http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081009/pl_afp/usvoteobamarednecks SAINT LOUIS, Missouri (AFP) - When Barack Obama's campaign bus made a swing through Missouri in July, the unlikeliest of supporters were waiting for him -- or rather two of them, holding the banner: "Rednecks for Obama." In backing the first African-American nominee of a major party for the US presidency, the pair are on a grassroots mission to bridge a cultural gap in the United States and help usher their preferred candidate into the White House. Tony Viessman, 74, and Les Spencer, 60, got politically active last year when it occurred to them there must be other lower income, rural, beer-drinking, gun-loving, NASCAR race enthusiasts fed up with business as usual in Washington. Viessman had a red, white and blue "Rednecks for Obama" banner made, and began causing a stir in Missouri, which has emerged as a key battleground in the run-up to the November 4 presidential election. "I didn't expect it would get as much steam and attention as it's gotten," Spencer told AFP on the campus of Washington University in Saint Louis, the state's biggest city and site of last week's vice-presidential debate. "We believe in him. He's the best person for the job," Viessman, a former state trooper from Rolla, said of Obama, who met the pair briefly on that July day in Union, Missouri. The candidate bounded off his bus and jogged back towards a roadside crowd to shake hands with the men holding the banner. "He said 'This is incredible'," Spencer recalled. It's been an unexpectedly gratifying run, Viessman said. Rednecks4obama.com claims more than 800,000 online visits. In Denver, Colorado, Viessman and Spencer drew crowds at the Democratic convention, and at Washington University last Thursday they were two of the most popular senior citizens on campus. "I'm shocked, actually, but excited" that such a demographic would be organizing support for Obama, said student Naia Ferguson, 18, said after hamming it up for pictures behind the banner. "When most people think 'redneck,' they think conservatives, anti-change, even anti-integration," she said. "But America's changing, breaking stereotypes." A southern comedian, Jeff Foxworthy, defines the stereotype as a "glorious lack of sophistication". Philistines or not, he said, most rural southerners are no longer proponents of the Old South's most abhorrent ideology -- racism -- and that workaday issues such as the economy are dominating this year's election. "We need to build the economy from the bottom up, none of this trickle down business," Spencer said. "Just because you're white and southern don't mean you have to vote Republican." To an important degree, however, race is still the elephant in the polling booth, experts say, and according to a recent Stanford University poll, Obama could lose six points on election day due to his color. Racism "has softened up some, but it's still there," Viessman acknowledged from Belmont University, site of Tuesday's McCain-Obama debate in Nashville, Tennessee. Despite representing the heartland state of Illinois, and having a more working-class upbringing than his Republican rival John McCain, Obama has struggled to shoot down the impression that he is an arugula-eating elitist. Surely he alienated many rural voters earlier this year when the Harvard-educated senator told a fundraiser that some blue-collar voters "cling to guns or religion". But Viessman, who says he owns a dozen guns, said Obama "ain't gonna take your guns away." The South traditionally votes Republican -- victories for southerners Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter were exceptions -- but with less than a month to election day, four states in or bordering the South are considered toss-ups: Florida, Missouri, North Carolina and Virginia. Viessman says he'd like to think his grassroots movement could sway enough people in small-town America to make a difference. "There's lots of other rednecks for Obama too," he said. "And the ones that's not, we're trying our best to convince them."
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A movement like this has the potential to be extremely powerful. It gives "rednecks" the permission to vote in their economic self interest and helps move the demographic away from its most toxic tendency- racism. To be clear, I'm not saying all rednecks are racist.
Let's see which candidate cares about education? The one who graduated 5th from the bottom or the one who graduated from Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he served as president of the Harvard Law Review. The one who was spoon fed or the one who actually had to work at it.. I'm not pro 100% Obama because I'm against his stance on School Vouchers but I do think he knows more about our education problem than McCain. And even though it is Cliche he was like one of us who had to work for it.
I thought he was saying vouchers would send more children to private schools and away from public schools thereby making the public schools worse off than before. I could be wrong about what he was stating though.
I beleive - It will make public schools worse AT BEST - the private schools will cherry pick the best students along with supplementing the payments of the rich who can already afford it the result their school with the better resources and now even the better students will not look super . . . and this is all things being equal . .. superior students and resources will make a better school . . regardless of whether they have better teachers or teaching methods Meanwhile Poorer schools, now having been liberated of their superior students and still have inferior resources will be made to look even worse once again regardless of whether they have better teachers or teaching methods The result . .the 'superior' schools will look like vouchers are working and then they can says see the poor schools suck even more when the reality is . .. simply putting all the better students in one place with better resources will automatically give the appearence of superior learning that is independent of teaching methods, teachers or to an extend 'learning environment' Vouchers system is simple scraping all the cheese on the pizza to one side The sum total of the system does not change except not Rich folx get a rebate on their School payments Private schools get a bump in income Public school will go the way of the dodo or will simply become a self forfilling prophesy of failure a new America where education . . a good education is a 'privilge' and not a 'right' . . which someone who are advocating this system . . beleive anyway. Some beleive you should only be as educated as you can afford. I am amazed that folx will say don't throw money at it . . won't fix it but will turn around and say taking money from it . . and think that will???? Rocket River
I'm currently writing a seminar paper on this topic. Rather than changing the direction of the whole thread, I'll post some points: Vouchers overwhelmingly go to those with financial need. They don't go to those who already are able to pay for the schooling. Money isn't an indicator of performance. The private schools that get this money spend much less per pupil than the public schools that are failing. Money does not equal success. Vouchers have the added incentive of getting the attention of public schools more than any other school choice options. Are vouchers a perfect option? Probably not. That's why people seem to be favoring more educational tax credits as opposed to vouchers. However, these will, in my mind, actually benefit the lower income levels less than vouchers would.
Saw an interview with the Dem Governor of NC... he thinks there might be a sizable number of folks who will not admit to voting for Obama but will nonetheless punch his name in the voting booth... kind of a reverse Bradley effect.
