The New Road

How many minorities did Clinton have in his Cabinet?

Let's See - I did alittle research to answer you Jaqueline.

Togo West -Secretary of Veterans Affairs is African American
Rodney Slater -Secretary of Transportation is African American
Madeleine Albright - Secretary of State is a woman
Alexis Herman - Secretary of Labor is an African American Woman
Janet Reno - Attorney General is a woman
Donna E. Shalala- Secretary of Health and Human services - is a woman
Charlene Barshefsky - US Trade representative - woman
Aida Alvarez - Administrator, Small Business Administration - Woman of spanish decent
Carol M. Browner - Administrator EPA
Janet Yellen - Chair Council of Economic Advisors

So that's 9 out of 26 including Executive officers serving the cabinet.

I miscounted - that's 10 out of 26

Thanks! And the current administration?

Because the high-profile folks I see on TV sure look pretty diverse & colorful, don't you think?

Thanks for doing the research and finding the facts Lori. It's important to work from facts, rather than appearances. Appearances can be deceptive. Especially when dealing with the current administration which spends more time and attention on it's shaping it's politics and appearance than working on protecting us from terrorists.

Bush's Current Cabinet is listed on the white house web page I count 3 african american men and 3 women. Also 1 asian american man ... Not including Condalisa Rice which isn't on the cabinet listing page so maybe she isn't considered a cabinet member. So that's Six out of the 21 listed on the page.

I miss counted again that's 7 out of 21

I just saw a Bush campaign appearance video. I paused on a clip where he was sitting in front of a large crowd. Of the 42 people in the crowd, 42 were... white. Zero were, well, anything else.

Pew Research has some interesting race numbers: http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=196

Some University of Arkansas numbers: http://plsc.uark.edu/arkpoll/fall99/party/page4.htm

And the Alachua county voter registration numbers: http://elections.alachua.fl.us/stat.asp

The Alachua county numbers are the most striking. Pretty much the only people voting Republican were white.

Again, thanks for all the research, guys.

Re: Alachua County. We have a pretty good showing in American Indian/Alaskan, Asian Pacific & Hispanic males. Also that "other" catagory. But the county is 80% white.

Re: Arkansas. Your own link says that whites are more likely to be democrats 35% to 30%. However, minorities in Arkansas affiliate themselves with your party 60% of the time, compared to 8% to mine.

It's a common myth that the democratic party cares more about minority issues and a lot of uneducated, poor minorites are straight-line party voters. Your party. In fact, the NAACP is making news today for registering inmates in Davidson County (TN) to vote. Vote Democrat. Most college graduates vote republican. Of course, that's people with Bachelor Degrees. Above that level, your side gets them back. Only 15% of Americans have college degrees in the first place (or at least that was the statistic when I graduated), so that leaves an even smaller percentage with Graduate Degrees. So, the Democratic party gets its support from the highly educated, and the uneducated. The middle-class, working man (and woman) votes Republican. That's why we're hearing W's message - he knows how to speak TO us. We are all races. We are hardworking, pull ourselves up by the bootstraps, don't-give-me-a-handout kind of people.

It's kind of difficult to craft a coherent message for your party (Brand Democrat) when you're speaking to such a broad demographic.

So let me get this straight. If I take what you are saying on it's face I am an un-educated lazy man who can't pull himself up and wants handouts? Why not throw in un-American too? Since you are rattling off the Limbaugh line. Or we could just take the stuff from the anti-Dean group;

"tax-hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading, body piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freak"

I do like the coherent message line. It's an admission of what we have known for a long time. That the Republican party is for white people who are either rich, or want to be rich. And there is the Democratic party who represent everyone else.

That's bad for Republicans though, white people are fast becoming a minority in this country. The 40-year Rove Reich won't last on redistricting alone.

How does being a one-race party fit in with the melting pot ideals that America was founded on? How does the position of 'this is a Christian country' fit with the principles of our founding fathers who created a government which specifically gave no credence to religion?

The Repbulican party appeals to those that look back on the fifties as the salad days of America. Where it was all-white. There were no race problems. Everyone was Christian. Everyone hated the red menace. Yadda, yadda. It was a pipe dream fantasy then, and it's the rose colored glasses of the current administration.

Frankly, if your party is so great, why don't they show it? If they are so hardworking, where the is the plan for Iraq? Where was the after-action plan for Iraq? Where is the planning today? Where is Osama bin Ladin? All I hear from the right is whining and moaning about the liberal media bias, and the way the house and senate minorities are blocking the majority. How the heck does that happen? Your party controls the country and here is the state of the country. We are deeper in debt than we have ever been. We are in a quagmire in Iraq. The rest of the world hates this country. The nation is more polarized than it has ever been. This election is more destructive and nasty than it has ever been. Our people are back to living in fear the same way we did in the era of Reagan. The President is completely disconnected from reality and doesn't even show up for work 53% of the time.

The country is in shambles, and somehow, somehow, the Republicans continue to find a way to link it to Monica servicing Bill Clinton in the oval office.

The Republican party is a joke. This administration is a joke. This President will go down as the worst, most disconnected, most destructive President in history.

Gosh, I don't even know where to start.

First of all, I can't get Limbaugh in my office. I can only hear him occasionally, in my car, on my lunch hour - so I'm not spewing anything of his. Also we disconnected our cable, so we're only getting our local stations. I'm not even being infected with the right wing kooky Fox News network anymore. I'm getting my news mostly from Yahoo headlines. Since Tennessee is considered to be planted firmly in the BUSH column, we haven't even seen a lot of campaign ads. The conclusions I am drawing are on my own. In fact, when I expresses my concerns about Kerry's ability to make a decision a few days ago, that was an honest revelation. Today, I'm hearing sound bites of Bush saying something to the effect that a leader has to be able to have a firm position. He's expressing MY concerns, I am not spouting party rhetoric.

To your interpretation of how I see you - there are exceptions to every rule, but yes, I think you would raise my taxes, you drink latte (& exotic tea), you are a sushi-eating vegetarian, hybrid car owning, left-coast liberal. I don't know about the NY Times reading, body piercing, Hollywood-loving part. I think you are anything but lazy and you are probably more educated then most college graduates. But we're talking sweeping generalizations in our parties' belief systems. Am I a rich white man? Before you answer, my grandmother was an Italian immigrant.

You have totally disregarded my comments regarding race in the parties and reiterated that republicans are rich, white men. It's like you never read my comments on that.

Of course we want to be rich. We want a better quatlity of life for our families. Isn't that why people come to the USA? Isn't that why people flood over our borders every day - because they can get jobs here? Which lead to medical care, food, safe housing, education and the opportunity to retire before we're dead?

Oh, and as an added bonus, we can all worship without persecution.

And we can develop our talents and pursue our dreams.

I don't know where you get this recurring idea that republicans want to live in the 1950's. Do you think we don't know that there were race problems and family problems and teen pregnancies and (gasp!) gay people hidden in closets? Don't be ridiculous. You so underestimate our intelligence and capacity for rational thought.

As for this country under "republican rule". I think we're headed in the right diretion. I think there are plans for Iraq and there are no easy alternatives. I believe that America has been hated by a lot of the world for a very long time, but we are also admired. I don't believe that if John Kerry is elected president there will be rejoicing in the streets of Bagdhad, Brussels, Beijing, Santiago, Tamur, Vancouver etc...that very night (like the rejoicing in Palestine on 9/11) and all the people of the world will rush to our side to put our collective heads together and figure out some reasonable solution to get the US armed forces out of Iraq so those poor, opressed people can get back to flying kites in their city parks. John Kerry is not our savior. And he will make us weak - if nothing else, in appearances. We have a lot of work to do there and the stakes are incredibly high. We had every reason to go in there when we did and we have a goal.

Bush has been absent at his job? How many votes has Kerry missed this year alone? Were they important votes?

The tax cuts were related to the recession Bush inherited. The 9/11 attacks caused more strain on the economy. The invasion of two nations that harbored terrorists put us into debt. The economy is bouncing back - incredibly! The debt will be dealt with in the next term. I'm really not concerned about it. If I need emergency surgery and I don't have the cash, I will finance it. We're in an emergency. Even though you don't see the threat as imminent (if you were in NYC on 9/11 you only had a 1 in 8 chance of being in the WTC towers when they fell, right?!?!) You know the republicans have a very small majority in Congress right now. Hopefully we can increase that lead in November and really get some things done next term. How can the president be totally disconnected from reality and have the lead in all the polls? We like him. We identify with him. You wish we didn't. You can't understand how rational, intelligent people can like this guy and agree with him - but we do. We Do. WE DO.

History will decide what kind of president Bush was. Hopefully it will be looking at his 8 year tenure.

About taxes... I can't think of a reason why I would raise them out of hand. I don't understand that tax and spend thing at all. That hasn't been the case in some time.

About disregarding your comments... I see, I get it. Thanks. I still think my point stands. Republicans are the party by-in-large of white people.

About Republican rule and being headed in the right direction. I just don't see how you can say that there are plans for Iraq. What plans? Where? The plans that were created by the State Department were completely ignored. The warnings from the CIA were completely ignored. There was a plan for the combat phase and that's it. The rest has been completely botched and mismanaged. Allawi wants elections by January? How? Where the the parties? What is the structure of the government going to be? Who are the candidates? What's the process?

About Kerry missing votes, the House and Senate are controlled by Republicans. The Democrats run a shadow government.

About tax cutting, the recession Bush inherited, the economic effect of 9/11, invading two nations that harbored terrorists (I am only referencing this, some of these are statements that I don't agree with.) What happened to Bush's 'era of responsibility'?

How can the President be disconnected from reality? Because he only talks with people that agree with his position. On the campaign trail you have to sign a loyalty oath to see him.

And frankly, no I don't see how any rational intelligent person who looks at the facts can say that this President didn't royally screw up by going into Iraq. Most people admit, at the very least, that things are going badly. You won't even admit that. Even Colin Powell says things are going badly. The President himself called the war a 'catastrophic success'.

And once a person admits that something, like this war, is going badly, then you have to re-evaluate the direction we are moving in. At which point, any rational thinking person, would probably not want to hand control back to the person that royally screwed up to try again for four more years.

Normally President who go through an election during war time win easily. The fact that the President only leads by a slight margin or is behind in some key swing state polls, is a bad sign. Americans, Democrats and Republicans, hate changing horses in the midstream of a war, but this President is so incompetent that he forces us to re-assess.

It isn't just the media that is saying that things are going badly. The CIA report was devastating about the situation in Iraq. Bush's response: "They are just guessing."

So no, I can't see how any rational intelligent person can look at the current situation in Iraq, read the 9/11 report, read the information coming out of the CIA, hear what the State Department is saying, hear what McCain is saying, then watch Bush's inept responses and not be concerned or have serious doubts.

The only way I can rationalize it for myself is to say that people on the right seem to believe that this is all something biblical. That Bush is ordained, and that this is an epic struggle between godly good and sinful evil. And, honestly, what I hear from the right reinforces that. It's never a question of whether Bush is doing a good job. He is a good Christian man and that's that. As if being a Christian somehow makes one infallible. It's that type of thinking that I find extremely scary. Actually, it's not thinking at all. It's just faith and belief.

As for the response to a Kerry victory, I don't know about Baghdad, but I know there will be dancing in the streets. I know there will be celebrations here. This has been a long dark four years.

BTW, don't be too sure about Tennessee, Zogby has Bush leading by only 1.3 points ( http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-battleground04-0823print.html ).

can anyone tell me exactly who is not a minority?