In My Lifetime
I’ve just finished watching the MSNBC coverage of the Iowa caucuses and I’m stunned. Whether Obama goes on to win the nomination or not this has been a historic night. I remember when I was a tiny little girl going to visit my grandmother in SE Oklahoma, and being offended even at that tender age by the White’s Only signs on the drinking fountains, and the fact that the black man who worked for my grandmother had to go around to the back of the restaurant and eat in the kitchen, while we ate in the dining room.
And now a predominately white state has voted in record numbers for a mixed race/black man. Maybe this country is finally coming to terms with our terrible past and that stain that has run through our history.
If you get a chance, listen to Obama’s speech — it was lyric and heroic and uplifting. It’s been a long time since a politician has made me want to jump up and cheer. He speaks to everything that is great and good about this country. Not the cesspool that has been created by Bush, a place where we torture because we’re too afraid to live up to our ideals.
Melinda
January 3rd, 2008 at 11:40 pm
John Edwards also gave a terrific speech, I thought.
The top three Democratic candidates got something like 96% of the vote between them, leaving very little for the others. Our own Guvnor Bill was a very distant fourth, with only 2%, and Dodd, Biden, and Kucinich were hardly even blips on the screen.
Even so, it pissed me off the way the networks kept showing the totals and percentages for ONLY the top three candidates, never even mentioning the others. It is not any harder to put seven names on a tv screen than three. Let us have ALL the facts, damn it.
They did the same thing on the Republican side, and there the sin was even more egregious, since the middle of the field was more closely packed. Fred Thompson and John McCain were neck and neck for third, at around 13-14%, and sometimes one would show up on the TV, and sometimes the other, but never both… which was ridiculous. When two candidates are a point apart, you don’t report on one and ignore the other. And then there was Ron Paul, running fifth at about 10%… ahead of Guiliani, yet Rudy was being talked about constantly, and the networks did everything they could to avoid mentioning Paul.
This is not the sort of objective reporting I learned in journalism school, back when the world was young.
The most heartening thing about the caucuses was the huge upswing in turnout, especially on the Democratic side.
Huckabee scares me, though. He comes across as very likeable, and could be a dangerous opponent to whoever the Dems end up with. And a Huckabee/ Obama final would be one of the most polarizing elections this country has ever had.
January 4th, 2008 at 9:50 am
I agree on John Edwards, it was a good speech, powerful and moving, but Obama inspires me.
Yes, Huckabee is terrifying. He seems so nice, and then you start looking at the nutbag things he’s said — about women submitting to their husbands, and putting people (read gays) with aids in camps, and _he doesn’t believe in evolution_.
The idea of a president who doesn’t accept scientific fact, but instead puts all his faith in a book “written by animal sacrificing primitives who thought every living species lived within walking distance of Noah’s house” is terrifying. (For the full quote and a fun visual check out my website home page.)
We’re faced with enormous problems and challenges and it’s going to take scientific and technical applications to deal with climate change and alternative energy, etc. etc. And let’s look at where a man who thinks God wanted him in the White House had landed us. Do we really want another four or eight years of that kind of thinking. When God ordains you aren’t real open to new ideas or compromise or negotiation.
January 4th, 2008 at 11:32 am
The antipathy to Huckabee runs deep in the Republican establishment out here on the east coast. His evangelical background is a huge drawback. If he can do anything in NH, it will be a sign that he might take the nomination. Personally, I think he’s the only Republican in the field with a chance in November. Populism and change are everyone’s rallying cry these days, and he’s the only Red-stater showing either, let alone both. Which is why he scares me more than Mitt or Rudy.
January 4th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
Please, please, not Huckabee. He is so going to appeal to middle America and as George says a Huckabee/Obama final will polarize opinion like no other. Is middle America, the fundimentalist white christian right, ready for a “black” President. I find it hard to believe, I want to believe, I so want to believe but I fear by hook or more likely by crook they will ensure it wont happen.
January 4th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
I got home and turned on the TIVO to watch Keith Olbermann’s show and then switched to live coverage on MSNBC as winners were beginning to be announced. We thought all three leading Dems did good speeches. We don’t care which one ultimately wins, since we’re willing to vote for all of them. John Edwards’ speech really addressed the issues that are near and dear to my heart these days (health insurance and corporate greed) and the “torch is passed” thing reminded me of Kennedy days. There is something absolutely wonderful about Obama’s win, but I fear the racist with a gun coming out of the crowd.
I feel a similar frustration to George about the coverage in general. Right now, I’m not exactly sure who’s still in the Dem’s race. I know that Dodd and Biden dropped out last night. I assume that Kucinich, who told his followers to go with Obama, is still there somewhere and I imagine that the only other blip on the radar, your governor, is still there somewhere as well. Anyone else?
I thought that General Clark looked handsome up on the stage with Hillary and Bill, but Madeline Albright looked a little worse for wear.
January 4th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
I’m with you, Chris. Keith Olbermann was talking about how Obama reminded him of Jack and Bobby, and it just gave me a shiver. I clearly remember the horror of that night in Los Angeles when Bobby was shot, and I still can summon up that sky is falling feeling when Jack was shot.
I’m afraid that Obama, if he wins the nomination, will be killed, and plunge this country into chaos. Remember what happened after Martin Luther King was killed? Can you imagine if the first viable black candidate for President was shot by some white supremacist? I can. I don’t want to. It’s just too awful to contemplate.
On the other hand the man inspires me as I haven’t been inspired in a long damn time. You don’t win big if you don’t risk big. Of course it’s easy for me to say, I’m not the one who potentially has a target on my back.
Now that Dodd and Biden are out it’s between Obama and Edwards for me, and Obama, right now, is my choice. Of course by the time NM votes it won’t matter a damn.
Richardson is still hanging in, I’m not sure why. Maybe he’s hoping to do better in Nevada among Hispanic voters. Or he’s just running for Veep.
January 5th, 2008 at 10:38 am
I think you nailed it, Melinda - he’s running for veep.
And every time you talk about the events of ‘63 and ‘68, please cross your fingers!