To: Tom Clarke who wrote (1118 ) 8/28/1999 7:38:00 AM From: Neocon Read Replies (1) | Respond to
Why Hillary will probably lose the election in New York state: New York is a city with a pronounced ethnic flavor, and the various ethnicities are pretty united in being dubious about WASPS. John Lindsay was an anomaly in city politics, a preppie who became mayor. Since the prejudice against WASPS is particularly pronounced among Democrats, it hurts their candidates especially. After all, most of the Republicans in the metro area are WASPS or affiliated groups (Dutch, German Protestant, etc.). I look deep into my soul, and I see that one element of my disaffection for Hillary is that she reeks of WASPINESS, in its meddlesome, patronizing, lets clean up the immigrants version. What is true of the city is pretty much true of the metro area: the people who would tend to feel that Hillary is "one of us" are Republican, and the rest, well, Rudy is much closer to being one of them, even if they are Jewish, Irish, Chinese, or whatever. The only reliable ethnic constituency that the Democrats have is African- American. In the end, Rudy is connected to these people in a way that Hillary could never hope to be, especially as a carpetbagger. Now, it is true that upstate the situation becomes somewhat more favorable to Hillary, but most of the state above Westchester county is Republican and moderate- to- conservative, and so she is unlikely to win on ideological grounds. Her best shot would have been to have carried the metro area overwhelmingly, to balance losses elsewhere. In the end, most people think that Rudy has done a great job, his numbers bounced back after the cop trials, and, whatever his flaws, he is one of their own, overly emotional, occasionally preposterous, shamelessly ambitious for the American Dream, but also smart, hardworking, and with a deep sense of indebtedness to the country that allowed his family to rise: the son of immigrants, a New Yorker.....
