I think Hillary's win in KY tonight has more to do with her being from a southern state than racism.

Even though Hillary doesn't have a southern accent -- Kentucky Fried Hillary YouTube clips aside -- she was First Lady of Arkansas and her husband is southern through and through. I think a lot of southerners see her as "one of them", and frankly, there is a wide streak of antipathy in the South towards folks from the North.

Don't get me wrong, Hillary is getting the racist vote, to be sure. Yes, there are Dem voters who are racists. But that's not her whole voting base, and it doesn't explain her victory tonight. I think there are just lots of people in the south who see Obama as someone who is too educated to understand them or their culture. He's an outsider to them not because of his skin color but because they perceive him as just another Yankee carpetbagger.

Obama isn't going to win Kentucky in the general election, but he's got a lot of time to connect with other southern voters, to let them see that he's a family man with kids, with values like theirs. Obama actually grew up poor, but because he looks so sharp in a suit and speaks so crisply, a lot of people don't know it.

Don't give in to the easy excuse that Hillary's victories are all due to racists. It's unbecoming and its wrong. Sure, Obama can't win ALL her voters, but he can win many, once they get to know him.

About 20% of the people who voted for her probably had a racist motivation of some sort.

The rest of her voters, however, are people who have a fond, 18 year old relationship with the Clintons. He's one of 'em, talks like 'em, eats like 'em, thinks like 'em. Obama is an unknown quantity to them. Easy to figure out.

you do know that, right?

Sure, Hillary grew up in Illinois. And Obama sure doesn't fit the traditional defintion of a Yankee growing up in Hawaii and Indonesia.

But voters aren't playing a trivia game. They're voting on perceptions. And my point is that they perceive Hillary as one of their own, mostly due to her being married to Bill, a genuine southerner, but also because she's lived in the south. And they perceive Obama as being an outsider and not in touch with their values mostly because they don't know his whole story.

I thought she was from Illinois? Or NY? Or PA?

Are we sure it's Arkansas?

And really, I think their acceptance of her has less to do with living in Arkansas than it does to being married to Bill.

I also think Hillary has run a campaign specifically targeted towards low-income voters without a lot of education, and that fits a lot of the south.

as Barack. She went to Wellesley and Yale Law; he went to Columbia and Harvard Law. None of those are southern schools.

Don't kid yourself - it's racism.

They know she's married to Bill. They know she lived in Arkansas.

They don't know Obama as well, and Bittergate, I think, helped make up some people's minds that he wasn't one of them.

But they still don't know Obama, really. And I think Obama can change some of their perceptions about him once they do.

She was first lady for 8 years and is one of the most famous women in the world, more than 60 books have been written about her. Most people know that she's not originally from the South.

I think they see her as one of them primarily because she's married to Bill and because she lived in Arkansas.

If you want to slice and dice this, I will make it clearer and instead of saying they 'think she's one of them', I'll just say that more southerners feel she understands them and their culture because of her connections to it than feel the same way about Obama.

And I think this is largely because Obama is still very much an unknown to them, and I think Obama can change that with many southern voters.

There's still his lack of experience.

academic experiences. They both did internships and worked as lawyers. She did corporate law while he focused on civil rights. She has the White House experience which goes both ways - yes it is an extraordinary experience, but she also screwed up her attempt to get a health care bill passed. He was elected to the Illinois State Senate and then U.S. Senate. She picked NY to run for the US Senate. As far as U.S. Senate time she has been there a little longer but he also has the state experience. So, I see similar professional careers.

In terms of life experience she's roughly 15 years older and that can be important. But McCain is older still, and it certainly doesn't make him a better candidate. It also gives them more time to accumulate baggage that can be used against them.

So, I really think it's a toss-up when you look at experience and policy. No great differences.

The big differences I see are the fact that she's a woman, he's a black man, and he's got amazing charisma, while she annoys people. I've decided in this political climate I would rather have someone who is inclusive by nature and wants to try diplomatic channels rather than simply obliterating people. I've had enough of the Bush/Cheney "blow them all up" mentality.

Evidently so does she. One day with the southern twang, next day with the educated northern sounding tone, next day Tuzla ... oops.

I wish she's click her heels three times and go back to one of them.

of the country.

You ignore demographics with that broad brush.

I'm sure there are demographic factors at play as well.

on Appalachia which is a unique area. If you google it you can read
the whole study. They have little internet, they have their churches,
they have no minorities, even Italians and southern europeans didn't
settle or live there. They don't get out of the state much let alone the country.
High school statistics and educational statistics are even worse.

Sorry its late here and I'm tired to did it all up.

I supplied the info in a thread a while back.

Appalachia could be a country into itself that Hillary could win.

In the southern states.

And yes, there is a lot of antipathy against the north.

I'm sure, however, that race has had nothing to do with that whole north-south divide. Not a thing.

:rofl:


edit:tpyo

I think Obama could've done well with a large number of Hillary's southern white voters, had things gone slightly different (i.e. no Rev. Wright, no Bittergate). I think he can still reach many of them, but he has to do more to connect his history to their own.

If Wright had said "GOD DAMN YANKEES", they wouldn't have batted an eye.
If Obama had said "those northerners cling to their guns and their bibles", natch.

As long as Barack remains true to his globe hopping, educated-sounding, roots, he will be viewed with suspicion as a Yankee. A "colored" Yankee, no less.

I left the south because the daily racism and ignorance I dealt with with jaw dropping. That was in 2005, in Atlanta, so out in the back country, I can only imagine how bad it still is...

her HUSBAND's from Arkansas..and she was first lady when he was gov, but she was never FROM there.. she was raised middle class,..upper middle..went to IVY LEAGUE schools, and worked in DC before she was "southern"..

But as I wrote in another post, I will make it clearer and instead of saying they 'think she's one of them', I'll just say that more southerners feel she understands them and their culture because of her connections to it -- marrying Bill, living in Arkansas -- than feel the same way about Obama.

And I think this is largely because Obama is still very much an unknown to them, and I think Obama can change that with many southern voters.

The carpetbaggers are yankees that came south. Folks in Cary, NC (the Containment Area for Relocated Yankees) are thought of as carpetbaggers. Obama lives--where, Chicago? DC? Not a carpetbagger. Clinton could have been thought of as a carpetbagger, but she married Bill, so she's kinfolk now.

I hasten to add that, though I was born in NC and have ancestors who fought at King's Mountain, I don't really have local status because I've only lived in this town for five years and most of my family live in SC. By which I mean that, when we want to know where you're from, we want to know where your people are from. I am sure that some folks in Arkansas may think fondly of Clinton, but no one really thinks she's a southerner, or is even someone particularly sympathetic to the south.

The irony is that white southern Democrats who live in places with lots of black folks have long since gotten over the idea that voting for a black person is a problem. It's been the southern states where there are fewer blacks where whites have rejected Obama out of hand.