Part of the problem is that schools don’t teach about class, latino struggles or the women’s movement. its all about the Black civil rights movement, which is important, but only part of the tapastry that makes up our country. The Latte under 40 crowd don’t have a context of oppression beyond the civil rights movement of the Blacks. That’s why it’s so easy to look down on poor whites. They don’t understand the complexity of class, races and gender, because the schools don’t teach it. it’s a shame and part of the divide within the democratic party. Even young women with law degrees don’t have have any historical context of women’s rights. They know about Roe v. Wade, but not about Griswald v. Conn. or her progyny up to Roe. It amazes me that they as well educated people are so uneducated. I manage a legal services unit and have been representing poor women for more than 15 years. I am a feminest and I care about poor women. I believe that gender inequality is the most defining and crippling obsticle in the world and the major cause of world poverty and strife.

Part of why I back Clinton is that she gets it in a more profound way than Obama. Obama’s support for his cousin Raila Odingo in Kanya is telling of his ignorance on this issue. His cousin leads an opposition party to the current government in Kanya. His counsin wants to over throw the government and impose SHARIA LAW. Sharia law is one of the most misogynistic forms of government in the world. It enslaves women. Obama should be ashamed of himself. There is no equality in this type of thinking. For this reason alone I could never support Obama. This scares me about him and makes me wonder about his real agenda.

Stuart, I’m more familiar with that base than makes me feel really comfortable (I first started monitoring right wing talk radio in the late seventies), and I can tell you that they are far more skittish than the “creative class”. They would get all giddy this time about Adolph Hitler, and anything much removed from that is going to leave them foaming at the mouth disgruntled.

The internal struggle going on in the left is only a high tide compared to the tsunami tearing the right apart this time. We start with the deck hugely stacked in our favor and even the famous propensity for the left wing to defeat itself seems insufficient to squander the lead that current circumstances have abundantly bestowed upon us.

To the point and right on the money. Thank you.

No, Clinton represent the working class. Obama is for latte snobs who don’t care about poor people unless the are black and haven’t voted yet!!!!!!!

Let me see if I have this straight… you said:

While my kid was in NOLA, she shopped at Whole Foods, & when I visited her so did I…

I know all about Prof. Florida. We’ve tried some of his ideas up here in nowheresville…

what the hell is wrong with buying some healthy food at Whole Foods, if that’s the only place to get good, organic food?

And then I said:

I have a Whole Foods down the street, I don’t shop there — too expensive for my budget — likewise I don’t sip latte. I can’t afford a daily Starbucks and have better things to spend my money on.

Wow… I dunno who’s “bourgeois“? Must be the projectionist among us… you. Good gracious — you are a projectionist extraordinaire.

The bourgeois leftists are all supporting Obama you twit — the rich, wealthy, latte drinking, Whole Foods shoppers are the “bourgeois” leftists of our times. The blue collar workers, the working class, the proletariat are supporting Clinton.

Get a gripe and do us all a favor — go watch some light comedy on DVD and come back after you’ve detoxed yourself from thinking you know it all.

Again you miss the point and I think you are parsing Gilbert’s words. As I said to him I read the “creative class” stuff last night, referring to the Chris Bowers post I linked to in my previous comment to you and Gilbert was quoting Chris Bowers on the “shopping at Whole Foods”. I happen to agree with Gilbert, that the liberal bloggers supporting Obama are making way too much to do about the creative class, which has in fact always existed (and been active) in the Dem Party, as you and I agree. In fact I think Chris Bowers et al are the ones doing the trashing — not Gilbert. They all think it’s so cool that the “creative class” is taking over and they miss the point that we’ve always been involved.

There’s nothing wrong with shopping at Whole Foods, but really these days who can afford to? Certainly not the average working American, that’s for damn sure. I have a Whole Foods down the street, I don’t shop there — too expensive for my budget — likewise I don’t sip latte. I can’t afford a daily Starbucks and have better things to spend my money on. I’ve spent my whole life working in creative fields – blogging was a natural for me as a writer, artist, designer.

And FYI, Gilbert is not a longtime poster here, he’s only been posting here a few months at my invitation. Yes, he’s from the working class just like the rest of us. My parents, FYI were born during the depression. My mother would have been 95 on May 7th. Both of my parents came from small town New England — MA & NH. My father worked in a tannery when he was young, my mother’s father walked 10 miles each way to work in the shoe shop during the depression.

Obama’s campaign has as much as said they don’t need the working class voters, as Krugman pointed out. Again who’s denigrating who?

I’m ready for a good movie tonight… enough with this.

This article, with Krugman’s on target analysis of the recent voting, hits a homerun.

I analyzed the results on a county by county basis for both of the last races. In neither state did Senator Obama win a majority of counties. In all cases his support is primarily Urban Big City, suburbs of Big Cities and college/university towns. Seldom did I see a county where I couldn’t identify some segment of these factors.

In general it does seem to me that Senator Obama doesn’t have the strength to win both the Urban and Non-Urban vote at this point. That may change, with a good effort from him, but that’s yet to be seen.

I never discount Senator John McCain. He simply never gives up. Last summer he laid off his entire staff and was campaigning by himself. Carrying his own luggage he stumped NH from one end to the other. And he won the nomination!

He is not, regardless of his unconscionable stand on the war, a typical Republican. I do not take the general election for granted. The issue of who can win in November is finally coming out from the Clinton camp. It should have been a prime topic for the entire campaign with question being asked of all the candidates early on when the stage was crowded.

Any Presidential campaign is about becoming President . Yet only now has the campaign sharpened to the point we are hearing talk, in the media and from the candidates, on that topic.

The county by county results, along the demographic turnout numbers, may make an Obama General Election campaign a challenge. [You can find this info at CNN's Political section.]

If Senator Obama is the nominee, our best strength will not only be the nominee but the fact that George Bush has lost any form of support. He’s now polling at 28%! I hear hard core Republicans here in the OC saying they would vote for Hillary and maybe Obama. But they do not want to vote for a Republican candidate that wants to continue Bush policies.

If America feels the same way as these people perhaps the campaign will be a walk-over. I seriously doubt it though.

Based on my own hard won campaign experience, I think this will be the filthiest general campaign on record. The attacks will not come from John McCain who will continue to ask that any outright attacks to stop. He’ll plead innocence while the attack machine surrounding him takes every conceivable shot at our Nominee.

As I asked a political friend moments ago: Who do you think has the best experience mounting a deep, filthy attack campaign? Democrats or Republicans?

It sure isn’t us. I worry about the result of a skilled negative campaign against Senator Obama. Hillary Clinton has been under attack for nearly 20 years. All of her supposed ‘dirty laundry’ is in the public domain.

After all those attacks, with the most vicious slurs, she is winning her Senate races by record numbers and still fighting in this presidential election. Hillary Clinton’s past is known quantity. Her ‘closets’ are wide open. Barack Obama’s are not.

That worries me. Remember the effective, well organized and deeply funded attack machine we face in the general election. Yes, it worries me.