Hammond, Indiana, Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. is an avid supporter of Hillary Clinton’s quest for the Democratic Party’s nomination. And he has a beef.
Elections Board Director Sally LaSota and Lake County Elections Supervisor Michelle Fajman said Gary [Indiana] school officials notified them last week all high school students registered to vote would be bused to Crown Point [to vote early] this week.
For the last three years, the Gary schools have bused students to polling places as an exercise in learning civics and as part of their mandatory ‘government economics’ requirement. But this year there is a black man on the ballot, and that is upsetting to the Mayor of Hammond.
Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr., a supporter of Democratic presidential candidate U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton denounced it Wednesday as a shameless political power play.
“To me it seems like an orchestrated effort on behalf of the Obama campaign to take kids who should be in school learning to read and write, instead giving them a day off and telling them to vote for Obama.
“When you corral kids together and ship them to polling places, it’s completely unethical. I think Sen. Obama should distance himself from this type of behavior,” McDermott said.
Of course, the Obama campaign did no such thing.
Kevin Griffis, a spokesman for U.S. Sen. Barack Obama’s Hoosier campaign, responded, “Those comments don’t reflect the facts and shouldn’t we be applauding our schools for encouraging our children to get involved in their civic duties?”
The Gary schools are heavily black, which explains Mayor McDermott’s angst. But he has another problem.
McDermott, whose city hosted Hillary Clinton’s March 28 visit to the region, disagrees. “These kids come from the worst performing schools in the state of Indiana and we are giving them a day off to go vote for Obama. They can vote on election day like everybody else.”
It’s kind of hard to be charitable with a comment like that. He is saying that these kids are too stupid to vote, is he not? But, evidently, McDermott doesn’t think they’re too stupid to vote for Obama en masse.
You can contact Mayor McDermott here:
Hammond City Hall, 2nd Floor
5925 Calumet Avenue
Hammond, IN 46320
Phone: 219-853-6301Office Hours
Monday through Friday
8:30am – 4:30pm
His comments are nothing but racial profiling. Are African-American students more likely to vote for Obama? Probably. I have heard some of my African-American students say that they are for Clinton.
Also, for what it is worth – I think election day should be a national holiday. State elections (including primaries) should warrant a state holiday.
Of course it’s racial profiling. You know, if we didn’t count black people, Hillary would be winning.
The problems is they are not “regular people.” To be a regular person you must be white, over 45, and making less than 50K a year. Getting anyone else out to vote distorts the process.
If we let the brown kids vote, then, well, what’ll we tell the children?
Or something.
I’m waiting
for Hillary Clinton to denounce and reject his dishonorable, the Mayor, Thomas McDermott. Hillary it’s called guilt by tangential association,
but not holding my breath
Teaching voting-age high-schoolers to vote sounds like a great exercise to me. All schools should do it, as well as teaching them other adult skills as well, like getting a job, managing a bank account and filling out their own tax forms, etc.
And yes, they will probably vote for Obama – like just about everyone of their age group, regardless of race. Isn’t it ironic that Hillary’s campaign and/or surrogates, who supposedly want “every vote to count,” would want to make it harder for some people to vote?
Good point. Obama’s main demographic draw among those kids is his considerable appeal to the youth vote — we’ve seen it all over the map over and over again. I guarantee you race is secondary.
Here is the email I am sending. I will admit I borrowed some lines from Booman.
i think you want ‘mayor’, not ‘major’. Although it does seem like he likes to bark orders at his underlings.
LOL Well to late to correct that one. He seems like a total a-hole if you ask me.
he’s horrible tone-deaf at the absolute minimum.
This McDermott joker’s just your old garden-variety nasty-ass Clintonite, which is fine (Hillary seems to have a lot of them in her camp), but it just doesn’t do for this guy to be the actual mayor of any self-respecting town. Compounding his transgression is his flirtation with crossing the line on blatant racism–why doesn’t he just call those kids what he really wants to call them? Pesonally, I think the practice is a great idea — it’s just that it doesn’t help Hillary at all, so suddenly Mr. Mayor thinks the whole idea of getting those kids to the polls is just utter shit. And he sounds bitter. Doesn’t he sound bitter? I think he sounds bitter. All that needs to happen is to drag Hillary’s rump into it — ask her if she thinks getting those students to the polls is a bad idea. What’s she going to say? Mayor McCheesy will soon end up apologizing — probably.
So will someone in the national media pick up on this and ask the Clinton camp if they intend to Denounce and Reject this Mayor?
I wouldn’t necessarily bet on it, but if they do, she would, I’m sure, be ultimately more than happy to concede the point.
[Also, btw, Stoller has now freaking lost it @ Open Left:
It was a mistake to endorse Obama. He’s thrown us all under the bus. He has lied to the blogging community. To whom can a REAL progressive turn?, etc.]
That guy is like the ingrown hair on the testicle of life.