USA Presidential Politics - 2008

[StewartG]

Originally Posted by ryberg

Well if the party does decide to throw out all the votes from all those people who voted over the course of this campaign, I hope they'll consider Indian leg wrestling as an alternate proccess towards a decision. I'm confident Obama could take her!

Steve

Kind of makes one wonder what the point was of all those primaries anyway, eh?

Why didn't the party bigwigs meet with the prospective candidates back in January, cut whatever deals they wanted to cut, then TELL us Democrats who the nominee was gonna be? It seems like it would have saved everyone a lot of time and trouble if our vote wasn't going to count anyway.

[roni]

Originally Posted by StewartG

Well, Roni, you can "spin" it however you would like.

But the bottom line is that you want the superdelegates to overturn the will of all the millions of Americans who took the time and made the effort to vote in the primaries, right?

Speaking of transparency, I wonder if you'll give a direct, straightforward non-spun answer to that question.

Wrong.

I want the Democratic National Committee rules to be followed.

If those rules result in a non-Obama nominee, then blame the Democratic Party.

I have given my non-spun answer. I reject the premise of your question and I refer you to Democratic Party rules on the selection of a nominee for the Presidency of the United States of America.

[roni]

But I do understand the concern of Obama promoters. I think it is a proximate cause of some of the obnoxious posts from them this evening - but I remind them that I will be an Obama promoter as soon as there is a Clinton concession.

Wright Controversy Affects the Polls
By Michael Barone

Is the bottom falling out for Barack Obama? It's too early to say that, but there are some disturbing signs. On the positive side, superdelegates still are breaking his way. Rep. Baron Hill, whose southern Indiana district almost certainly will vote for Hillary Clinton, came out for Obama. So did fellow Hoosier Joe Andrew, who previously endorsed Clinton and who was named Democratic national chairman by Bill Clinton in the 1990s. (James Carville may have another name for him.) Obama is still well ahead among delegates chosen in primaries and caucuses, and he is not very far behind in superdelegates, either.

But what about the voters? Here there are some ominous signs. The latest Fox News poll, conducted after the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's appearance at the National Press Club, showed Obama's favorable/unfavorables at 63 to 27 percent among Democrats, compared to Hillary Clinton's 73 to 22 percent. Suddenly she's not the only one with high negatives. And 36 percent of Democrats say they would be disinclined to vote for Obama because of his longtime relationship with his former pastor. There's more bad news in The Pew Research Center poll of Democrats. Obama's national lead among Democrats is down from 49 to 39 percent to a statistically insignificant 47 to 45 percent.

These results are not outliers. The Rasmussen tracking poll showed Obama leading Clinton 49 to 41 percent before Wright spoke to the National Press Club. Afterward the numbers were 46 to 44 percent in favor of Clinton. The Gallup Poll had Obama leading Clinton 50 to 41 percent the night before the Pennsylvania primary. The results reported May 1 were Clinton 49 percent, Obama 45 percent.

Obama's standing as a general election candidate also seems to have taken a hit. Gallup showed him tied with John McCain 45 to 45 percent before the Wright appearance and trailing 47 to 43 percent afterward; at the same time, it shows Hillary Clinton tied with McCain 46 to 46 percent. Similarly, Rasmussen has McCain now ahead of Obama 46 to 43 percent and McCain tied with Clinton 44 to 44 percent.

All the numbers in this deluge of numbers tell the same story. Not just liberal but also many conservative commentators said that Obama's speech on race March 18, in response to ABC News' broadcasting of excerpts from Wright's sermons, had solved any problems he had with voters, or at least with Democratic voters. And it was hard to argue with that conclusion, at least as to Democrats. Obama's loss in Pennsylvania April 22, in line with expectations, didn't necessarily contradict that. The response to Obama's repudiation April 29, in response to Wright's remarks April 28, is clearly different.

One reason is that Obama now has taken two diametrically opposed stands on the minister whose church he attended for 20 years, who married him and his wife and baptized their children, whose sermon inspired the title of his 2006 book, "The Audacity of Hope." On March 18, his response was: No, I cannot renounce my pastor. On April 29, his response was: Yes, I can.

Another and more important reason is that Obama's long association with a minister who says that the federal government manufactured the AIDS virus to kill black people, who likens American soldiers to terrorists, who celebrates Louis Farrakhan as a great man -- that long association tends to undermine the central theme of Obama's candidacy. Obama has presented himself since his 2004 Democratic National Convention speech as a leader who can unite America across political and racial divides. He presented himself to American voters, most of whom, I believe, think it would be a very good thing if we elected a black president. (I personally feel that way.) "In the blue states," Obama told the convention in Boston and the nation watching on TV, "we worship an awesome God." Now it turns out that the God worshipped in the Rev. Wright's church was "awesome" in ways we didn't expect.

The appeals of Obama and Hillary Clinton will be tested in the May 6 primaries in North Carolina and Indiana, the nation's 10th- and 15th-most populous states. The Real Clear Politics average of recent polling shows Obama's share of the two-candidate vote in North Carolina at 54 percent, down from 59 percent in April, and Clinton with 53 percent of the two-candidate vote in Indiana, where she trailed not long ago. A few pundits still are saying that Obama's choice of pastor is a distraction, an irrelevancy. But some voters, perhaps in the belief that a president's judgment and values have important consequences, don't agree.

RealClearPolitics - Articles - Wright Controversy Affects the Polls

[StewartG]

Originally Posted by roni

Wrong.

I want the Democratic National Committee rules to be followed.

If those rules result in a non-Obama nominee, then blame the Democratic Party.

I have given my non-spun answer. I reject the premise of your question and I refer you to Democratic Party rules on the selection of a nominee for the Presidency of the United States of America.

But you would support a situation in which those rules would result in an outcome such that the superdelegates vote against the will of those millions of Americans who have voted in the primaries, RIGHT?

[roni]

Originally Posted by StewartG

But you would support a situation in which those rules would result in an outcome such that the superdelegates vote against the will of those millions of Americans who have voted in the primaries, RIGHT?

I have said from the start that I will support the nominee of the Democratic Party. That remains the case. Other than that, you may not assume that I will do or support any other thing.

But then I have made that clear before, but you choose to ignore that in order to try to make your point, clumsy though your attempts may be.

[Jacko]

The Question of Hillary Clinton's Guilt-By-Association Tactics Here

For several weeks, the Clinton campaign has been distributing literature and disseminating incendiary notions -- which figured significantly in Pennsylvania, and are now central to the candidate's message in Indiana and North Carolina -- assailing Barack Obama for his association with Bill Ayers, a former member of the Weather Underground, the radical, violent organization responsible for bombing several government buildings in the early 1970s.

...............................


Which raises the question: Is the Clinton campaign's emphasis on the Ayers-Obama connection significantly different or less spurious than the familiar (McCarthyite?) smears against Hillary, particularly those promulgated and disseminated by the forces she labeled "the vast right-wing conspiracy" in the 1990s?
..................

In the 1980s, Jessica Mitford visited the Clintons at the governor's mansion in Little Rock. She and Treuhaft had left the communist party in 1958, years after the revelation of Stalin's murderous crimes, but -- Jessica Mitford wrote in her memoir, A Fine Old Conflict, she quit "not primarily over some issue of high principle, but because it had become dull....boring. Rather like London's debutante circuit."

When Jessica Mitford died in 1996, Hillary Clinton wrote Bob Treuhaft a lovely condolence letter from the White House, characteristically filled with the kind of heart-felt personal touches that the senator's friends have always remarked upon.

Which, of course, no more raises the question "Is Hillary Clinton a Stalinist?," or a communist sympathizer, than "Is Barack Obama a Weatherman?" or a weatherman sympathizer, because of his association with Bill Ayers.

.........................

"The sad irony," noted Jonathan Alter in Newsweek, "is that these are the same [guilt-by-association] attacks used against her husband in the elections of the 1990s. The GOP tried to destroy Bill Clinton for his relationships (much closer than Obama's tangential connections) with Arkansas crooks, sleazy fund-raisers and unsavory women. But 'The Man From Hope,' while seen as less honest than Bush or Bob Dole, bet that issues and uplift were more important to voters than his character. He won...."
- -

"Shame on you, Barack Obama," said Hillary Clinton in Ohio, asserting that the Obama campaign had misrepresented her health-care plan.

Shame indeed.

[roni]

Tuesday will be interesting

Jacko, at what times do the polls close in North Carolina?

When do they close in Indiana.

I reckon I'll watch the returns until they call both states, anyway. I suspect that will happen within a couple of hours of the polls closing. The margin in North Carolina will be the most significant story of the night.

[Jacko]

Originally Posted by roni

Tuesday will be interesting

Jacko, at what times do the polls close in North Carolina?

When do they close in Indiana.

I reckon I'll watch the returns until they call both states, anyway. I suspect that will happen within a couple of hours of the polls closing. The margin in North Carolina will be the most significant story of the night.

I think Obama will stay in it even if the margin is less than double digits.

[Just Lucky]

For all the good it does, I'd like to repeat my opposition to Democrats using Republican mouthpiece's columns as a source on this thread.

I know this sounds paranoid but my supposition is that they do not have the best interests of the Democratic Party in mind as they write their columns.
For this reason and others I prefer it be avoided.

Actualmente, I'll return y'all to the insult slinging fest.

Edit} I type slow, I didn't realize y'all were getting along now.

[roni]

Originally Posted by Jacko

I think Obama will stay in it even if the margin is less than double digits.

That is not really the point though

Just watch the impossible to respect media, they will let us know what the point is

So, do you know what time the polls close there on Tuesday?

[StewartG]

Originally Posted by roni

I have said from the start that I will support the nominee of the Democratic Party. That remains the case. Other than that, you may not assume that I will do or support any other thing.

But then I have made that clear before, but you choose to ignore that in order to try to make your point, clumsy though your attempts may be.

While I disagree with your assessment that my attempts to make my point are clumsy (although I understand the need to rationalize cognitive dissonance), I will point out to you the irony of your throwing out insults, given your indignation when insults (real or imagined) have been allegedly tossed at you in this thread.



But you do make a good point. I should not assume anything.

So let me just ask you outright - do you want Hillary Clinton to be the nominee of the Democratic party in November? I would think it would be obvious by your posts on this thread, but I suppose I should ask before I assume.

Assuming you DO want Clinton to be the party's nominee, then it is a valid assumption, obviously, that you would support a situation in which the rules of the democratic party are used in such a way that would result in an outcome where the superdelegates vote against the will of those millions of Americans who have voted in the primaries, because that is the only way Clinton can obtain the nomination.

So, if my assumption is wrong, and you actually want the rules of the democratic party to be implemented in such a way that the votes of the superdelegates are in line with the will of the millions of people who voted in the primaries and Barak Obama is the party's nominee, then you are correct, I made some false assumptions about your position, and I apologize.

[roni]

StewartG,

I am so sorry you considered that an insult. I thought it was a rather generous description of your attempts, both past and continuing

I apologize for the unintended slight.

[Jacko]

Originally Posted by Just Lucky

For all the good it does, I'd like to repeat my opposition to Democrats using Republican mouthpiece's columns as a source on this thread.

I know this sounds paranoid but my supposition is that they do not have the best interests of the Democratic Party in mind as they write their columns.
For this reason and others I prefer it be avoided.

Actualmente, I'll return y'all to the insult slinging fest.

Edit} I type slow, I didn't realize y'all were getting along now.

You are not talking about my posted Carl Bernstein article are you?

[FrankRN]

Originally Posted by roni

I want the Democratic National Committee rules to be followed.
If those rules result in a non-Obama nominee, then blame the Democratic Party.
I have given my non-spun answer. I reject the premise of your question and I refer you to Democratic Party rules on the selection of a nominee for the Presidency of the United States of America.

Did anyone see Boston legal this week? The topic of the DNC's rules was covered in a very comedic way. But I side with the underlying premise of Alan Shore's character as he argued in regard to the DNC and it's silly rules.

It is time for reform.

At the risk of seeming more ignorant than usual, I did not realize that the DNC and RNC are actually PRIVATE organizations and as such can adopt whatever rules they like. Am I the only one that has a problem with a small (relative to the US population), private group deciding whose names will grace our ballots? Maybe someone more learned than I will educate me as to why it is a bad idea to just have certain cirteria to get your name on the presidential ballot and then just have the people vote ... most votes win. Or is that too democratic?

[roni]

Originally Posted by Just Lucky

For all the good it does, I'd like to repeat my opposition to Democrats using Republican mouthpiece's columns as a source on this thread.

I know this sounds paranoid but my supposition is that they do not have the best interests of the Democratic Party in mind as they write their columns.
For this reason and others I prefer it be avoided.

Actualmente, I'll return y'all to the insult slinging fest.

Edit} I type slow, I didn't realize y'all were getting along now.

Let Free Speech Reign Just Lucky.

It is all-American