BS: Popular Views on Obama

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 23 Feb 08 - 01:11 PM

Thank the Lawd for the fire of youth; in the final analysis, it is all we have to move ahead on.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Ron Davies
Date: 23 Feb 08 - 03:00 PM

I suspect strongly that as usual, Rig's sources are not the best.   Obama outspending Hillary 8 to 1 in Texas?   I doubt it strongly--and the WSJ also implies strongly it is not true. According to the WSJ, Hillary has 100,000 people working for her campaign in Texas. I'd be very surprised if Obama is outspending her 8 to 1 there.

And, by the way, Rig-- sorry, Hannity does not make it as a good source--of anything except his own opinion.

Perhaps you could drag yourself away from the cesspool of right-wing talk radio and actually get some facts.

It would be a pleasant change.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Riginslinger
Date: 23 Feb 08 - 05:53 PM

Ron - Why would Rupert Murdoch lie? Speaking of dragging oneself away from the cesspool.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Feb 08 - 06:02 PM

Why would Rupert Murdoch lie?

I assume that is heavy irony.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Riginslinger
Date: 23 Feb 08 - 08:41 PM

It could be irony, but it could be put another way. What is Rupert Murdoch's purpose?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 23 Feb 08 - 09:09 PM

Lambasted for Not Drinking the Obama Kool-Aid
Expert guest post by Michael K. Fauntroy

It's hard out here for Black pundits/analysts/commentators who haven't come around to drinking the Barack Obama is the best-thing-since-sliced-bread-how-did-we-ever-exist-as-a-nation-without-him-this-is-
our-last-best-chance-to-elect-a-Black-president-so-we-better-support-him-see-I-told-
you-racism-is-dead Kool-Aid. I have learned an unfortunate lesson in observing the Democratic presidential nomination fight: In too many segments of the country – Black and White – to express any skepticism about Barack Obama is considered political heresy. I'm blown away by this discovery, because it suggests a dangerous group think: Obama is the only agent of change and to not praise him at every opportunity is to support the status quo (And, oh, by the way, Hilary is the devil!).
Michael Fauntroy

This is a strange position for me to be in, as I think he has the instincts to be a really good president. I don't consider myself an Obama critic, just someone unwilling to critically analyze his candidacy. I am a progressive registered as an Independent and my preferred candidate is not in the race, so I get a little touchy when callers and blog respondents assume that because I'm not yet ready to drink the Obama kool-aid, that I must be in the tank for Hilary Clinton. Not true. I think it's narrow-minded to think that just because one is lukewarm to Obama that they must want Hilary to win. Between you and me: I'll take Al Gore over either of them in a heartbeat.

I realized all this during a radio interview in Atlanta the day before the New Hampshire primary. I had the temerity to suggest that we shouldn't overreact to his Iowa win. I reminded listeners that Jesse Jackson won Vermont – a state every bit as White as Iowa – 20 years ago and that many White Democrats have been voting for Black candidates for years, so we shouldn't jump up and down over Obama's caucus win. I knew I was in trouble, though, when the music bump before the interview began featured a caller who said she supports Obama "100 percent" and would vote for a Black man over a White woman every time. I thought: "wow, by that logic, you'd vote for Ike Turner, Alan Keyes, and Clarence Thomas over Hilary Clinton." How ridiculous.

While I got slapped around by a few callers (and gently by the host, an Obama supporter), one caller was particularly unhinged. He called himself an "Obama Republican," which struck me as oxymoronic (or maybe just moronic), and went on about how Obama showed leadership in the Illinois legislature in opposing the war and that I was out of line for not giving him credit for this. I reminded the caller that Obama has not opposed one nickel of Bush spending to continue this travesty, but, alas, I was deemed unduly critical of "the Brother," not to be taken seriously. By the way caller: Do you know how easy it is to oppose something when you have no skin in the game? Can anyone say for sure that he would not have voted to authorize Bush's foolishness in Iraq if he were a member of the Senate in 2002? I'm willing to bet that Obama would have done as all the Senate Democrats who wanted to be president did: vote to support Bush so that their Republican general election opponent couldn't say they were soft on terrorism.

All I've tried to do is add some reason and caution to the over-the-top response that many voters have for Obama. And I'll keep doing it. I have thick skin, so it's no big deal to me.

Michael K. Fauntroy is an assistant professor of public policy at George Mason University and author of Republicans and the Black Vote. A registered Independent, he blogs at: MichaelFauntroy.com.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 23 Feb 08 - 09:11 PM

chatterbox: Gossip, speculation, and scuttlebutt about politics.
The Obama Messiah WatchIntroducing a periodic feature considering evidence that Obama is the son of God.
By Timothy Noah
Posted Monday, Jan. 29, 2007, at 6:23 PM ET

Is Barack Obama—junior U.S. senator from Illinois, best-selling author, Harvard Law Review editor, Men's Vogue cover model, and "exploratory" presidential candidate—the second coming of our Savior and our Redeemer, Prince of Peace and King of Kings, Jesus Christ? His press coverage suggests we can't dismiss this possibility out of hand. I therefore inaugurate the Obama Messiah Watch, which will periodically highlight gratuitously adoring biographical details that appear in newspaper, television, and magazine profiles of this otherworldly presence in our midst.

Today's item, from a Los Angeles Times profile by Larry Gordon about Obama's two years at Occidental College (before he transferred to Columbia):

    In [political science professor Roger] Boesche's European politics class, [classmate Ken] Sulzer said he was impressed at how few notes [italics mine] Obama took. "Where I had five pages, Barry had probably a paragraph of the pithiest, tightest prose you'd ever see. … It was very short, very sweet. Obviously somebody almost Clintonesque in being able to sum a whole lot of concepts and place them into a succinct written style."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 23 Feb 08 - 09:17 PM

My bad. The last two launched without my knowledge.

The second one is from Slate magazine, the first from a very interesting African American political indie commentator, Michael Fauntroy.

It isn't just l'il ole GG expressing dissenting views on the Obama cult in Mudcat in a random, abberant manner. There are a lot of people still out in the big world beyond the Mudcat echo chamber who haven't surrendered all their critical thinking faculties in an easy trade for fuzzy feel good rhetoric from the leading corporate Democratic party candidate.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 23 Feb 08 - 09:23 PM

Well, Geege, you may just be an ass, then. I don't know who your sweeping generalizations and condemnations apply to hear at Mudcat; I have already voiced disappointment in Barack Obama once, but it turned out to be based on a false report -- if I recall, one that you posted. So it's not like your goal to spread cynicism and despond has no traction; just not as much as you would probably like.

Both of those comments are interesting enough -- I have heard many more both pro and contra Obama, which were just as articulate.

What is it about people making decisions according to their own lights that bothers you so?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 23 Feb 08 - 09:49 PM

I'm not the one hot and bothered about somebody else's opinions here, Amos. That's you, Ron Davies, Bobert, et al deciding to attack anyone who doesn't agree with your glowing reports about Obama.

It's the Mudcat group think, and the hatred of anyone with a different point of view that binds you all together. Your hate is your most powerful motivator.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 23 Feb 08 - 09:57 PM

The Obama Glow

The Nuclear Industry's Golden Child

by Joshua Frank / February 22nd, 2008

Barack Obama, hoping to shore up major victories in the delegate rich states of Texas and Ohio early next month, is going after Hillary Clinton's ever-dwindling base of working class voters. The Illinois senator is hoping to stimulate their passion for his campaign by proposing to stimulate the weak economy by spending $210 billion on new jobs. Obama says his government sponsored employment program would allocate $150 billion over 10 years to create 5 million jobs in environmental industries.

Sounds Keynesian enough. Obama would couple his lavish government spending with investments from the private sector to produce work for many of America's underemployed. The number of jobs he seeks to create is significant to be sure, but the real question is in what "environmental" capacity would these so-called "green collar" jobs be created? Many critics argue that Obama's plan doesn't exactly create jobs, but only redistributes money from one part of the economy to another. Even so, there may be far more sinister tenets to Obama's economic plan.

Unfortunately the Obama campaign is light on the details of his stimulus program, only referring to these government gigs as working to develop more environmentally friendly energy sources. At face value this may all sound like a noble venture — one greens and others concerned with the environment might consider getting behind. But given Obama's track record, voters can't be too certain his plan is all that "green". In fact it may be just the opposite, for the senator's ties to the nuclear industry are stronger than any other candidate in the hunt for the White House this year.

In 2006 Obama took up the cause of Illinois residents who were angry with Exelon, the nation's largest nuclear power plant operator, for not having disclosed a leak at one of their nuclear plants in the state. Obama responded by quickly introducing a bill that would require nuclear facilities to immediately notify state and federal agencies of all leaks, large or small.

At first it seemed Obama was intent on making a change in the reporting protocol, even demonizing Exelon's inaction in the press. But Obama could only go so far as Exelon executives, including Chairman John W. Rowe who serves as a key lobbyist for the Nuclear Energy Lobby, have long been campaign backers, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars dating back to Obama's days in the Illinois State Legislature.

Despite his initial push to advance the legislation, Obama's office eventually rewrote the bill, producing a version that was palatable to Exelon and the rest of the nuclear industry. "Senator Obama's staff was sending us copies of the bill to review, we could see it weakening with each successive draft," said Joe Cosgrove, a park district director in Will County, Illinois, where the nuclear leaks had polluted local ground water. "The teeth were just taken out of it."

Inevitably the bill died a slow death in the Senate. And like an experienced political operative, Obama came out of the battle as a martyr for both sides of the cause. His constituents back in Illinois thought he fought a good fight while industry insiders knew the Obama machine was worth investing in.

Obama's campaign wallet, while flush with millions from small online donations, is also bulging from $227,000 in contributions given by employees of Exelon. Two of Obama's largest campaign fundraisers include Frank M. Clark and John W. Rogers Jr., both top Exelon officials. Even Obama's chief strategist, David Axelrod, has done consulting work for the company.

During a Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works hearing in 2005, Obama, who serves on the committee, asserted that since Congress was debating the negative impact of CO2 emissions "on the global ecosystem, it is reasonable — and realistic — for nuclear power to remain on the table for consideration."

Shortly thereafter, Nuclear Notes, the industry's top trade publication, praised the senator. "Back during his campaign for the U.S. Senate in 2004, [Obama] said that he rejected both liberal and conservative labels in favor of 'common sense solutions'. And when it comes to nuclear energy, it seems like the Senator is keeping an open mind."

The rising star of the Democratic Party's ties to the nuclear industry run deep indeed, but Obama may not only be loyal to Exelon and friends — the senator is also cozy with Big Coal.

Last year Obama pushed to get a FutureGen "clean coal" plant built in Illinois. The company is a public-private partnership that is intent on building "zero-emission" coal plants. FutureGen's energy production is less than a zero-sum game, however, as the company doesn't count the energy used prior to or after the coal is burned, not to mention tallying up the disastrous consequences of coal extraction.

In 2005 Obama also voted in favor of Bush's Energy Plan which included many favors for Bush's oil cartel connections. To top it off Obama even opposed a House bill that would have radically altered the disastrous 1872 Mining Law that continues to allow companies to mine our public lands while they skate the costs of cleaning up their environmental wreckage.

Barack Obama's "job creation" plan may well be code for building taxpayer-sponsored nuclear and coal plants across the country. While Obama's industry pals may profit from his shady deal, it is safe to say the environment won't.

Joshua Frank is co-editor of Dissident Voice and author of Left Out! How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush (Common Courage Press, 2005), and along with Jeffrey St. Clair, the editor of the forthcoming Red State Rebels, to be published by AK Press in June 2008. Read other articles by Joshua.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 23 Feb 08 - 10:10 PM

Sounds pretty blown up, to me. Not to mention slanted with hot phrases. Why can't you just lay the facts out without all the innuendo, "may be awful..." crap? The writer's agenda is so loud you can't even hear what is actually being said!!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Don Firth
Date: 23 Feb 08 - 10:10 PM

"Mudcat group think."

That's a snort!! You don't really know much about this place, do you GiGi!!???

"Mudcat group think."

HAH!!   That'll be the day!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 23 Feb 08 - 10:41 PM

From swans.com:

Obamania: Curb Your Enthusiasm




by Charles Marowitz









(Swans - February 11, 2008)   The pro-Obama video making the rounds of the Internet at the moment is entitled "Yes We Can" attributed to "Will I Am," which I assume is some kind of inspirational nickname for those avidly supporting the candidacy of the senator from Chicago.

It is a fervent, hypnotic chant assuring its listeners that change is definitely in the offing if the right forces combine to bring it about. Obama's words are counterpointed by the incessant and hypnotic drone, "YES WE CAN" and there are shots of various celebrities from the world of entertainment individually intoning the message to those who may have any doubts that Obama can effect the social and political reversals he has so eloquently described in debates and stump speeches throughout the country.

The din of that mesmerizing chant is highly reminiscent of the kind of pro-Nazi collective mania we associate with the Nuremberg Rallies; an attempt by the National Socialist Party and its charismatic leader to sway the general populace towards the marvels the Third Reich would bring to a troubled Germany.

I don't mean to suggest there is any polemical resemblance to Barack Obama and the insane leader who conquered Europe, murdering millions of Jews, gypsies, and homosexuals in the process. There is none. Obama is a civil, sensitive, intelligent, and, to many, inspiring candidate whose greatest asset is his desire to dismantle the brutal partisanship that has crippled America almost as long as there have been political parties competing for electoral office.

My objection to the video is that it resorts to whipping up a kind of emotional frenzy for a deputed leader rather than applying ratiocination and cool-headed evaluation to determine whether or not that leader's message may well be the most salutary in the upcoming election.

By turning Obama into "a mystical force" who is rushing to a Meeting with Destiny, his supporters are threatening a process that should be rooted in objective analysis and cool-headed evaluation. Too much is at stake in the next election, too many horrors have been unleashed in the land for us to suggest that some avatar has arrived who will make everything "magically right"; will transform the brutalizing Present into a benevolent and congenial Future.

It is true (as I've been suggesting two weeks ago) that character counts for more than policy pronouncements in a political election, but unless we apply our unshakeable, Yankee-bred skepticism to each of the candidates and the ballyhoo of the electoral process, we will be swayed like audiences are in the theatre -- another instance in which contrived emotions are marshaled in order to produce a specific state of mind and a certain semblance of character in those to whom they are directed. Here politics, like the theater, is rigged in very much the same way in order to achieve a premeditated effect. It may look spontaneous but it has been assiduously contrived.

If we turn up for Obama on election day, it mustn't be because we believe there is some inescapable, messianic desire that must be fulfilled by placing the tenor of his idealism against his ability to operate that elaborate political machine, which, though he would like to transform it, is an immensely powerful juggernaut sustained by deeply entrenched forces that have a vested interest in keeping it just the way it is. Should he try to re-tool that machine, the antagonists that he would encounter are formidable. They comprise some of the wealthiest and most impregnable corporations in America and they will not be joining in the chorus of "Yes We Can," but quietly murmuring, "No They Won't." To underestimate the forces already massing against an Obama victory, we, the voters, should be considering, as finitely as we can, the strengths and weaknesses of what an Obama presidency would imply. And we should be doing that now -- during the months leading up to the election and in a critical and probing frame of mind in order to gage what counterforce can be mustered to rout the demagogues who have winkled their way into every branch of government and industry reducing a democracy into an oligarchy and one that will fight to the death to retain its privileges and its profits.

The Obama video and its worked-up crowd mania had the same appalling reaction on me as Bush's final State of the Union address when a great phalanx of cheering Republicans rose up regularly (like spasmodic erections) to cheer some sickening conservative mantra like "No tax increases" and "The Iraqi situation is definitely improving." At moments such as these, human beings were transformed into marionettes and their fusillades of applause into signal reactions that belied their humanity. They could just as well have been shouting "Heil Hitler!" What is unnerving about such uniform outbursts of aggressive enthusiasm is the suspicion that politicians were cajoling themselves into a solidarity that belies their own individuality and makes them appear like brainwashed androids. The maniacal insistence behind such outbursts is the essence of dogmatism and the antithesis of reasoned approval.

The Nuremberg echo behind "Yes We Can" is a troubling sound -- not so much because of its Hitlerian overtones, but because that kind of frantic enthusiasm can only blur the clarity we need in the tangled circumstances that now beset our nation. If we ever needed cool heads and sound judgment to extricate ourselves from the quagmires of Iraq, a faltering economy, and corporate thievery in order to restore dignity to a nation that is rightly despised in so many parts of the world, we need it now. The last thing we need is mass-hypnosis and a rallying cry behind a charismatic leader who may or may not be able to scale the heights into which the presidency may thrust him. A leader rapidly becomes a hero to those who uncritically support him. In the early l940s, Bertolt Brecht fled Germany when he saw Hitlerism destroying his country. In Galileo written in exile, Andrea, the astronomer's apprentice, remarks: "Unhappy is the land that breeds no hero." To which Galileo replies: "No, Andrea. Unhappy is the land that needs a hero."

There is more to chew on in those eight words than all the slogans of both the Democratic and Republican parties combined.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 23 Feb 08 - 10:47 PM

Strikes me that not even knowing what "Will.I.Am" stands for (or who he is) is a confession up front that the gentleman is facing something he cannot understand, something like Mister Jones. And, something he is in no wise qualified to make comment upon.

For him then to say it reminds him of Hitlerian rallies is both insulting and stupid in a single breath.

I share his respect for a grain of salt and "Yankee" skepticism. But to take that reasonable proviso and turn it into thundering ignorance and Nazi parallels is just tediously ignorant and wrong-headed.



A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 23 Feb 08 - 11:11 PM

Amos, where does this god complex of yours come from anyway?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: DannyC
Date: 23 Feb 08 - 11:55 PM

No experience is required -- whether you're a first-time volunteer or a seasoned veteran, you'll have the experience of a lifetime organizing for Barack on the ground.

Learn more and sign up to come make history in Ohio:

http://my.barackobama.com/CometoOH

********************************************

Come join us - today they turned off the electricity at 1524 Madison St., Cincinnati. The hive bustled nonetheless. There are millions more doors upon which to rap and softly say, "I'm from the Obama campaign and I am here to ask you to help make a change that the World will believe in, may I ask you to.... " By day's end a few more broad boulevards were lined with Obama signage.

The relentless poet sings in my head:

"I'm a-goin' back out 'fore the rain starts a-fallin',
I'll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest,
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty,
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters,
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison,
Where the executioner's face is always well hidden,
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten,
Where black is the color, where none is the number,
And I'll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it,
And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it,
Then I'll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin',
But I'll know my song well before I start singin',
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall."

... and I am become the rain ...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 24 Feb 08 - 12:14 AM

And a sure sign the anti-Obama backlash is well underway, Saturday Night Live is back with it's first live show since the writers strike.

The opening routine mocked the whole Obama cult.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Big Mick
Date: 24 Feb 08 - 12:15 AM

As well as Hillary's stock answers that say nothing and admit nothing...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 24 Feb 08 - 12:21 AM

Well, they are owned by GE so they need to be sure all their talk about being one sided, is duly balanced by going after the Democrats, rather than what the original SNL cast & writers would have gone after this week, which would have been, hands down, the McCain story.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 24 Feb 08 - 12:26 AM

It's a natural impulse to defuse stupidity, Gigi. IF the things I pointed out about Joshua Frank's under-informed remarks offend you, feel free to say why. I just didn't like the slant and loaded bias of his writing. Starting with his choice of being sarcastic about Will.I.Am's name, because purely of his own cultural ignorance. The least he could have done is looked it up -- 45 seconds of keyboarding would have done it. He pretended he had not done even that much. Was he incompetent to speak because he was lazy? Or fixed in his pre-formed opinions and unwilling to expose them to a few simple facts? Given this, in either case, I should look on him as a pundit? I don't think so.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 24 Feb 08 - 12:35 AM

Yeah, because Joe Six Pack in Akron is gonna google willIam. Sure, Amos.

There is no reason for ANY voter to give a shit about celebrity endorsements. NONE.

Unless they have drunk the Kool Aid of course. At least all the young people are cynical about all the celebrity endorsement crap.

Or as my daughter said in 2004, oh yeah--she was going to vote for Kerry because Ben Affleck was endorsing him.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 24 Feb 08 - 01:01 AM

Hey, I don't care if the guy looks him up, or doesn't--but if he isn't going t bother to find out the story, he shouldn't try to write it.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 24 Feb 08 - 09:04 AM

Amos, I didn't post any of those articles from other websites because I agree with any and all of them. I posted them as examples of what other people are thinking and saying about Obama.

A backlash against him, now that he is the frontrunner, was inevitable. The fact that huge crowds of people are relating to and responding to him as if he were a cult messiah figure or a celebrity, is something a lot of voters, including me, find very disturbing. Especially in light of how fucked up Bush/Cheney, Inc. has made this world.

I don't want a rock star, celebrity, savior politician for president. The thought of that absolutely terrifies me, because I know all the major party candidates are the frontman/puppets for the corporados. The pretty, shiny, new face they put forth, to lull people into believing that looking and sounding different equates with an ability to systemically change all the things wrong with the nation as a result of nearly a decade of mismanagement. The problem here isn't just that there isn't a dime's worth of difference between Clinton and Obama. It is also that there is only 24 cents worth of difference between them and McCain.

Here is the true answer to what ails us as a nation: electoral presidential elections can't save us from ourselves.

Try googling The Story of Stuff. The problem isn't just with the candidates or the system. The problem is our own greed and avarice, our own 'fuck the rest the world' attitude.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 24 Feb 08 - 09:13 AM

And you all may be shocked to hear me, of all people, say this, but Al Gore would be a far better choice than either Clinton or Obama, because as a person & a politician, I think he has grown a lot since 2000, and in the right sort of way to make a good (not great, mind you, but good) president.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Feb 08 - 09:14 AM

Set 'em up and then knock 'em down. Keeps the punters sort of interested... Politics, music, sport, literature, whatever, they all come in for the same treatment.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 24 Feb 08 - 09:36 AM

If Gore stepped up today I think I would swing for him; and I agree he has grown a lot since the day when he used to be the next President. But he is not going to.

I also concur that the backlash is inevitable -- see my earlier remarks about hoping his fields can take the shit that will be thrown at him.

Barack has the potential -- not promise -- to be a genuinely great President. But he has to run the bloody gauntlet of the campaign first.

If he wins the nomination, as seems likely, the Repubs will, I agree, try to make race an issue, in all their sanctimonious self-righteous stupidity. It angers me to see stupidity intnetionally deployed to do harm, but after eight years of this crap I am not going to be surprised by it.

More power to Obama's shields. He's gonna need them.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 24 Feb 08 - 09:42 AM

Backlash against a frontrunner is so inevitable, any campaign that doesn't plan for it isn't doing their job.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 24 Feb 08 - 11:39 AM

New York Times column:

"...
Clinton fans donÕt see their standard-bearerÕs troubles this way. In their view, their highly substantive candidate was unfairly undone by a lightweight showboat who got a free ride from an often misogynist press and from na•ve young people who lap up messianic language as if it were Jim JonesÕs Kool-Aid. Or as Mrs. Clinton frames it, Senator Obama is all about empty words while she is all about action and hard work.

But itÕs the Clinton strategists, not the Obama voters, who drank the Kool-Aid. The Obama campaign is not a vaporous cult; itÕs a lean and mean political machine that gets the job done. The Clinton camp has been the slacker in this race, more words than action, and its candidateÕs message, for all its purported high-mindedness, was and is self-immolating.

The gap in hard work between the two campaigns was clear well before Feb. 5. Mrs. Clinton threw as much as $25 million at the Iowa caucuses without ever matching Mr. ObamaÕs organizational strength. In South Carolina, where last fall she was up 20 percentage points in the polls, she relied on top-down endorsements and the patina of inevitability, while the Obama campaign built a landslide-winning organization from scratch at the grass roots. In Kansas, three paid Obama organizers had the field to themselves for three months; ultimately Obama staff members outnumbered Clinton staff members there 18 to 3...."


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 24 Feb 08 - 12:18 PM

Maureen Dowd offers a spicy comparison between Hillary and Barack, well worth the short read.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Riginslinger
Date: 24 Feb 08 - 01:05 PM

"...the Repubs will, I agree, try to make race an issue,..."


                Depending on how you define Repubs, but I think the extreme right wing will make a bigger deal out of religion than race, and with them the truth doesn't matter because they simply will refuse to believe it.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Feb 08 - 01:39 PM

Religion as an issue runs up against the problem that there isn't in fact any issue. Obama's a Christian, like all previous Presidents have been, and a Protestant, like all his predecessors, apart form Kennedy. The suggestion that he's a covert Muslim is liable to run into the sand before long.

Much easier to make a big deal out of race - though harder in the actual election than in the primaries. It's easy enough to argue that a black candidate won't be able to get elected because of the existence of substantial numbers of racists in the electorate. And it's perfectly possible for someone to make that argument while protesting truthfully enough, no doubt, that they are in nio way racist themselves.

But once it comes to a general election that argument just doesn't work any more.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Don Firth
Date: 24 Feb 08 - 02:05 PM

Bizarre as it may seem, GiGi, there's something we can agree on.

Al Gore.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Ron Davies
Date: 24 Feb 08 - 03:00 PM

Rig--

Some people recognize good reporting when they see it. Unfortunately you don't seem to be among that number.   If you don't think my figure, from the WSJ, that Hillary has 100,000 people working for her in Texas is accurate, what is your figure?

Also, still patiently waiting--patience is certainly a requirement in dealing with you--for your exact source for your claim that Obama is outspending Hillary 8 to 1 in Texas.

Making snide comments about Murdoch, I'm sorry, doesn't answer the question. He has officially won his battle to take over the WSJ, but so far the quality of the reporting has not changed at all---and I'll put the reporting up against any other source in the world for accuracy.

But I'm not surprised to see another offering from Smears R Us from you instead of an actual answer to a question. Nice to know some things don't change.

It's also obvious why you are making the specious claim about 8 to 1.   When Hillary wins in Texas but not by the 20% she needs, you can then claim--falsely-- that it shows conclusively that she has the momentum she needs--since she did it against huge odds.
Too bad your entire theory is, in the current vernacular, a "fairy tale". One of the many reasons your claim is absurd is that Obama doesn't even need to pay many of his workers at all---many young people are happy to volunteer.

By the way, I understand that in addition to a steady stream of slander and bad-mouthing Obama and his chances, you've also found time to improve the Carter Family's theme: it's now "Keep On the Gloomy Side". Any truth to that?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 24 Feb 08 - 04:55 PM

The Hispanic view on Obama.

Enjoy.


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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 24 Feb 08 - 05:06 PM

Gosh..the first Kool-Aid reference, not here but all over the internet and the press..was OK..not brilliant but OK...But it has become so 1990s..I guess we go to jumpin the shark next....

well, time for an obamarama group hug. I hope he is allowing the Return of Elvis emotion to continue because it will translate into votes, and then squelches it as soon as expedient. It is a little icky, but I like him anyway. He seems to me smart, smarter and more pragmatic than anyone coming down the pike in a long time. And he has a Muslim heritage..perhaps not his personal faith but it can not have helped but influence him. And so? What is not wonderful about that? He himself said something to the effect that a billion people were and perhaps he could breach some gaps or something to that effect. I think it is a plus. I think that talking as though, oh goodness, this is something bad, is idiotic. There are some dangers involved here, because by they way his ancestors considered things, he is one, like if your mother is Jewish, aren't you Jewish? and some of the more fervent do not like people abandoning their faith. Still, if people have Irish names people interrogate them if they are not Catholic..did an ancestor take the soup? mg

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Riginslinger
Date: 24 Feb 08 - 05:44 PM

Ron - I've found several sources that will tell you that Obama outspent Hillary 5 to 1 in Wisconsin, and I think the 8 to 1 figure for Texas came from NPR, though I can't find the source. Given the 5 to 1 figure in Wisconsin, however, I don't think it's out of the question.
                     It could be that reliable figures are not made available until the voting has been completed and that somebody was speculating on the 8 to 1 figure. If it makes you feel better, however, I'll strike it from the record.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Riginslinger
Date: 24 Feb 08 - 05:47 PM

"Religion as an issue runs up against the problem that there isn't in fact any issue."


             And when have facts ever made a difference in an American election?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Little Hawk
Date: 24 Feb 08 - 06:15 PM

Right on! Who needs facts when you have good innuendo? And who needs ALL the facts, when just a few carefully chosen ones will appear to offer ironclad support to YOUR favorite prejudices? ;-)

Standard technique. Just talk about the specific facts that seem to help your cause. Ignore or discount all others. That's what 99% of the people on this planet do, and have always done.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 24 Feb 08 - 06:22 PM

I must have posted the only reference I could find to spending ratios in Texas on another related thread in error. The individual cited a ratio of 775K to 1.2M (Clinton to Obama) in ad purchases in Texas. Less than 2:1.


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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Riginslinger
Date: 24 Feb 08 - 07:18 PM

That's probably why the newspapers are backing Obama. They need to sell advertsing these days.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Feb 08 - 07:47 PM

Innuendo can only take you so far. There needs to be some kind of substance. I'm sure there are people who are predisposed to be hostile to Obama, but they aren't going to vote for him anyway - to be effective the innuendo has to get to people who are inclined to vote for him, and some basis in fact is needed for that, I suggest. And having a father who deserted him at the age of two, and who was some kind of a Muslim, just doesn't stack up.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Riginslinger
Date: 24 Feb 08 - 08:05 PM

If you had an informed public, innuendo wouldn't do much at all for you. But wasn't his stepfather a Muslim as well?

             Given the state of the American electorate, I think they can go a long way with it. Remember, the young people who are involved in the caucuses are mostly college students, a lot of the rest of them get their news from Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, and that awful Michael Medved.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 24 Feb 08 - 08:44 PM

Well, you never know when a long absent parent might decide to show up on the stage of a famous child though. It could happen.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 24 Feb 08 - 08:44 PM

That is, it could happen if he were still alive.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 24 Feb 08 - 08:45 PM

And of course, I haven't a clue if he is.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 24 Feb 08 - 08:45 PM

Or isn't.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 24 Feb 08 - 08:46 PM

Nonetheless...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 24 Feb 08 - 08:46 PM

2000!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 24 Feb 08 - 08:49 PM

By George, Gigi -- an on-topic good humored series, ending in a spectacular numerical snag. Well done. ;>)


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