Saxby Chambliss on race and recessions
By scarce Sunday Nov 30, 2008 11:47am
Saxby Chambliss continues to lie misrepresent the reasons for the Georgia Senate runoff on Tuesday. In the first instance he claims he must have gotten a good portion of the African American vote on Nov. 4th to have been able to have beaten Jim Martin. Exit polling reveals Jim Martin got 93% of that vote, just under what Barack Obama got in the state. Chambliss also claims to have gotten more votes than Obama, which is in fact true, slightly over 23,000 more. However, what he conveniently neglected to mention is that he got 200,000 less than John McCain.
Earlier this month on Hannity and Colmes, Chambliss gave as the reason for this closeness of the result that the Obama people getting out their vote, especially early.
COLMES: Why do you think you’ve been unable…[to] close the deal with the people of Georgia in terms of what happened on Election Day?
CHAMBLISS: Well, listen, we have, for the first time in the history the our state, a 30-day advanced vote period, and let’s give the Obama people credit. They did a good job of getting out their vote early.
There was a high percentage of minority vote, and I am tickled to death that as many Georgians as did examined their right to vote. That’s what make our election process the envy of the whole free world, but we weren’t able to get enough of our folks out on Election Day.
Gee, I wonder who he was talking about? Think Progress has the video. And for the record, Chambliss got about 70% of the "our folks" (white) vote.
The other factor for the surprisingly close result earlier was Chambliss's support of the bailout package in September, despite Chambliss throwing cold water on such recession talk a few months earlier, saying "I don't know if we're in a recession. I don't know what that even means." And that's true, he apparently doesn't, giving the definition as "two consecutive months of negative GDP growth". In fact, it's quarters, not months.
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need to vote for Saxby...what the hell kind of name is Saxby?
blah blah blah whah whah whah blah blah blah whah whah whah sniff sniff
Explain to me how using their vote and our folks has anything to do with race? Their vote simply refers to the votes of the Democrats, and our folks refers to republicans. Sometimes, "you people" here on C&L grasp for things that are never there.
Because grasping at straws that are never there describes the MO of you concern trolls down to a T.
Concern troll? That is the problem with you die hards, either right or left. You only know how to use ad-hominems to attack people instead of the issues at hand. This site would be spot on all the time if it weren't for people like you.
even if it was at a failed attempt at being witty?
Trust me the brown things that come from your brain, ain't wisdom nuggets.
Funny how the likes of you only seem to blow a gasket when defending these GOP assholes.
I most certainly take issue with the "you people" bit. However, the term "our" requires context and the context here seems to be more political then racial.
I think the writer of this article is the one grasping at straws. Of course, I'm not implying that Chambliss isn't racist or a discriminator in all his pursuits, only that this particular case doesn't explicitly or implicitly indicate racism.
I despise Saxby Chambliss, too. But I'm a white guy who calls Obama's team "my people." Not because of their race, but because we're all on the same team. There are plenty of reasons to reject Chambliss. He may, in fact, be a racist, but randomly asserting that "our folks" and "their folks" means white and black is unfair and dangerous. When I say "our folks" won on Election day, I don't mean blacks. I mean Democrats. So please apply the same standards to Chambliss that you would wish applied to you.
Not to be a party pooper at this scorn fest but. . .
Isn't it theoretically possible that when you are a Republican running against Democrats that the Democratic voters are "their people" and the Republican voters are "our folks?"
Calling a candidate racist by zeroing in on generally accepted descriptions of their constituents is kind of silly and petty. I suppose you could point at the raw demographics of the parties and see some kind of technicality but it is still pretty weak.
What is he supposed to call the groups of people who vote for him and his opponent? Which words would keep you from jumping on him and saying he means only black people and white people when he says "us" and "them?"
Sounds to me like you are defining the intent of his words to serve your own purposes and I will call that out even if it is on a blog that I mostly agree with.
Bottom line: over 50% of Georgians just voted AGAINST Chambliss.
Wikipedia: Saxby Chambliss
In fact, Chambliss has used racially loaded, us-versus-them rhetoric in this campaign before. Just prior to Nov. 4, Chambliss bluntly warned his white base that “the other folks are voting,” adding that the “rush to the polls by African-Americans early” has “got our side energized early, they see what is happening.”
Source
The real crime here is when a racist asshole, with a history of being a racist asshole, doesn't get the benefit of the doubt when he uses really really blatant "us vs. them" rhetoric.
I am sure when he says the N word, he is referring to the country of Niger in Africa. He being the geography buff he is.
Or at least that is what some of our resident concern trolls would like to remind us....
Turning out your own base, while trying to discourage the base of the other side is traditional politics. The problem is if you just glance at the structure of his quoted paragraph his thesis sentence was about the minority vote, so his "our folks" does suggest an implied message. But it also lends a plausible deniability that racism was it's intended cause and effect.
He's playing a dangerous game. They shrieking goosesteppers at palin's campaign stops are still out there.
Weird - he actually released this himself. Watch till the end ... perhaps it would be appropriate to file child molestation charges against him for how/where he grabs the prepubescent child who eerily calls him "may big daddy".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_3T6q88QF4&eurl
but I really don't think he meant blacks and whites when he referred to "their people" and "our people." Probably more like Dems and Cons.
I wait in hope for the day when the memes of "the USA is the greatest democracy in the world" and "our election process is the envy of the whole free world" are no more!!! I doubt it will ever happen, but a guy can dream...
http://www.australianpolitics.com/usa/electio...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout
http://www.idea.int/vt/survey/voter_turnout_p...
The election process in the USA, and the rate of voter turnout DOES NOT reflect the meme that it's the greatest democracy in the world... STOP saying it!!!
I personally think there is really just one bad trait that has led our country down it's many recent mistakes. Many here in America keep claiming that this is a Christian nation, but I was under the impression that most Christians think of pride as a sin, or at the very least a trait that should be discouraged. It appears,however, that we have enough pride to sink the Titanic. Except in this case, we're more than happy to let the children go down with the ship.
I don't like Chambliss, mainly because of his nastiness. However, I ama willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and think he may have been talking about Repubs. vs. Dems.
Exactly. No one here denies that he is a racist scumbag, but a racist isn't always spewing racism. You must take words as what they are, not what you want them to be.
Also my "you people" was used in jest of this article. These type of knee jerk reactions only make us all look crazy.
the real victims are us baaad liberals, never wanting to give the benefit to a piece of shit like Chambliss. Even when a sentence before he was referring to the "minority vote" percentage. Eh?
I honestly think that the meaning behind his use of the term "our folks" right after he had been citing minority voting turnout, is rather irrelevant.
However, I find it quite amusing to see some people blowing a gasket, whenever a republican has his sacrosanct right to benefit of the doubt violated by any of the editors of this blog.
I think you are the one becoming the troll here. To say that the context of which the term "our" was used is irrelevant shows a poor understanding of this subjective term. It seems what you really want is a reason to call Chambliss a racist. I most certainly would agree that he has done things in the past to prove himself as one, this instance is not one of them.
Moreover, if you read some of the other comments you'll find many people agree with Zilams main point - "our" does not seem to refer to white people. His comments did seem rather barbed, but I would like to point out that by reading the above article Zilams has made himself one of the "you people".
Isn't Irony Fun
ones who don't understand what the term means (I blame Alanis Morrisette (sp?) personally).
Anyhow, if using straw men arguments makes you feel better so be it. I personally do not need an "excuse" to call Chambliss a racist, his own record does it for me thank you very much.
Since reading and comprehension is not the forte of some of you, let me break down the gist of my argument: in a normal scale of values, the right for a racist asshole to be given the benefit of the doubt regarding a poorly worded choice sentence, following his take on minority voting, should not rank very high.
Some of you seem to disagree, and thus it is interesting to witness the proverbial gasket blowing. Which could be warranted if Chambliss had a history of being a decent human being, but since he doesn't... it makes the old adagio that "respect is earned, not granted" the more relevant.
So maybe Chambliss meant or did not mean "our people" in whatever light we chose to dissect it. What I do know is that the likes of him would not haven granted a similarly poorly worded sentence (regarding their reality) 1/10000th the benefit of the doubt that we have given him... and as such, I don't intend to extend him the courtesy.
So you recognize that its possible that his "our" comment might not of been a racist remark,and you're arguing about what exactly?
If you have read my previous comments to you then you should know I share your reservations about Chambliss, but like many here on this blog have pointed out, there is simply no doubt with respect to the "our" comment.
And I did not say you were looking for an excuse, I said reason - there is a distinction with a difference. However, you have chosen to ignore the context in which the term "our" was used, and seem a bit confused about the meaning of irony. You seem to want to yell at Chambliss, and by all means yell away, but don't blame the rest of us for not acting like children.
Here is a word that you might want to look up, because it fits you rather well
Bigot
This site is quickly becoming the boy who cried wolf in terms of racism. "Their vote" and "our folks"? You default that to mean "black" and "white" as opposed to "the people who voted for him" and "the people who voted for me?
Grasping at straws and whining about racism when it doesn't exist obscures those instances where it really does exist.
This is idiocy.
Hey everyone,
I am new here, but found this site through CNN. I am a manager at a McDonalds in South Carolina (a closet Obama fan, you have to be around here), and after seeing the enthusiasm - on all sides - that Obama brought with the past election, even with people working at our store, I decided to try to start a website where we McDonalds workers at our store write the articles.
There is one I really, really wish you could read, and its just been posted this morning. If you ever wanted to hear how one average, hard-working American feels about Sarah Palin - well, this is it.
Here is the link to his article on our website - http://deepfriedworldwide.com/archives/98
We have only been up for 2 weeks, many of these workers, young and old, have never done anything like this before. But they love it, and they love actually having the feeling of their voice being heard. It would mean the world to this guy if he saw that people were reading what he said, and believe me, he seems very passionate about Sarah Palin and this campaign in Georgia.
As for me, I try to stay as far neutral as possible and just encourage the workers and visitors to talk and discuss. But on this site, I think I can be more honest.
I don't know much about Chambliss, but from what I have heard about him and from him, I am less than impressed. The GOP is at the brink of collapse if they do not realize, wake up one day, and see that their base should not be the ultra-Christian right wing. They may be good people, and I am friends with some, but they are radicals, just like there are left-wing radicals. Even during the Reagan years, the core support of the party was not this extreme.
Chambliss seems like another Republican who is outdated, has some skeletons to hide, and now this. Then you add Palin to his campaign. Everyone points the finger at McCain for losing his election - No. His decisions lost it when he chose to veer off the path he wanted and sell his soul to the ultra-right-wing. The pick of Palin was one of the most monumental flaws in a campaign I have ever seen.
I hope Chambliss loses, though things don't look good. But to even have him being threatened in a place like Georgia, I hope this sends a loud and clear message to the GOP.
Please visit my workers' article on Palin, I quietly enjoyed it. I think you may, too. It would mean a lot to him. And if you want to, look around the site too - our first article was on the Obama election. We are called Deep Fried Worldwide if you ever want to find us, and I will continue to come back here and give opinions. Its so nice to be on a site and just talk without moderating, ahh!
Have a good day everyone -
Radley
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