After watching the PBS special on George Bush Sr., I felt a little enlightened to understand just how much any politician has to change what he truly believes in so that he can attract enough of the vote, at least long enough to win an election. It seemed like a semi leftist commentary but they maintained that George Bush was actually a much more moderate Republican than Ronald Reagan, and the two actually had pretty heated primary before the 1980 election. They weren't buddy buddy as the Republican party undoubtedly tried to portray.
I think what's going to determine who can win of the three remaining canidates will actually be who can best persuade conservative republicans and conservative democrats. Hillary Clinton seems to have realized this and it appears to have paid dividends for her but I don't think she quite had it in her, and it appears to be too little, too late. Better luck next time Hillary. Let your husband school you a little longer in how you win an election.
Can Barack Obama appeal to white voters? I think he'd do well politically to denounce his radical pastor and stand up for equality not just "black power." But there again, I'm not sure he has it in him to do that, even with the presidency at stake.
Can John McCain appeal to conservative voters, given his reputation as a liberal Republican? He better, or he's not going to win. That means denouncing illegal immigration, wage oppression of the middle class worker, and putting our soldiers first in Iraq by getting more brutal and willing to do what it takes to stamp out a threat. Conservatives could very likely just stay home this election in mass, become even more hardened and hopeless, and start the brewing of a ferocious revolution. We could end up with a very radical right wing president in eight years when the people see that the Deomcrats couldn't solve the worlds problems either.
It's true. White men may have been defeated by the supreme court with affirmative action and by women in divorce court, but just because they've been defeated politically doesn't mean they don't still believe that they have rights as well. It will take many more years of systematic brain washing in our public schools to achieve this, and even then it may backfire on them. I was subjected to this brain washing and have yet to buy into any of it. If anything it's made me more angry, active, and determined in asserting my rights as a human being. You may be able to control what a man says by destroying his career, fining him, and trying to brain wash him, but when minorities confirm to him every day his suspicions about the way things are vs. how it's taught in school, it becomes very difficult to control the way he thinks. This is what the liberals call the "sneaky" racism. It's who people want to do business with, go to school with, live beside, and work for, based on their past experiences.
You see, these liberals make these statements from comfortable country homes. They don't live in the ghetto and never have for that matter. But plenty of young white people are forced to deal with other races on a daily basis through bussing and forced integration. This could prove the worst enemy to the liberal objective. It's actually creating a tacit neo-conservative movement amongst the young whites, who were once oblivious to the race, immigration, and gender issues because they hadn't lived it.
This election becomes interesting not because we have a woman and black man running against a pink Republican in McCain, but because whoever best appeals to conservative America will be the one to win this election. I'm not sure any of them can do it, but somebody is going to have to win.
I think the conservative factor was what was so shocking to the liberals in George Bush's victory over John Kerry. Conservatives aren't as noisy (thus the accusation of sneaky racism). Many know it's futile to talk sense to the leftist. The media tramples our rights on a flagpole and they think because nobody is barking back that we've fled to another land. They destroy the lives and careers of people who hold opinions like John Rocker, and think that they've brow beaten us into submission. But we're still standing here, and don't be surprised if in the not too distant future we very quietly once again say, "No way, to leftism and self hatred."