 618 in 2006 (Sweet 2007). This is the same hospital that charged uninsured patients (mostly Black) 5 times the amount of insured patients,and has been convicted of patient dumping. This hospital also found the need to give her a raise of $100,000 + when Obama became a US Senator. Of course, we all know it was just a coincidence.
And Obama’s sixth largest contributor is Exelon, the proud Chicago-based owner and operator of more nuclear power plants than any entity on earth (Center for Responsive Politics 2007a).
Uh,OK. So you’ve read the Clinton talking points. That’s nice, but not very reality-based.