Alan Keyes vs. Barack Obama?

Obama did not sound nearly as liberal as Kerry on any number of issues. He even sounded a little Republican at times!

 

CNN is reporting today, that according to an unnamed source within the Keys camp, he will accept. His official announcement is expected on Sunday.

Oh well... I was just reminded this morning at how much Dr. Keys protested when Ms. Clinton pulled the same maneuver in New York. I guess it's OK if it is your party doing the carpet bagging.

Sigh.
Tony Maranto

 

And yet he only won 23% of the downstate vote in the primary!

 

I don't think that it is because he is too liberal. I think it is because there were other liberal alternatives. Now that he has the nomination, he is very likely to win. Many of the Dems in this area will vote a straight ticket. Then, there is E St. Louis. I predict that Obama will get 95% of the ESL vote, even with another black candidate. I gotta say though that even as a conservative (who would rather have Dr. Keyes as my senator), I could be satisfied in defeat if Obama is what he seems.

I think, if anything....he may be to conservative (and black) for the white blue collar liberals in this area.

Darren

 

Perhaps. Obama reminds me of Tennessee Congressman Harold Ford, Jr. Both black, both more centrist than the DNC. Perhaps they're more in tune with the DLC. Obama probably wouldn't be too bad. Keyes I like a lot but he is just too conservative for me. Too bad "Big" Jim Thompson or Jim Edgar, or Corrinne Wood wouldn't run. Lolita Didrickson would have also been a good choice.

I predict Obama wins by at least 56% of the vote.

 

Hmm. How interesting that the Republicans in this thread have chosen to just gloss right over Tony's observation that Dr. Keys was one of the loudest protesters when Hillary Clinton "carpet bagged" to New York to run for Senate there. He wrote:

If a Democrat did that, Republicans would be calling him/her a flip-flopper... er... or would it just be the FOX NEWS [sic] CHANNEL doing so?

 

This Republican

thinks the entire situation is sad.

I think if anyone, including Dr. Keyes took his candidacy seriously, the carpetbagging issue, flip-flop and all would be most valid for consideration by Illinois voters!

I for one, understand that Dr. Keyes candidacy has very little to do with a Senate seat from Illinois and everything to do with turning out Illinois votes for the President.

Ergo, my comment about Dr. Keyes "taking one, for the party," and about it being an act of loyalty. Dr. Keyes whether you like him or not, is no fool. His candidacy is not going to do anything to promote his own personal political ambitions. Quite the contrary is probably far closer to the truth. Nevertheless, he is doing this in spite of the potential detriment to himself for what he believes is the greater good and a noble cause.

 

I did catch Obama's speech at the convention, and frankly, I was a little underwhelmed. One part that really grated on me is when he said, "(We have) More to do for the young woman in East St. Louis, and thousands more like her, who has the grades, has the drive, has the will, but doesn’t have the money to go to college."

What else do we have to do for her? Should the government come to her house and fill out her FAFSA? Tell ya what, give me her e-mail address - I'll explain to her what a student loan is. I sure as heck know. If she doesn't have any money she's got a boat load of Title IV funds ripe for the picking. Maybe she can use some of her "drive" and "will" to pick up a fricking pencil.

John Kerry calls on us to hope, Obama told us. I hope. I hope like heck John Kerry doesn't get elected. I'll take 4 more years of the idiot we have now over some other idiot with a misguided mission to help other idiots fill out their financial aid paperwork.

Maybe I'm just grumpy because I had to fill out my own FAFSA's.

 

It never ceases to amaze me how those empowered -- especially white, Republican males -- look down their noses at those who cannot seem to accomplish what they, from their lifelong positions of empowerment, can so relatively effortlessly accomplish. I can think of a variety of reasons why opportunities which you take for granted may simply not be available to her -- at least not without her having to do something so extraordinary that it borders on unreasonable to expect from her or anyone else like her something so amazing. People who, for reasons more often out of their control than not, live their lives just a paycheck or two from catastrophe and homelessness and who are, therefore, forced to strain or sometimes even ruin every good resource they have just to stay afloat -- including their good credit -- may not as easily be able to pencil-whip a student loan application into a tool for their educational success as an arrogant, empowered, self-interested, intolerant, unsympathetic white man, like you, can.

Apparently you've never been to East St. Louis. Instead of applauding this woman for wanting to do something unexpected and admirable in the face of odds so overwhelming, given her situation and place in life, that virtually all of her family, friends, and neighbors didn't even bother to fight them and, instead, are probably unemployed or drug dealers or both, you want to crush her beneath your heel because it appears to you that she cannot pull herself up by her own bootstraps as the likes of you are so easily able to do.

Shame on you for your callousness. You know nothing of her plight. There should be a law that empowered white men should not be allowed to graduate from high school or college or get their first job until they have first lived for a year on the cusp of falling through the cracks with none of their empowered-white-men resources to help them pencil-whip their way out of it. Then, perhaps, they'd learn a little something about simple kindness... as you are so desperately in need of understanding.

Trust me, that's not the problem.

 

Dr. Keyes indicated that in general, he is not in favor of his carpetbagging. But he also said that he would at it from the perspective of what is best for the country.

BTW, I think we conservatives understand the whole idea of changing minds. What makes us call someone a flipflopper is when they.....FLIPFLOP.

 

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and
purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.

By Palestinian poet Naomi Shihab Nye from her
book The Words Under the Words: Selected Poems

 

Perhaps this will help.


I am not empowered
I was VERY POOR
I have drive
I have ambition
I had bad credit
I FILLED OUT MY FAFSA 4 times while:
I got my undergrad
I FILLED OUT MY FAFSA 2 times while:
I got my MBA
I FILLED OUT MY FAFSA 3 times while:
I have been working on my PhD
I will be a PhD very soon.
I grew up between East St. Louis and St. Louis
I am Black

This empowered white male crap is the exact mechinism that holds us back. While your argument sounds eloquent, the merit ends there. This crutch that we lean on does nothing more than keeps us limping. I think that the black population will do much better when we stop looking for reasons and excuses why we can't, and start looking for the resources so we can. It is offensive to me that some people believe I can't achieve without their help. Just tell em the rules and get out of the way. I am tired of the modern day slavery that exists as a result of liberal politics in this countries. That God President Bush is our leader. At least we have someone who sticks by what he stands for.

 

And, of course, Hillary Clinton couldn't possibly have been motivated in her decision by the same laudible sentiments, could she have? What, Republicans have the market sewn-up on good intentions?

Okay, let's finally put an end to the whole "flip-flopping" thing around here, once and for all.

Please cite the top five Kerry "flip-flops," and please don't just make them flip (no pun intended) one-liners or mere headlines. State it in one full and well-worded paragraph per flip-flop, said paragraph including what the issue is/was; what you believe Kerry's initial position was and when; and then what position he subsequently "flip-flopped" to, and when he allegedly flipped said flop. And, if you believe you know why he flip-flopped, please include that in your paragraph, too.

 

Actually, DesElms....

I'm not done.

I just reread your post, I am utterly offended. You think that filling out a FAFSA is extraordinary. Did you fill out one? Was easy for you? Are you black? If so, why can't other blacks? If not, we not as advanced as you?

Is it so unexpected that a black girl in East. St. louis would want to go to college? Should we really applaud that desire, rather than the effort.

I get the sense that you are saying, "go ahead poor little blacks, we know you can't do anything on your own....It's so great that you want to go to college....I know you can't do it without your liberal government because after all, your only black."

If this is the support we get from liberals.....PLEASE KEEP IT>
If we are so focused on reasons why we can't achieve anything, we won't see the reasons why we can.

 

How about this for starters:

http://media1.stream2you.com/rnc/072304v2.wmv

 

Make up your own mind

http://www.georgewbush.com/kerrymediacenter/read.aspx?ID=2439

 

After the woman in East St. Louis meets you and chats with you for a while, if she then considers both herself and you to be "us," then maybe you'll have my attention.

Ah, yes... the old bootstraps argument again, but this time from an African American Republican, so, naturally, it will have the appropriate Republican-comforting impact: "If I can do it, you can do it... and, hell, I'm black!"

This is not a race issue... but thankyouverymuch for playing that card here. This is, to some degree, a poverty issue; but it is, even more than that, an upbringing and values issue. You may have been poor, but it's clear that your upbringing included the conveyance to you of certain core values and resourcefulness skills that prepared you for the fight. I'm guessing you can thank your parents for that particular form of empowerment.

Were that your parents had raised the East St. Louis woman and the thousands like her. Perhaps then she would have her college degrees by now... and would be a misguided black Republican, too.

But, alas, not everyone is as lucky as you appear to have been. Some of them do not have even your kind of empowerment, living their entire lives in grinding poverty -- be they black or white -- and surrounded by generations of people who were not lucky enough to have been instilled with your sensibilities, and who even go so far as to counsel those like the woman from East St. Louis to not even try. That's a damned serious hurdle to clear. Of course, empowered people usually can't even see the hurdle, which is why such ignorant and often mean-spirited advice tends to fall out of their mouths.

Shall we witthhold a little help and direction from people like that just because there are people out there like you who happen to share their skin color and were more easily able than they to utilize your particular kind of empowerment to your advantage? Is that what you and most Republicans are proposing? Really?

Not as offensive as it is to me as when empowered, Republican black men -- even those whose only empowerment, initially, was a good upbringing; but especially those who, because of it, have since parlayed the concomitant skills into a modicum of success -- step forward now that they've gotten theirs and try to paint everyone who shares their skin color as unworthy of a little help. But don't despair... empowered, white Republican men have been doing the exact same thing to members of their race for generations. It's a REPUBLICAN thing... or didn't you realize that when you joined-up?

No one said that you can't achieve without my help. Mr. Obama simply said that the woman in East St. Louis -- and thousands like her -- needed a little of what you clearly don't. They're not you; you're not them; and your skin color, sir, does not grant you automatic membership in their club nor the right to speak for them or to their needs.

Mr. Obama never suggested that many of them needed any more help than simply that. Help comes in many forms. The amount of help should fit the need. Obviously you didn't need the kind or the amount of help that the woman from East St. Louis might happen to require. Are you suggesting that because you're fine and she's not we should abandon her just because you and she happen to have the same amount of melanin in your skin? Is it we who want to help her; or is it her, herself, who most angers you... ostensibly because she's not as resourceful as you are? Does she embarrass you? Is that it? Are you irritated with her because her need tends to propagate the notion that all blacks are just lazy and standing around in welfare lines waiting for a hand-out? When you hear an ignorant, bigoted, stupid white person utter that kind of outrageous falsehood, don't turn on your own people. Instead, be angry with the ignorant, bigoted, stupid white person. I know I am... and I'm WHITE!

What modern day slavery are you talking about? Gimmee a break! Programs that assist people don't hold them back. Welfare doesn't make people lazy. That's just one more misguided Republican myth that I, for one, am sick to death of hearing. Many people who happen to share your skin color (since you've decided to make it about that, thankyouverymuch), as well as a helluva lot who don't, are not, for whatever reason, adequatley empowered and because of that can't even begin to imagine where to go or what to do next to make their dreams happen. I'm talking about people who are not even as empowered as your upbringing made you, and especially not as empowered as you've since become, Mr. I-finally-got-mine-now-you-go-get-yours.

Empowerment is measured in far more than dollars and cents. Poverty, alone, is not a sufficient obstacle, as your personal experience bears witness. Ignorance of how to use the tools of empowered men, where to find them, and how to avail oneself of them even (especially, actually) when everyone around says one shouldn't or can't, is sometimes the only problem. If someone else needs more, then that particular one has greater needs. If it's "liberal politics" which reminds us that it's better to provide whatever help is required than it is to ridicule those who need and then just leave them twisting in the wind because they dared to not be as strong and resourceful as you, then I'll take a Democrat's 'bleeding heart" sensibilities over a Republican's callousness any day of the week.

George Bush is not our leader. Dick Cheney and Karl Rove are our leaders. Get a clue.

Even if changing course means we all go over the edge like a bunch of lemmings. Heaven forbid our president learn from his mistakes and make necessary course corrections. Why Republicans don't see that as the virtue that it truly is, I'll never know. With any luck, none of us will have to worry very much more about it after November 2nd.

 

Re: Actually, DesElms....

Yeah, yeah... more of same. See my previous post.

 

So this is what we're gonna' do, now? Exchange URLs? I'm not just some bumpkin sitting along the sidelines during this campaign. I'm a member of every lefty, pinko-punko organization you can think of -- and I'm a Democrat... the party that, thanks to Howard Dean, finally remembered its roots this year and has completely eliminated any doubt, lest there be any, that there really is a difference between the parties and their candidates this year; that America really does have a clear and unambiguous choice. So, I'm sure you can imagine that for every Republican URL you can put here, I can counter with five or ten or even twenty Democrat URLs that will effectively decimate your Republican URLs. Is that really how we want to do this?

Go to your Republican web sites and pick your top five flip-flops and post 'em here. Gimmee a damned target, for godsake!

 

Are we sure that size of welfare payments aren't a determining factor in welfare rates? Coincidentally, when Canada toughened unemployment insurance rules the unemployment rate went down.

I have a sit on my butt rate. If I could get $36,000 annually doing nothing, I would. Maybe some people just have lower expectations.

If governments took better care of the working poor, maybe more would aspire to that status and be off welfare.