BS: Popular Views on Obama

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 24 Feb 08 - 08:52 PM

No snag, just wanted to be sure everyone knew I could count just as well as a 5th grader educated under Bush's NCLB program.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 24 Feb 08 - 08:56 PM

Well, good job counting, keep up the good work... LOL!



A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Riginslinger
Date: 24 Feb 08 - 11:17 PM

I think I read where Obama's father was killed in an automobile crash. I don't know a thing about the stepfather though.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Ron Davies
Date: 25 Feb 08 - 10:56 PM

Finally, Rig you recognize: "I don't know a thing about the stepfather". But of course that doesn't stop you from speculating in print that he is Moslem. We couldn't expect you , as the CEO of Smears R Us, to do anything else.

Though I do thank you for withdrawing your specious 8 to 1 ratio. Too bad it hurts your plan to claim a big victory for Hillary when she barely wins Texas.

All you have to do is actually have a definite source to cite when you give information. It doesn't seem unreasonable. Oh yes, it would be good if you actually did give the source at the time--not waiting til you were forced to backtrack--though that's a handy political skill--particularly in smearing. (Somehow I don't think I needed to tell you that--you knew already.)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 25 Feb 08 - 11:54 PM

CBS) A new CBS News/New York Times poll finds Barack Obama with a 16-point lead over rival Hillary Clinton among Democratic primary voters nationwide.

Obama, coming off 11 straight primary and caucus victories, had the support of 54 percent of Democratic primary voters nationally. Clinton had 38 percent support.

In a CBS News poll taken three weeks ago, shortly before Super Tuesday, Obama and Clinton were tied at 41 percent. Clinton led by 15 points nationally in January.

The former first lady has lost her advantage among women, according to the poll: The two leading Democrats now have even levels of support among female primary voters.

Men, meanwhile, disproportionately favor Obama. He leads Clinton among male Democratic primary voters 67 percent to 28 percent, and leads among white men 61 percent to 33 percent.

Fifty-nine percent of Democratic primary voters said Obama has the best chance of beating likely Republican nominee John McCain in the general election. Twenty-eight percent said Clinton is most likely to win in November.

Obama is now seen as the likely Democratic nominee: More than two-thirds of Democratic primary voters said they expect the Illinois senator to win the nomination.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Riginslinger
Date: 26 Feb 08 - 01:27 AM

Ron - This is from the LA Times:

Obama was born in Honolulu. When he was 2, his father, Barack Obama Sr., a Kenyan, and his Kansas-born mother, Ann Dunham, separated and later divorced. Dunham later married Lolo Soetoro, who was a Muslim. In 1967, the family moved to Jakarta, where Obama lived from ages 6 to 10. People there knew him as Barry Soetoro.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 26 Feb 08 - 08:31 AM

Washington Post - 36 minutes ago
By Shailagh Murray Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), a former contender for the Democratic nomination, is expected to endorse Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill) this morning, sources close to the campaign said.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 26 Feb 08 - 08:50 AM

Dodd's endorsement ain't worth squat. Call me when Edwards is ready to endorse Obama.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 26 Feb 08 - 10:18 AM

Maybe not where you are, Gigi, but back in CT he has some influence. So it is too worth squat. :D

Post your phone number here so I can call you when Edwards comes out.



A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 26 Feb 08 - 01:22 PM

Clinton's hopes to use Ohio as a firewall in her falling campaign suffered another blow today when former Cleveland Mayor Michael R. White, who had earlier backed Clinton, also endorsed Obama.

"As an African American, I am proud to see Barack Obama make such an extraordinary effort to become the president of the United States," he wrote in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. "But being black is not enough for me to vote against my friend. I am voting for Barack because he has rekindled my hope again through his experience, vision and leadership for change in a political system that has gone so awry."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 26 Feb 08 - 02:41 PM

(guardian.co.uk, Tuesday February 26 2008 )(updated at 18:53 on February 26 2008).

Barack Obama has extended his electoral grip among groups of voters until recently seen as core supporters of Hillary Clinton, including low-income families and moderates, and has even drawn level among Democratic women, a slew of new opinion polls suggest.

The surveys underline the critical few days facing Clinton, who must perform well in next Tuesday's primaries in Ohio and Texas if she is to stand any chance of regaining some of the momentum currently enjoyed by Obama, who has won 11 straight contests in the past two weeks.

In the face of such setbacks the Clinton campaign has decided to go on the offensive against Obama, unleashing what one adviser told the New York Times was a "kitchen sink" fusillade against him.

The paper said that she would focus on five points of perceived weakness in his experience and preparedness for government.

But such aggressive tactics look increasingly like last-ditch efforts.

A nationwide poll by the Associated Press and Ipsos found that Obama has taken a significant lead among Democratic voters earning between $50,000 and $100,000 a year — reversing the lead that Clinton had enjoyed among that group as recently as February. He has also pulled ahead among white men and those describing themselves as liberals.

According to the survey Clinton continues to enjoy dominance among those aged over 65 and with white women.

But a similar poll conducted by the New York Times and CBS News found that even her prevalence among Democratic women voters has been eroded until both candidates now stand neck and neck at 45%.

The Times/CBS poll overall gave Obama a 16-point lead nationwide, with 54% Democratic support to Clinton's 38%.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Riginslinger
Date: 26 Feb 08 - 02:45 PM

I'm waiting to see a picture of Ron Davies wearing a turban.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 26 Feb 08 - 09:08 PM

Yes, I'm sure it is every bit as valuable as the Kennedy & Kerry endorsements were in Massachusetts.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Charley Noble
Date: 26 Feb 08 - 10:11 PM

I do find Sen. Chris Dodd's endorsement of Obama of interest. But that's mecause I also served in the Peace Corps and I was sorry that Dodd's own campaign didn't leave the ground. He's a good man.

So, Gigi, do you have anything specific to criticize about Sen. Dodd's record? Or is this your usual critique by associated names such as Kerry and Kennedy?

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 26 Feb 08 - 10:14 PM

Nothing about Dodd, no. I think political endorsements are pretty pointless, and rarely make any difference. If ever. And how would you prove they did besides hocus pocus anecdotes?

Exit polling doesn't ask those questions, and even if they did, exit polling isn't THAT bloody accurate.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 26 Feb 08 - 10:35 PM

"Dodd endorsed Obama at a news conference in Cleveland where Obama is campaigning one week before crucial primaries in Ohio and Texas that could be decisive in the battle for the party nomination.

Two new national public opinion polls show Obama has moved into a healthy lead over Clinton. A New York Times/CBS News poll has Obama out in front by a margin of 54 to 38 percent. Another survey by USA Today and the Gallup organization shows Obama leading Clinton 51 to 39 percent."

Reuters

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 27 Feb 08 - 01:35 AM

Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2008, at 1:05 PM ET

In Texas, Barack Obama is either tied or leading in almost all of the recent polls and has finally passed Hillary Clinton in Pollster.com's poll average. Public Policy Polling (PDF) has the two candidates tied but reports that Obama leads by seven points among white voters and that a large chunk of Clinton's support comes from Latino voters. SurveyUSA has Obama in the lead by four points and dominating among 18- to 49-year-olds. CNN also has him up by four but doesn't show much movement from Obama's numbers a week ago.
Before Super Tuesday, some polls showed Obama down by as much as 18 points. He now leads Clinton by more than three points in the poll average. SurveyUSA's numbers may have one silver lining for Clinton: Twenty-three percent of voters say they could still change their mind, and the plurality of them are Obama supporters.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 27 Feb 08 - 11:14 AM

"No doubt, ...anyone acting as an Obama campaign surrogate...should be able to rapidly list the important issues that the Illinois Senator has championed. This includes the Lugar-Obama legislation that has helped decrease the threat of old nuclear, biological, and chemical weapon in the former Soviet Union and the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 which Obama co-authored and that led to USAspending.gov, which keeps Americans better informed on government spending.

Obama has also been very active in legislation to end the Iraq war and the much-heralded Dignified Treatment of Wounded Warriors Act, which passed in July of 2007 and addressed the hideous treatment received by Veterans under the Bush administration, began its legislative life as the Dignity for Wounded Warriors Act, introduced by Obama earlier in the year.

But here's the thing that any person going on television to represent Obama should repeat without end -- and that should also be a part of the Obama campaign's standard playbook: No Democrat, including Senator Hillary Clinton has been able to do one hell of a lot that meets the accomplishment benchmark of "passed legislation" in a time of unending, record-setting Republican obstructionism.

Obama has been in the Senate for three years, two of which were spent with a Republican majority that would not even let legislation sponsored by Democrats reach the floor for a vote and, on the few occasions where Bill Frist granted such a luxury, Republicans shot down most Democratic initiatives with extreme prejudice.

In the current (110th) Congress, the Republican minority has blocked everything but the Senate chaplain's morning prayer and is on pace by a wide margin to filibuster more legislation than any Senate in U.S. history.

And there's the answer that the Texas state senator should have given on Tuesday night in response to Matthews' badgering. He should have been able to list just a few of Obama's legislative efforts but, far more importantly, he should have been in tune enough with the national legislative scene to say "Chris, have you been watching the U.S. Senate the last few years?"

He could then have gone on to discuss how Republicans have had a significant Senate majority for most of this young century and, during the brief periods Democrats have held a razor-thin edge, the GOP has made damn sure that the Democratic side of the aisle has no "legislative accomplishments" to hang their hats on in election years.

As for the Obama campaign, I support your guy and I'll give you this statement for free as you will certainly need it when Republicans begin lobbing charges of zero legislative accomplishments that will make Matthews look like an Obama groupie.

Senator Obama knows that the American people are smart enough to see that the Republican party has become committed to doing nothing but blocking legislation that would help the American people and restore our nation to a place of esteem in the world. And they'll further reject Republican claims that any Senator has not passed enough legislation when the GOP has made it their life's work to see that no legislation is allowed to pass.

"More than anything, this demonstrates why a new kind of politics is necessary in Washington and why the American people are ready to turn the page and see all of us begin to accomplish more. ...

(CBS Blogs)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 27 Feb 08 - 07:56 PM

I see where McCain tried to bully Obama and Obama gave McCain as good as he got.

But the dialogue puzzles me. My understanding was that the group calling itself Al Qeda in Iraq was not actually a branch of Al Qeda per se.

Any know with any clarity what the relationship is between these two groups of nutballs? Is Al Qeda in Iraq an affiliate with a group called Al Qeda that was purportedly behind the Twin Towers attacks, or not?


A


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Feb 08 - 08:38 PM

I don't think Al Qaeda is organised like that, with a central command structure. As I understand it, there's Bin Laden and those around him shaping the ideology, and promoting it - and there are people who like the sound of that ideology and use it as a basis for organising and going out and killing people or whatever, wherever they are, or wherever they can get to. A kind of franchise.

That means it's vastly more difficult to counter than a centrally organised and directed organisation. Wipe out Bin laden and those around him, and there's no reason to think that Al Qaeda would cease to be doing terrible stuff, or even be in any way weakened.

As Obama pointed out in this clip responding to McCain, before the invasion of Iraq, there wasn't any Al Qaeda affiliated activity in Iraq (apart from in a small area up in the North on the border with Iran outside the control of Baghdad). In the chaos after the invasion and the total collapse of civil society it was Liberty Hall for insurgents of all kind, and plenty of scope for people with Al Qaeda sympathies, largely from Saudi Arabia, to start blowing up Americans and Iraqis.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 Feb 08 - 08:59 PM

The best way to eliminate Al Queda would be to go back to 1950 and eliminate the CIA.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Ron Davies
Date: 27 Feb 08 - 09:00 PM

Main salient point about "al Qaeda in Iraq", ignored by all parties as far as I can see, is that it is roundly loathed and despised by Iraqi Kurds and Shiiites--and now also hated by Iraqi Sunnis.

So, as I've noted earlier, the question is where the support necessary for al Qaeda to take over in Iraq--the threat constantly held over us by Bush and now McCain-- will come from?

And since that's the reason for our being in Iraq, the reason is now gone--except in "Kurdistan"-- where there is oil--and the Kurds want us there on a long-term basis.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Feb 08 - 09:25 PM

It's inconceivable that an Al Qaeda linked orgnisation could take over power in Iraq following an American pull-out. The only thing that has given them any possibility of operating has been the American presence.

Of course it's also pretty inconceivable that there will be an Iraqi regime that is particularly friendly to the USA either, but that is another matter. But staying longer isn't going to do anything to change that, except perhaps by making things even worse in that respect than they would be otherwise.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 27 Feb 08 - 10:44 PM

DALLAS Ñ Senator Barack Obama on Wednesday accepted the endorsement of Representative John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat and longtime African-American political leader, who switched his support from the presidential candidacy of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

ÒJohn Lewis is an American hero and a giant of the civil rights movement,Ó Mr. Obama said in a statement issued after he arrived here for a campaign stop. ÒI am deeply honored to have his support.Ó

The support of Mr. Lewis, who carries great influence among other members of Congress, has been carefully monitored as the fight for the Democratic presidential nomination evolved into a fight for delegates between Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton.

Mr. Lewis, a superdelegate to the Democratic National Convention, first disclosed his intention to support Mr. Obama in an interview with The New York Times on Feb. 14. He said then that he could Ònever, ever do anything to reverse the actionÓ of the voters of his district, who overwhelmingly supported Mr. Obama, of Illinois.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 28 Feb 08 - 11:21 AM

The problem is that at least 40% of Americans respond to cartoon-image thinking. McCain seeks to raise a comic-book depiction of frightening evil, without caring much to analyze the dynamic structure of it, or the vectors tha t produced it, or even whether ti is accurate or not. Obama is rejecting that comic-strip, and is providing a slightly more analytical rebuttal. LEt us hope his instinctively excellent PR sense enables him to carry this point so the American viotong public is not bullied, cowed, herded or terror-stricken into doing a wild-eyed panic vote for McCain.

Barack, too, uses vivid rhetorical images to generate his enthusiastic support. But his cartoons are ones of enthusiasm and a better plan, while McCain's are straight out of the violent WW II "Sergeant Rock and the Commies" class of cartoon -- not worth spending more than a dime on, despite their full color spreads.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 28 Feb 08 - 02:47 PM

the Democrat presidential race.

Rep. John Barrow of Savannah, who represents a toss-up district and who had one of the toughest re-elections battles in the country in 2006, picked Obama over Sen. Hillary Clinton, saying Obama's already proven his willingness and ability to work in a bipartisan manner.


"He's the one who has shown in his work that he's able to work with all sides," Barrow said.

Obama now has the backing of all five of the Democratic congressmen from Georgia who have announced a preference. Clinton now has no public support from the state's congressional super delegates to the Democratic national convention this summer.

Barrow said Obama's bipartisanship more than makes up for his relatively short experience in Washington.

"The best indicator of what a person's going to do in the future is what they've done in the past," he said.

Barrows' announcement comes a day after Rep. John Lewis, an Atlanta Democrat, announced that he's switching his support from Clinton to Obama.

Unlike Lewis, however, Barrow had not endorsed anyone in the Democrat primary until now. He said he cast his primary ballot earlier this month for Obama, "but felt I owed to everybody to pay attention to how everyone else (in his district) voted" prior to making a public announcement.

(www.ajc.com)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Feb 08 - 04:24 PM

Here's a link to a song that got posted in a thread in the music section. There may be people dropping into this thread who have missed it, and it's a good one - For Obama: "Si Se Puede Cambiar" by Andres Useche

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 28 Feb 08 - 04:58 PM

It's inconceivable that an Al Qaeda linked orgnisation could take over power in Iraq following an American pull-out. The only thing that has given them any possibility of operating has been the American presence.
---

Are you for serious? Any bad apple groups in the world will be there..the Russian Mafia, the Mafia Mafia, the Chinese Ton???s, the IRA, and they will all join hands/forces....there is incredible money to be extorted there...

And McCain was not bullying Obama in my opinion. He was bringing up a very serious point that Obama seems clueless about, although I am totally for him domestically. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Feb 08 - 05:31 PM

I somehow doubt if the IRA will be too involved. The logistics would be a bit difficult. And the same would probably apply to other foreign mobs. There are plenty of local bad boys, I'm sure - but I doubt if Al Qaeda would be very well placed to compete.

The only thing they've got for them is that they have been able to present themselves as fighting the invaders. Without the American presence Al Qaeda in Iraq are just a bunch of highly vulnerable foreign thugs.
...............................

I don't think it was a matter of "bullying" - it was McCain identifying Obama as the opponent he has to beat, and indicating a political area where he thinks he can beat him - and Obama responding in the same vein. Both were sending a message that Clinton was to be seen as out of the competition.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 28 Feb 08 - 10:56 PM

If it is the case, as I believe it is, that AQIR is a separate organization from AQ, not supported by it or endorsed by it or under its control, then accusing Baarck of missing the picture in reference to AQ was an effort to beat him down with spurious rhetoric. Call it bullying or something else. I could be wrong. The fear-mongering that proved so valuable to Bush and so mind-numbing to the country at large should stop.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 28 Feb 08 - 11:38 PM

Unfortunately, fear mongering can not stop for many many years because there are some very serious things to be fearful about and that we must be prepared to face. I am totally for doing whatever is possible diplomatically etc., while at the same time we watch people being stuffed into paper shredders, oops diplomacy does take a bit of time, as well as a strong stomach while people are torn into bits...but there is a point at which you have to be prepared to stop the bad guys. The question is when, where, not if, unfortunately. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Ron Davies
Date: 29 Feb 08 - 07:09 AM

Sorry Kevin, you are incorrect in saying that the only thing that made it possible for al-Qaeda to operate in Iraq is the US presence. Al-Qaeda operates all over the world--without necessarily a US presence.

In Iraq there were and are Iraqis behaving in a way which did not fit with al-Qaeda's Moslem Puritanism. Al-Qaeda tried to enforce its will on these Iraqis--with incredible violence and viciousness. As a result virtually all Iraqis have turned against it.

However, as I've said before, since the vast majority of Iraqis have made it clear they loathe and despise al-Qaeda, the threat that al-Qaeda can take over in Iraq is now gone---any attempt to do so would be crushed by the Iraqis themselves.

As a result, there is no further justification for the US presence in Iraq--except in "Kurdistan" where the Kurds definitely want it.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Feb 08 - 08:14 AM

Essentially we're saying the same, Ron - that any suggestion that Al Qaeda are going to be able to take over in Iraq when the Americans go is a nonsense.

In a sense Al Qaeda can operate anywhere - but they aren't too successful in most of Iraq's neighbours where there there isn't an American occupation. That has been the factor that has provided them with opportunities in Iraq.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 29 Feb 08 - 09:19 AM

MG:

Straight facts and rational risk assessments are not fear mongering.

Waving your arms about disastrous futures if people do not do as youthink they should qualifies.

People are quite capable of being neurotically terrified all on their own without any help from the government or the candidates.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 29 Feb 08 - 09:32 AM

"...What is leadership? Leadership means getting out in front of where people are and waking them up. Right now, given these violent possible threats to us and our families, we are sleeping.

Which is why I am formally coming out of the closet with my support for Senator Barack Obama. Of all the candidates running now, he is the leader on understanding the threat to the Constitution and actually taking action, not just mouthing soundbites, on the need to deny torturers space in our nation and to restore the rule of law.

"Lawyers for Gitmo detainees endorse Obama," read a recent headline on the Boston Globe's political blog. In the article, reporter Charlie Savage notes that "More than 80 volunteer lawyers for Guantanamo Bay detainees today endorsed Illinois Senator Barack Obama's presidential bid. The attorneys said in a joint statement that they believed Obama was the best choice to roll back the Bush-Cheney administration's detention policies in the war on terrorism and thereby to 'restore the rule of law, demonstrate our commitment to human rights, and repair our reputation in the world community.'"

The lawyers who signed this letter -- prominent names on the list included Washington lawyer Thomas Wilner, retired federal appeals court judge John Gibbons, and retired Rear Admiral Donald Guter, who was the Navy's top JAG officer from 2000 to 2002 -- applauded Obama for having stood up in 2006 against aspects of the Military Commissions Act. Unfortunately, his fight was ultimately unsuccessful -- which is why we are all still in danger. But unlike other candidates he truly fought and he understood the nature of the danger: "When we were walking the halls of the Capitol trying to win over enough Senators to beat back the Administration's bill, Senator Obama made his key staffers and even his offices available to help us," the lawyers wrote. "Senator Obama worked with us to count the votes, and he personally lobbied colleagues who worried about the political ramifications of voting to preserve habeas corpus for the men held at Guantanamo. He has understood that our strength as a nation stems from our commitment to our core values, and that we are strong enough to protect both our security and those values. Senator Obama demonstrated real leadership then and since, continuing to raise Guantanamo and habeas corpus in his speeches and in the debates."

From this interesting column in Huffington.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 29 Feb 08 - 09:38 AM

"...The true difficulty facing the GOP's henchmen in the coming months will be how to get those who are just a tiny bit smarter, calmer, less easily swayed, those on the right who might actually be a bit impressed and charmed by Obama's obvious intelligence and oratory power, to hate him, fear him, find his genuinely moving brand of hope and inspiration to be suspicious and problematic and even deeply dangerous.

It won't be easy. Because at the same time, they must make their own unlikely candidate, a feisty but fuzzy 71-year-old war hawk whose entire campaign is apparently now being fueled by a giant hunk of Cold War phlegm, the nauseating notion that not only is a perpetual state of war and aggression desirable for America, but is actually essential to a healthy and functioning nation, they must make John McCain's musty, patriarchal brand of regurgitated Republicanism seem fresh and visionary and not horribly regressive and embarrassing.

Wish them luck. Or, you know, don't.

So then, here's the fun little game all progressives can play until the election itself. Assuming Obama gets the nod, just how will they attack him, smear him, paint him as an evil and untrustworthy force for the nation, the way they did Al Gore and John Kerry? How nefarious, racist, draconian will they get?

We have a few hints, the first one allegedly (if you believe the Drudge Report, which you should almost never do) coming from the Hillary Clinton campaign. That old photo of Obama wearing a traditional head-wrap and robe while visiting Kenya, looking vaguely like a terrorist because as everyone knows, only terrorists wear traditional tribal garments? Not bad. That sort of thing has potential, something the right normally would hurl all over the airwaves as fast as possible, though it mostly just reeks of the same kind of ignorance-baiting as the "Osama Hussein" name game. They'll have to do better.

What about the shocking lapel-pin scandal, wherein Obama allegedly refused to wear an American flag button, causing a bunch of angry fat white men in the GOP to grumble and pretend to be outraged over his "lack" of patriotism? Sure, it was deeply stupid reaction. Yes, the minor furor was merely meant to enrage the gun-rack-on-the-pickup-truck crowd. But the patriotism angle might be something they can poke at. Hell, they just don't have much else.

See, unlike Hillary, Obama can't be effortlessly demonized. He doesn't have Hillary's infamous laundry list of faults and transgressions, the enormous built-in wall of hate the right already has for her, her gender, her husband, everything she represents and carries forward from the Bill Clinton era. Smart as she is, Hillary has truckloads of baggage. Obama has but a tiny carry-on.

At the moment, the McCain camp is spinning like mad, trying to find its footing and apparently basing his entire run on permanent tax cuts (the same ones he voted against, twice) and war war war. McCain himself ain't exactly the world's sharpest tack, and, given how he's the presumptive GOP nominee only through a rather astonishing series of flukes and lucky breaks, he has enough trouble of his own just trying to articulate a coherent message that doesn't offend the entire planet. He's far short of a master strategist. ..."

From SF Gate's inimitable Mark Morford.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Azizi
Date: 29 Feb 08 - 12:13 PM

Mudcat repost-with minor word additions:

Subject: RE: Yes We Can video & other similar videos
From: Azizi - PM
Date: 29 Feb 08 - 11:58 AM

Here's the new will. i. am video that promotes the candidacy of Senator Barack Obama for President of the USA:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghSJsEVf0pU
We Are The Ones Song by will.i.am

**

Here's the "lyrics/words" to that song/spoken word video:

"people say Obama's words are just words...
but...
when was the last time "words" weren't important...???...

when was the last time a great leader didn't use words to lead...??...
when was the last time a person didn't use words to describe how they felt...?...
when was the last time "words" weren't empowering...?...

and we can all recall the last time "words" were used to divide us and install fear...

Bush used words to fear us into voting for him the second time around...
terror this...
terror that...
nuclear here...
weapons of mass destruction there...

and those words effected a lot of people's choices...

"enough is enough"...
let's rebuild...

let's change ourselves...
let's allow positivity to guide us...

let's take action....
let's activate our passion...
we are Americans....

and this is the first time in forever that someone running for president represents "US"...

some say this is all excitement...
I call it "proud to be an American"...

some say this whole Obama movement is "cult like"...
well...
if it comes across cult like...
then...
the cult is called America...

the Obama movement is connecting America.
and it has made "US" realize our importance...
the youth is excited and activated...
adults are passionate and motivated...
the elderly are proud to know the country they built is in safe hands...

we are one...

for too long politics has been corrupt...
separate from the American people...
with agendas that go against what the American people "need"...
education...
health...
safety...
jobs
etc...

politicians have spoken a different language...
making it so the youth and poor people feel as if voting was only for the wealthy and old people...
making "US" feel as if "we" had no voice...
making "US" feel powerless...
making it feel like if "we" did vote it wouldn't change anything...

but wait...
that did happen...
some of us voted, and it didn't change anything...

we were in the dark...
we had no voice...
we were powerless...

because America was not a united America...
and "they" spoke a different language...
and they had an agenda different from our well being...

correct me if I'm wrong... or speak up if I'm missing something...

we want education, health, safety, and good jobs...right???...
oh yeah...
and "a healthy planet to live on"...

but here we are...

in a war... poor education... poor health programs... the dollar is down... the planet, polluted...
the rich, richer... and the poor, struggling...
with sky high gas prices to top it all off...

and now even the rich aren't really rich internationally because our dollar is has fallen so far down...

in our slumber... a very small few got really rich...

because when you're sleeping...

"it's hard to change agendas"...

we know what happened in 2000 and 2004...
but in 2008...
it's different...

we are awake...
and there is a movement...

and "it's hard to change a movement"...

last time "we" didn't have a movement...
America wasn't united...

and now "United and "Standing"...for something...
we know the power of "US"...
and we have a person who represents the "U.S."...

"US"...

"we are the ones we've been waiting for"...

I'm proud to be an American..."

will.i.am

Added: February 29, 2008
Category: News & Politics


****

The "RE: Yes We Can video & other similar videos" Mudcat thread is a
respository of links to Barack Obama music/spoken word videos. The hyperlink for that thread is:

thread.cfm?threadid=108722&messages=15

All of these videos were inspired by the Obama for President campaign but were created and produced independent of that campaign.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Azizi
Date: 29 Feb 08 - 12:48 PM

Correction:

Those words were will.i.am's statement about the video, and not the the words/lyrics spoken by various individuals in the video.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Feb 08 - 01:05 PM

Good song - I think Si se puede cambiar is better, but they aren't in a competition.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 29 Feb 08 - 01:20 PM

That was a total misrepesentation of Senator McCain. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Azizi
Date: 29 Feb 08 - 01:34 PM

How ironic is this?

Check out this 2004 quote from Bill Clinton:

"Now, one of Clinton's laws of politics is this. If one candidate is trying to scare you and the other one is try get you to think, if one candidate is appealing to your fears and the other one is appealing to your hopes, you better vote for the person who wants you to think and hope."


http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0410/25/pzn.01.html

PAULA ZAHN NOW

Bill Clinton Enters the Fray; Iraqi Weapons Vanish

Aired October 25, 2004 - 20:00   ET

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Feb 08 - 03:51 PM

Obama should use that one. And he could make a point of crediting it to Bill Clinton in case anyone might think he was plagiarising.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Azizi
Date: 29 Feb 08 - 04:14 PM

Obama's rapid response team is great!

Here's a link to the "We Can Do Better" video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzk_J42Ob0c
Bill Clinton gives a speech on Hope vs. Status Quo for John Kerry in October 2004

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 29 Feb 08 - 04:22 PM

EXCELLENT idea!!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: beardedbruce
Date: 29 Feb 08 - 05:44 PM

from the Washingtom Post:
The Last 'Yes, We Can' Candidate

Ronald Reagan at the 1980 Republican convention. (By Rusty Kennedy -- Associated Press)
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Friday, February 29, 2008; Page A19

Barack Obama's critics bear a remarkable resemblance to the liberals who labored mightily to dismiss Ronald Reagan in 1980.

Reagan's foes wrote him off as a right-wing former actor who amiably spouted conservative bromides and must have been engaged in some sort of Hollywood flimflam.

Like Reagan's enemies, Obama's opponents concede that he gives a great speech. Indeed, both Obama and Reagan came to wide attention because of a single oration that offered hope in the midst of a losing campaign -- Obama's 2004 keynote to the Democratic National Convention and Reagan's 1964 "A Time for Choosing" address delivered on behalf of Barry Goldwater. But surely speeches aren't enough, are they?

Yes, Obama gets his crowds swooning. So did Reagan. It's laughable to hear conservatives talk darkly about a "cult of personality" around Obama. The Reaganites, after all, have lobbied to name every airport, school, library, road, bridge, government building and lamppost after the Gipper. When it comes to personality cults, the right wing knows what it's talking about.

But don't worry, say Obama's adversaries, he'll collapse because voters won't trust him to handle foreign policy. He's too inexperienced and has these perilously idealistic ideas. Yes, and President Jimmy Carter's campaign in 1980 was absolutely convinced it could persuade the country that Reagan was a dangerous warmonger who could not be trusted to keep America safe.

In any event, claim the anti-Obama legions, voters will eventually be convinced that he is nothing but a big, bad liberal. He may make sweet bipartisan sounds, but the old attacks on left-wing ideology will work, as they always have.

The liberals who were so dismissive of Reagan similarly insisted that he represented the same "right-wing extremism" that voters had rejected in 1964 when they sent Goldwater to his landslide defeat.

Yet Reagan didn't play to type. He reached out warmly to Democrats, notably in his 1980 convention speech that was his single most effective political sally.

"Everywhere we have met thousands of Democrats, independents and Republicans from all economic conditions and walks of life bound together in that community of shared values of family, work, neighborhood, peace and freedom," Reagan declared. "They are concerned, yes, but they are not frightened. They are disturbed but not dismayed. They are the kind of men and women Tom Paine had in mind when he wrote -- during the darkest days of the American Revolution -- 'We have it in our power to begin the world over again.' "

You can almost hear the Republican crowd shouting, "Yes, we can!" Reagan offered, well, change we could believe in.

Still, Democrats kept telling themselves, right to November, that voters wouldn't fall for any of this. Charisma, eloquence, idealism and hope were no match for experience, realism, prudence and predictability.

The Reagan metaphor explains why Hillary Clinton was in trouble from the moment she failed to knock Obama out of the race in Iowa. During the past two months, Democrats in large numbers have reached the same conclusion that so many Republicans did in 1980: Now is the time to go for broke, to challenge not only the ruling party but also the governing ideas of the previous political era and the political coalition that allowed them to dominate public life.

"This is our time," Obama says in a short sentence full of meaning. The conservative age is as dead now as the liberal age was in 1980. Jimmy Carter, in many ways not a liberal at all, became the whipping boy for the end of liberalism. George W. Bush, no pure conservative, has come to symbolize the collapse of conservatism. "It is time to turn the page and write a new chapter in American history," Obama says -- exactly the sentiment of the Ronald Reagan who invoked Tom Paine.

The frustration of the Clinton campaign is understandable. Like George H.W. Bush, whom Reagan defeated for the presidential nomination in 1980, Hillary Clinton has worked very hard, knows government from the inside out and would clearly provide the country with a safe set of hands. The Clintonites argue, fairly, that there is no way to know if Obama can live up to The Promise of Obama.

But the same was true of Ronald Reagan. In that 1980 speech, Reagan quoted a certain Democratic president who "told the generation of the Great Depression that it had a 'rendezvous with destiny.' I believe that this generation of Americans today has a rendezvous with destiny."

Obama is being propelled by the same sense of historical opportunity, and that is why it will be hard to derail him.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Riginslinger
Date: 29 Feb 08 - 06:22 PM

So, Hillary was right, Obama is another Ronald Reagan.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 29 Feb 08 - 07:39 PM

Generalizing danger without specifics, assessments of accurate risks, and targeted solutions aimed at correct causes, constitutes fear monger in my book. The only way to deal with fear is to aim clearly at the right target with the right amount and kind of effort. Keeping the whole nation up in arms without specifics is counter-productive.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 29 Feb 08 - 07:46 PM

Works for me. I call it eternal vigilance. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Amos
Date: 29 Feb 08 - 09:23 PM

Yeah -- that's what the lad who cried Wold tried to say. There's a big difference between vigilance and the spreading of alarum. And there's vigilance that is equally alert to the good and the bad, and then there's the kind that is constantly seeking the bad. Which one owrls best, d'ye thinbk?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama
From: Ron Davies
Date: 29 Feb 08 - 09:51 PM

Well Rig, Obama is not quite the same as Reagan. Seeing change in an optimistic framework--and Reagan's "change" was nostalgia for a Main St. America that never existed-- is about the limit. Sorry you can't tell the difference between the two, but I suppose for one of the top officers in the Sour Cynics Club, it shouldn't be surprising.