Racism?? Naaaaaahhhhh . . .
Hey Folks -
As a resident of Pickyournose (Pickaway) County (in Ohio), it pleased me no end to see that the Columbus Disgrace (Dispatch) editor messed up Sunday and let it slip (via some Clevelander/Athenian columnist) what everybody knows but not many admit: racism is alive and well, and hiding in Ohio - particularly in Pickyournose County and neighboring Ross County.
See column below.
I've said for some time that our white, Democratic governor Ted Strickland was not as popular as the election tally indicated (60%). A lot of Republicans who would have voted for a white idiot of Ken Blackwell's stature just couldn't vote for a Black man (a lot of red-necked Democrats couldn't do it either).
It makes a fellah proud to be an American, an Ohioan (where, happily for the Clintons, fewer people are educated or doing well financially), and - particularly - a citizen of Pickyournose County (I can't speak for Rossians).
At last, at least one mouthpiece of the "mainstream" press hasn't said, "Racism is dead; we're all just one big love pot here in the greatest nation the world has ever known."
Still don't know how it got past the editor.
Maybe he was snowed in by the recent blizzard!!
Praise Cheeses!!
Rev. Uke Man
Ohio vote shows that race does matter
Sunday, March 9, 2008
By THOMAS SUDDES
In Ohio, Sen. Barack Obama was the yuppie candidate. Ohio is not a yuppie state. End of story -- though gender and race and the economy also figured in Sen. Hillary Clinton's statewide sweep Tuesday.
True, the Evita of the Ozarks is a New Yorker, a millionaire and as Ivy League as Obama. But it wasn't whimsy that led Clinton to campaign so heavily in Appalachian Ohio, where women struggle to hold families together and where Southern-inflected Democrats (Harry Truman, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton) win in November because ordinary Ohioans prefer Spam, Cheez Whiz and Busch beer to chardonnay and cheddar. Don't think so? Then explain away James A. Rhodes.
True, there's no assurance Clinton will land the Democratic presidential nomination. That'll depend on the Pennsylvania primary (politically, not mathematically), party rules and, after the National Convention assembles in Colorado, a guess: a federal or Denver County court.
But Ohio gave Clinton a second wind. And her tallies, especially in Gov. Ted Strickland's old congressional district (where she won 70 percent of the Democratic vote) added weight to Strickland's perceived Statehouse clout. But unless you're peddling conspiracy theories, exit polls are worthless, so what follows is impressionistic:
• Ohio's Democratic women helped win the day for Clinton. A friend's mother told him she couldn't vote against a woman. (In that department, you don't have to like the Clintons to be disgusted by people who criticize the senator for staying married. The "Christians" who "defend" marriage forget it's a bond supposed to endure not just "for better" but also, more virtuously, "for worse."
• The North American Free Trade Agreement might be as wonderful as economics professors say, and Bill Clinton sure helped it happen. But tell laid-off Ohioans in Cleveland, Akron or Youngstown that NAFTA offers them great futures as, say, software writers for Bill Gates. You'll be cursed in every mood and tense or, worse, seen, like Obama, as slippery.
• Surely the who-should-be-commander-in-chief angle favored Clinton, but on that front, President Bush has proved Elmer Fudd would be up to the job.
• Finally, hugs aside, race mattered. It's the chasm in American life, and a voting booth is the last place Americans may legally discriminate. So look at Ohio's map. Obama carried five counties. Four -- Cuyahoga, Franklin, Hamilton and Montgomery -- have large black communities. The fifth, Delaware, is a Columbus yuppie satellite, which he carried by about 250 votes.
In 1968, Ohio gave almost 12 percent of its presidential vote to George Wallace. No big nonslave state gave Wallace a bigger percentage.
Let's run Wallace's numbers past Obama's Tuesday numbers. Backed by nearly 12 percent of all Ohio voters in 1968, Wallace drew 19 percent of the vote in Pickaway County. Obama last week drew the support of 44 percent of Ohio's Democrats, but far fewer (29 percent) of Pickaway's. The '68-'08 comparison is nearly the same in a neighboring bellwether, Ross County.
Glance at Brown and Adams counties, up the Ohio River from Cincinnati. The last Democratic presidential nominee to carry them was Jimmy Carter, in 1976. Adams, in 1968, gave Wallace 14 percent of its vote; Brown, 22 percent. On Tuesday, Adams's Democrats gave Obama just 22 percent of their votes -- half his Ohio percentage; in Brown, he bagged 25 percent of its Democratic vote.
No one needs polls or seminars to figure out those numbers; like Ohio voters, they're out there -- in black and white.
Thomas Suddes is a former legislative reporter with The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and writes from Ohio University.
tsuddes@gmail.com
As a resident of Pickyournose (Pickaway) County (in Ohio), it pleased me no end to see that the Columbus Disgrace (Dispatch) editor messed up Sunday and let it slip (via some Clevelander/Athenian columnist) what everybody knows but not many admit: racism is alive and well, and hiding in Ohio - particularly in Pickyournose County and neighboring Ross County.
See column below.
I've said for some time that our white, Democratic governor Ted Strickland was not as popular as the election tally indicated (60%). A lot of Republicans who would have voted for a white idiot of Ken Blackwell's stature just couldn't vote for a Black man (a lot of red-necked Democrats couldn't do it either).
It makes a fellah proud to be an American, an Ohioan (where, happily for the Clintons, fewer people are educated or doing well financially), and - particularly - a citizen of Pickyournose County (I can't speak for Rossians).
At last, at least one mouthpiece of the "mainstream" press hasn't said, "Racism is dead; we're all just one big love pot here in the greatest nation the world has ever known."
Still don't know how it got past the editor.
Maybe he was snowed in by the recent blizzard!!
Praise Cheeses!!
Rev. Uke Man
Ohio vote shows that race does matter
Sunday, March 9, 2008
By THOMAS SUDDES
In Ohio, Sen. Barack Obama was the yuppie candidate. Ohio is not a yuppie state. End of story -- though gender and race and the economy also figured in Sen. Hillary Clinton's statewide sweep Tuesday.
True, the Evita of the Ozarks is a New Yorker, a millionaire and as Ivy League as Obama. But it wasn't whimsy that led Clinton to campaign so heavily in Appalachian Ohio, where women struggle to hold families together and where Southern-inflected Democrats (Harry Truman, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton) win in November because ordinary Ohioans prefer Spam, Cheez Whiz and Busch beer to chardonnay and cheddar. Don't think so? Then explain away James A. Rhodes.
True, there's no assurance Clinton will land the Democratic presidential nomination. That'll depend on the Pennsylvania primary (politically, not mathematically), party rules and, after the National Convention assembles in Colorado, a guess: a federal or Denver County court.
But Ohio gave Clinton a second wind. And her tallies, especially in Gov. Ted Strickland's old congressional district (where she won 70 percent of the Democratic vote) added weight to Strickland's perceived Statehouse clout. But unless you're peddling conspiracy theories, exit polls are worthless, so what follows is impressionistic:
• Ohio's Democratic women helped win the day for Clinton. A friend's mother told him she couldn't vote against a woman. (In that department, you don't have to like the Clintons to be disgusted by people who criticize the senator for staying married. The "Christians" who "defend" marriage forget it's a bond supposed to endure not just "for better" but also, more virtuously, "for worse."
• The North American Free Trade Agreement might be as wonderful as economics professors say, and Bill Clinton sure helped it happen. But tell laid-off Ohioans in Cleveland, Akron or Youngstown that NAFTA offers them great futures as, say, software writers for Bill Gates. You'll be cursed in every mood and tense or, worse, seen, like Obama, as slippery.
• Surely the who-should-be-commander-in-chief angle favored Clinton, but on that front, President Bush has proved Elmer Fudd would be up to the job.
• Finally, hugs aside, race mattered. It's the chasm in American life, and a voting booth is the last place Americans may legally discriminate. So look at Ohio's map. Obama carried five counties. Four -- Cuyahoga, Franklin, Hamilton and Montgomery -- have large black communities. The fifth, Delaware, is a Columbus yuppie satellite, which he carried by about 250 votes.
In 1968, Ohio gave almost 12 percent of its presidential vote to George Wallace. No big nonslave state gave Wallace a bigger percentage.
Let's run Wallace's numbers past Obama's Tuesday numbers. Backed by nearly 12 percent of all Ohio voters in 1968, Wallace drew 19 percent of the vote in Pickaway County. Obama last week drew the support of 44 percent of Ohio's Democrats, but far fewer (29 percent) of Pickaway's. The '68-'08 comparison is nearly the same in a neighboring bellwether, Ross County.
Glance at Brown and Adams counties, up the Ohio River from Cincinnati. The last Democratic presidential nominee to carry them was Jimmy Carter, in 1976. Adams, in 1968, gave Wallace 14 percent of its vote; Brown, 22 percent. On Tuesday, Adams's Democrats gave Obama just 22 percent of their votes -- half his Ohio percentage; in Brown, he bagged 25 percent of its Democratic vote.
No one needs polls or seminars to figure out those numbers; like Ohio voters, they're out there -- in black and white.
Thomas Suddes is a former legislative reporter with The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and writes from Ohio University.
tsuddes@gmail.com
posted by Ukulele Man at 8:53 AM
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