Talk Elections

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mitt-romney-met-with-boos-in-naacp-speech/2012/07/11/gJQAqoSBdW_story.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3-pZ4Etfw8

Is this really surprising? He deserves props for even bothering to go.

He might have been able to avoid those boos if he'd called Obamacare by its proper name: Romneycare! ;)

We not going to progress in America so long as politicians feel "obliged" to go and lend their prestige to tribalist organizations.  At least the progressivism of the Teddy Roosevelt variety was strong enough to say, "There's no such thing as a hyphenated American!"

He could have avoided those boos if the booers thought he had the capability and will to really hurt them.

It's not about feeling obliged. It's about expanding your horizons and recognizing America for the place of diversity that it is. We're not going to make progress by talking to folks like these, you say? So do you really mean to tell me that presenting our message to middle-aged whites is progress enough?

Attitudes like yours are the reason why Republicans will have a tough time winning the presidency in the future.

I give props to Romney for actually stating he disagrees with his audience on issue.  First time I've ever seen that from him.

You misunderstand me.  My opposition to kowtowing to the NAACP because it's a tribalist group is based on the fact that it's a tribalist group, not on the fact that it's a black group.  I would oppose kowtowing to white tribalist groups, too, even if there were any of the "prestige" of the NAACP.

I think you're missing the point. You're expecting Romney to run his campaign with the philosophy that race and racism don't exist. It's a lofty notion but it's not the world we live in.

I admire Romney for speaking to the NAACP. I'm sure it wasn't easy but its notable that he wants to expand the horizons of his campaign. So many conservatives and Republicans today claim to be colorblind people living in a colorblind society. It seems progressive but that attitude ends up ignoring the millions of minorities in this country who feel that their race or ethnicity has put them at a disadvantage.

Democrats have tapped into this emotion. Many in the GOP call it "divide and conquer" but it's one of the main reason why Dems do so much better with minorities.

Its worth noting that Romney received applause after stating what his goals would be for health care.

Obviously this won't be a favorable crowd - I give him props for having the guts to stand in front of a crowd where over 90% oppose him. I think he did very well giving the speech, even getting a nice, standing ovation at the end.

Tribalists!? The crowd at the Republican Debates perfected that tribalist mentality. This whole us against them and that they are on a crusade to "Restore" America to a place it really never was is too entertaining. Plus, at least they didn't yell "Let em die" lol. The NAACP has that going for them. Maybe you don't see the roll they played for all minorities to actually have a place in this country which was outright denied for the majority of its history but I certaintly don't think they are tribalists. Anyways, if it was a conference of big business leaders, is it still tribalists!? I doubt you'd see it through that lens.

14.4% unemployment amongst blacks under Obama, yet they remain blindly loyal to the Democrats, who take them for granted.

They should be welcoming Romney with open arms as a President who can improve their lot in life, not booing him.

And Democrats can continue to take blacks for granted, because they are the most monolithic voting block in America no matter what.

Yes, voters love to be called blindly loyal and stupid. That's a great way to get them on your side!

Race or Ethncity puts them at a disadvantage? Really? Asians make more a year than white people do. I'm white and I am low income. I mean a black athlete makes more money than I do and I say good for them if they can make that type of money. I could care less.

As for "divide and conquer" we all know Latinos and Asians vote Dem for different reasons than Blacks do. The reasons have been batted around on here for the last couple months.

My friend, obviously you take great pleasure in embellishing and falsifying the statements of others, as you are the one who used the word stupid, not I.

Yes, but your post insinuated about as much. We can throw out "stupid" if you'd like and simply replace it with "condescending."

How about sticking with the truth and the facts instead of putting your own partisan spin to it.

So now it's a fact that black people should be "welcoming Romney with open arms"?

We were discussing blindly loyal, but since you are losing on that front you decide to go to the open arms statement.

OK.  It only makes sense that Americans, no matter who they are, should welcome Romney with open arms as President, since he is the only candidate who has the ability to get the economy moving again, and bring down unemployment rates substantially for all Americans.

I should make a whole thread out of this, but it would require me going back to all my cultural anthropology books.

hopper, you are an individualist.  Most white people are.  It's due to the Ice Age (12,000 BC to 2,000 BC) that affected Northern Europe but not the "cradles of civilization" which grew up along the 30th latitude North (Nile delta, Mesopotamia, Indus delta, between the Yellow and Yangste rivers).  

The Ice Age made it difficult for Northern Europeans to develop complex extended family and tribal relationships.  Instead, the nuclear family became central.  (It's the reason why polygamy was the norm everywhere else while bi-lateral, one-man-one-woman relationships were the norm in Ice Age-affected regions.)

Without writing a small book, the bottom line is that the 10,000 year Ice Age shaped white people to develop into "individualists".  They then thought that individualism was "the norm" everywhere, when in fact tribalism -- where the group, not the individual, is central -- is the norm for the 90% of the world's inhabitants that are not descended from Ice Age survivors.  Of course, whilte whites make the mistake of thinking that other cultures are just as individualistic as theirs is, the reverse is also true:  the tribalists think, with reason since 90% of Earth's inhabitants are tribalists, that white people are just as tribalist as they are.

Ignoble prize nominee above?

Everytime we talk about black unemployment I am always reminded by this Richard Pryor skit from 1977.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtlDVi_1JMg&t=1m43s

Obama put forth a job plan that would decrease unemployment. His stimulus plan provided funding to state and local governments, which would prevent layoffs of public employees, which includes disproportionately more African Americans.

Republicans blocked these plans and others, leading to higher unemployment.

Romney proposes to continue these policies, which would make things worse.

It takes real chutzpah to block Obama's plans to lower unemployment and then blame him for unemployment.

Combining that with racist generalizations and tone-deaf appeals that you really know better what's best for a community you're not part of is what makes it offensive.

Let's see ... Obama takes power as part of Democratic-controlled Congress in Jan. 2007
Unemployment rate:  4.6%

Obama takes over executive branch in Jan. 2009.
Unemployment rate:  7.8%

GOP takes control of House in Jan. 2011.  
Unemployment rate:  9.1%

Sept. 2011, Obama proposes and Republicans block "jobs bill"
Unemployment rate still 9.0%

By January 2012, Unemployment rate slides to 8.3% -- the biggest and fastest drop -- by far -- during the Obama Presidency.

Now tell us why we shouldn't think you're insane?

The problem with the Black unemployment rate is that blacks were trained in low-skilled jobs. Once the recession took full effect those jobs were either outsourced or eliminated. But there are some meaningful employment that blacks are getting ahold to now, service techs for telecommunications.

Unemployment rises to 9.4% in May 2009 within four months of his taking office. The economy hemorrhaged several hundred thousand jobs a month before anything he could do could take effect. He inherited an economy in complete free-fall and taking the oath of office on Jan. 20 does not magically stop that.

The stimulus and the auto bailout stopped the economy from getting drastically worse through layoffs of hundreds of thousands of auto workers and government employees--although for many goverment employees, it only delayed the layoff.

Economics statistics showing a bad contraction in late '08 or early '09 (I forget) that informed the stimulus projections were later revised, a year later, to show a massive contraction, much worse than anyone knew.

Anyone who cites the Jan. '09 number as the date when Obama's policies were driving the economy is being dishonest or economically illiterate.

I guess it depends on what they want, doesn't it?

What do you mean by "low-skilled jobs"?

Probably fast food, retail or factory type of labor.

The fast food restaurants have done great in the Bush-Obama Economy as fewer and fewer people can afford decent restaurants.



In fact, all of retail seems to be one of the *cough* bright spots for employment:

Retail jobs increasing as a percentage of the workforce owe more to Romney than Obama.  Retail generally can't be outsourced (altho it is not entirely immune to that, as there are some McDonald's where when you visit the drive-in, the person taking your order over the speaker is at a call center elsewhere).

While politics has some effect on jobs, they aren't the only factors.  For example, one reason manufacturing has increased in this country is that with cheap oil a thing of the past, transportation costs are making imports of low-priced goods less profitable than producing them here in North America.

http://articles.nydailynews.com/2012-07-18/news/32734416_1_mitt-romney-romney-spokeswoman-andrea-saul-naacp

Wow.