Current Political Scene

I am summoning ratboy, as an equal. Why does he assume he is incapable of miracles?

Jesus

 

because i am not a satanic new age twat.

 

pretty bold statement considering the two are in a dead heat in the electoral college, while OB should be WAY ahead.

There are a lot of people who just will not vote for Obama which gives Mac a structural electoral edge, even though the republicans are in the shitter, and Mac doesn't exactly inspire.

I bet its really close with the winner of Ohio taking the whole thing. That state really is up for grabs, while most of the "swing states" are not actually. Virginia, Oregon, etc are not going to be flipped.

I do think Obama will take the popular vote by a half million or more votes, and still possibly lose. He will crush Mac in Cal, NY, and Illinois, but it won't help gain additional electoral votes.

 

I was poking fun at Reardon's "Official Prediction," posts more than anything.

However...I did read this article a few days ago and found it interesting.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-ohio9-2008jun09,0,1838453.story

 

Older, perhaps. More experienced? The jury's still out (and it doesn't look good). Twice you have rapped your head into the Bush wall, leaving you with a nasty mark, and you are apparently poised to do it a third time. So, back to the question: More experienced? I'd say about as much as a singed cat that keeps jumping on hot stoves.

 

Yep, I've read similar articles. Mac has a hell of a challenge in Ohio, as does OB. The thing is, even if the conservatives hate Mac, who do you think they hate more?

These people will vote. Maybe just out of fear, but they will vote. I follow Ohio polls whenever they come out (politics is a big hobby of mine), and its a dead heat at the moment. I could see another Florida type situation brewing.

If you do the math on electoral votes as they look now, neither candidate can afford to lose Ohio. One will end up with 270 - 280, and the other with 260 - 269.

 

How Obama Won -- and May Win

by Patrick J. Buchanan

""I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. ... I mean, that's a storybook, man."

Thus did Joe Biden famously describe his rival for the nomination, Barack Obama, to the The New York Observer, a year ago.

Biden, however, thought Obama might not be able to win the fall election, as he is "a one-term, a guy who has served for four years in the Senate. ... I don't recall hearing a word from Barack about a plan or a tactic."

Biden was forced to apologize, but was dead on in discerning Barack's strengths as a candidate in the primaries, which might prove weaknesses in the fall.

A new face in the game, Barack opened with three aces. He opposed the Iraq war, the defining issue in a party that had come to detest the war. He was an African-American. Thus, as the hopes of millions rose that he could be the first black president, there were surges of black voters whom he begin to sweep 90-10.

Lastly, Barack is a natural, a Mickey Mantle, a superb political athlete like JFK, who has looks, charm, youth and a speaking style that can move crowds to cheers or laughter.

Barack was thus able to unite the McGovern wing -- young, idealistic, liberal, anti-war -- with the Jesse Jackson quadrant of the party, black folks, and defeat Hillary's coalition of working-class Catholics, women, seniors and Hispanics.

As of today, by the traditional metrics of national politics, Democrats should roll up a victory this fall like FDR's first in 1932.

Bush's disapproval is near 70 percent, and 80 percent of the country believes the nation is on the wrong course. Unemployment is rising. Surging gas and food prices compete for the top story not only on business pages but front pages, with home foreclosures and the housing slump. Family incomes of Middle Americans have ceased to rise, as millions of their best jobs have been outsourced overseas.

Yet, national polls show McCain-Obama a close race, and the electoral map points to critical problems for Barack.

He seeks, for example, to target Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico. But in all three the Hispanic vote may be decisive. And Barack was beaten by Hillary two to one among Hispanics, and between these two largest of America's minorities, rivalry and tension are real and rising.

Barack must hold Michigan and Pennsylvania and pick up Ohio or Virginia. Yet, his weakness among Southern and working-class whites and women is remarkable. By two to one they rejected him.

After his string of primary and caucus victories in February, Barack proceeded to lose Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, then West Virginia by 41, Kentucky by 35, Puerto Rico two to one and South Dakota by 10. That last one Barack was supposed to win.

The longer the campaign went on, the more reluctant Democrats seemed to be to embrace his nomination.

What is Barack's problem?

Middle America knows little about him, and much of what they know they do not like. When West Virginians were asked what they knew about Barack, a plurality said the Rev. Wright was his pastor. In Pennsylvania, a goodly slice of Democrats knew Barack had said they were "bitter" about being left behind and were clinging to their bigotries, Bibles and guns.

By June, resistance to Barack's nomination in the party that he now leads was extraordinary, stemming from a belief that he is too naive to be commander in chief in wartime and too far left, and does not like or understand Middle America or its values.

"He is not one of us."

And if Barack cannot erase this hardening perception in the American mind, he will not be president.

Democrats may talk of making the economy the issue this fall, but Republicans are going to make Barack the issue. Story line: We cannot entrust our beloved America, in a time of war, to this radical and exotic figure who has so many crazy and extremist associates.

Barack's problem is thus Reagan's problem.

As the country wished to be rid of Jimmy Carter in 1980, so the nation today wishes to be rid of Bush and his Republicans. But America is apprehensive over a roll of the dice, in Bill Clinton's metaphor.

How did Reagan ease the anxiety? In the debate with Carter, he came off as conservative, yes, but also traditional, mainstream, witty and the more likable man. The real Reagan came through.

With his persona, Barack may be able to do the same -- in the debates. The problem is that he had two dozen debates with Hillary and, by the end of the primary season, five months after it began, he was still losing ground."

 

HOW OBAMA CAN WIN

By DICK MORRIS

Most aspiring presidents and prime ministers face a myriad of challenges as they embark on their journey. Issue controversies, questions about ethics or past conduct, wounds within the party all raise their heads and confront the candidate. But the doubts Barack Obama faces are far more existential than the more superficial questions raised about most candidates. They go to his very core as a person and call into question his values, his worldview, and even his patriotism.

Hard racial divisions have softened in America but fear of the “other” persists. Their possible next president has a strange name. He grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia. He had a Muslim Kenyan father who left when he was a baby. He made his political career in the cesspool of American politics -- the traditionally corrupt Chicago Democratic machine. His pastor of twenty years after whose sermons he entitled his book seems to hate white people in general and America in particular (despite getting $15 million in federal funding for his church). His wife says she is now proud of America for the first time in her adult life – and she’s in her mid forties. He is a bit of a reach for the average American voter.

If he were white, with similar associations, he would be suspect. But he comes from a world few white voters know or understand and the fear lingers that he is some kind of latter-day Manchurian candidate, a sleeper agent, poised to take control of the United States government.

What makes all this particularly difficult to fathom is that Barack Obama is a mild mannered intellectual, with a marvelous sense of poise and decorum, who handles himself eloquently and with dignity and comes to politics with a style and grace we have not seen since JFK. His pedigree includes Columbia University and Harvard Law where he was editor of the Law Review. He taught constitutional law. In his manner and his appearance he is as far from his controversial background and associates as one could possibly imagine.

But this disjuncture between who he appears to be and who his background and associations suggest he might be is so profound that it leads to the most basic of doubts and worries among American voters.

Hillary Clinton always has been the bête-noir to blue collar, downscale, American men. But they lined up at the polls to vote for her, so deep was their fear of who Obama might turn out to be. Their inveterate sexism was no match for their racial fears, ignited by the questions surrounding Obama.

But none of these questions is of Obama’s own making. In two years of campaigning, in an environment in which waking moment is filmed and recorded, he has never uttered a single word to lend credence to those who imagine him to be an alien figure. He has been consistently classy and almost boringly straight as he has campaigned. The worst one could say about him is that he is a Hamlet-like intellectual who is often subject to paralysis by analysis.

To win, Obama must reach down deep and dispel the doubts people hold about him. So far, he has avoided inflaming them and taken great care not to lend them any credibility from his own statements or positions. Now, he must go further and reassure voters who want to believe him, but are afraid.

Is America ready for a black president? Hell yes it is. Obama’s triumphs in states where there are virtually no blacks attests to it. Until Rev. Jeremiah Wright opened his mouth, the candidate was sweeping white voters. Even when the black community discovered Obama and abandoned their historical affection for the Clintons, the white electorate refused to polarize along racial lines and Obama consistently won about half of the white vote. But when Wright spoke, he send a shiver of fear down the nation’s collective spine and millions of voters who wanted to back Obama, needed to vote Democrat, and hated George Bush, abandoned the black candidate out of fear.

To blow away this miasma of doubt will not be easy. Obama, a private person who dislikes emotional displays in public, will have to speak from the heart about what America means to him. He will have to embrace our national sense of uniqueness and give voice to what Ronald Reagan said of us: “You can call it mysticism if you want to, but I have always believed that there was some divine plan that placed this great continent between two oceans to be sought out by those who were possessed of an abiding love of freedom and a special kind of courage.” American exceptionalism is deeply rooted in our national consciousness and it has been so offended by Rev. Wright’s characterization of the United States as a terrorist nation, a force of evil in the world, that Obama must assuage that hurt if he wishes to appease our fears.

While the United States has always worked to keep church separate from our government, there has always been a kind of civil religion in America which speaks to our values and mission in the world. The president of the United States is the high priest of that religion and it is up to him to give it voice and apply it to the challenges that pop up in our path. Obama must make it clear to his countrymen that he subscribes to that faith and can pick up his duties as high priest. He needs to articulate the national narrative

I doubt that this election will be close. Either Obama or McCain will probably win it in a landslide, depending on whether or not Obama can fulfill his existential mission of explaining to the American people who he really is."

 

IMAO: What an Obama Presidency Will Be

"Obama has been saying McCain will be Bush's third term, and McCain has responded by saying Obama will be Carter's second term. I think that's a good rebuttal, but maybe there could be more creative analogies for an Obama term.

AN OBAMA PRESIDENCY WILL BE

...another Batman movie by Joel Schumacher.

...the return of New Coke.

...a restaurant that serves nothing but Spam.

...a new album from William Shatner.

...another season of Wings.

...Windows Vista.

...System of a Down getting back together.

...yet another Special Edition of the original Star Wars films.

...circus peanuts.

...an action movie starring Sanjaya.

So, ronin, what do you think an Obama presidency will be?"

 

IMAO: OVM

"...how many of us are feeling about the upcoming election:... Personally, I root for the predator. It's less mindless."