On Politics: Obama must make every vote count

This is total nonsense. Obama is running against Big Oil McCain and against the special interests that benefit from our soldiers dying in the Bush Iraq War. He wants to create jobs and help our country get out of the elitist Bush/Cheney economy as soon as possible. If right wing Tenneseeans don't want that then they need to wake up to what's really going on in our country.

I'm not worried for Obama at all. He's a ridiculously strong candidate who's hit the ground running in every state while McCain has done nothing but tread water since he clinched the nomination months ago. Obama also currently has a 19% lead among women, which is probably only going to grow as Hillary supporters get over their angst and come back into the Democrat fold.It's funny that most of the attacks on Obama have come from the Democrats instead of the Republicans. One thing I can say for McCain is that he looks like a saint compared to dogs like Hillary Clinton and this Hobbs moron.

The more damning statement is "...I don’t exactly approve of a lot of the things he stands for and I’m not sure we know enough about him."It appears that members of the Democratic party are not satisfied with Obama's explaination of his relationship with Ayers (a terrorist) and are uncomfortable with some of Obama's very liberal positions. Obama has some 'splaining' to do.

'splaining? why the slang?

For all the stupid rednecks like Fred Hobbs or Beecher Frasier who make asinine comments that Republicans salivate over, it's still Obama who has more support among his own party.After a brutal, bitter, contested primary that went through every state - and after loads of mud was heaped onto him by the out-of-touch senator from New York, Barack Obama has the support of over 70% from all registered Democrats nationwide. It's still early after the contest has ended, so expect more of the Clintonistas to come to their senses as GOP attacks ramp up and the stakes of this election settle in on their bruised egos. Meanwhile, the Republicans still aren't on board with McCain. Currently, McCain has the same amount of support among his party's voters, despite the fact that he'd wrapped up his party's nomination months ago and has had plenty of time to secure the GOP base.This whole flap smacks of an attempt by the City Paper to get some facetime with Obama. The CP has already printed, word-for-word, the GOP talking points against Michelle Obama and now they're digging up this Fred Hobbs guy - who's almost certainly the stupid hillbilly everyone thinks he is since he's buying into conservative talking points.You'd think that the CP would start to realize that Nashville is a solidly Democratic city and that stirring up these hornet nests are not going to endear you to a majority of the county's voters. Oh wait, that's right. You have to GIVE your paper away to get people to read it...

And, yet, morpheus, you are here on our also "free" web site commenting every day.Nashville a "solidly Democratic city?" Really? That may be when it comes to party politics, but that doesn't mean Nashville is really that progressive.This is the city, after all, that passed a freeze on all property tax increases without a public referendum. Voters here overwhelmingly followed the lead of conservative tax advocate Ben Cunningham, not its progressive politicians.This is also the same city where the Metro Council passed the dreaded "English First" legislation offered by arch-conservative Eric Crafton. That was not particularly progressive.As for us, we are not into pandering to whatever political forces are popular at the moment at any level - local, state or federal. If you are simply looking for someone to agree with everything you think, dial into talk radio. That's not what we do. If you cannot handle having your opinions challenged, morpheus, perhaps you should seek some media easier on your constitution and less threatening to your ideals.Caution: You may find opinions on this web site you disagree with every day. Can you handle that, or are you Borg?

Mr. Brewer...Why do you insist on using the euphemism "progressive" when the correct term is "liberal"?

Funditto, there are quite a few folks who don't consider Ford progressive at all. He has been roundly bashed in the last two years since losing the Senate race for being too conservative. Did you miss that?Predictably, no one is speaking to either of the two local issues I pointed to. I used progressive because it is a broader term to me - and most, I think - than liberal.

Obama was rated the most liberal senator for 2007 by the National Journal, based on his voting record.What is the proper word? Progressive implies progress, unless applied to the tax structure, and I don't see his policies as progress. Liberal implies liberty, not a good fit, with more government control and regulation. The most accurate term would be socialist, although confiscatory taxes on oil companies would be more fascist than socialist.

Definition of a progressive:A person who actively favors or strives for progress toward better conditions, as in society or government.Hardly a bad thing...

Just so we understand here, some of you are now labeling Obama a “Communist Muslim” ? At least it’s not the 50’s!

Mr. Brewer, I didn’t know that there were any terrorists in the pages of this newspaper—perhaps a few excessively armed, paranoid, regressive radicals, but they hardly strike terror. Further, how could Barack Obama have any ties to these terrorists in this paper?I agree with you that Fred Hobbs’s words were stupid and that Lincoln Davis ought to disown them—and immediately endorse Obama. When regressives, beginning w/ Bush-Dick, foment a great deal of the world’s terrorism, how could anyone think that Obama would have any ties to terrorists?Your paragraph delineating—in highly simplistic terms—the interpretations of “the Left” and “the Right” (as if there are such bodies speaking each w/ one voice) implies that both sides consider Tennesseans ignorant. After all, if your “the Right” hopes that Tennessee Democrats will support John McCain, then it certainly shows disdain for thousands of Tennesseans.Since Bill Ayers never killed anyone nor helped destroy offices when anyone was in them and since Bill Ayers fought AGAINST America’s war of terror in Vietnam, one can hardly call Ayers a terrorist.Please, please, please stop writing so quickly. There are so many sentences in this piece that need repair. This piece is afflicted by the omitted “that”. Here is an edited version of a few paragraphs. When I added words or punctuation, I placed them in all caps w/in brackets. I made other changes silently. You will see that I haven’t changed the meaning of the piece."For everyone involved in the Democratic Party, it means [THAT] Obama must campaign in states like Tennessee to beat McCain and win the presidency."There are many in the world of politics and punditry who believe [THAT] an Obama victory in the fall is a foregone conclusion. A piece in Politico [ON] Sunday even quoted historians [WHO NOTED THAT] the mood of the country and [THE] unpopularity of a two-term president [GIVES] McCain a [STATISTICALLY LOW] chance of winning."[THESE CONCLUSIONS ARE MADE EVEN THOUGH] national polls have McCain and Obama in a dead heat. These are all the same pundits who also wrote McCain off as dead and gone in the GOP primary a little less than a year ago. Now look at him."Hobbs and those like him know about Obama only from television and the Internet. They know [THAT] Fox News tells them Obama was friends in Chicago with former Weatherman Bill Ayers—once a 1960s radical, someone who[,] in today’s parlance[,] we might call a terrorist. They know [THAT] Obama’s middle name is Hussein. The only other Hussein the Fred Hobbs[ES] of the world likely have ever heard of is the deposed Iraqi dictator."By the way, if Fred Hobbs knows that Obama’s middle name is Hussein, that may be because your paper plastered the name on the paper’s front page for at least two days running, performing a touch of smeary terrorism itself.As for your statement about Obama’s campaigning in Tennessee, such a suggestion is pointless. Obama has almost no chance to win Tennessee. Too many Tennesseans are either regressive, racist, or both. Among all the current counting of the states, Tennessee is a lock for McCain, just as, say, Massachusetts is a lock for Obama. Why don’t you suggest that McCain spend a lot of his limited physical energy & his wife’s virtually unlimited money to win “hearts & minds in places like” Massachusetts?Let me tell you, if we see Obama campaigning earnestly in Tennessee, then you should be really worried, because he & the Democrats are going for a rout.I don’t know which “Obamafanatics” you read, but the math that garners the presidency for Obama is not much different from the math of the past elections. In addition, you mention “national polls [that] have McCain & Obama in a dead heat”. That is true for most of the recent polls, in terms of nationwide percentages, but a presidential election is not a popular, nationwide election. It is 51 state elections, in which the winner of any merely needs 50+%. Thus, nationwide polls are less relevant than state-by-state polls. (Of course, any polls now aren’t especially relevant.) Look at Real Clear Politics, which lists the latest polls in each state.Here are the numbers that show a victory for Obama. This math is not new: Obama will win California, Connecticut, Delaware, D.C., Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, & Wisconsin. This is every state that John Kerry carried in 2004 (Obama’s hardly likely to lose any of THEM) plus Iowa (where he leads by eight points), New Mexico, & Virginia (which are very close). That adds up to 276 electoral votes. Note that this list concedes West Virginia & Ohio (&, of course, our beloved Tennessee) to McCain. Both of those states are actually in play, along with Colorado, Florida, Nevada, Arkansas, Georgia, Montana, North Carolina, & New Jersey. If the Democratic party helps the voters in these states realize that McCain’s election means a virtual third term of Bush-Dick & that voting for McCain means supporting the disaster of the last eight years, then November could be a rout. Obama & the Democrats’ only difficulties are the Democrats’ own spinelessness & disorganization & the mainstream media’s love affair w/ McCain.You are correct that Bush-Dick (or, as you wish, Bush-Dick-Frist—truly a third wheel) & the Republicans accomplished a stunning electoral achievement in 2002, but you are overlooking the potent influence of September 11th. The arc of September 11th is easily traced. It begins on September 12th, when Bush-Dick’s approval rating shot from 50% up to 90%, the single biggest jump in the history of approval polling, and it ends on Election Day 2006, when Bush-Dick-Frist & the Republican party had preyed on our fears (another form of terrorism) long enough, and the Republicans in Congress sustained one of the worst defeats in decades.(By the way, Bill Frist wasn’t majority leader at the time of the 2002 Congressional elections. He wasn’t even minority leader. Tom Daschle, Democrat of South Dakota, was majority leader, and famed segregationist—now lobbyist—Trent Lott of Mississippi was minority leader.)Just to return to your writing of this piece for a moment, your last paragraph is particularly egregious. Again, you omit the plural of Fred Hobbs’s name; you use the word “taciturn” in a way that makes no sense, but, even worse, you use “they” to refer to the “every vote” in the previous sentence. “They” is plural. “Every vote” is singular.

So one can be a Marxist/Socialist without being a communist? What would the other term be for them, maybe, Dictator?

146 days to the election.Obama won't even make it.The GOP's worst nightmare is for the DNC and Supers to realize that Obama is a flawed candidate before the August Convention. Hillary is waiting in the wings. She would be hard to beat even with the Dem Party fractured over Obama being tossed out on his buttocks.IMHO, here are some reasons that Obama cannot win.1. There WILL be a lot of attacks on Obama on other things than the Political issues. A Candidates character is just as important to the voters as his policies. And Obama has a lot of things to be attacked over, with more coming out all the time. Mid week (17-19 June) will be another bad time for Obama, so expect some real hell for Obama supporters through Friday. The Obama supporters keep saying "the issues, the issues

Dragon, who cares? He's been called a Marxist, Socialist and terrorist. What difference does Communist mean?Why not go for the hat-trick?

RoBo, most of your points are without substance, and, some are definitely wrong: The majority of Americans voted for Al Gore. Barack Obama is not a "far left RADICAL liberal". The "average [you mean typical] American" agrees with Obama about the waste of s.u.v.s.Worse than any of this, though, is that your writing is almost illiterate & illegible. If you actually have something to say, then please read what you write before you click "Post Opinion".

Hard to discuss politics with someone who doesn't know the difference between a socialist and a communist.MJB, on the third political dictionary I tried (the first two didn't list progressive), I was given the exact same definition of liberal and progressive.http://www.hyperdictionary.com/dictionary/political[n] a person who favors a political philosophy of progress and reform and the protection of civil liberties

Oh, look, MJB stood up for me. I didn't know that was possible. Still, what's with the 800 word posts?

Dragon – don’t worry, no one on this board will ever confuse any of your post as a “discussion” of politics. What other point are you trying to make?

Is there anyone here saying “Right on Fred, you know it, way to go”? No. And to think otherwise is reaching far, in your fear.

Yeah, listen to the hicks, after all, they re-elected Bush.

ClintB, I would suggest that, in this forum, you, like the rest of us, speak only for yourself. Countering your claim that I never receive a re-action, immediately after your remark, Dragon replied to one of my suggestions with the interesting point that he found an online dictionary that defines “liberal” & “progressive” with exactly the same way.As for no re-action, just one week ago, you were so ticked off by what I wrote that you were about to, in your words, “ban [me] for life”. I would consider that a re-action.I am very much over myself, ClintB. I laughed aloud several time when reading your reply, especially when you think that you can speak for everyone. Perhaps you should take your own advice?As to who’s writing for whom, well, I haven’t brought it up, but you were all set to offer me a column until you took umbrage w/ my occasional criticism of the writing of some of pieces in THE CITY PAPER. I have corresponded w/ people who work for THE CITY PAPER, who appreciated my criticisms, whether they agreed w/ them or not, but you decided that I was not a “team player”, that an op-ed columnist—even before he begins writing op-eds—must never say anything negative or critical of anything else printed in the same paper, which seems less like a team and more like a group in lockstep.I have refrained from bringing this up in this forum, because you asked me not to bring it up, and I respected that request. If, however, you’re going start saying that YOU are better regarded in the world as a writer and that you question what “qualifies” me to critique the writing, well then I must mention (1) that you found my writing of a quality that you wanted to print until you decided that you didn’t like my opinions in this forum, and (2) that I have taught writing for many years; I have been studying & thinking about good writing for even longer than that; and I have lived w/ this topic since birth: My father was a newspaperman. How newspapers are written, how writing—both in print & on t.v.—should be, let us say, constructed, was nightly conversation around the dinner table at my house.None of that matters, though, ClintB. You so quickly move to the ad hominem that you undermine your own credentials. Last week, you called my criticisms of your piece “insults” but couldn’t show that anything I said was insulting, because none of it personal then nor was any of my reply personal today. Let’s follow your advice & turn away from the messenger & return to the message. Many of the sentences in this piece need recasting. That my pointing it out makes you so angry merely substantiates my critique.As to the regard of the world, neither of us is regarded as a writer. You are regarded as an editor; I, as a teacher. No one I know who reads your writing considers you a writer.The writing issue is not the difference between “styles”. The issue—as far as the writing of your piece is concerned—is which version is more precise, more exact, & more elegant. Elegant writing, good writing, takes up no more words than does imprecise or inelegant writing. Note that my revisions to your sentences didn't always make them longer. For instance, my revision, “These conclusions are made even though national polls have McCain and Obama in a dead heat” is no longer—and uses fewer words—than your “All of this comes despite the fact national polls have McCain and Obama in a dead heat”.As to the length of written remarks, your column is 750 words. You complain that my reply is 800 words. Don’t you think that a thoughtful column deserves a thoughtful reply? Did reading fifty more words tire you out?I HAVE stayed on point, ClintB, responding thoughtfully to what you want read thoughtfully. Have you done the same?(I suspect that “your” for “you are” is not yet a part of A.P. style, but you know best, of course.)

ZINGGGGGGG!

Since ClintB asserts that my work “was not fit for publication”, I’d like to quote from Clint Brewer’s e-mail messages to me about my work & the reason that he had reconsidered offering me a column.In October of 2006, I sent Mr. Brewer a spec op-ed column, “Acting White, Acting Black”. He wrote to me about it:“I think your writing and point of view have merit. We need a left-leaning local column now and then to balance out the now and then local columns we get on the other side, namely Steve Gill. I have also been thinking of creating a ‘readers corner’ where I turn frequent letter writers or interested readers into guest columnists. Your current submission needs some work in a couple of areas to make it work on our editorial page.”He followed this with several useful criticisms of my column, offering to edit it or have me do it. He ended by asking, “If we are such a terrible paper why would you want to write for us? It’s not a trick question, I'm just curious.”I made the changes Mr. Brewer suggested & sent it back to him. I answered his question with the following (please forgive the length of this quoting, but I’d like to make it clear that criticism doesn’t mean that you don’t care):“Since you seem to be a man of integrity, and since you read my column thoughtfully AND have had the perspicacity to want to print it, I will answer your question about why I’d like to write for you, but I should warn you that I am a blunt Yankee (which is exactly the column that I’d like to write), so let the chips fall.“That The City Paper is terrible (and I’m not sure that ‘terrible’ was my adjective, but we’ll use it for discussion’s sake here) doesn’t mean that The Tennessean & The Scene aren’t terrible, too. They are, and they have a lot more money & have been around longer, so they have less excuse. In terms of financing & age, yours may be the least terrible paper in town! (There’s something you want to put on a billboard.)“I had lived in Nashville just a few years when I discovered the merit of the Banner. Its editorials were much too conservative, but its local news was head-and-shoulders above The Tennessean’s. It folded just weeks later.“When The City Paper began, I had high hopes that it would do all the good that the Banner had done without the rightwing slant. I still have The City Paper’s first issue. I have been sorely disappointed in some of the ways The City Paper has tried to make itself popular, and I have been sorely disappointed with the much too high degree of dreadful writing. By now, that should have gotten better. Writing well is not that difficult.“Back to The City Paper’s attempts to popularize itself: It has tried to avoid anything the least bit controversial, and it has slanted its editorial pages needlessly right-ward, when The Tennessean is already the epitome of mugwumpery and when half the Scene’s staff voted for Bush. All the papers in town are trying to be likable. Thus, they all end up sounding the same.“I don’t subscribe to epater les bourgeoisie all the time for its own sake, but a newspaper has a few simple functions. 1. To provide a bouquet of voices that are intelligent & honest & that do not mind being blunt. 2. To take strong opinions of its own or to scrap the unsigned editorials altogether if it doesn’t have strong opinions (and strong opinions don’t include such editorial insights as ‘it’s a shame how few people vote. Everyone should vote. If you don’t vote, then you can’t complain’; that opinion could be written by a seven-year-old, but he/she could be forgiven that level of t-shirt illogic). 3. To report the news accurately, amply, & cogently. The City Paper is not meeting these standards. “I want to write for The City Paper because it needs more good writing, and it needs more strong opinion. Further, I admire an independent newspaper over a paper that is just part of a chain. I grew up in Boston, where we had three independent papers. (Now, Boston has only one.)“In addition, a semi-weekly column of strong local opinion would get people picking up the paper to “see what that guy has said today.” It’s a win-win-win for The City Paper, for me, and for the reading public. Nashville hears an original intelligent voice (not simply parroting a party line [v. Steve Gill]). The City Paper becomes known as the place where lively thought goes on. The local populace learn something about themselves.”Although we later spoke on the ’phone about my writing a column—or, at least, the occasional op-ed—, each of us was busy; I failed to pursue the matter right then (I was getting a master’s, at the time), and when I re-proposed the notion, accompanied by another spec piece, in May of last year, Mr. Brewer wrote this to me:“My real problem with giving you a column - much less one twice a week - is you don't believe in the paper.“Now, I am not saying you would have to be a slavish cheerleader or anything for The City Paper to get a column here, but you would at least need to believe in the mission and the quality of the newspaper. You do not. In fact, you have repeatedly told me how bad you think the newspaper is, by email and on our website. Why in the world would you want to write for it?“Any newsroom is a team environment. While I certainly welcome criticism of the newspaper from any quarter, I would never willingly welcome someone in to our fold who - quite frankly - has on more than one occassion portrayed our newspaper and staff as a bunch of dumb hicks. All of the journalists working here put themselves through school and worked very hard to get here. They work very long hours and make a lot of sacrifices to serve their community via their reporting for this newspaper. It is one thing to give a critic of the newspaper space to levy their criticism. It is another to give a writer space that day to day sees no value in the newspaper at all.”Note that Mr. Brewer didn’t criticize my writing but, rather, my attitude, my not being a team player. I wrote back that I had always valued THE CITY PAPER (my years of reading it certainly demonstrate that), but Mr. Brewer was having none of it.As to my voicing criticism of his writing at the website, Mr. Brewer had written this to me way back in September of 2006:“Thanks for pointing the mistakes out. We'll try to do a better job. Post away, and welcome back.”I replied w/ great gratitude then, but, apparently, he has changed his mind on this matter.ClintB, as to your plaint about the length of my remarks, some quick points: (1) Others write long remarks, too, and I don’t see you busting in to reproach them for such. (B) Many of my remarks are much shorter, or are a series of brief replies to many remarks. (III) If you compiled the length of many people’s remarks here over the course of a day or week, they would be lengthy, too. They are just divided into more entries. (d) Anyone who doesn’t want to read what I write is free to follow your example & pass over it.

rev-o: it is totally and unequivocally unprofessional for an EDITOR of a paper in a MAJOR city to argue and interact with his readers. I read Ben Bradley's book a few years and something he said stuck out: if you are going to report on the events of the times it is vital, VITAL, that you remain 100% objective - at least in public. You can vote, but that's it. Mr. B lost his credibility when he started posting and defending his positions long ago. He's become Nashville's O'Reilly. A new "analyst" if you will. He is no news man.