Presidential election may be up for grabs

[a_majoor]

An interesting analysis of the situation: Many American voters are split along different lines than the fairly simple narrative promoted by the MSM

http://www.riponsociety.org/forum607c.htm

Running on Iraq:
What's a Northeast Republican to do?

JOHN MCLAUGHLIN

All during the 2006 campaign, our Republican candidates for U.S. Senate, Congress and local offices knew that they were headed for the worst election for Republicans since Watergate.

With every poll last year, we knew that the Iraq war was the defining issue of the election.  As support dropped for the war, and raised the President’s unfavorable ratings, it created a catalyst for Democrats to win.  Certainly there were other issues: a broken immigration system; out of control spending and corruption in Congress.  All of these issues defined a failure by the Republican majority in Congress, but none was more problematic than the war in Iraq.

Our November 7, 2006 national post election survey of 1,000 voters showed that the damage was particularly acute in the Northeast (New England and Middle Atlantic States).  Just two years ago on the national level, in our 2004 post election poll, affiliated Republicans outnumbered Democrats 44 percent to 40 percent, but in 2006 Democrats outnumbered Republicans 42 percent to 39 percent.  In the Northeast in 2004 Republicans outnumbered Democrats 44 percent to 39 percent, but last year Democrats now led affiliated Republicans 43 percent to 40 percent.  In the lower turnout of the midterm elections two results clearly occurred.  First, a significant number of Republicans were so disgusted they did not vote.  Second, some voters who in 2004 thought of themselves as Republicans had now left the party.

The 2006 election was a 5 to 4 vote against the war.  Nationally, voters opposed the war 52 percent to 45 percent.  Just two years before, the country supported the war 53 percent to 44 percent.  Now it was reversed by 16 points.  In the Northeast it was an even more distressing turnaround.  In 2004 the Northeast voters supported the Iraq War 53 percent to 45 percent.  In 2006, support for the war among Northeast voters plummeted 12 points, to 41 percent, while opposition rose 13 points to 58 percent -- a 25 point turnaround.

With the drop in support for the war, also went the President’s approval ratings.  In direct correlation with public opinion’s support for the war in 2004 voters had approved of the job President Bush was doing 54 percent to 45 percent.  In the Northeast in 2004 the President’s approval rating was a net positive 52 percent to 46 percent.

By 2005 the President’s approval rating became a net negative nationally 46 percent approved and 53 percent disapproved.  In the Northeast it was 45 percent approved and 54 percent disapproved.

In the midst of this shift on the polarizing issue of the electorate, there was also a direct correlation between the voter’s attitude toward the war and their vote for Congress.  Among voters who opposed the war they voted Democratic for Congress 83 percent to 15 percent.  Those voters who supported the war voted Republican for Congress 79 percent to 20 percent.  So if you knew whether the voter supported or opposed the war you had an 80 percent chance that you could predict their vote for Congress.

Nationally while Republicans had split their vote virtually evenly in 2004, last year they voted Democratic 54 percent to 45 percent -- a national 8 point drop for Republicans.  However, once again it was more pronounced in the Northeast.  In 2004, Northeast voters preferred Republicans 51 percent to 44 percent.  Last year, they chose Democrats for Congress 56 percent to 43 percent.  This was a 19 point overall reversal against the Republicans, which made it the worst region in the nation for the GOP.

When we asked the 2006 voters: “Regarding your vote for Congress, was it more in support of, or in opposition to the War in Iraq?  If your vote was based on other issues, just say so.”  Only one in four of all voters, 22 percent across the nation, said that their vote was a vote in support of the war.  Four in ten voters, 42 percent, described their vote as a vote against the war.  One in three voters, 32 percent, claimed they decided their vote on other issues.  In the Northeast, 23 percent voted to support the war, while almost half -- 48 percent -- said they voted to oppose the war.  Those who said their vote was to oppose the war voted at an eight to one ratio for the Democrats -- 88 percent to 11 percent.

Outlook for 2008

The 2006 election is history.  The war in Iraq has been the dominant issue in the previous two national elections and certainly it will be an important part of the November 2008 election.  But Republican incumbents did survive the anti-war tsunami.

In our work for incumbents who faced strong Democratic challengers we found that as we defined our candidate’s incumbency on a broader agenda, they were more likely to win.  Nationally, those who decided their vote on issues other than the war voted Republican 58 percent to 40 percent.

Also, whenever possible, if we could counter Democratic attacks on the war by defining our Democratic opponents as wrong on that same agenda, it really undermined the Democratic attack on the war.

Basically we were fighting over a narrow middle segment of the electorate that was heavily independent and had no allegiance to either party.  In this year’s polls we are seeing the same opportunity, with about 6 in 10 independents undecided in their generic choice for Congress.

So what has changed about the War in Iraq as an issue?

America might be winning.

Americans don’t like war, but what they hate more is losing a war, especially at the sacrifice of precious American lives.

In 2004 President Bush and the Republican won the national elections precisely because the majority of Americans believed that his policies against terror, on the war and for the post-9/11 economy had been successful.  However, by 2006 the plurality of Americans thought we were losing the war.  As such, the majority of voters cast their ballots against losing.

The difference now is that American opinion appears to have shifted to give the President enough time to allow his policies to succeed.  This cross pressures the Democratic candidates with a base that was overwhelmingly anti-war and currently favors a relatively immediate pullout.

The Republican base was never really anti-war, they just became discouraged by the time and toll the war was taking.  In campaign focus groups, liberal Democrats would say that they were opposed to the war.  “We should never have invaded Iraq, period,” some stated.  “The President lied about weapons of mass destructions to get us into Iraq,” others declared.

In contrast, Republicans did not complain about the war itself.  Rather their focus group comments would go along the line of reasoning as follows: “We were right to go into Iraq, but we should have left by now.”  Republicans and Independents who supported the President and the war were disillusioned that we would “lose” the war.

So what are we seeing in current polls that look at the war as an issue for 2008?  Our major findings of recent surveys in the Northeast generally find the following:

    •  The war is part of an election agenda which includes energy costs, the economy, health care, terror, immigration, taxes and spending.  As long as the “surge” succeeds and eventually Iraq becomes stable, the war will not be the Democratic silver bullet as it may have been in 2006.

    •  As economic concerns rise, three in four voters still think that the country is headed in the wrong direction, but this time Democrats and Congress share the blame with Republicans.

    •    The President remains largely unfavorable, but the Republican Party is in the midst of a great volatile nomination battle that will redefine its image and its coalition.

    •  As unpopular as the President may still be, Hillary Clinton is not far behind.  Nationally four in ten voters are unfavorable to her and they are polarized along partisan lines.  No way is Mark Penn, Hillary’s pollster correct that she will get 25 percent of the Republican women vote.  Her negatives among Republican women are about 80 percent -- even in the Northeast.  Last November among Northeast voters, even before the campaign started Senator Clinton had a 41 percent unfavorable rating.  For every ad that a Democrat attacks a Republican with, there may be one to put some distance between the Democrat and Senator Clinton.  Senator Clinton, as the nominee of her party, will be a catalyst for a better Republican turnout than in 2006.  Also she will be a cause for ticket-spitting for Congress.  Among those voters who may vote for her, a sizable segment do not want her to rule with unchecked control of government and will split their ticket as they did with her husband in the ’94, ’96 and ’98 elections.

    •  If Senator Obama wins the nomination, the Democratic Party will have gone even farther to the left and become even more anti-war.  This will leave more of the middle and independent vote available to the Republicans.

    • The majority of voters in the Northeast are now giving the “Democratic majority in Congress” a net negative job rating.  This holds true among independents and even among Democratic voters in key swing districts.  Along with the Democratic majority, Speaker Nancy Pelosi now has a net unfavorable rating in key districts.

    •  Democratic efforts to push a tax increase on middle-class and upper middle-class economy are undermining the Democrats credibility that they are actually cutting taxes for the middle class.

    •  In key districts, the majority of Northeast voters support a gradual withdrawal of troops from Iraq and are opposed to an immediate withdrawal that leaves an unstable Iraq.

    • Democrat missteps fueled by New York Governor Spitzer’s very unpopular proposal to give illegal aliens drivers’ licenses and the tacit support by Senator Clinton gave Northeast Republicans an important wedge issue to regain lost ground on security as an issue.

    •  Last November six in ten voters, 59 percent preferred “smaller government with fewer services”, over “larger government with many services”, 28 percent.  In the Northeast the plurality of voters preferred smaller government 48 percent to 36 percent.  Fiscal conservatism will be an important opportunity once again for Republicans.

    • With the retirement of incumbents and the opportunity for new challengers the Republican Party once again has the opportunity to become the party of new ideas, new faces and change precisely at a time when voters will be looking for independence and change once more.

The 2006 election is history and we should learn from it.  The 2008 election can be an election of opportunity rather than an election of decline.  The changes are coming.              RF

John McLaughlin is the CEO/Partner of McLaughlin & Associates.

 

[tomahawk6]

Tuesday night may tell the tale or it may not. Evidently 20-25% of the California vote has been done through absentee ballot which wont be counted until Wednesday, so if its close no one will get the results until late on Tuesday or late Wed. I dont care who the democrats nominate either is way too much of a socialist for me. McCain while he has been a patriot he isnt conservative for me on key issues like the economy,taxes,illegal immigration and conservative judges. He has been way too cozy with the democrats during his time in Washington.

 

[CougarKing]

Tuesday night may tell the tale or it may not. Evidently 20-25% of the California vote has been done through absentee ballot which wont be counted until Wednesday, so if its close no one will get the results until late on Tuesday or late Wed. I dont care who the democrats nominate either is way too much of a socialist for me. McCain while he has been a patriot he isnt conservative for me on key issues like the economy,taxes,illegal immigration and conservative judges. He has been way too cozy with the democrats during his time in Washington.

Well that's part of the reason why McCain has been described as a "maverick" politician, because he does not always fit the traditional Republican mold and would rather vote for his constituents depending on the issue rather than follow the rest of the GOP. I don't agree when Ann Coulter says that Hillary is "more conservative" compared to McCain and is therefore "our girl" as she said as a sort of insult to him; a politician who is willing to step across the aisle and be willing to work with differences rather than emphasize them (as Romney does when he touts how he is the more conservative "CEO-type politician" than McCain ever was) would therefore be more appealing to the public and less polarizing.

On a side, slight hijack, anyone here know or have any idea what McCain's call sign was when he was a USN Crusader fighter pilot?

 

[a_majoor]

While this may be the "Dream Ticket" for some democrats, I tend to believe the writer in thinking why there will not be a Clinton/Obama or Obama/Clinton ticket in November:

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/02/04/roland.martin/index.html?iref=newssearch

Commentary: Forget an Obama-Clinton or Clinton-Obama ticket

By Roland S. Martin
CNN Contributor

(CNN) -- Democrats across the country are abuzz over the possibility of the "dream ticket" featuring Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama running for the White House in November.
art.martin.cnn.jpg

Roland S. Martin says the likelihood of a Obama-Clinton or Clinton-Obama ticket is not likely to happen.

In the words of one of "The Sopranos" characters, "Fuggetaboutit!"

Look, this might sound exciting and history-making to have a woman and an African-American competing against the Republicans, but there are multiple reasons why this won't happen.

1. Clinton will not be overshadowed by an underling. Clinton is hugely popular in Democratic circles, but truth be told, that pales in comparison to the love and affection showered on Obama. This is a guy who brings people to tears just by speaking, and attracts folks on the left, right and the disenfranchised.

When you have the children of elected officials putting pressure on their parents (Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill is one example.) to support this guy, you know he is touching people in a place others haven't in 40 years. The role of a VP is to be supportive of a presidential candidate, not someone who overshadows them.

2. Obama would not want to carry Clinton baggage. He has offered a vision of change, and having to answer to the years of strife under the Clintons would be too much. It would make sense to have a fresh face serving as his vice president who doesn't engender anger among some in the Democratic Party, and definitely the GOP. An Obama run would be about going after Republicans and independents, and Clinton being on the ticket would make that very difficult.

3. Way too much bad blood between these two during this campaign. A lot of folks say that George H.W. Bush rankled Ronald Reagan by declaring his economic plan "voodoo economics." That didn't keep Reagan from adding Bush to the ticket. But Bush was one of these loyal guys who would have done anything for the party ... and himself. I don't see that for Clinton and Obama.

Sure, their attacks on one another are what you expect in a campaign, but it has gotten very personal. Obama says she is a return to the "politics of old," and that doesn't bring a smile to her face. The race-baiting Southern Strategy used by former President Bill Clinton and the surrogates of Sen. Clinton have absolutely angered Obama's camp. There is too much blood on the floor, and you just don't forget that.

4. Being No. 2 is unthinkable for Clinton. She went through the behind-the-scenes battles with Al Gore when he was her husband's vice president. She's not interested in second fiddle and doesn't want to have to fight to be on the stage. For her, it's all or nothing. She's also 60, and being VP to Obama means that if he wins two terms, she'll be 68 running for the highest office in the land. It's not outside the realm of possibility, but she'll have to confront the skeptics who are snipping at the heels of Sen. John McCain, claiming he's too old.

5. Obama doesn't want to be an LBJ. When Lyndon Baines Johnson was the vice president under President John F. Kennedy, he was ostracized and marginalized because of the influence of Robert F. Kennedy. With Bill Clinton serving as consigliere to a President Hillary Clinton, Obama would be on the outside looking in. He knows the likelihood of him doing anything of substance and having influence in a Clinton administration.

Former Democratic candidate Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, when asked if he wanted to be her VP, he said competing with Bill Clinton isn't his cup of tea. Some would say that serving as VP two terms under Clinton would give Obama administrative experience, and he would be 54 when he could run, but I just don't buy it.

Now, as a way out, I would expect to see these two on a ticket only if Clinton is the nominee and they run the numbers and determine that the best chance of winning would be with him. She wants to be president that bad and would discount the bad blood. Then they would hope he accepted or accepts it.

I just don't see any of it happening. This might be seen as a dream ticket, but it is not a match made in heaven.

Roland S. Martin is a nationally award-winning journalist and CNN contributor. Martin is studying to receive his master's degree in Christian communications at Louisiana Baptist University, and he is the author of "Listening to the Spirit Within: 50 Perspectives on Faith." You can read more of his columns at http://www.rolandsmartin.com/.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the writer.

 

[CougarKing]

While this may be the "Dream Ticket" for some democrats, I tend to believe the writer in thinking why there will not be a Clinton/Obama or Obama/Clinton ticket in November:

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/02/04/roland.martin/index.html?iref=newssearch

Dream tickets aside, here's the fair maiden who is partially responsible for Obama's momentum in the Democratic Primaries (at least compared to the other candidates who rival Clinton among the Dems.) in the United States right now! 

:rofl:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKsoXHYICqU

http://video.yahoo.com/video/play?vid=1366280

 

[observor 69]

Well that's part of the reason why McCain has been described as a "maverick" politician, because he does not always fit the traditional Republican mold and would rather vote for his constituents depending on the issue rather than follow the rest of the GOP. I don't agree when Ann Coulter says that Hillary is "more conservative" compared to McCain and is therefore "our girl" as she said as a sort of insult to him; a politician who is willing to step across the aisle and be willing to work with differences rather than emphasize them (as Romney does when he touts how he is the more conservative "CEO-type politician" than McCain ever was) would therefore be more appealing to the public and less polarizing.

On a side, slight hijack, anyone here know or have any idea what McCain's call sign was when he was a USN Crusader fighter pilot?

"Playboy"

  http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message495961/pg2

 

[a_majoor]

The Republicans need to move very carefully indeed. A McCain Administration may well be able to create a bipartisan consensus in the House, and we should remember the Congress is polling at about 1/2 the approval rating of President George W Bush right now, so the Democrats might discover their hold on the Congress isn't as strong as they might wish.

http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.27493,filter.all/pub_detail.asp

Beware the Coming Democratic Sea-Change
By David Frum
Posted: Friday, February 8, 2008

The conservative ascendancy in American politics is coming to an end. For three decades, the right has dominated, with the Republicans winning five of the seven presidential elections since 1980. Conservatives did more than just win elections: even when liberals gained power, they governed on conservative terms.

What were the most important accomplishments of the Clinton presidency? Balancing the budget, welfare reform and the expansion of Nato-not exactly left-of-centre projects. And of Jimmy Carter’s? The deregulation of the airline and natural gas industries.

Neither president set out to accomplish these goals. Indeed, they often resisted them. In the end they had to accept the limits of the possible-just as Republican presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon accepted the limits of the possible in the liberal era from 1930 to 1975.

Neither Mr Clinton nor Mr Carter created a single, major, permanent new national social programme. Mr Clinton failed to bequeath power to his chosen successor; Mr Carter failed even to win a second term.

John Mitchell, Richard Nixon’s attorney-general, predicted in 1970: "This country is going so far right you won’t recognise it." His prophecy was vindicated. Now its time is up: 2008 is shaping up to be the first decisive Democratic victory since 1964-a 1980 in reverse. The signs are gathering everywhere. Three-quarters of Americans now describe the country as "on the wrong track". Almost 90 per cent express strong dissatisfaction with the costly healthcare system.

In primaries and caucuses, Democratic contests have drawn more voters than Republican ones. An early estimate after Super Tuesday suggests that, thus far, 11m Americans have cast ballots for Republican candidates, while more than 15m have voted for Democratic ones. Democrats outpolled Republicans by 20 per cent even in the state of South Carolina, maybe the most conservative in the nation.

Usually pundits expect that the party that chooses its nominee first will win the election. That will probably not be true this time. Although the Hillary Clinton-Barack Obama contest looks likely to continue longer than John McCain’s march to the Republican nomination, Democrats tell pollsters they like both candidates--they are just deciding which they like best. Republicans remain divided, with Mr McCain, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee each passionately disliked by opposing factions within their party.

In polls, Americans express preference for Democrats over Republicans on almost every issue surveyed, including such traditional Republican advantages as taxes, ethics and competence.

In 2002, equal numbers of Americans identified as Republicans and Democrats. In the six years since, Republican identification has collapsed back to the level recorded before Ronald Reagan. The decline has been steepest among young voters. If they eat right, exercise and wear seatbelts, today’s 20-somethings will be voting against George W. Bush deep into the 2060s. Most ominously, US polls show an ideological sea change: a desire for a more activist government, a loss of interest in the tax question and a shift to the left on most social issues (although not, interestingly, abortion).

As things are going, the Democratic nominee will win a majority of the votes cast (unlike Mr Clinton). They will almost certainly gain an increased majority in Congress (unlike Mr Carter). If the present mood lasts, that nominee will have a green light to move the US in new policy directions (unlike either Mr Clinton or Mr Carter).

The stage has been set for the boldest and most dramatic redirection of US politics since Reagan’s first year in office. Of course, there are no guarantees in politics. An inept president could bungle his or her chances. Unexpected events could intrude: a nuclear test in Iran, a major terrorist attack on US soil or some attention-grabbing political scandal. But given moderate luck and skill, the next president could join Reagan, Lyndon Johnson and Franklin Roosevelt as one of the grand reshapers of politics and government.

Tragically, that reshaping is likely to be for the worse. The things that Mrs Clinton and Mr Obama want to do are likely to prove costly and counterproductive, if not outright disastrous. A greater government role in healthcare, higher taxes, tighter regulation, more social welfare, an increased flow of low-skilled migrants with amnesty for those already here, a cut-and-run from Iraq: these are not measures likely to improve US competitiveness or enhance America’s standing in the world.

To prevent these negative consequences--to retrieve victory from impending defeat--would require more creativity and responsiveness than Republicans and conservatives have displayed for many years. Unless American conservatism can rejuvenate itself, the odds favour the liberal left holding sway until the day that its own errors and delusions lay it low again.

David Frum is a resident fellow at AEI.

 

[CougarKing]

The Republicans need to move very carefully indeed. A McCain Administration may well be able to create a bipartisan consensus in the House, and we should remember the Congress is polling at about 1/2 the approval rating of President George W Bush right now, so the Democrats might discover their hold on the Congress isn't as strong as they might wish.

Before Romney dropped out of the race, he accused McCain as "not being conservative enough"; it seems Ann Coulter agrees with him, since she recently had been apt to announce that she would rather have Hillary as "our girl", as she said, since Hillary seems to be more conservative compared to McCain; to say that a leading Democrat like Clinton is more conservative than you is definitely an insult to any Republican like McCain.

 

[2 Cdo]

I agree that this election is too close to call but I recall reading a politico writing years ago that Americans tend to be broken into 3 camps.
40% of Americans vote Republican no matter who is running.
40% of Americans vote Democrat no matter who is running
The remaining 20% is what candidates need to aim for. The swing vote that actually reads candidates platforms and votes on conscience rather than party affiliation.

You could even say the same thing in Canada in regards to Conservatives, Liberals, and the Lunatic Fringe. 8)

 

[observor 69]

I agree that this election is too close to call but I recall reading a politico writing years ago that Americans tend to be broken into 3 camps.
40% of Americans vote Republican no matter who is running.
40% of Americans vote Democrat no matter who is running
The remaining 20% is what candidates need to aim for. The swing vote that actually reads candidates platforms and votes on conscience rather than party affiliation.

You could even say the same thing in Canada in regards to Conservatives, Liberals, and the Lunatic Fringe. 8)

Along the same line of thinking:

http://206.75.155.198/showfile.asp?Lang=E&URL=/archivenews/080212/GM/0802124N.htm

POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS Obama's success shows the power of new voters

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[CougarKing]

Obama makes more gains. 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23123924/

Obama sweeps Maryland, Va., D.C.
‘Tonight we’re on our way,’ senator says as he extends lead in delegates
NBC News and news services
updated 11:42 p.m. PT, Tues., Feb. 12, 2008

WASHINGTON - Sen. Barack Obama was projected to sweep Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in Tuesday's primaries in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia, NBC News said, giving him an unbroken string of victories since Super Tuesday.

On the Republican side, Sen. John McCain defeated former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in all three contests.

The three wins — which came by substantial margins — helped Obama build on the delegate lead that he has gained in the past week in NBC News' count.

“Tonight we’re on our way,” Obama told cheering supporters Tuesday night in Madison, Wis. “We now have won east and west and north and south and across the heartland of this country we love.”

Clinton was said to be depending on victories in the big states of Ohio and Texas next month in her struggle to keep up in a race she once commanded.

She campaigned in El Paso, Texas, on Tuesday night, telling supporters: "I'm tested, I'm ready — let's make it happen."

Clinton didn't mention Tuesday's results, but there were lingering signs of the disquiet in her campaign.

Clinton's campaign manager resigned over the weekend, and it was learned Tuesday that deputy campaign manager Mike Henry resigned Monday. A source told NBC that Henry was leaving to allow new campaign manager Maggie Williams to organize her own team.

Obama makes some inroads

With his victories Tuesday, Obama showed signs of eating into Clinton's voter base. He had nearly two-thirds of the vote in Virginia, about 60 percent in early returns in Maryland and 75 percent in the District of Columbia.

Interviews with voters leaving the polls showed Obama split the white vote with Clinton in Virginia, though she won it by 10 percentage points in Maryland. She won a majority of white women in both states, though by less than she is accustomed to. He won among white men in Virginia, and they split that vote in Maryland.

In addition to his usual strong showing among young voters, Obama was also running about even among those over 65, a group Clinton usually dominates.

"This is the new American majority. This is what change looks like when it happens from the bottom up," Obama said at the campaign rally in Wisconsin, which holds its primary next Tuesday.

Obama, who would be the first black president, also won the votes of nine in 10 black voters in Virginia, where they were about a third of the electorate, and his won almost as many in Maryland.

And Obama was winning 66 percent to 33 percent among independents, who made up a fifth of the Democratic electorate in Virginia. He did even better — 70 percent to 26 percent — among Republicans, who made up 8 percent of the Democratic vote. Virginia held the two parties' primaries on the same day for the first time and voters can cross party lines in primaries there.

Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine said in an interview on MSNBC that the makeup of the Democratic electorate bore out his belief that Obama could strongly attract independent voters in November in Virginia, which has been solidly Republican in previous presidential elections.

“The results tonight suggest that we’re going to be very razor-thin competitive in November,” said Kaine, who has endorsed Obama.

Clinton looks to Texas

The Illinois senator won a string of contests in all regions of the country over the weekend, routing Clinton in a Louisiana primary as well as caucuses in Nebraska, Washington state, Maine and the Virgin Islands.

Obama's latest victories put more pressure on Clinton, who faces possible defeats next week in Wisconsin and Hawaii. Obama led Clinton on Tuesday night, with 1,078 delegates to her 969, according to NBC News.

Clinton hopes to respond with victories in Texas and Ohio on March 4, states where both candidates have already begun television advertising.

“Clearly, coming out of Super Tuesday, it was expected that Sen. Obama would take the states he has taken,” said Lisa Caputo, a senior adviser to Clinton.

Caputo acknowledged in an interview on MSNBC that the campaign was “focusing its resources on the big states with the big delegate counts, because let’s remember, it’s all about the delegates.”

“All eyes are on the states of Texas and Ohio,” she said. “She absolutely has to win Ohio and Texas, and probably Pennsylvania.”

While still in Virginia on Tuesday, Clinton did satellite interviews with 10 TV stations in Ohio, Texas and Wisconsin, calling for more debates and addressing regional concerns such as the economy in Ohio and immigration in Texas.

Asked about the possibility of sharing the November ticket with Obama — before Tuesday's results were known — she said it was too soon to talk about such things, but in an interview with WTMJ in Milwaukee she echoed the comment her rival has been making about her: "I have the highest regard for him. He was my friend before this started, and he will be my friend going into the future."

In Virginia, the parties held binding primaries on the same day for the first time.

“We have had heavy voter turnout ... throughout the state,” Susan Pollard, a spokeswoman for the Virginia Board of Elections, told NBC affiliate WRC of Washington.

In the Washington suburb of Alexandria, the previous primary record was broken by noon, WRC reported. Most were voting in the Democratic primary.

More than a third of voters in the Virginia Democratic primary said they had not voted in a primary before, as did almost one in five voters in the Maryland Democratic primary, according to the exit interviews.

In Maryland, icy weather caused traffic problems and a judge agreed to order that voting places stay open an extra 90 minutes. Ballots cast during the extended 90 minutes will be provisional ballots, as required by federal law. That means people will vote on paper, the ballots will be put in an envelope and reviewed after the election. An election official says the provisional ballots won't be counted until Tuesday, because Monday is a holiday.

But they shouldn't affect the outcome, considering the size of Obama's lead.
Kweisi Mfume

 

[CougarKing]

Another reason to like Obama and proof that not all Liberals/Democrats are anti-military: he plans to permanently increase the size of the US Army and USMC by 65,000 troops and 27,000 Marines, respectively, as stated below:

http://www.theglobalist.com/DBWeb/StoryId.aspx?StoryId=6195

Barack Obama’s American Exceptionalism   

By Christopher A. Preble | Friday, May 25, 2007   

Senator Barack Obama’s meteoric rise from relative obscurity to presidential contender has been aided by the debate over the war in Iraq. Obama, who was not a U.S. Senator when Congress voted to go to war in 2002, has worn his opposition to the war as a badge of honor. But as Christopher Preble argues, that will only carry him so far.

Recognizing the need to lay out a foreign policy agenda defined by more than opposition to the war in Iraq, Senator Obama set out to explain his broader vision for U.S. foreign policy in an April 2007 speech before the Chicago Council of Global Affairs.

The speech contained a healthy helping of high-minded rhetoric about the need “to stay on the offense, from Djibouti to Kandahar,” of leading a global effort “to keep the world’s deadliest weapons out of the world’s most dangerous hands,” of the need to build “stronger alliances,” and of leading “a stronger push to defeat the terrorists’ message of hate with an agenda for hope around the world.”

Channeling FDR

The few concrete recommendations, including his proposal to increase U.S. foreign aid spending to $50 billion by 2012, are conventional in the sense that they are designed to appeal to his party’s liberal base.  

The underlying message implies a willingness to use force abroad that might be nearly indistinguishable from that of the current occupant of the White House.

Equally conventional is his invocation of Franklin Roosevelt. Obama, channeling FDR, explains that the United States leads “the world in battling immediate evils and promoting the ultimate good.” And so we must. “We must lead by building a 21st century military to ensure the security of our people and advance the security of all people.” (Emphasis added)

This expansive vision for what the United States can and should do is consistent with Obama’s endorsement of a permanent increase in the size of the military, an additional “65,000 soldiers to the Army and 27,000 Marines.”

Expanding the military

Many of the other candidates aspiring for the nomination have embraced the idea of growing the military, and the logic is consistent with Obama’s accurate observation that “the war in Afghanistan and the ill-advised invasion of Iraq have clearly demonstrated the consequences of underestimating the number of troops required to fight two wars and defend our homeland.”

But there are two ways to solve this problem — by either restraining the impulse to intervene militarily or by increasing the military. Obama conceded as much. “Of course,” he explained, “how we use our armed forces matters just as much as how they are prepared.”

Praise from Kagan

Would President Obama have sent troops to Panama? To Somalia? To Haiti? Would he have declared, as George H.W. Bush did, that Saddam's aggression against Kuwait would not stand?

However, the underlying message of his speech, and of his specific proposals, implies a willingness to use force abroad that might be nearly indistinguishable from that of the current occupant of the White House.

Perhaps that explains why the junior senator from Illinois won praise from Robert Kagan, the Washington Post columnist. He seemed genuinely excited about Obama’s embrace of a highly activist foreign policy.

Kagan had a hand in shaping that policy in the mid-1990s, when he (along with William Kristol) called for the United States to play the role of “benevolent global hegemon” — i.e. “world’s policeman.”

Playing the policeman

The Iraq war and other global misadventures have revealed that being the world’s cop is a costly undertaking.

And although 76% of Americans, according to a recent poll taken by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and WorldPublicOpinion.org, say that the United States is “playing the role of world policeman more than it should be,” Kagan believes that he has found yet another politician who believes the United States doesn't play the role often enough — hence his praise for “Obama the Interventionist.”

"Dumb wars"

But what does Barack Obama actually believe? Is he more or less inclined than his predecessors to intervene militarily? When asked about his stance on Iraq, Obama has explained that he was not opposed to all wars, just “dumb wars.” This makes for a good soundbite, but it does not tell us much about how he would approach the most important decisions that a president will make.

Obama’s broader vision for restoring U.S. leadership betrays all of the excesses of "indispensable nation" hubris that entangled U.S. forces in a host of dubious missions in the 1990s.

In his speech to the Chicago Council, he attempted to elaborate. He explained: "No president should ever hesitate to use force — unilaterally if necessary — to protect ourselves and our vital interests when we are attacked or imminently threatened. But when we use force in situations other than self-defense, we should make every effort to garner the clear support and participation of others.

"And when we do send our men and women into harm’s way, we must also clearly define the mission, prescribe concrete political and military objectives, seek out advice of our military commanders, evaluate the intelligence, plan accordingly — and ensure that our troops have the resources, support and equipment they need to protect themselves and fulfill their mission."

U.S. leadership

A willingness to ask such questions ties into his pledge to restore U.S. global leadership by “building the first truly 21st century military and showing wisdom in how we deploy it.”

Unfortunately, Obama’s broader vision for restoring U.S. leadership betrays all of the excesses of "indispensable nation" hubris that entangled U.S. forces in a host of dubious missions in the 1990s.

A more competent meddler

But what does Barack Obama actually believe? He has explained that he was not opposed to all wars, just “dumb wars.” This makes for a good soundbite.

At least one of Senator Obama’s leading foreign policy advisers, Samantha Power, wants to recapture that interventionist spirit.

“It’s going to take a generation or so,” she told Newsweek senior editor Michael Hirsh in an article for the Washington Monthly, “to reclaim American exceptionalism.” Power lamented that Americans were “neither the shining example, nor even competent meddlers” in the world’s problems.

Is that what Barack Obama offers the electorate — to be a more competent meddler?

What would Obama do?

To answer that question, we have to go back to the smart war-dumb war paradigm. Using his own calculus, which of the other major military actions conducted by the U.S. military since the end of the Cold War would be classified as "dumb wars"?

Would President Obama have sent troops to Panama? To Somalia? To Haiti? Would he have declared, as George H.W. Bush did, that Saddam's aggression against Kuwait would not stand? Would President Obama have favored using ground troops in Kosovo, as opposed to Bill Clinton's air-power-only approach? Or would he have stayed out of that murky struggle entirely?

Talking about Darfur

And what of the military actions that were not taken? Would President Obama have sent U.S. troops into Rwanda in 1994 — in an attempt to halt the genocide that occurred there? The real test case might be Darfur. 
Most Americans believe that global engagement need not take the form of U.S. men and women in uniform risking their lives in dubious missions of questionable import — while the rest of the world looks on from a distance.

And yet, the subject merited just 32 words near the beginning of Obama’s Chicago speech.

In the course of documenting his travels around the world over the past two years, the senator recounts, “At a camp along the border of Chad and Darfur, refugees begged for America to step in and help stop the genocide that has taken their mothers and fathers, sons and daughters.”

Yet, nowhere in the remainder of the speech does candidate Obama spell out what he would do to halt the killings. This is a pretty remarkable oversight coming from a man who wrote, in a Washington Post op-ed co-authored with Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) in December 2005, that “only the United States, working in concert with key nations, has the leverage and resources to persuade Khartoum.”

Worth the risk?

A few months later, Obama said that Americans were “going to have to provide our military hardware, like trucks and helicopters” to a 20,000-man U.N. peacekeeping force in Darfur — and get “Canada, Australia and non-engaged European nations to commit the troops.”

But why would those other nations agree to risk the lives of their men and women when Americans were risking only trucks and helicopters? Answer: they wouldn’t.

U.S. intervention burdens

This expansive vision for what the United States can and should do is consistent with Obama’s endorsement of a permanent increase in the size of the military.

Three out of every four Americans are fed up with “benevolent global hegemony” and are now looking to more equitably share the burdens of policing the globe with other countries.

This solid majority is weighing the costs and benefits of global leadership, and most believe that global engagement need not take the form of U.S. men and women in uniform risking their lives in dubious missions of questionable import — while the rest of the world looks on from a distance. It didn’t all begin with Iraq, but Iraq certainly brought the costs and risks in sharp focus.

Where does he stand?

On the other side of the ideological divide are Robert Kagan and the other leading advocates for the Iraq war that Obama has labeled “dumb.” Whereas most Americans believe that the United States has taken the lead too often, and paid too many of the costs of policing the globe, there are folks who believe that U.S. military power has not been used often enough.

Where does Senator Obama stand? Despite his recent speech, we still don’t know. And until he explains more clearly his approach to military intervention and the use of force, we won't.

 

[a_majoor]

After reading this, I had to wonder about the people who always accuse the American Right Wing of being in the thrall of religion.....

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/02/obamas_politics_of_collective.html

Obama's Politics of Collective Redemption
By Kyle-Anne Shiver

    "Wherever politics tries to be redemptive, it is promising too much.  Where it wishes to do the work of God, it becomes not divine, but demonic."  Pope Benedict XVI

A messianic fever grips a segment of the American populace and media.  A great leader seems to them poised to redeem our collective sins and change nearly everything, bringing about a new era in which permanent solutions are found to age-old conditions.

Whenever I watch Barack Obama, listen to his eloquent but nonspecific oratory, and see the near-swooning young people who invariably follow him wherever he goes, I cannot help but think of the pied piper and wonder toward what destination he is marching our youth.  pied piper of ChicagoObama is having this pied-piper effect not only on kids, but also on a large swath of  Democrat and not a few independents and Republican voters, too.

Call me skeptical, but this whole Obama phenomenon seems downright eerie.

Over and over again, Obama invokes his double mantra: "It's time for change!"  and "Yes, we can!"

Singer Wil.i.am's (Yes, that's right; it's Wil I Am.) YouTube "Yes, we can!" video has already had over 2 million hits, and it has a hypnotic quality reminiscent of eastern religious meditations.  I urge every American still capable of thinking for himself to take a serious look at this video.

Then, consider these numbers on  recent Google searches using only Obama's name plus one other word:

    * Obama + messianic  75,200
    * Obama + savior  226,000
    * Obama + prophet  312,000
    * Obama + Christ 504,000
    * Obama + change 4,540,000

A number of internet postings indicate that a great many see Obama in not only political terms, but also wrapped in the untarnished cloak of some vague spiritual-awakening.

It is quite tempting to assume that Barack Obama simply is harvesting the inevitable fruits of 35 years of dumbed-down, political indoctrination in the guise of education in this country. This is dangerous. The problem goes deeper, right into the human soul.

A lust for transformation is a common feature of revolutionaries, and when they succeed in grabbing power, the results usually are brutal. Less than a century ago, massive numbers of people fell for a different political messiah on the European continent, and they were products of an education system and cultural establishment widely regarded as a world leader.

That place was, of course, Germany.  And the political messiah promoting "change" was Adolph Hitler.

Hitler's slogan:  "Alles muss anders sein!" ("Everything must be different!")

Hitler used each of these phrases to describe his own political program:

    "A declaration of war against the order of things which exist, against the state of things which exist, in a word, against the structure of the world which presently exists."

    "revolutionary creative will" which had "no fixed aim, no permanency, only eternal change."

    "an ethic of self-sacrifice"

    "people's community"

    "public need before private greed"

    "communally-minded social consciousness"


All of these expressions came from Adolph Hitler.

Saul Alinsky, one of Obama's primary political mentors, espoused eerily similar societal admonitions in his book Reveille for Radicals; p. 133 and 105:

    "A People's Organization (later changed to "community organization") is dedicated to an eternal war.  It is a war against poverty, misery, delinquency, disease, injustice, hopelessness, despair, and unhappiness."

and

    "A People's Organization is not a philanthropic plaything or a social service's ameliorative gesture.  It is a deep, hard-driving force, striking and cutting at the very roots of all the evils which beset the people...it thinks and acts in terms of social surgery and not cosmetic cover-ups."

and

    "There is hope, and life is worth living.  There may not be a light at the end of the trail but they (the masses) have a light in their hands, a light they made themselves, and they know that not only will they themselves have to work out their own destiny but that they themselves can."*

Obama says, "Yes we can!"  change...

Exactly what should change and how is unclear. Everything?

Time for Tough Questions and Straight Answers

More than four months ago, when a reporter noticed that Obama was no longer wearing an American flag lapel pin, and asked if he were making a fashion statement, this was part of Obama's reply:

    "Instead," (of wearing the pin) he said, "I'm going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testimony to my patriotism."

Well, here we are a week after Super Tuesday and it seems we are still waiting for Obama to expound upon the "what" and the "how" of this ethereal "change" mantra, to spell out his commitment to "patriotism."

Little has been made in the mainstream press of the brand of black liberation theology preached by Obama's pastor and spiritual mentor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Jr., who holds a master's degree on world religions with a focus on Islam, and who has traveled to Middle Eastern countries in the company of Louis Farrakhan.  Rev. Wright created and presides over the Center for African Biblical studies, whose mission is African-centered Bible studies:

    "We are an African people, and we remain true to our native land, the mother continent, the cradle of civilization."

Several forms of liberation theology sprouted during the 20th century, all espousing a third way between godless communism and the socialist utopian dream.  All are predicated upon an acceptance that sin is not individual, but collective, and that sin cannot be overcome through religious conversion, but only by a people's struggle against all injustice.  Congregations of various faiths and denominations have been used as platforms for collective statist approaches to human redemption.  The social gospel espoused by religious-left churches in the U.S. is another form of liberation theology, which takes a political route to redemption for man's collective soul.

According to liberation theologies, God does not save men. Man saves himself through a political process of absolute social justice.

Writing in 2004, as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Pope Benedict had this to say about liberation theology in his book, Truth and Tolerance (p. 116):

    "...this struggle (against all injustice), it was said, would have to be a political struggle, because the structures (of oppression) were strengthened and maintained by politics.  Thus redemption became a political process, for which Marxist philosophy offered the essential directions.  It became a task that men themselves could -- indeed had to -- take in hand and became, at the same time, the object of quite practical hopes; faith was changed from ‘theory' into practice, into concrete redeeming action in the liberation process."  (emphases mine)

Consider these statements from Obama's campaign website, contained in his video invitation for all to "join us in changing the Country."

    "We believe in what this Country can be."

    "In the face of war, we believe there can be peace."

    "In the face of despair, we believe there can be hope."

    "...America can be one people reaching for what's possible."

Obama indeed seems to be offering a people's government solution to all human problems. He is, after all, running for President of the United States, not for a pulpit.  Substituting the state for God as provider has been the inherent common thread in all Marxist regimes.

And in this seemingly redemptive offering, Obama may be promising what only God can actually deliver, in the form of yet another, more eloquent, version of the same old utopian dream that started with Rousseau and Marx.

Can man successfully redeem himself through collective transformation and liberation?

Pope Benedict says "No" rather emphatically, in Truth and Tolerance.  Writing of the fall of the Soviet Union:

    "...where the Marxist ideology of liberation had been consistently applied, a total lack of freedom had developed, whose horrors were now laid bare before the eyes of the entire world.  Wherever politics tries to be redemptive, it is promising too much.  Where it wishes to do the work of God, it becomes not divine, but demonic." 

Coincidentally, Saul Alinsky began his book Rules for Radicals:

    "Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins -- or which is which), the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom -- Lucifer."

Attempting to discern true meaning from Obama's speeches gives one the feeling of having been trapped in a sort of verbal quicksand.  Hair-pulling levels of frustration await any effort to find any specific meaning. A sensation of  lethargic sinking into an abyss of abstract gibberish awaits the mind looking for specifics..

Obama's public statements, his speeches, even his "present" votes in the Illinois legislature leave one dangerously unsure of his true intentions.

Whatever Obama's concrete plans are, they ought to aligned with his political mentor, Saul Alinsky,  and his spiritual mentor and liberation theology specialist, Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

In the absence of any genuine explanations from candidate Obama himself, the change of which he speaks reasonably may be inferred to be quite antithetical to anything even remotely resembling American patriotism.

And that is a legitimate concern for every American voter.

Kyle-Anne Shiver is a frequent contributor to American Thinker.  She welcomes your comments at kyleanneshiver@yahoo.com.

Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/02/obamas_politics_of_collective.html at February 14, 2008 - 10:40:31 PM EST

 

[wannabe SF member]

I dunno, I mean I find the comparison between Obama and Hitler a bit over the top but i agree that the phenomenon is getting kinda religious.

 

[CougarKing]

I dunno, i mean i find the comparison between Obama and Hitler a bit over the top

+1 incongruous. Still, I think it's a bit premature to call Obama's charisma among his base as a Pied-piper like religious fervor or personality-cult-worship-like fervor.

 

[Yrys]

the comparison between Obama and Hitler a bit over the top

More then over the top for me.  I can understand Obama when he's talking. I tried to read
Mein Kampf once, as I wanted to understand what was so charismatic about the man.
I don't know if it was the traduction, but it seems a pile of gibberish and lunatic raving to me.

Really bizarre comparison.

 

[tdr_aust]

Reading this in one of the previous posts:

Then, consider these numbers on  recent Google searches using only Obama's name plus one other word:

Obama + messianic  75,200
  * Obama + savior  226,000
  * Obama + prophet  312,000
  * Obama + Christ 504,000
  * Obama + change 4,540,000

A number of internet postings indicate that a great many see Obama in not only political terms, but also wrapped in the untarnished cloak of some vague spiritual-awakening.

Reminded me of the following in a recent column in the Australian paper:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23182456-28737,00.html

Obama's first coming
Washington correspondent Geoff Elliott | February 09, 2008

IT was early 1994 when Nelson Mandela gave a speech in a slum outside Cape Town and spoke in grand terms of a new beginning and how when he was elected president every household would have a washing machine.

People took him literally. A few months later he became South Africa's first black president. That's when clerks in department stores in Cape Town had to turn people away demanding their free washer and dryer.

Having spent some time as a reporter in South Africa watching the Mandela presidency I was reminded of that story this week when I travelled with Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on the campaign trail.

How does a cult figure, in the eyes of some something akin to a messiah, make the transition to a political frontrunner - president even - where disappointment will soon crush what seemed to be a journey to a promised land?

Looking into the faces of a more than 16,000-strong crowd in a basketball stadium in Hartford, Connecticut this week, the Mandela magic I'd seen before was there too. Black and white, and the youth; they appeared in a state close to rapture watching Obama speak. Here and there one could see women crying and the some men wiping away tears too.

It was not the promise of a washing machine, of course. Mandela was heading a Rainbow Revolution - a new governing coalition. The sense of renewal in those heady days in South Africa in the mid-'90s was palpable. A political and cultural boil was being lanced. There was relief and joy. Cape Town in those days was humming.

In the US today there are echoes of that Rainbow Revolution. Through the media and on the streets people are getting a bit giddy over Obama. In this man they are projecting a new course - one that he says he will lead - where the US buries the culture wars, charts a new course in bipartisan politics and heralds a new dawn for America.

After more than seven years of the Bush administration and when 70 per cent of the populace think America is on the wrong course, there's little wonder that the hunger for something new is real and fertile ground to till for a politician.

But Obama is part politician, part cult. Supporters wearing T-shirts with an Andy Warhol like pop-art image of his face testify to that. But then they - him - were once easy to dismiss until people realised Obama's charisma was being matched by one of the most sophisticated ground operations ever seen. It is one that is outsmarting the Clinton machine. He's marrying inspiration and cult with old-fashioned political grunt.

One would have to have a heart of stone not to be moved by Obama on the stump. It's not so much by what he says but it's the way the crowds respond to his words. When 16,000 people, without prompting, start shouting some of his keynote phrases as he delivers them, you know something special is going on.

The atmosphere at his events is such that one wonders if Obama is about to walk out with a basket with some loaves and fishes to feed the thousands.

And therein lays the danger for Obama. The Obama shuttle has made it into orbit but at some point he's going to have to land this thing back on Earth.

From unlikely presidential candidate to this week starting to edge out Hillary Clinton as frontrunner, Obama commands grass roots support that is enormous and still gaining strength. Across the US this week Obama laid to rest any lingering doubts about his appeal. He won states in the east, the south, the west and in the middle. All demographics from gender and race voted for him. He tied, if not came out ahead of, Clinton on Super Tuesday when 22 states voted.

He's easily outgunning Clinton on fund-raising with a sophisticated online network. Last month he raised a record busting $US32 million, $US27million of which came from online donations. In 48 hours after Super Tuesday he raised $US7 million, forcing Clinton to lend her campaign $US5 million.

The Clinton camp is now on the defensive and in an extraordinary turnaround started calling him the "establishment" candidate.

But the danger remains for Obama in managing the cult-like fervour. Obviously, he's no messiah and lofty expectations of his supporters is something that Obama is also acutely aware of. In stockmarket parlance, Obama's share price is soaring on expected future earnings. Clinton, 20 years in the public eye, is like the industrial conglomerate: steady share price and reliable dividends. Think of Obama as Google and Clinton as General Electric.

The problem for high-flying stocks is that any bad news can cause the share price to drop sharply. So far Obama has played the bad news extraordinarily well. What turned out to be a shock loss in New Hampshire to Clinton last month might have taken the wind out of his sails but in fact it only galvanised his supporters more: they bought more Obama "stock".

The campaign revealed this week that the biggest fund raising day in that whopping $US32 million month was the day after Obama lost New Hampshire. To be fair, the cult-like status of Obama is a function of a personality that simply resonates with anyone who meets him: buckets of charisma and charm. And aware of managing expectations, not only for his campaign but what might be beyond, he constantly refers to the challenges ahead.

"We can do this," he told ecstatic supporters on Tuesday night. "It will not be easy. It will require struggle and sacrifice. There will setbacks and we will make mistakes."

But then Obama, in the next sentence, in attempt to appeal to more voters out there, didn't even mention the Democratic Party but instead his "movement" saying: "I want to speak directly to all those Americans who have yet to join this movement but still hunger for change: we need you. We need you to stand with us, and work with us, and help us prove that together, ordinary people can still do extraordinary things".

Well known political journalist Joe Klein of Time magazine, who was travelling on the campaign plane this week with Obama, too, wrote of a nagging concern about this kind of rhetoric of inspiration over substance, noting "there was something just a wee bit creepy about the mass messiahnism".

In his Super Tuesday speech Obama said "we are the ones we've been waiting for", attempting to make the case the time was now to get some "change" in Washington: a post-partisan world where politicians reach across the aisle for the common good. "This time can be different because this campaign for the presidency of the United States of America is different," he said. "It's different not because of me. It's different because of you."

As Klein notes, this is "not just maddeningly vague but also disingenuous: the campaign is entirely about Obama and his ability to inspire.

"Rather than focusing on any specific issue or cause - other than an amorphous desire for change - the message is becoming dangerously self-referential. The Obama campaign all too often is about how wonderful the Obama campaign is."

I hear that too in the voices of Obama's staff constantly, themselves referring to this "cult of Obama".

"Even if he doesn't go all the way, and I'm not being defeatist, I'm so thrilled to be a part of this and see the size of the crowds turning out," one staffer tells me.

Some of the craving Obama has inspired is because of a level of authenticity. Where once Bill Clinton said he smoked dope but didn't inhale, Obama admitted in his first book Dreams From My Father that in his younger days he did drugs. Once this was the kind of admission meaning political death in US but not anymore, it seems.

"Junkie. Pothead. That's where I'd been headed: the final, fatal role of the young would-be black man ... I got high (to) push questions of who I was out of my mind," Obama writes.

In the book, Obama acknowledges that he also used cocaine as a high school student but rejected heroin. "Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it. Not smack, though," he writes. Even with these admissions, perhaps because of them, the Senator has become something of a Teflon-coated performer in the media: it has infuriated the Clintons. Bill Clinton has tried to peg him back with some attacks, but to no avail. They complain, with some justification, that Obama is getting easier treatment in the press than Hillary Clinton.

But that's the nature of the insurgent candidate and a somewhat vested interest in seeing a contest where the frontrunner is under siege.

Now Obama is not an insurgent. I'd venture to call him a favourite in this race now. The next nine statewide contests through February are, given the demographics, likely to go Obama's way. He may well build an unstoppable momentum. And then the giddiness might evaporate and be replaced with something else. In marketing they call it post-purchase disappointment. If he gets the Democratic Party's nomination another test begins anew: how to turn the narrative which is all about striving for what is possible, to one where people are suddenly asking how are you actually going to do it?

What always worries me with US elections is that who ever ends up in the Hot Seat seems want to imprint the world with their ideas one way or the other.

 

[Yrys]

What always worries me with US elections is that who ever ends up in the Hot Seat seems want to imprint the world with their ideas one way or the other.

Isn't always the case of all leaders of all parties ? They all want to be Prime minister or President
for imprinting theirs country, no?

 

[a_majoor]

What always worries me with US elections is that who ever ends up in the Hot Seat seems want to imprint the world with their ideas one way or the other.

That seems to be the question. Senator Obama's speeches are very vague on specifics, what exactly are the ideas he wants to implement?

(Of course you might say the same about Senator's Clinton and McCain as well)

 

[a_majoor]

And now a look at the Republican's presumptive candidate:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/014/739qqkcd.asp

The Model for McCain?
Not Reagan, but Churchill.
by Michael Makovsky
02/15/2008 12:00:00 AM

IT HAS BEEN WIDELY reported since Super Tuesday that John McCain has effectively sewn up the Republican nomination for president but must still convince enough American conservatives that he stands as heir to Ronald Reagan. This poses an obstacle to his election in November. McCain might be more successful in wooing conservatives if he claimed the mantle of a different Republican icon, Winston Churchill, a maverick distrusted in his day by Conservatives and a man whom McCain praised frequently in his books. The parallels between McCain and Churchill are striking and instructive.

Both grew up as underachievers in the shadow of prominent fathers and ancestors and then surpassed them in renown. Churchill's father was chancellor of the Exchequer, a descendant of the Duke of Marlborough who defeated the armies of Louis XIV, while McCain's father and grandfather were prominent admirals. Both McCain and Churchill were fearless soldiers and prisoners of war, although Churchill escaped Boer captivity after mere weeks while McCain endured more than five grueling years at the Hanoi Hilton. Both have felt most at home in battle, whether in war or political chambers, and have shared a restlessness to advance their own careers and the cause of their countries.

Neither Churchill nor McCain was ever liked much by his colleagues. Perhaps early on Churchill was more liked and his brilliance more respected, but he switched from the Conservatives in 1904 to the Liberals with much newfound partisan fervor, and the Conservatives never forgave him even after he returned to the fold in 1924--even after he won WWII. Churchill's dispute with the party leadership over control of India (he favored it), Nazi Germany (he was against it), Zionism (he was for it), and other divisive issues, as well as his occasional outreach to Labourites--indeed, he headed a wartime coalition government--did not help his popularity among the party faithful. McCain has always been a Republican, but, without being the partisan warrior Churchill was, he has never been personally popular with his party colleagues. He further alienated the party faithful and establishment by co-sponsoring legislation with Democrats. Both have been perceived by colleagues as erratic, and occasionally harsh in personal relations.

Fundamental to Churchill's worldview was the belief that priorities had to be rigidly ranked and that the supreme interests need to be vigorously and single-mindedly pursued. Chief among those interests was national security. McCain has suggested a similar approach. Indeed, McCain and Churchill lived and breathed national security issues, and it is in this policy field that their similarities are most pronounced. They both strongly believed in their countries, considering them the chief champions of civilization, and they have been rarities in usually putting national security interests ahead of their political fortunes.

From the time he became First Lord of the Admiralty shortly before WWI, Churchill was mostly tough-minded and prescient about major national security issues. He took the unpopular stands of seeking to overthrow the new Bolshevik government in 1919-1920 (derisively dubbed "Churchill's War"), warning against the rise of the Nazis in the 1930s when appeasement was overwhelmingly popular, and then privately and publicly warning against the emerging Soviet threat shortly after Yalta in early 1945 when the British people were exhausted after almost six years of war.

Churchill dismissed the political consequences of his positions on preeminent matters. Indicative of his attitude was his private response in 1919 to criticism over his anti-Bolshevik crusade: "I cannot help feeling a most dreadful & ever present sense of responsibility. Am I wrong? How easy for me to shrug my shoulders & say it is on the Cabinet, or on the Paris [Versailles] Conference. I cannot do it." Although steadfast in principle, Churchill remained tactically flexible, making alliances even with despised regimes and former enemies in order to advance British national security interests against those he usually depicted as foes of Western civilization.

McCain has also often taken gutsy and discerning stands on national security. He stood up and supported the Kosovo war despite personal misgivings and general Republican apathy over what they deemed "Clinton's war" because he thought it necessary to rally around the president and troops in time of battle. McCain also gave the most persuasive argument why containing Saddam Hussein was untenable, and then after 2003 became a persistent critic of the management of the war, including troop levels, before taking the unpopular (even among Republicans) early stand of supporting the surge, which has made significant advances. He often sees conflicts within a clash of civilizations, warning about the threat posed by radical Islam, while remaining flexible in tactics and alliances. McCain has also persistently warned against the danger of a nuclear Iran, and even raised the idea of bombing Iran's nuclear sites when much of the country is wary of new military engagements. A McCain administration would make our enemies nervous in ways that no president has since Bush in 2001-03 or Reagan for much of his tenure.

It was Churchill's credibility, earned by staking out unpopular but prophetic positions, that led him to be embraced by his political nemesis Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain when war broke out in 1939, and then catapulted him to replace Chamberlain over war mismanagement in 1940. After shockingly losing the postwar election in 1945, Churchill regained the premiership in 1951 by seizing on the Labour government's failures in economic and foreign affairs. He coopted the political center by advocating, in place of bitter party strife, a "solid stable administration by a government not seeking to rub party dogma into everybody else."

It was McCain's unique national security credibility that similarly brought him back into the good graces of his more powerful political rival, President George W. Bush, and he can legitimately offer himself as a competent and effective wartime commander in chief. But McCain now can attain the presidency only if he also reaches out to the political center, or independents, as he has before.

Adhering to party orthodoxy is no guarantee of greatness. Churchill often diverged from the party line, but he emerged undeniably the greatest leader of his party, country, and the West of his era. Indeed, Stanley Baldwin, prime minister of the mid-1930s, was a most popular Conservative party leader but is remembered by history for dawdling while Nazi Germany rearmed. Churchill memorably claimed publicly in 1936 that the Baldwin government was "resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent," and later lamented privately he would have preferred Baldwin never had lived. Churchill was far more gracious toward Chamberlain, who at least tried to do something to blunt the Nazi threat, however disastrous the result of his appeasement policy.

McCain certainly has not achieved Churchill's heights, but he can legitimately claim to be the most Churchillian among the Republicans of his day. That not only offers hope for a possible McCain administration, especially during this time of war, but should also be encouraging to conservatives.

Michael Makovsky, foreign policy director of the Bipartisan Policy Center, is a former special assistant in the Office of Secretary of Defense, 2002-2006, and is author of the new book Churchill's Promised Land (Yale University Press).

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