Dear Editor,
It is unfortunate that Mr Clinton Urling finds humorous the lofty praise used by Guyanese-Americans in describing the Democratic Convention speech of NY Senator Hillary Clinton in a letter captioned ‘Why does Hillary have to be on the ticket before “Guyanese” will vote for Obama?’ (SN August 29). I can’t quite figure out why Mr Urling is so sensitive about positive remarks made by Guyanese-Americans about Hillary. The contest for the Democratic nomination was over since June; Obama won the nomination fair and square and people have accepted the outcome, although some may not support Barack Obama. In a democracy we have to accept the views of all and not demean those whom we disagree with or who have different views from ours.
Mr Urling said he was “amazed” that I wrote Hillary delivered “a great speech” disagreeing with Guyanese-New Yorkers and others who praised her phenomenal speech. He chastised me for “being a cheerleader of Hillary” without saying what was wrong with that and without offering any evidence to show how I was ‘cheerleading Hillary.’ For him the speech was just “ok.” That is his view and it should be respected but he should not disrespect those Guyanese who find the speech uplifting, fantastic, and brilliant. Obama described Hillary’s speech as “great” saying he was “very pleased…” and prominent members of the Congressional Black Caucus such as Clyburn, Meeks, Rangel, etc, also praised the speech saying it was the best they had heard from Hillary. Congressman Clyburn also described it as a “perfect” speech that was needed at the convention where delegates were divided.
The Speaker of the Illinois State Assembly, for example, referred to an African-American delegate of Hillary as an “Uncle Tom.” There was a need to heal the division and Clyburn said Hillary did it with her stupendous speech. Also, commentators on all the TV stations described it as an outstanding speech, the kind of speech that was necessary to unite the Democratic Party and to bring her supporters into the Obama camp. Recall that polls showed that one fifth of Hillary’s supporters were holding back their vote from Obama. Right after Hillary spoke, Obama’s campaign officials made the rounds on the TV stations saying they were impressed with the speech, with some saying it was “fantastic” and “incredible.” Reporters on MSNBC and CNN said senior officials of the Obama campaign told them they regretted “not choosing Hillary as VP” given the kind of exhilarating speech she delivered.
Guyanese I spoke with said they enjoyed the speech and thought highly of it; not one Guyanese criticized the speech. Even Obama loyalists said it was a fantastic speech, one of the best they had heard. The fact that Mr Urling was not terribly impressed with Hillary’s speech does not take away from how other Guyanese felt about it or how they viewed it. For the record, according to Nielsen’s TV viewer ratings, over 25 million Americans tuned in to Hillary’s speech and Gallup Poll reported that it received an approval rating exceeding 70%. I won’t consider those numbers to be “just an OK speech.”
Mr Urling also said it was “comical stuff” that many Guyanese-Americans would not vote for Obama because of Obama’s rejection of Hillary as Vice-President. That is no laughing matter and I don’t think anyone would agree with him. Several polls showed that nearly 20% of Hillary’s supporters (at the time of the convention) would not vote for Obama because of the perceived ill-treatment of Hillary by what they considered to be ‘the old boys network.’ That number has been coming down since Hillary’s convention speech and her appeal to them to vote for Obama in subsequent campaign appearances.
Mr Urling wants to know the difference between Hillary and Joe Biden, the VP nominee in terms of political appeal. The difference is 18 million votes, or the more than 3 million who are holding out from voting for Obama/Biden. In addition, Biden, himself said on September 10 which was reported by all the media that Hillary would have been a better VP candidate. It is not certain Hillary would have accepted the VP spot if asked, but we will never know the answer to that question. What is known is that many prominent political commentators are saying Obama made a blunder in not selecting Hillary as VP.
With regards to why as many as half Guyanese-Americans will not vote for Obama would require a lengthy dissertation which is not appropriate in this short response. For now, we simply have to accept as fact unless some would consider it to be fiction that a large number of Guyanese will not vote for Obama. But I know what I found in my informal survey of hundreds of Guyanese.
Finally, Urling disagreed with me that my predicted rise of Obama’s poll numbers had anything to do with Hillary’s speech. Urling said any rise in Obama’s political support had to do with media hype and coverage of the convention. The pollsters disagree. Gallup and a few other polling organizations conducted daily polls during the convention. They found that Hillary’s speech helped with the bounce in Obama’s poll numbers. The same was also found by pollsters after Bill Clinton’s superb speech which Obama described as “great, great.” Obama also got a bounce from his own speech according to the pollsters. It is true that candidates usually get what is called a convention bounce but this is because of the outstanding speakers at the convention.
Yours faithfully,
Vishnu Bisram
