Reply #39: I think a lot of what I believe about this comes from living where I live. [View All]

[Clark2008]

I live in a blue neighborhood - solid, working-class, union stock.
But, the whole county is red, as is the state.

And none of my neighbors - Dem or Independent - like Hillary. I mean, they like her as senator of New York, but they simply want someone they can promote to swing voters and/or independents across the state. Tennessee did vote for Hillary's husband both times, so turning the state back to blue with some hard work is doable.

However, with the corporate media, the right-wing monopolies on our radio stations here and the fact that the Republican agenda has included pushing the South backwards for nearly 10 years (and there are some very specific examples to which I could point that this has worked), many people around here want a liberal candidate who's seen as a moderate just to get the South back on track. Like a Clark or a Warner.

I think it wouldn't matter that Hillary is "tough" or "talking like a centrist." The fact is that the South has been going backwards and many red-state moderates will NOT vote for a woman during wartime, no matter who she is and Hillary simply is seen as a "flaming" liberal - as opposed to a progressive - no matter how centrist she tries to make herself sound.

I don't think a lot of DUers realize that there are many, many Dems in the red states that are working very hard to get info out to the masses - to prove that they are voting against their best interests when they vote Republican - but that we really feel that the party doesn't even recognize our needs and what would best help us to help ourselves. We don't have to swing right, we just have to get through the corporate media personification of "flaming liberal" tacked onto every Democrat so that these swing voters will HEAR us and HEAR what we're saying and how it's so much better for them.

I'm glad Dean is rolling up his sleeves and getting down here to talk with us and learn about us, but Clark, Warner and a handful of others already know this stuff. Dean, of course, can be most helpful with the purse strings (and he's doing that).