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1

What exactly are you trying to show on that big page of polling stats?

Posted by bma | January 21, 2008 1:10 PM
2

Although it's confusing that you linked to a giant page of stats, it's stupidly disheartening to see that the last time more people than not thought the country was going the right way was before election day of 04. Which leads to a host of frustrating questions.

Posted by Me | January 21, 2008 1:11 PM
3

Shouldn't you be commenting on that post? I'm showing you the recent polling stats, c'est tout.

Posted by annie | January 21, 2008 1:12 PM
4

Oh, sorry, I failed to copy the right link.

Posted by annie | January 21, 2008 1:14 PM
5

There you go.

Posted by annie | January 21, 2008 1:15 PM
6

Eh. I ain't worried. If I see these distributed in the Castro, that'll be one thing, but in South Carolina, that's just good campaigning.

Posted by Gitai | January 21, 2008 1:25 PM
7

The United States of America is a PROTESTANT COUNTRY. Always and forever. I don't like it, but I'm also not going to deny the obvious. Good on Obama for courting the LARGEST POSSIBLE VOTING BASE.

Posted by Mrs. Jarvie | January 21, 2008 1:28 PM
8

Pandering to religious conservatives - change we can believe in? I dunno.

Also, who knew that SC only had a 50% HS grad rate? Dummies with their dumb god.

Posted by johnnie | January 21, 2008 1:28 PM
9

Mrs. Jarvie,
The United States of America is also a STRAIGHT, WHITE COUNTRY. Based on GENOCIDE! Where's the mailer for that?

Posted by johnnie | January 21, 2008 1:31 PM
10

Ah, yes, the "Obama is a closet Muslim" emails. Which the Clinton staff has done NOTHING WHATSOEVER to perpetuate or spread along. No, sir. Unthinkable! We at Clinton HQ are above such shenanigans!

Posted by tsm | January 21, 2008 1:33 PM
11

I'm Episcopalian and Obama's pamphlet is creepy. The diary entry on one side makes it sound like he became a Christian to improve his ability to organize at churches.

I hugely prefer it when candidates don't drivel on and on about Jesus. And why is it that Hillary can't mist up a little on TV, while other candidates can gush about their need for personal salvation?

Posted by Anna | January 21, 2008 1:33 PM
12

this is lame but necessary to combat the muslim smear.

Posted by Kevin | January 21, 2008 1:43 PM
13

Just a couple of months ago Obama was campaigning around South Carolina with the homophobic black preacher Donnie McClurkin, so I am not surprised by this campaign.

Posted by ratcityreprobate | January 21, 2008 1:46 PM
14

I'm glad they're fighting the "Obama is a Muslim".
People I know in my neighborhood in Chicago still believe it. They think he just changed to a Christian a few years ago.

Posted by Brian | January 21, 2008 1:54 PM
15

For all, I hate to say this but as a native South Carolinian who lives in SC now, what someone's religion is does influence a voter's decision in that state. What Dan showed on Real Time last Friday, just starts to skim the surface there. When he said people thought Obama was a muslim, they really believe it. I mean sure it's easy to change them, but you really have to show them that he's not muslim.

By the way, I grew up a black Catholic in South Carolina. Whenever I brought it up to people that I was Catholic or attended at Catholic church, I got some rude responses to that from Baptists and Pentecostals. This was years before the molestation scandals made the media.

Posted by apres_moi | January 21, 2008 1:59 PM
16

The best argument that I can say to those getting the e-mails saying shit about Obama is to read his first book that he wrote in 1995 before he decided to run for politics. What I find fucked up that's pissing me off is how people are taking the most minor facts, like he attended a secular school in Indonesia, and blowing it out of proportion to people who haven't opened a book in years and believe everything they hear. If you actually read his book, you won't want to put it down and 2nd, you'll find out that everything that's been said has been so fucking misconstrued that it's sad.

I have yet to hear anyone take facts from Hillary's book and do the same as they've done against Obama.

Posted by apres_moi | January 21, 2008 2:05 PM
17

this is news on slog because, unlike in SC, mentioning you are a committed christian in these parts is considered negative. christians are supposedly the enemy.

i don't agree with that, but i think that is what is so polarizing.

Posted by infrequent | January 21, 2008 2:19 PM
18

you know, it's not necessarily even the idea of the flier that i object to--i understand exactly why he did it. it's the wording of being "called to bring change," etc. as if he's running for president because god told him to. it's that righteous entitlement thing that's creepy to me. he didn't need to pull that god put me here to be president shit just to counter the erroneous claims that he's a closet muslim. this could've been done in a far more classy, less creepy way that addresses the issue without making secularists feel ceeped out.

Posted by kim | January 21, 2008 2:35 PM
19

As someone who graduated from a SC high school and took a lot of hard science, math, and foreign language classes (Japanese and German), the harsh reality is that many people don't graduate from HS in SC. My HS was fortunate to have a 98% graduation rate for my senior class 11 years ago. And that was considered excellent for an SC school. However, SC public schools really suck and the material needed to be taught can be above the teacher's head. Example: I took pre-cal and cal in HS. However, very little introductory stats,probability, and combinatorics was neither emphasized or taught. I took the SAT and saw a bunch of stat questions on the test beyond means and medians. I asked my math teacher at that time why she didn't teach us that and she litterally gave a cold stare realizing she wasn't doing her job as a teacher.

So I have a theory regarding why the state governments in the South aren't doing anything to improve the graduation rates for schools. Improving the school system and getting kids that can actually think, and set attainable goals would make them intelligent adults who can think. Those adults are able to obtain great jobs, have great careers and make a lot of money that won't have them rely on the government and social resources. Those adults are able to question the notion of religion and either not regularly attend church or question the intentions and motives of those who preach whatever they believe in. Intellectualism is the antagonist of fundamentalist religion. So by having people that don't do well in school. They'll have a harder time functioning in society. They won't be able to get an adequate post 2ndary education, which will enable them to get great jobs and etc. They end up getting shitty jobs that end up getting moved around or outsourced. They basically get down on their "luck". Be poor. Not have adequate health care. Have a harder time supporting their families. Become depressed. End up turning to religion because they can't think for themselves. They turn to religion. The religious leaders easily realize the masses that go to them can easily be led to walk over cliff and tell them what they want these people to believe in. The conservative politicians see this and pay the religious leaders off to tell their followers to vote for that politician and preach the wrath of God if they don't do as told. The conservative politicians win.

We saw this happen in the 2004 presidential election. When abortion and gay marriage came up, the Republicans went to the black and white churches in the South and paid off these politicians to preach the threats of gay marriage and abortion and these idiots believed their pastors. Bush got re-elected.

So what does this have to do with Obama in SC? A large number of South Carolinians are dumb and can't think on their own. They're followers. They're very hesitant and afraid to try new concepts unless they see the majority around them doing it before they do. They don't wanna know what's going on in the world around them. They believe that whatever gossip's going around is definitely true. Unfortunately, the rumor about Obama being a Muslim is one of them. I'm sure most of them who believe this don't know that he wrote an autobiography in 1995 before he decided to run for politics. Hell most of them haven't picked up a book in a long time because they're busy trying to work 2-3 low paying jobs to support their family.

Posted by apres_moi | January 21, 2008 2:39 PM
20

Annie Wagner posts: "The explicit religiosity is kind of unnerving. But..."
BUT BUT BUT BUT! I'm sick of BUTS when it comes to Obama! If HRC had done this, you all would have eviscerated her. When Bush does this kind of thing you all run screaming.
AND speaking of Reagan, you know what Obama is starting to remind me of? Teflon. Another Teflon President.
He's just as creepy and self-serving as the rest of them. This pamphlet is gross. Just because someone is spreading rumors doesn't make this right.
Obama's Teflon BUTT.

Posted by onion | January 21, 2008 4:42 PM
21

This is the state that went overwhelmingly for W because they didn't want to have McCain's bastard black love child in the White House. You have to consider that at least some campaign material in such a place must be written in the native patois, idiotish.

Posted by sc | January 21, 2008 9:11 PM
22

annie-

I'm sooooo glad you mentioned the Clintons at the end of your post. For a second there, I was worried you were actually going to post something critical of Obama without a caveat.

I actually agree with you that HRC attacking Obama's record on abortion is unreasonable, but I agree with WJC when he calls the distortion of differences between HRC and Obama's records on the war a "fairy tale." It wasn't racist as some (thin-skinned) people have stated, and he was right to say it.

Posted by Big Sven | January 21, 2008 10:39 PM
23

Fine by me that he's a Christian, so long as he doesn't go all theocrat on us, which, given everything he's ever said on the subject, is extremely unlikely. Martin Luther King was a Christian, and I think it helped woo people to the cause. In a blunt nutshell: Christians are supposed to be nice. Anyone who can appeal to that in a Christian is a valuable soldier for niceness.

Posted by Phoebe | January 22, 2008 4:00 AM

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