Were you as intrigued as I by the fact that Fritz Hollings declined twice to endorse Barack Obama yesterday? Read about it here.
I could imagine Fritz preferring John McCain to Obama purely on the grounds of having served with him. And when you’ve got as much experience as Fritz, you tend to value the commodity.
But what I can’t quite get my head around is why he wouldn’t endorse a ticket that includes one of his best friends in the Senate, Joe Biden.
It’s a puzzler.
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A lot of Democrats are not going to support a socialist like Obama, who has so many ties to terrorists here, Muslims abroad, and so many radical, hate-America supporters.
Maybe he thinks McCain is more qualified.
@Lee: let the McSame fanboi rants begin! All lies.
He doesn’t want to anger the Democrats in the state but he clearly feels that Sen McCain is the better leader. Now that Fritz is retired he can afford to not endorse Obama.
He probably doesn’t have the cajones to support Obama, not after the guy he endorsed in 1988 cut ‘em off.
Look at the Democrat field in 1988 — senators Gore, Hart, and Simon, along with Dukakis and Gephardt — and ya gotta wonder what ole Fritz was thinkin’ by endorsing Jesse Jackson.
The smartest thing that he could ever do and that he would be remembered most for is taking the stand to not endorse Obama.
Fritz Hollings was and is the archetype for the Foghorn Leghorn cartoon character. He epitomized the “fat cat” good old boy democrat southern senator. After about 1985 he was essentially a laughing stock – a hold over from the bygone era of segregation and the Dixiecrats.
He may have been a lot of things, but foolish isn’t one of them. His refusal to endorse Obama may be a form of racism. After all, it was Hollings who put the Confederate flag atop the statehouse in the 1960’s wasn’t it? I’m not convinced these old birds can ever really change their views on something like race…maybe Hollings refused to endorse the democrat nominee because he can’t vote for the black guy.
But again, Hollings isn’t dumb. He may believe Obama is going to lose big and not want be seen as someone who supported such a loser.
If THAT is why Hollings refused to endorse, this is fascinating indeed.
David
Let’s call a spade a spade. Racism is alive and well in America. With the current state of financial affairs and last week’s fiasco of printing money to bail out AIG, white America would be racing to support the party NOT responsible for this mess. But lo, that candidate is black. Will we ever be able to see beyond the color of a person’s face? Racism? Alive and well in America!!
Hey Lee,
What do you call it when the government assumes all the debt and the business asusmes all the profit?
In Europe, they call it socialism.
In the USA, they call it a Conservative Republican Presidency.
Figures don’t lie, but liars figure.
Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae have always been socialistic enterprises, run by the government to guarantee a market for loans, and they are in trouble because they encouraged Affirmative Action loans to unqualified minority buyers.
Clinton and the Democrats reduced the down payments to zero down.
Democrats beat back all reform effords by McCain, Jim Leach, Mitch McConnell and the GOP.
Clinton appointees sit on the board of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Bush should have removed them ASAP.
The heads of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are advisors to Obama, along with Laura Tyson, Clinton’s former economic advisor whose PhD dissertation was on the wonders of socialized medicine in Romania.
Remember the GOP motto. Don’t do as we do, do as we say. Everything the GOP stands for is a farce. Everytime the Democrats do ONE thing unpopular, the Republicans do 10 things unpopular.
When talking about Republican politicians and voters, does the word…hypocrite come to mind.
When I think Democrat, the word, “traitor” often comes to mind.
When I think of the name Lee Muller, “idiot” comes to mind.
Muller, your guy Bush has just proposed the most massive socialist bailout of greedy corporate failure in American history. This is after the GOP has controlled congress for 10 of the last 14 years and the White House for the last 7+. Sounds like your partisan rants against socialism are aimed at the wrong people.
That’s a bailout of GOVERNMENT mortgage programs for unqualified, high-risk, minority borrowers.
If you want to shut down Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, I am all for it. And the FHA, too. I don’t see any Democrats demanding an end to these Democrat programs.
Lee, as usual, sidesteps the issue. What we have seen in the last 10 days is a massive bailout of huge CORPORATIONS, non just Fannie and Freddie but AIG and Bear-Sterns, the marquee entities of capitalism, by a REPUBLICAN administration. That’s all that’s relevant here. This action on the part of the Republican Bush administration makes this the most socialist administrtion in American history.
Rasmussen just released a poll on the SC Senate race. Lindsey Graham has a surprisingly narrow 9 point margin, 50-41 over the completely unknown Democrat Conley. No doubt Lindsey will prevail but the closeness of that poll suggests problems for the GOP in other places. E.G., Libby Dole is actually trailing in her Senate race according to Rasmussen.
Lee is right. All the affirmative action legislation, including the minimum wage, was to gather votes not help the people better their lives.
Much of the legislation that was passed to help the poor (not those that are in some way physically or mentally handicapped) has kept them in bondage to the Democratic party. You can only help the needy. Not the greedy. Until the black people realize that their future is in their own hands, nothing will change except they never rise above the poverty line.
If this election is to be about how much money can be given to certain groups of people and how we will financially take care of all the illegal immigrants, we all need to realize that there is no future for our country. We will not survive if we are not financially superior to other countries. We have spent more money on foreign countries to try to keep them from starving to death, than any other country.
We have got to realize that we have to weed out the greedy in this country if we are going to survive as a nation. We must elect people that put the country first. The people can only prosper with a financially sound government.
Lyndon Johnson had a saying “It is better to have an enemy inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in”. We first need to identify the enemy whoever and where ever they tend to do us harm. Let us not be our own worst enemy.
Slugger, if “all the affirmative action legislation…was to gather votes…” then it hasn’t worked very well. Since the Bakke case the GOP has won 5 out of 7 Presidential elections. You can argue the pros and cons of affirmative action but those who have supported it (whether it is right or wrong) have done so out of principle, certainly not political expediency. On the contrary, it’s well-established that the GOP seized this opening to capture a solid South, which is only now (thanks to changing demographics) starting to fray at the edges, in Virginia and North Carolina for example.
You say “we have to weed out the greedy in this country if we are going to survive as a nation,” and I have to say I can’t think of a more eloquent summation of the reason to vote out the GOP. Even John McCain quotes Teddy Roosevelt’s warning about “unfettered capitalism.” That must sound like heresy to most of the Republican party of the last 30 years!
And lastly, Slugger, please spare us your wisdom about what “the black people” should do. There is no monolithic “the black people” any more than there is a monolithic “the white people.”
The below is from an article dated 9/22/08 by David Prosser.
Up to 10,000 staff at the New York office of the bankrupt investment bank Lehman Brothers will share a bonus pool set aside for them that is worth $2.5bn (£1.4bn), Barclays Bank, which is buying the business, confirmed last night.
Just a note to Phillip. Be sure that you do not bite the hand that feeds you.
Affirmative Action operates on what principle? RACISM.
It promotes less qualified individuals based on their skin color.
It sets them up to fail.
Affirmative Action mortagaes set up millionsn of blacks to buy too expensive house and lose them. That didn’t help them.
It helped the developers sell houses at high profit margins.
It helped builders build more houses than they should have.
It helped mortgage brokers make big commissions.
It helped home inspectors, FHA, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac employees make big salaries.