Saturday, August 16, 2008
Howard Dean to voters: White people belong in the Republican party
It was stupid, even by the standards Howard Dean, to say this in a year when his party will nominate an African-American to run for president:
"If you look at folks of color, even women, they're more successful in the Democratic Party than they are in the white, uh, excuse me, in the Republican Party," Dean said, chuckling, "because we just give more opportunity to folks who are hard-working people who are immigrants and come from members of minority groups."
Chuckle away, moron. I am sure many white voters needed to be told which party they belong to.
Should Republicans take this as some sort of permission or license from the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee to "give more opportunity" to white people, just as the Democrats have recruited blacks and Hispanics?
Let us not hear any more from Democrats about it being Republicans who have injected racialism into the campaign.
9 Comments:
By 
, at
Sun Aug 17, 12:39:00 AM:
Query whether racial bigotry controls the opinions of more racist mental defectives of the Dean or Duke persuasion.
By , at
Sun Aug 17, 12:53:00 AM:
Logic note: being the X party doesn't doesn't mean that being X implies membership in the party, only that being in the party basically requires being X. An example to illustrate this point would be "an integer array is made only for integers, but not all integers belong in the array." I think Dean is (contrary to your title) saying that the party is one that prefers whites over others, rather than whites prefer the party.
By , at
Sun Aug 17, 01:29:00 AM:
The Democrats have always been the racialist party.
By , at
Sun Aug 17, 07:31:00 AM:
Anonymous, please look at the facts. The facts are that it is the Democrats who are bringing up the issue of race, in an attempt to paint the Republicans as racist. Consider the statement which Obama made in Springfield Missouri . Here is the video.
"Nobody thinks that Bush and McCain have a real answer to the challenges we face. So what they're going to try to do is make you scared of me," Obama said. "You know, he's not patriotic enough, he's got a funny name, you know, he doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills."
Obama was stating that McCain is going to bring up the issue "that he isn't a white guy" to make voters scared of Obama. Also note the sneakiness of Obama: I didn't say that McCain had made a racist statement, I said he was going to make one.
Obama made a similar statement in Rolla, Missouri.
Obama continued: "And so the only way they figure they're going to win this election is if they make you scared of me. So what they're saying is, 'Well, we know we're not very good but you can't risk electing Obama. You know, he's new, he's... doesn't look like the other presidents on the currency, you know, he's got a, he's got a funny name.'
Obama made a similar statement in June in Florida.
"The choice is clear. Most of all we can choose between hope and fear. It is going to be very difficult for Republicans to run on their stewardship of the economy or their outstanding foreign policy. We know what kind of campaign they're going to run. They're going to try to make you afraid. They're going to try to make you afraid of me. He's young and inexperienced and he's got a funny name. And did I mention he's black?"
Here are THREE ADDITIONAL examples, where the Democrats brought up race. In these three additional examples, note that Obama stated that his opponents will bring up the issue of his race to make voters afraid of him. He did NOT cite any example where they actually HAD DONE SO: they were going to. Oh no, the Democrats don’t play the race card! Also note that Obama is putting words into McCain's mouth.
By , at
Sun Aug 17, 09:20:00 AM:
I've spent my entire life hearing blacks use the race card. Obama is black, it's obvious. He's going to win nearly 100% of the black vote. They're racist so they're all voting for the black guy. Or, they actually perceive that he's got more experience and preparation to lead the country, in which case they're just stupid. Or, they think he's going to give them more, in which case they're just human.
Obama's record to run on is either so non-existant, or just plain un-American. His associations are highly questionable. The left put the wrong guy on the ticket. They should've cut a deal and put him in as VP, to make the incremental step to socializing the idea of the brown guy as next in line.
I'm not a huge McCain fan, but he's got my vote, and I'll show up on election day to cast it. I guess all us aging white guys just have to stick together.
By , at
Sun Aug 17, 09:36:00 AM:
Sondra flayed Dean with nothing more than his own words and a few pictures:
http://tinyurl.com/5lzep3
Pat R.
By , at
Sun Aug 17, 11:32:00 AM:
Anon 9:20 complains about the race card, but then can't help saying "They should've cut a deal and put him in as VP, to make the incremental step to socializing the idea of the brown guy as next in line." Which sure sounds to me like he agrees that there are a bunch of people who won't vote for Obama because he's black.
Personally, I think the segment of the population that would vote for a white Democratic but not a black Democrat is fairly small. Just thought I'd help you out by pointing out that little inconsistency in your thinking.
JC
By , at
Sun Aug 17, 12:23:00 PM:
One of the reasons my father left the Democrat Party because of the racism that was so pervasive in it. Now the Democrats make full time careers calling everyone else racist. Republicans just don't see things the same way because we didn't do all of that bad stuff against black people that you read in the history books, Democrats did.The Democrats have twisted history to the point that few people know that Eisenhower's civil liberty reforms were blocked by Democrats. If you don't support affirmative action you are racist, if you don't support illegal immigration you are a racist and now if we don't support Obama we are racists. The fact that the man has worked as a Senator for about 143 days could not possibly be the reason we will vote against him. To the Democrats, it's all about racism. Whatever.
By , at
Sun Aug 17, 01:00:00 PM:
@ Boludo: I think that my claim may have been unclear. I wasn't trying to say "Dean is right in saying Y", but instead "I think Dean is trying to say Z, which is different (and probably worse than) Y". I was, in fact, pretty sure that I ignored the veracity of his claim entirely, but if you can show me where I touched on it please do, so I know for the future.
If you're expecting me to hold up the other side of your argument on principle, I guess I could say that (to my knowledge) ALL of McCain's attack ads that show Obama and some relevant comparison person are of the form (lots of white people), black guy. The celebrity claim could as easily have been made with Michael Clark Duncan, or Samuel L Jackson, or Morgan Freeman, or somebody else, and the McCain camp could have truly covered their asses by giving the Obama camp a dossier of pictures and saying "choose two to run tomorrow."
As regards the actions of the party, rather than the campaign, I think the argument goes something like "isn't it interesting that the most prominent non-(white-male) Republican tends to be Alan Keyes, who is psychotic." There are obvious flaws with this argument, but I think the issue is best addressed by justifying policy and describing the politician as an executive ancillary, with good government being the true purpose.
@ tyree: For a good number of people I know, the discussion on who to vote for is based on the soundness of policy positions and clarity of presentation, rather than tracing political ancestry. The gist of the justification for this: it doesn't really matter who did what during the Eisenhower administration, only what policies have been good historically, are good prospectively, and who can be trusted to implement them contemporarily. It's this latter point which burn bright for me: to be totally frank, I am sick and fucking tired of an administration where career jobs (which are apolitical by civil law) were screened with the question "Are you a republican?" I am also tired of the stuff that gave us an AG who seemed to barely know who and where he was, attacks on dissent as unpatriotic, the most obstructionist congress ever, greatly diminished standing with the allies we need for a global terrorist threat, a FEMA head who chose ties while receiving desperate email, a policy of drilling despite this: http://climateprogress.org/2008/06/18/eia-bombshell-offshore-drilling-would-not-have-a-significant-impact-on-domestic-crude-oil-and-natural-gas-production-or-prices-before-2030/, and finally, the executive summary of the balance: http://www.slate.com/id/2195892/. The Republican brand has a huge amount of baggage right now, and this counts against.
I am thankful that McCain was the nominee this cycle so that we can move away from this type of crap, but he seems more focused on attack ads than anything else, including justifying his own policies. There is far more to this then you seem to imply.
