Turn Maine Blue - Recent Comments

Chipping away at the GOP isn't needed

Eddie in ME — Fri, 16 May 2008 20:36:05 GMT

If Barack Obama shreds McCain well enough, they'll just stay home. That's just as good as a vote. Great news!

We have a great field team this year. Plenty of time to turn that 10 points around.

It wasn't easy.

Eddie in ME — Fri, 16 May 2008 17:29:20 GMT

And I know a lot of people in the other campaigns who will be disappointed. That, too, made this a hard choice. Part of a year of neutrality is getting to know a lot of supporters of every candidate.

My neutrality on helping them, however, will now and always be the same. What has been said to me in the past stays as quiet as it's ever been.

congrats on making your choice

Debbie in ME — Fri, 16 May 2008 17:16:46 GMT

still flipping mental coins myself. ;)

but agree with your reasoning and will bear it in mind as I continue with my decision making process. :)

Equally importantly, I think the Obama campaign is handling it well

jm — Fri, 16 May 2008 15:51:06 GMT

They haven't been great at every bit of their messaging, but they have handled questions of race (in my mind) with exactly the right balance of passion and poise.

And I think it's important that those of us in the north and the middle states don't oversimplify the way race affects elections both in the south and up here.

(On a purely anecdotal basis, I've heard more negative things about Boston from black people than I have about [modern day] Mississippi.)

There are racist people and tolerant people everywhere. We see some of the nastiest racial undertones in states like Pennsylvania (it's my former home, so I'm allowed to give it a much-deserved smack from time to time).

Anyway, I'm in agreement with you both, and I think this bodes well for November. We're going to need leadership at all levels of government, from the White House to the Senate to Congress to the states.

Like Mr. Pachios, I'm optimistic that we will finally get it.

This is a winner-take-all election

Eddie in ME — Fri, 16 May 2008 15:23:49 GMT

and frankly, driving up racist sentiment will accomplish two things:

1) It will turn racists out to the polls. In these cases, it will mostly be in states we'd lose anyway.

2) It will turn out everyone else in larger numbers to repudiate the racism.

This isn't 1968. We will have large numbers of people who are angry about the attacks- it won't be a situation where some are neutral, or if upset, are quiet, and some are racist like it was back then.

Well the effect may have been the opposite of what was intended,

Gerald — Fri, 16 May 2008 15:06:53 GMT

but it would be naive to think that the Miss GOP was not tying Childers to a "black man." Unfortunately, that Obama is black is going to play a factor with that segment of American society that are still racist.

Which makes it feel even better

Eddie in ME — Fri, 16 May 2008 15:02:57 GMT

I don't know how well you have followed the breakdown of this race. It went into runoff twice. Originally there were at least two Dems and two Repubs.

The first vote knocked out two of them, who endorsed the frontrunners. The runoff happened because Childers missed breaking 50% by the margin of the second-place Dem's 800 or so votes. Then the second runoff, Childers wins 54-46.

And what happened in the meantime? Ads connecting Childers to Obama. Think about this. The entire Republican strategy is to try to tie people to Barack Obama- and when they do, the Democrat gains votes.

Including in Mississippi. Which is fun to type, for the record. My grandmother used to have a fun spelling for it, that I never forgot:

"M-I-crooked letter-crooked letter-I-crooked letter-crooked letter-I-humpback-humpback-I" :p

I would note...

JonB — Fri, 16 May 2008 01:37:09 GMT

I have spoken directly with Tom Allen about this and he says he is supportive.

I have not spoken to Mike Michaud's office yet, so if anyone calls him about this, I would like to hear what he has to say.

the House version is H.J. Res 79
http://www.govtrack.us/congres...

Very true...

jm — Thu, 15 May 2008 23:14:03 GMT

I don't know if you've ever been to MS, but it's a... conservative place.

(Please note: I'm NOT knocking Mississippi. My few times down there I've genuinely loved it. But "Democrat" was a four letter word to many down there until quite recently...)

You're right - I've been remiss in not promoting it. I will do so

Gerald — Thu, 15 May 2008 21:40:45 GMT

tonight or tomorrow, and also ask Rebecca to post on it.