In a Typical Community, Typical Folks Back Clinton nytimes.com
A reasonable response, much more so than I expect around here, brees. You might find this article interesting. An excerpt I think is representative:
The people who run the newspaper and the judicial system, the nonprofit agencies and the schools, tend to be much more concerned with the implications of a politician like Clinton lying than mainstream Stark County residents, who often assume that lying and evasion are the standard operating procedure for politicians. Leaders immersed in public policy spend their lives striving to bring order to community life; the general population lives with the reality, the cracks, gaps, imperfections, potholes and shortcomings of daily life.
An example of this split in the community: Sally Efremoff is a family court magistrate and former school board member who voted for Clinton in 1996 because she was in agreement with his stands for abortion and against school vouchers. She now thinks it would be best if he resigned. "I tell the young people who come before me in court you shouldn't lie, you shouldn't cheat. And then they see the president's not paying attention to this? The whole system of justice is built on the truth."
But that is not how Tom Gates, a Republican who voted for Bob Dole in 1996 and George Bush in 1992, working the register at The Book Shoppe in the Canton Centre mall, sees it. Gates does not support impeachment because he feels this is more about sex than lies, and he expects politicians to lie.
"If you're a politician, that's how you get into power," said Gates. "Clinton's a standard politician." Rita Amedeo, a supermarket produce clerk who tends to vote Republican, although he voted for Ross Perot in 1996, agrees. with that view. "I hate to see him resign or be impeached," she says. "It's not that this kind of thing hasn't happened to other presidents."
And one little bit near the end:
There is also a fear, expressed even by middle of the road Republicans, that impeaching Clinton will set loose right wing forces in the Republican Party. Nancy McPeek, a banker, a former president of the county United Way, and a moderate Republican (Dole '96) believes that the president should have to go through the impeachment process, but she also worries it will make the right wing more dominant in the party. "If they're successful," she says, "it will give the Far Right a bigger bandstand for the conservative approach to issues like abortion and vouchers and that does scare me."
Some are scared, others thrilled.
Cheers, Dan. |
