Well knock me over with a feather....

[KentuckyWoman]

Yakking with a lady also in waiting room while her husband has chemo. She voted for Reagan in her first ever Presidential vote and has voted mostly Republican since though she says she's independent.

However.


Hold yer hat on.


She plans to vote Democratic in the Kentucky primary because she really likes Bernie Sanders.


Makes no damn sense at all. Totally meaningless anecdotal blather..... But there you have it.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

1. I am hearing the same thing

[leftofcool]

2. I'll go you one better here in Kentucky

I've been holding small meetings for Hillary supporters about once a week. We are now up to 74 ladies, 67 of them Republicans, all voting for Hillary. Kentucky is changing, slowly, but surely.

[KentuckyWoman]

7. Boggles my mind.

My little town in east Kentucky is fairly purple but BERNIE??? I can see Hillary since she's just slightly right of middle (which is now Democratic since the Republicans have gone off a cliff ) but BERNIE?????

Either way.... I'll take um any way I can get um.....

[leftofcool]

9. Me too!

[libdem4life]

3. I heard it's something in the water...no, really...lots of play in those numbers.

Just sayin'

[elleng]

4. Lot of anecdotes = DATA, you know!

[leftofcool]

6. Unfortunately, the "data" is that Kentucky is a very red state.

On the other hand, Kentucky has more registered Democrats than registered Republicans. GOTV, baby!

[Samantha]

18. A few years ago I was talking politics with my aunt in Tennessee

I asked her why so many people in Tennessee voted against their own best interests. She said her husband, a Republican, always told her how to vote and she followed his decision. I was blown away that she had never really done any independent thinking about who she wanted to be in office. But upon further reflection, I also recognized that many males in the South still think the female is subservient to the male. Single women I guess were just second class citizens.

Reading some of these posts are so wonderful to me even if some of the women are voting for the candidate I do not prefer. It is just great to learn women are voting their own minds finally rather than doing as they are told. They have come a long way, baby. About time....

Sam

[leftofcool]

23. Good points

I think you have hit on something here.

[maddiemom]

26. Making calls for for President Obama, I had one woman tell me she'd vote the way her husband

told her, just as she'd always voted the way her father had. This was all I got from her, and this from a western PA college town just north of Pittsburgh. I lived in Kentucky some years ago and never met any woman this subservient.

[TDale313]

5. We've asked for years why so many Republicans

vote against their own best interest. Perhaps a populist message like Bernie's is the antidote to that, at least for some.

[Uncle Joe]

8. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for sharing, KentuckyWoman.

[reformist2]

10. The zeitgeist, it's a powerful thing. It used to be for Reagan. Now it's rooting for Bernie.

You're right, it doesn't make sense. But the spirit of the age is real. You can feel it.

[Baitball Blogger]

11. Does Kentucky have an open primary?

[KentuckyWoman]

17. Closed...... change of party submitted by Dec 31 year before primary.

She did change her party registration so she can vote Democratic.

[leftofcool]

24. No

[Vincardog]

12. I have been suggesting to independents and republican here in IA they should register as democrats

And Caucus for Bernie. IF they really want to get rid of HRC.

[elmac]

13. Bernie gets the vote of about 20% of republicans in his state

so looking for him to grab some republican votes if he wins the Primary.

[WillyT]

14. HUGE K & R !!! - Thank You !!!

[silvershadow]

15. I have several, judging by my FB feed. nt

[lobodons]

16. Makes a lot of sense

Congress has an 8% approval rating. Lots of anti-establishment out there. That's why Trump and Bernie are doing so well.

[merrily]

19. It makes perfect sense to me (and to Harry Truman's ghost)

[Live and Learn]

20. I've had quite a few initial Trump supporters turn toward Bernie once they've heard his platforms

while out campaigning. I am always amazed too. I do know they love that they find him honest and like that he says what he means.

[zazen]

21. here's a mostly undiscussed factor: many evangelicals LOVE Jews & Israel

I think some of it comes from a very sincere analysis of the roots of their faith. You saw it in some of the comments of the students at Liberty, who interpreted Bernie in the Old Testament prophet-in-the-wilderness jeremiad tradition. I was really impressed by a few of those students who really seemed to be earnestly listening.

Then you have a much more recent intensification of a century old believe on the part of a lot of millennialist evangelicals that Jesus will only return after some sort of peace in the Mideast.

You've got a natural America-first-we-hate-Nazis-and-love-all-relatives-of-Holocaust-survivors thread among more traditionally patriotic Americans (I think all reasonable people from most political groups hate Nazis and are horrified by the Holocaust), but evangelicals (if you watch their tv shows) are seriously into pointing out how much Israeli Jews have suffered (especially ones in their 80s and 90s) and how much Americans should help them. They raise money for them A LOT.

And with the whipped up anger at Muslims, evangelicals turn to Israel because they think Israel is the original victim.

The Israel right exploits this somewhat over here. I've talked to Republican Jews who tell me the the cause of Israel and the cause of America are identical.

Now, this is countered by a few centuries here of standard anti-semitism, not limited to the South, of course. But I think that's a lot less strong here than it was.

However, many contemporary evangelicals practically fetishize Jews. They don't care if they're not practicing. If they look and sound like an Old Testament Prophet (and Bernie fits the bill in a secular way), they're going to like him. If he has relatives who were killed in the Holocaust, they'll really like him. He's automatically pro-Israel, in their mind, which makes him not come across as a pacifist to these folks.

I'm not saying I agree or disagree with these interpretations, but if you study evangelicals, it's very apparent.

Had Bernie been in the tradition of a French Protestant or a Central American Catholic I think his form of democratic socialism would be less well-received. Maybe this had to be delivered by a grumpy elderly Jewish man to get these people to open their minds. Fine by me.

[KentuckyWoman]

25. This is very interesting

A cousin of mine is a Mormon in Indiana (I know weird mix), and he said the very people who were hot for Romney in 2012 are leaning (not hot) for Bernie. Your post about the religion voters makes sense in this regard.

This is exactly why I love DU. People willing to share divergent insights.

Thanks so much for your post.

[Populist_Prole]

28. Something I noticed as well

It's not just evangelicals. Some people I know; relatives/friends/acquaintances, seemed to get pro-Israel and become Judeophiles the more partisan republican they became. Some were Archie Bunker type bigots who disliked American Jewish people due to cultural or stereotype views. Once they cast their lot with the whole GOP platform and ran with the neo-conservative playbook all the way, they changed their views out of team-player tribalism.

As the neocon playbook stressed a gunboat diplomacy, "Judeo-Christian values", and the role of what they saw as Israel being some sort of admirable militaristic crusader state; it was right up their alleys.

This transformation was most aparrent to me.

[rhett o rick]

22. This is what DWS and HRC don't want to hear. The People are starting to smell

the freedom from the corrupt status quo that HRC is selling.

[Duval]

27. K&R!

[Gawdless Pinko Lib]

29. Kentucky Woman, you get to know us, you get to own us

And don't deny it!

[thereismore]

30. Drip, drip.

Bad taste analogy, I apologize.

[Unknown Beatle]

31. Reminds me of an acquaintance,

he says he's independent but always votes republican regardless of who the dem opponent is. When I say that he's a republican and not an independent by the way he votes, it just pisses him off.

[LibDemAlways]

32. At Christmas Eve dinner my Republican sister-in-law

announced that she likes Bernie, too. I think it's his no bullshit demeanor that appeals across party lines. Whatever it is, I think he'd be the strongest candidate against whichever turd the R's put forth.

[SammyWinstonJack]

33. I so hope he pulls it off...all the way to the White House.

Please, let's make this happen!

[Enthusiast]

34. K&R! This has happened too many times to be coincidence.

[Doctor_J]

35. He has sparked a YUUUGE amount of interest among young/apathetic/given up voters

I don't see how the party apparatchik can force Hillary on the voters while bringing these people into the fold. I guess we'll find out.

[LiberalElite]

36. K&R nt

[Renew Deal]

37. Things change in 30+ years

[mikehiggins]

38. Rush

Yesterday (Thursday) I was going home from a blood test and the driver of the van I was in had Rush Limbaugh on the radio.

Rush has to be the most anti-HRC knuckledragger out there but what blew me away was his statements that Bernie is a much better candidate. Now, you have to discount a lot of what he says because, well, he'd Rush Limbaugh, but this time he was discussing the facts about Bernie's campaign (I'm sure he hates Bernie's Socialist ideas just as much as he hates being tracked on his adventures among the boys of several third world nations) and basically was saying Bernie would be a harder candidate for the GOPukes to deal with because he doesn't have the baggage HRC is carrying with her and, I gather, the right wing guys do not absolutely HATE him the way they do her.

Listening to him I had the feeling the driver had made the wrong turn and brought us into The Twilight Zone. It was hard to believe my own lying ears.

I think the polls showing Bernie trounching the Carnival Barker or any of his Cavalcade of Clowns is right on the money.