Tikvah (Vicki) Feinstein – 5/4/08

This page was last updated on May 4, 2008.

Democrat elitists in control; Tikvah (Vicki) Feinstein; Beaver County Times; May 4, 2008.

This is the second similar letter (“No way to pick a nominee;” April 9, 2008) from Ms. Feinstein in a month. Ms. Feinstein concluded the previous letter with “After voting in the April 22 primary for Clinton because she will make the best president, I am joining the grownups. I am changing parties to Republican.”

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

“I’m beginning to see the ‘change’ Sen. Ted Kennedy saw as he endorsed Barack Obama. It’s the Democratic Party, which has become one controlled by the interests of the liberal elite. It’s no longer the party of the working class but of opportunistic private interests.”

[RWC] When was the Democrat party ever “the party of the working class?” Do family names like Kennedy, Rockefeller, Roosevelt, et cetera ring a bell? (As a side note, to the best of my knowledge I never met anyone who didn’t work for a living.)

“We are told that a close primary presidential campaign can harm a powerful political party. Really? I have been a Democrat all my life. Perhaps the long campaign is bringing out corruption within.”

[RWC] Why do you think the Democrat party has such a thing as unelected “super delegates?” The Republican primary is based solely on elected delegates.

“I want to tell those Democratic leaders to let the people speak with their votes. Let the votes of Florida and Michigan be counted. We won’t tolerate a decision to let the votes be split evenly between the candidates when Hillary Clinton won both states.”

[RWC] Both the Clinton and Obama campaigns agreed ahead of time Florida and Michigan would not be counted. That was incredibly lame, but they both agreed to the rules. In the case of Obama, he wasn’t even on the Michigan ballot. At this point, it appears Democrats (The “count every vote” guys.) have no fair way out of the mess they made.

Republicans were a little better in that they agreed ahead of time to count half of each state’s delegates.

“Officials endorse Obama — they say — to put an end to the close primary presidential campaign that ‘is destroying the Democratic Party.’ An endorsement of Clinton couldn’t also save the party? She won almost 70 percent of our district. And leaders with influence call for her to withdraw from the campaign following her huge win in Pennsylvania.

“I am weary of hearing about race playing a part in the campaign by the very people who are always bringing it up. It’s clearly there when more than 95 percent of blacks vote for a black candidate. It’s hard to not feel offended when Obama calls the grandmother who provided him with a privileged prep school education ‘a typical white person.’ Or when a minister who mentored Obama for 20 years claims all over the airways that the U.S. government is one of white supremacy when he lives in a $5-million home. Maybe we better start a dialogue about race.”

[RWC] To be fair, I believe the price of Mr. Wright’s retirement home in the gated, predominantly white (2% black) neighborhood is between $1 million and $2 million.

“I agree that the Democratic Party won’t be the same after this primary election. Some fine folks will be leaving the party. It doesn’t speak for us any longer.”

[RWC] Here’s what I wrote on my Democrats page back in 2004. “A childhood friend’s father called me a while ago to tell me he agreed with a letter to the editor I wrote countering a local liberal’s op-ed piece. To emphasize how much of a Democrat he had been, the man told me he cried when FDR died. Nevertheless, this man told me he has tended to vote Republican for a while because the Democrat Party no longer represents his values. His values haven’t changed since 1945; Democrat Party values changed.”

In fairness, what’s happening to the Democrat party is also happening to the Republican Party. Both parties are moving further to the left. That’s why more and more conservatives like myself feel the Republican Party represents conservative principles less and less every year.