Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Hillary Supporters: People Like Us

I wrote Wednesday (scroll down) about Hillary Supporters taking out revenge on Democrat "SuperDelegates" that supported Obama -- even though their districts or states voted for Hillary Clinton. When the angry Hillary backers get through with them those delegates will not feel very super.

Thursday a.m. (about 10:30 a.m.) on my Pennsylvania blog I'll attempt an answer to an overwhelming question: How exactly do Republican candidates for federal office -- including John McCain -- go about getting the votes -- and financial support -- of the Hillary backers?

I can imagine Republican congressional candidates, some of them very dear to me, saying, "Hey, I don't agree with Hillary on much, so how can I can her supporters to back me?"

The first thing is to understand that Hillary Supporters aren't from another planet. As our fellow Americans, they share a lot more with us than we -- or they -- might imagine. For instance, the vast majority of Hillary backers do support our American soldiers. In fact, Hillary's voters are a lot more likely to KNOW -- or to have in their family -- one or more American soldiers.

The same is not true of Obama-philes. To them, soldiers are somebody they see on TV. Twenty percent of Democrats say they hope the U.S. loses the war in Iraq. Very few of them -- almost none, I'd guess -- voted for Hillary Clinton in the Dem Primaries.

Even though I have one wife and five daughters and various grand-daughters, I don't claim to be an expert on women. Even Dr. Freud (not a big favorite with feminists) felt called upon once to ask, "But what does a woman want?" In coming up with an answer to that, I'm going to rely on my long-distance friend, Jean Avery, from Seattle, Washington. She's as good as it gets on understanding the hopes, fears, and thoughts of female voters. Jean blogs at http://moms4mccain.blogspot.com.

She's the one who brought to my attention the avalanche of angry generated by Mrs. Clinton's loss of the nomination. I wrote about that on Tuesday on my Hillary Supporters for McCain site. I also provided the very long list of web sites for Hillary-ites who now intend to vote for McCain.

Caution: Jean, a mom herself, is also a Princeton grad (perhaps one of the few things she shares with Michelle Obama). However, she's promised me not to use too many big words. (When people found out I had been a college English teacher, they used to worry about their grammar!
I think it cost me invitations to parties.)

Anyway, after I do the Pennsylvania piece, I'll steal some bits and pieces and add them to this site. As always, thanks for visiting. If you have comments, please either use the "comments" section or send them to me via e-mail at TalkTop65@aol.com.

2 comments:

Jim Fryar said...

The English teacher thing raised an amusing memory.

I was for quite a while in the army reserve, and one night in the mess a group of us were joined by a captain in the Psych Corps. after a while I noticed one of my mates had gone quiet and I asked him if he was OK.

He said he was but later the other couple of blokes asked him the same thing, he was still OK.

Eventually the psych guy said to him, "Look all of the others think something is worrying you, why not say what it is, we're all friends maybe we can help."

After a bit of hesitation he said, "Well I just can't help worrying that you might be mentally assessing us while we are talking."

Stephen R. Maloney said...

Jim, I think a lot of people have that experience: of being "evaluated" of someone or another. It certainly happens in business, trust me. I do have a Ph.d. in English Lit, but I rarely mention it because some people assume I'm sitting in judgment of them. I'm not. The area I grew up in all the boys wanted to be paratroopers (many were) and grammar was not at the top of their list.

steve maloney
ambridge, pa