SouthernDemocrat

I have been thinking about this, and I am not real sure what McCain could do to win at this point baring some huge mistake on Obama's part. McCain's problem is that he has ran to the right to appease the Republican base, and has picked a VP that appeals to them. However, this is not a base year for Republicans. His best chance of winning would have been to run as a moderate and get up before the American people and not brag about being a conservative, but rather brag about being a moderate, completely independent of either party.

I was talking about this to a conservative friend of mine the other day when we were out on a run together. She loves Palin, but like many conservatives, she was not so big on McCain. However, the Palin pick got her enthusiastic about the ticket. So while we were talking about it, I mentioned that it seems as though Palin's appeal is primarily to small towns and rural areas - more socially conservative areas. She responded with, "But thats real America". See, I think thats the problem with conservatives right now, they picture small town / Norman Rockwell America and they think, thats true America. What it is in reality though, is idealized America. Its that America that we idealize, especially those of us who were raised in small towns or rural areas. I know that when I think about the annual homecomings at the old white clabbered churches, I get a warm feeling inside. When I go home Arkansas and go to them old Southern Baptist Churches with friends and family, you just feel so welcome as everyone comes up to you after services end and gives you the old Baptist handshake. The problem is, thats not America anymore. Not really, its a facet of America, but its not really representative of America anymore.

We are a far more pluralistic and diverse nation than a lot of people think we are. Our own home is a diverse home. I work with people of a variety of different backgrounds, beliefs, and races. We go to the city market on weekends. There at the Kansas City Market, there is an Asian Market, an Italian Market, a Middle Eastern Market, an Indian Market, Amish Selling their harvest, old Farmers in overalls, Crunchies selling organic produce, no telling how many languages being spoken. There are Christians here, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Agnostics, Atheists. At our kids school there are what we call traditional families, biracial families, kids with single parents, kids with same sex partners as parents, Whites, African Americans, Hispanics, Indians, Asians..... This is America. This is true America. By and large most of us live in diverse metros, not small towns anymore. So when some conservatives say that Palin appeals to the Joe Sixpacks of the country and says that they are in the majority, well, I am afraid you are wrong. That may have been the case before, but this country has changed.

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Charles Krauthammer describing Obama:

"He's got both a first-class intellect and a first-class temperament."

DeeJayH

apparently what a part of us are, is a population of a bunch of douchebags hung up on pronunciation

they do not represent the world I, nor anyone i know, lives in thankfully

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These days it seems that the deadliest place on earth for an American to be is inside the womb. - Joshua P. Allem

obvious Child

I'm still betting McCain will win.

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"Maybe God doesn't care how you say your prayers, just as long as you say them" - Jeffery Sinclair

SouthernDemocrat

I certainly would not count him out. I am going to a larger point though. This idea that a lot, certainly not all, but a lot of conservatives have of what is "true America" is flawed. As I wrote earlier, its an idealized America, one many of us idealize, but its not an accurate picture of what we are as a nation today and if you have a party that is essentially a white party. A party that only 10% or less of African Americans vote for, only 30% of Hispanics at best vote for, maybe 20% of Jews vote for, and hardly any other minority support, then thats a problem, because you are going to wake up one election day and find that all those minority groups are actually in a majority, and you can't win.

1069

"Clabbered" = "Clapboard"?

I think "clabbered" means "curdled" (as in milk).

Totally agree with your post, though.
To me, "real America" is the heavily liberal city I was born in and have lived my entire life in, but I'm not stupid enough to think that's "real America" for everyone (which is why I've never left; I know other parts of America must be very different, and that people there would have a different value-system than mine).
The majority of American people today are not inhabitants of small towns and rural areas... although, statistically, perhaps the majority of white conservative fundamentalist christians are, and it's unsurprising to me that they'd believe they are the only "real" people, and that their America is therefore the only "real" America.

Such is their arrogance.

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Lightdemon: "Is 10 going to outer space or something?"
Jerry: "...yes, 10 is going to outerspace."

The silenced majority

I think that a lot of people in rural America think of the 89% European/95% Christian nation that had existed prior to the Immigration Reform Act of 1965 as the "real America".

I don't think it's an odd coincidence that modern rural America reflects the above mentioned demographic pretty closely.

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If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!”. ~ Samuel Adams

1069

Yeah, things have just gone right to hell in a handcart since the civil rights movement era, when we allowed minorities, females, and the handicapped equal rights under the law.
It's deeply satisfying to me to imagine frightened, alienated and disenfrachised patriarchal white folk hiding in isolated rural enclaves, pretending that the past 40 years never happened and that they are still the "real" Americans.

The silenced majority

I was speaking specifically about the Immigration Reform Act of 1965 which was spurned on largely by a prevailing guilty sense that America was too "white" and her problems stemmed from this.

I feel the same way when I watch the "feminists" squirm when a woman like Sarah Palin is able to achieve what she has outside of the proscription of victimhood & government reliance that they insist is the path to happiness for women.

1069

If feminists were doing any squirming last night while watching the debate, it was probably- like me- with laughter.

The silenced majority

Did you find something amusing about Palin's reluctance to go on the public dole or refusal to butcher her children when they were in her womb?