A new poll indicates that John McCain leads Barack Obama in Alabama 60 percent to 32 percent.
I say that’s a damned good reason for Americans elsewhere to vote for Barack Obama.
Just think about it – how many times have you heard anyone say, “We ought to try what Alabama did,” or “If only we had listened to Alabama,” or “Why can’t our state be more like Alabama?”
Alabama is not a success story. Alabama’s government has made poor decisions time and again. Alabama’s elected officials have supported failed policies for generations. We all know why most voters in Alabama won’t vote for Barack Obama, and it isn’t because his health care policies are not to their liking.
John McCain is working to profit from the hateful, backwards perspective Alabama represents. That kind of electoral strategy ought not to be rewarded.
The Democratic Party doesn’t need to win a single state in the South to win the White House in 2008. Picking up a little support in the Southwest or the Midwest is all it will take for Obama to win this November.
So, let John McCain have Alabama. The Democratic Party ought not to stoop to try to pick up that kind of filthy prize.
You almost make it sound like I shouldn’t bother submitting my vote for Barack from Alabama later this year?
No… I think I still will… even though it is a conservative cesspool around here.
No, what I think you need to do, if you want your vote to count, is vote for Barack Obama in Alabama this year, expecting fully to lose… and then move out of Alabama.
Actually, if you want to stay in Alabama and change things, that’s fine too, but you have a long way to go.
I wrote this article more in terms of general Democratic strategy. I don’t think that it’s with the Democratic Party’s time to twist itself to try to placate Southern bigotry.
Let Democrats be Democrats, and speak to the rest of the country. The South won’t vote for Obama anyway, so it’s a waste of time trying to make the South happy. Better to say directly, “If you’re going to vote with bigotry, then yours is a vote we don’t want.”
Yeah, I knew you were speaking general strategy-wise. There’s no good point in spending resources here to try to win this state. It just came across a bit rough. I’d certainly agree that the South does have a long ways to go.
Much the same could probably be said for those of us here in SC. But, I’ll stay and try to make changes even though I may never see positive results. You never know, we might all be surprised some day.
North Carolina is a good example of that. It and Virginia are closer than many people think to being swing states, thanks to both “intra” (migration) and “inter” (generational) changes.
“The South” is an awful big generalization. Not all of The South is what a lot of The South used to be.
We ought to demand that politicians appeal to working class whites without appealing to racism.
And quite frankly I’d like to see the Democratic party make some honest efforts in Alabama appealing to issues like Iraq, medical care, the environment, and all kinds of things plenty of the “hard working,” “bitter” “demographic” of white Alabamans have a stake in as much as any other American.
Why can’t we go for Alabama without pandering to racism?
fuck you
Thanks for the coherent argument, Kenny, but can you show me any evidence that Alabama isn’t allowing its politics to be run by nasty bigotry?
Which one of us, Kenny? And how? You can’t just tease us like this. We want details!