Goldy offers a post representative of local fervor for the candidacy of Barack Obama. A couple thoughts:
1) I think I share the view of many Republicans in taking some measure of satisfaction at the sight of Obama-supporters recoiling at the recent performance of Bill Clinton on the campaign trail. You mean Bill Clinton is self-pitying, self-centered, obnoxiously holier-than-thou, and gratuitously loose with the facts?
The hell you say. We Republicans didn't discover that the hard way in the 1990's or anything.
2) Even with the delightful thrashing Obama gave Hillary Clinton in South Carolina yesterday, the odds are still in her favor going into Super Tuesday - at least as of this typing. If Clinton comes anywhere close to the crushing margins among Latinos that she won in Nevada she will be in excellent shape. Her strength among women, older voters, and those of lower-income is an excellent base and strong Latino support will be more than enough to overcome the growing disenchantment with the Clintons in the African-American community.
Of course that presumes Bill doesn't take things too far in the next week, which might be a potentially dangerous presumption.
UPDATE: the Clinton campaign is seeking to tone down Bill's image on the trail. Perhaps having his wife finish 3rd among late-deciding Democrats in South Carolina tipped their hand to the problem.
Posted by Eric Earling at January 27, 2008 04:57 PM | Email ThisYou guys had better hope that Obama doesn't win the nomination.
Posted by: Politically Incorrect on January 27, 2008 05:07 PMHow odd that you think they give a rat's ass what you believe or say, Duffer. But then, as delusional as your posts are, perhaps I shouldn't be surprised.
Posted by: Hinton on January 27, 2008 06:09 PMI come to this blog to read what smart people think.
Posted by: Andy on January 27, 2008 06:26 PMI'll tell you if they care. How much dough have you sent their way? If it is in the high six figures, could be legal or illegal or bundled with a bow, then they may care until the cash stops flowing. As the Beatles say, "money can't buy love," it sure can by access until your credit limit is reached and the card is denied.
Oh, muzzling Bubba will just create more problems. Then he really will become a loose cannon.
Posted by: WVH on January 27, 2008 06:35 PMIn this case, it is an excellent example of the local support evident in liberal circles for the themes that have permeated Obama's candidacy. It was not a typical Goldy post - meaning I don't believe there was any profanity.
If you can't be troubled to actually read the link and assess it accordingly then I don't have any patience for your complaints, especially since I link to Goldy on an exceptionally rare basis and give profanity warnings where applicable in any case.
Posted by: Eric Earling on January 27, 2008 07:53 PMOf course, in the end, Goldy's a good dem. He wants to believe in Obama, but he can't. He has too much invested in the Clinton party. Good dems like Goldy will deliver us the White House again this year (barring another Ross Perot) because that's what good dems do - nominate people totally out-of-step with mainstream America, and tear their own party apart in the process.
Hillary's machine will sweep all the big states on February 5 and then we'll have a leisurely romp to a McCain or Romney (or Newt?) inauguration.
I just hope if McCain's the nominee we can all pull together behind him instead of Naderizing ourselves with a bogus third-party candidate.
Posted by: ShillBull on January 27, 2008 08:14 PMGoldy does make a nod to the realization that JFK was just another man, but then proceeds to put him right back up on the pedestal that his death so conveniently excused him from ever having to live up to.
If I had to sum up his post in one word, it would be "cheesy."
Posted by: Jeff B. on January 27, 2008 09:05 PMHillBill and Obama will ginzu each other like it's a months-long knife convention. And no, duffer... they don't care what you think.
I mean, in case you were really wondering.
Posted by: Hinton on January 27, 2008 09:08 PMThe JFK mania is in response to all the "who's the Reagan heir" crap that the MSM has bandied about to taunt conservatives and to slimily tear down the candidates.
... although they'd be far more accurate comparing Barry Hussein and Whorrabillary to FDR and LBJ.
I wonder if they realize how transparently hypocritical they're being.
Nah.
Posted by: pudge on January 27, 2008 11:07 PMI suppose I might have a reputation for being a hard-edged cynic, but my eyes actually teared up a bit when I first read Kennedy�s words. I so desperately want to believe what she believes, that Obama really does have that �special ability� to inspire and to lead and to bring us back together as a nation.
You're right. This sums up the depth of thinking that many liberals have applied when assessing Obama's campaign.
It's nice he makes them feel good about themselves. Lord knows that's tough to do with all the emotional self-flagellating going on in lib circles.
Here, Goldy the history student shows us why he's a blog guy and not teaching the subject:
Had President Kennedy lived to complete his terms, might we have avoided the mistakes that led to an all out involvement in Vietnam, a war that divided our nation and drained us of precious blood and treasure? Had Bobby Kennedy survived to win the White House, would American liberalism have survived to finally achieve the vision of economic justice and security first enunciated by FDR, and wouldn�t Americans have retained the faith in government that carried us through the Great Depression and World War II, rather than seeing that faith shattered by the betrayal that was Watergate?
Sheesh, where to begin with this nonsense? It took WWII to shake off FDR's failed recovery from the Great Depression...and RFK? One needs only to listen to him and JFK giggling over the prospect of war with the Soviets during the Cuban missile crisis. A lib's grasp of history is a tenuous thing framed by soundbites and misperceptions.
Now for the really funny part:
When Obama talks about reaching his hand across the aisle, the cynic in me envisions the other side leaping at the opportunity to lop it off. When Obama talks about bipartisanship, I fear it means willingly sacrificing the very political advantages we have fought so hard to achieve.
Please. You can insert 'Bush' for 'Obama' and get an accurate picture of what happened before Iraq in his Presidency. He reached across the aisle and gave us NCLB (written by Ted Kennedy) and the white elephant known as drug benefits in Medicare...again, Goldy's liberalism short-circuits the part of his brain where facts are supposed to reside.
He's right to be cynical. Bush tried to appease the democrats and ended up losing himself in the process. Deficit spending, anyone? The democrats never complained we spent too much on this or that...it was always too little. And so on.
It's amazing to me that in this city, supposedly so educated and full of nuanced, thoughtful people that Goldy is taken even remotely seriously. I shouldn't be surprised, however, given the political bent here and penchance for ignoring inconvenient facts and history. Why listen to the past when you can make stuff up as you go along, and the hive mind will repeat it as gospel?
Anyways, returning to my point: Obama's candidacy makes your average lefty feel good. That's all it takes to win their support. It's one of the saddest ironies among all their internal contradictions - that these supposedly intelligent and thoughtful people are total slaves to the emotional state of here and now.
Eric, you owe my 7 minutes of my life for reading that crap :)
Posted by: Steve in Queen Anne on January 27, 2008 11:16 PMIt's one thing to talk about civility. I believe Obama really does believe in that, although he falters occasionally, like when he goes off on a rant about Karl Rove or something.
But bipartisanship? Nearly every item on Obama's agenda would require of conservatives, in order for them to compromise, to sacrifice their principles entirely. Obama, like most liberals, doesn't want compromise, he wants surrender.
Health care is a good example. It is simply NOT POSSIBLE to have a compromise between liberals and conservatives on federal health care, because conservatives disagree with the very existence of any such thing possibly called "federal health care" (no matter the form). To compromise and have something resembling it is for us to lose, and him to win. And so Obama is -- intentionally or not -- dictating in his rhetoric that unless he wins and I lose, that it is because I was against bipartisanship and against unity and against the success of our country.
Heh ... when I was writing this post, what came to mind was a Jonah Goldberg column from the last year or two, where he talked about conservatives losing the fight by allowing liberals to ditate the terms of debate, such as arguing against the estate tax based on its economic impact, rather than on principle. And when I Googled for a specific example to use for Obama, one of the top hits was ... a column by Jonah Goldberg:
If we all buy into his "message of hope," he explains, then everybody - blacks and whites, men and women, Republicans and Democrats, lions and gnus, bears and park rangers, Superman and Lex Luthor - will be united! But united toward what end, exactly? ... Obama's fairy tale is the idea that we can get beyond disagreement. ... What if you disagree with Obama's ideas? Are you suddenly against hope? ... Unity around an issue - war, health care, education - is a legitimate appeal. But ... it is morally antithetical to democratic values to demand unity for unity's sake. And it is quite literally impossible to govern that way.
Indeed.
Posted by: pudge on January 27, 2008 11:45 PMBingo, pudge.
Remember, their default positioning is that the democrats rule the nation with the Republicans sitting quietly in their seats. Anything deviating from that plan is unacceptable.
Posted by: Steve in Queen Anne on January 28, 2008 08:07 AMYou say it's impossible to have a compromise on Federal Healthcare, I don't really know, can you say Romneycare? Evidently, the people on this post who think Romney is the most conservative candidate we have would say that 'conservatives' and liberals could come together. Obama would be able to do it if Romney could.
Hillary may have a huge negative rating, but the head-to-heads show her with over 50% of the vote against Romney - pretty good for someone with a high negative rating.
Posted by: Doug on January 28, 2008 08:10 AMI can live with Romneycare. I doubt I can live with anything the libs come up with because they don't understand economics or created incentives at all. Not. At. All.
Hillary may have a huge negative rating, but the head-to-heads show her with over 50% of the vote against Romney - pretty good for someone with a high negative rating.
You're forgetting something. Romney has very little national name recognition; Hillary! has a ton.
If he makes it to the general, that problem goes away. That's why you're seeing him gradually pick up points as people figure out who he is. It was helpful that the liberal media fired all their "HE'S A MORMON!" bullets early.
Posted by: Steve in Queen Anne on January 28, 2008 08:21 AMThat Romeny is more wooden than Al Gore and he belongs to a religion that wears funny underpants? Won't take long to see through that. McCain may be old but at least he gets fired up for a battle. Watching Romney is a snooze-fest.
More wooden than algore? By what measure? Have you watched any of the debates?
At any rate, so far, the hardest hits on Romney need to be fueled by religious bigotry ('funny underwear' and all that). If that's the way the dems would want to play it, I say bring it on. Let them do it and have the rest of the electorate see what Republicans have for years - the corrupt, sleazy inner core of the democrat party.
Posted by: Steve in Queen Anne on January 28, 2008 08:55 AMObama's performance in Iowa, and his come-from-behind-to-almost-tie in N.H., surprised the Clintons. He was not the BLACK candidate they were assuming; he was attracting white voters. Obama was not running as the BLACK candidate, he had a positive message (even if you don't agree with the means he'd use in office), and he was attracting a lot of independents.
So, Billary decided to remind everyone that Obama is BLACK. They had to make him the BLACK candidate. Remind whites, particularly the white women that make up the largest block of the Democratic party, that Obama is BLACK. Hillary's psuedo tears in NH? That was to show white women that she was suffering "psychological violence" at the hands of a bad BLACK MAN. Think there isn't racism among white Democrat women?
South Carolina was the perfect opportunity to cast Obama as the BLACK candidate and Bill played the bad cop who made it happen. Hillary mostly kept her hands clean, and for the rest of the primary season, she can run against Obama the BLACK candidate. Billary has put him back on the plantation Democrats expect blacks to stay on.
Feminist democrats will rationalize this in terms of some sort of pecking order of "social justice." In their minds, a woman president is a higher priority than a BLACK president. Of course, I doubt Billary will spend much time needing to rationalize their dirty deeds. It's power they want, which is rationalization enough.
They actually wanted to Obama to win by a large margin in SC. They are counting on the white Democrat backlash on super Tuesday.
From a purely short-term political perspective, it was a brilliant move. Billary now pretty much have the nomination locked up.
Republicans ought not be so smug as to believe that Billary will be easy to defeat in the general election. They are smart and will have another such brilliant move against whoever comes up with the Republican nomination.
It will never happen, but the most politically smart thing the Republican winner can do is get on his hands and knees and beg Obama to run with him as VP. Message: uniting the nation with a two party ticket after years of media hyped division. Unbeatable. And, it might just bring a large portion of african americans permanently off the Democrat plantation and home to the party of Abe Lincoln.
Posted by: BananaLand on January 28, 2008 09:20 AMYou analysis is good. A poster at Politico said of Billary's attempt to limit Obama as the BLACK candidate, "guess he would rather have his legacy be that of a racist instead of a rapist." I believe that the race pimping of Billary is getting so crystal clear that not only Blacks are seeing through their gambit, but it even disgusts Teddy Kennedy, Kerry, and Dashle. Black race pimps like Rangel and Billary's paid "consultants" in the ministry will continue to shill for them. I hope they fully unleash Bubba because Obama can take it and the best thing that could happen for this country is 25-30% of Black people become independents and are truly willing to vote for a quality candidate of either party. At this point, I don't see many Blacks immediately moving over to the republicans. There is still too much association with the Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms past refreshed by candidates like Ron Paul's history.
On the subject of Obama as Veep, you have some excellent Black candidates who have been elected to office or have had high positions in cabinents.
Obama is young and will have plenty of opportunties. The best thing your party can do if it wants to capture more votes of all types of people is to promote one of your own like Micheal Steele, the guy from Ohio, Ken something or the current general counsel of Pepsi.
Oh, REALLY? Show us, Duffman. PDF the "responses" and prove it. Unless your not being honest with us, it's really not that hard to back up what you have to say
Posted by: King Diamond on January 28, 2008 09:52 AMInstead of being snotty about it, Eric, why don't you recognize that a LOT of Sound Politics readers couldn't give a damn what Goldy thinks or writes.
Posted by: jimg on January 28, 2008 10:03 AMAll the GOPs got on Obama is that he's young, black, and has a funny middle name.
Romney is clearly Al Gore for the right, just swap out socialized medicine for global warming and you've got a silver spoon Democrat pretending to be a Republican. Heck, Romeny won't even carry his home state of Taxacusets in the general election.
I don't for one minute blame Bush for the current state of affairs, it started way before him. While the Democrats may want to point to Atwater as starting the battle, I would point to the 60's as the starting point. It really got its start with the Vietnam War and the protestors versus the establishment. How long are we going to continue to fight this battle?
My question to you Pudge is, have you actually read (or listened) to Obama's book "The Audicity of Hope." If not, I would say you are judging him based on media spin vice his own words. While I full well expect you might not agree with many (if any) of his politics, you might come to appreciate what he has to state about bipartianship and the constitution. He lays blaim on both parties for the current state of affair, and yet, he also highlights when one actually travels about the countryside, the nation isn't nearly as divided as the politicians (and media, including Right-wing Talk Radio) want to make it out to be.
Bipartianship is one reason why I like McCain, as I have stated in the past. I really believe an election that can focus on the differences of issues, instead of the right versus left (60's style rehash), would be beneficial for the nation. I don't think, based on his campaign so far, that Romney can do this. He has a habit of stooping back into the same-old attack politics that we have had to live through for the last 20 years. I wouldn't expect anything different from him in the general election. As I wouldn't expect Hillary (and Bill) to act any differently either, which is why I really don't want to see Hillary nominated.
Posted by: tc on January 28, 2008 10:58 AMYou say it's impossible to have a compromise on Federal Healthcare, I don't really know, can you say Romneycare?
Yes, that was a surrender of conservative principles, not a compromise. HOWEVER, note that I was speaking specifically in the context of the federal government, which is, of course, a different story than state.
Evidently, the people on this post who think Romney is the most conservative candidate we have would say that 'conservatives' and liberals could come together.
Conservatives and liberals can come together on health care ... if conservatives abandon their conservative principles. Now, all that said, I don't know how much blame to give Romney. As I've noted before, I lived most of my life in MA, and voted for Romney there. And I know that his position as governor was very weak. It could be that this plan was simply the best he could do. I know he talked it up, but it is hard to see how much of that is politics and how much was sincere.
Regardless, I've never believed Romney is the conservative ideal, as I just mentioned in the other discussion. :-)
Posted by: pudge on January 28, 2008 11:01 AMWhat Do Barack Obama And A Dewers On The Rocks Have In Common?
They both "inspire" Ted Kennedy.
He already has, and I don't think the polls have caught up yet with Obama's momentum. I still think it's a 50/50 chance Obama is the nominee, and if he is, he will likely beat any of the GOP Frontrunners (IMHO). If it's Hillary, I think many moderates and fed-up Democrats will stay home, giving McCain or Romney a fighting chance.
My two cents :)
Posted by: Splinter on January 28, 2008 12:29 PMYou are an idiot. I wish that in some cases Blacks voted solely for Blacks such as the senate race in Maryland:
Three words are heard over and over again on the campaign trail with Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele: empowerment, opportunity, ownership.
Steele, the Republican candidate for Senate from Maryland, is effectively delivering the conservative message of smaller government and self-reliance to audiences that have heard it too infrequently in recent decades.
"I think government is a limited-purpose entity," Steele says, echoing Ronald Reagan. "I believe very much in the power of the individual to make decisions in his or her own best interests." This is not a theme many Republican candidates pitch directly to black voters, but Steele is changing that in Maryland. As a result, Steele, who is black himself, has been attracting support in traditionally Democratic quarters.
Hip-hop mogul and long-time Democrat Russell Simmons has endorsed Steele and campaigned hard for him. Democrats for Steele, a recently organized group of leading Baltimore Democrats, generated large turnouts at its first events last week. In fact, they were so successful that Maryland's Democratic Party chairman accuses Steele of "political identity theft."
Steele also won the endorsement of Michael Mfume, son of former Congressional Black Caucus Chairman and NAACP President Kweisi Mfume, who recently lost the Democratic primary for Senate to Steele's opponent, Rep. Ben Cardin (D.-Md.).
Steele has not run to the left to garner support. He is a solid conservative who backs the U.S. effort in Iraq, is ardently pro-life and anti-tax. He supports repeal of the federal gas tax--and takes a hard-line stand against illegal immigration. He also backs the Federal Marriage Amendment, even though he wishes the matter could be left to the states. Moreover, serving as a county chairman and then state chairman of the Maryland Republican Party, Steele has been involved at the top levels of state GOP politics for some time now.
Raised in a Democratic household, Steele joined the Republican Party as a young man after closely observing Ronald Reagan's presidential run in 1976. He linked his mother's refusal to accept public assistance to Reagan's limited government message.
In his stump speeches, he tends to focus less on Republican red-meat issues and instead focuses his attention on issues such as health care, Social Security and education, on which Democrats ordinarily believe they have the upper hand. He puts a conservative stamp on these concerns, advocating health savings accounts, private Social Security accounts for younger workers, and school vouchers.
His ability to attract traditionally Democratic voters has been built on personal interaction, as opposed to political pandering.
"We Republicans haven't traditionally engaged urban voters," says Steele, a member of the Prince George's County chapter of the NAACP. "We walked away from the urban agenda in the 1960s and the 1970s ... it's a problem of dedication."
This has all changed in the Steele campaign, and straightforward communication is what is winning him across-the-board support. For example, Steele connects Martin Luther King, Jr.'s vision of black equality with his own Reagan-like agenda of ownership.
"I take the example of Dr. King," says Steele. "I want to transform his goal of sitting at the lunch counter into one of being able to own the diner. That's the new economic agenda of the 21st Century ... everyone wants to be able to say 'I own.'"
Polling indicates Steele's efforts are paying off. His internal polling has his support among the black community ranging from 25% to 35%. Down by double-digits as recently as mid-summer, according to the Rasmussen and Washington Post polls (which had him trailing by 10 points and 12 points, respectively), Steele has been closing the gap and now trails Cardin by an average of 5.7 points, according to a RealClearPolitics.com round-up of surveys. In a SurveyUSA poll conducted September 17-19, Steele led Cardin 48% to 47%.
Despite the inroads he has made in the black vote, Steele has been warned by his friend Curt Anderson, a political consultant, against becoming just an "outreach pawn" of the Republican Party. "By virtue of being a Republican candidate for office, there's an automatic outreach from me to the people. By virtue of being an African-American Republican, that augments the level of that extension," says Steele. "People pay attention to it, which is good, but has its drawbacks as well. The philosophy of empowering people is, of course, a cornerstone of the Republican Party, but I don't need to run around and put labels on everything that I say and do."
Although he is no maverick in the mold of, say, Sen. John McCain (R.-Ariz.), Steele, like many conservatives, has his differences with the Republican establishment in Washington, D.C., and he does have an independent streak. "I had a meeting with [Senate Majority Leader] Bill Frist," recalls Steele. "He said at one point, 'We can't wait till you get here to the Senate.' and I said, 'senator, be careful what you wish for.'"
He has criticized President Bush on education--lobbing grenades at the No Child Left Behind Act--and ruffled GOP feathers by calling for greater conservation efforts.
Considering that Maryland is historically a Democratic state, and that the national Democratic Party is prepared to spend heavily to keep it that way by electing Cardin, Steele faces an uphill struggle to Election Day.
Nevertheless, he believes his message of individual empowerment and opportunity will trump narrow appeals to traditional party affiliations and carry him to victory. "Sharing the message of ownership that all of us will represent, that all of us will create, will empower the least among us who want to start a business, buy a home," says Steele. "It's not rocket science. It's common sense."
Copyright © 2008 HUMAN EVENTS. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=17295
In order to win the senate race, he needed at least a quarter of the Black vote, he didn't get it:
Michael Steele
Republican, U.S. Senate, Maryland
Four years after being the first black person elected to statewide office in Maryland, Lt. Gov. Michael Steele is running for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by retiring Democrat Paul Sarbanes.
He will face off against the winner of the Sept. 12 Democratic primary between U.S. Rep. Benjamin Cardin and former U.S. Rep. Kweisi Mfume, who left his position as president and CEO of the NAACP in 2004.
Before running for office in 2002, Steele was a stalwart within the Maryland Republican Party, serving on various committees and campaigns, and as chairman of the party in Prince George's County, a mostly black suburb outside the Washington, D.C. In 2000, he became the first black to serve as the chairman of any state Republican Party.
Steele is largely running on Maryland Gov. Bob Ehrlich's successes over the past four years, including economic growth and increases in education spending. Steele plans on supporting many of the same policies implemented by Ehrlich, such as encouraging minority entrepreneurship, a commitment to small business, and school vouchers.
Steele is a staunch conservative on social issues, including opposing same-sex marriage and abortion, even in cases of rape and incest. He is also against stem cell research, coming under widespread criticism for comparing the science to the eugenics experiments undertaken by the Nazis during the Holocaust. He later apologized for the remarks.
Much of the notoriety surrounding Steele is based on his position as one of a rare species: the black Republican. Not only is he a rarity in his own state's history, Steele is the highest-ranking elected black official in the country and the only black lieutenant governor. At the 2004 Republican National Convention, Steele responded to Illinois Democratic Sen. Barack Obama's keynote address at the Democratic convention, explaining how, as a black man, he became a Republican.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/vote2006/senate/md_steele.html
The best thing in the world is for Bubba to keep talking and for idiots like you to simply shut-up.
You have no clue about Black voters and what they will do. The republican party is overcoming the legacy of Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms and the current flirtation that many of you have with Ron Paul and his associates. In my opinion, many Black leaders who are race pimps have encouraged many Blacks to stay on the dem plantation and that has been adverse to our interests. Oh, that Blacks would have solely voted for Blacks in the Maryland race, we as a country would have been much better for it.
In my opinion, you are an idiot.
My, my. The GOP is shooting any ammo at Obama. The Clintons are.
The race card, you name it. It's getting nasty in 'd' land. In any case, it doesn't matter. Hillary! is going to be coronated as the next dem candidate.
Posted by: Steve in Queen Anne on January 28, 2008 12:36 PMMy, my. The GOP isn't shooting any ammo at Obama. The Clintons are.
The race card, you name it. It's getting nasty in 'd' land. In any case, it doesn't matter. Hillary! is going to be coronated as the next dem candidate.
Posted by: Steve in Queen Anne on January 28, 2008 12:37 PMMy favorite line, "My critics like to characterize me as some wide-eyed, lefty moonbat, but I'm nothing more or less than a 1970's-era centrist who has been radicalized in style if not in substance by a decades-long, right-wing campaign to defile the proud legacy of American liberalism,"
Oh yes, Goldy is a "centrist". Makes you wonder who he'd define as a "leftist" doesn't it?
I wonder what is the "proud legacy of American liberalism" that he refers to. Millions of unborn innocent children murdered? The destruction of the black family? Moral relativism that allows murderers and rapists out of prison to prey on innocent people? Throwing Japanese citizens into internment camps? The 80-years the Democrats ruled the segregeted South?
I wonder what the "decades long right-wing campaign" to defile liberalism's "legacy" might be? Let me guess? Perhaps talk radio?
You read this stuff and just shake your head.
I hope that Bubba cannot be controlled. Michael Steele was the superior candidate in the senate race and he just happened to be Black.
Many people I know have been really put off by Bubba and that is a good thing. I note that Toni Morrison who coined that lame phrase that Bubba was the first Black president has endorsed Obama.
I don't particularly like Bush's deficits, but to be fair he has appointed Blacks to real substantive positions, something that Clinton gave lip service to.
Hopefully, this election will get enough Blacks thinking that they have given their votes faithfully to the dem party over the last 50 years and the conditions observed by Monyihan have not gotten better. Education which is the key for lifting people out of poverty just plain sucks for most low-income kids of all colors. It is definitely time to vote for the best candidate, no matter the party.
Michael Steele should have won that race and it was because Blacks did not step up to the plate and vote for him, not because he is Black, but because he was the better candidate. Idiots come in all flavors.
How disheartening if you are correct. To state that we cannot have bipartisanship and that it will always be a we versus them, someones got to win, someone has got to lose battle, then we all can say good bye to the country as we know it.
It's ALWAYS been that way, since George Washington left office. ALWAYS. It's never not been that way.
And look, ignore that for a minute, and look at my claim. On government-controlled health care, can you think of a possible way that both sides can win? If it exists in any form, conservatives lose. If it doesn't, liberals lose. There's no way around it, that I can see.
How long are we going to continue to fight this battle?
How long will our republic stand?
My question to you Pudge is, have you actually read (or listened) to Obama's book "The Audicity of Hope." If not, I would say you are judging him based on media spin vice his own words.
I have not and will not read it (I just don't care to spend the time), but no, everything I've said is based entirely on his own words. I don't listen to media spin. I don't listen to talk radio, I don't read "blogs" (except this one), I don't watch cable news (except for actual news events ... I skip the pundits).
That doesn't mean I never hear any spin, of course, but no, I've been listening to Obama very carefully for the last few years. And I believe he may be sincere in his claims. I was heartened that he went and hung out with some conservative Christians like Rick Warren, and I listened closely to what Obama and Warren had to say, and most of it was good.
But the bottom line is that if you oppose expanding government, you oppose most of Obama's agenda, and there's no room for compromise without failure, because to compromise is to give up our principles.
Of course, one can say, you can compromise (lose) on some things, and get them to compromise (lose) on some others. But that isn't really what Obama talks about: he mostly talks about coming to a compromise on each issue, which means conservatives lose on each issue.
While I full well expect you might not agree with many (if any) of his politics, you might come to appreciate what he has to state about bipartianship and the constitution.
I appreciate his overtures, but in the end, conservatives will have to lose to play along as he wants them to.
And I can't recall him saying anything about the Constitution I agree with.
I really believe an election that can focus on the differences of issues, instead of the right versus left (60's style rehash), would be beneficial for the nation.
To me, right vs. left IS about differences on the issues.
Posted by: pudge on January 29, 2008 09:09 AM