2008 Primaries Thread 2: THE QUICKENING

THERE IS NO ESCAPE

On a conference call with reporters just now, Hillary pollster Mark Penn unveiled the campaign's new message: Hillary, he said, is in the "21st Century solutions business," while Obama is in the "problems business."

haha omg what a steaming load of shit

someone get her a Century 21 realtor jacket pronto

this changing their message every week strategy doesnt seem to be working out too great

so fucked

the epidomization of 21st century solutionizing

McCain taking some shots at Obama in his victory speech last night, perhaps a foreshadowing of his argument in the general:

http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/campaign-2008/2008/02/13/after-victories-mccain-turns-to-attacking-obama.html

"Hope," said the former Vietnam prisoner of war, referring to the overarching theme of Obama's campaign, "is a powerful thing. I can attest to that better than many, for I have seen men's hopes tested in hard and cruel ways that few will ever experience."

But, he added, "To encourage a country with only rhetoric rather than sound and proven ideas that trust in the strength and courage of free people is not a promise of hope, it is a platitude."

wtf is the "problems business"

Even if Obama wins the nom, this isn't the last time we'll hear a version of that message. Obama says, "This won't be easy. Change is hard. We will need everyone's help. We're all in this together, we've all gotta pull some weight." It's uplifting and inspiring, all this JFK stuff, ask not etc. But any smart opponent of his is going to try to spin it so that Obama's saying, "He's trying to tell you that our glorious, unprecedented post-war period of wealth and dominance is OVER! AND WE HAVE TO BEHAVE LIKE EVERY OTHER COUNTRY IN THE WORLD AND MAKE COMPROMISES AND WORK HARD! WHAT A BUMMER!" And then arrive at speeches on a gravy train with biscuit wheels.

Too little too late for Hillary, tho.

bad wording there, they'll spin Obama's (I believe) truths into ugly pessimism.

Which is one of the big things I like about the guy -- his seeming lack of baby-boomer entitlement.

eh mccain will just sit there babbling abt awz wars while getting his ass handed to him more like it

Obama's message = pessimism? can't see that one sticking.

kenan's meandering confused post off tm

obamas message: "WELL WE ALL DIE SOMEDAY, RIGHT?"

"YEAH, SO, THE ECONOMY IS GOING TO SUCK, BUT WE DESERVE IT. VOTE FOR ME, OR DONT, WHATEVER. DOESNT REALLY MATTER."

I will be doing volunteer work for the ugly pessimism candidate

Campaign strategy, morbs? ;)

Some more excerpts from McCain's victory speech that could be construed as digs at Obama:

When I was a young man, I thought glory was the highest ambition, and that all glory was self-glory. My parents tried to teach me otherwise, as did the Naval Academy. But I didn’t understand the lesson until later in life, when I confronted challenges I never expected to face.

In that confrontation I discovered that I was dependent on others to a greater extent than I had ever realized, but that neither they nor the cause we served made any claims on my identity. On the contrary, I discovered that nothing is more liberating in life than to fight for a cause that encompasses you, but is not defined by your existence alone. And that has made all the difference, my friends, all the difference in the world.

I do not seek the presidency on the presumption that I am blessed with such personal greatness that history has anointed me to save my country in its hour of need. I seek the presidency with the humility of a man who cannot forget that my country saved me.

i encourage john mccain to keep talking abt when he was a young man

as a criticism it just doesn't seem to have much bite

gonna be pretty hard, I think, for McCain to answer the charge that he wants 4 more years of Bush policy

I don't mean a direct intentional pessimism, obviously, but if Obama says something that suggests that America needs to start treating India and China as serious economic powers, and talking to them at eye level instead of our usual podium, well... it's not to hard to twist that a bit to play on a great many people's fears about a tanking economy and America's loss of status and power, and omg wtf we can't make even compromises with China because that means we live in a big stinking loser country and pappy didn't die in WWII so we could etc etc etc. And don't think that's not about to come to a boil in a lot of people's heads anyway.

mccain is screwed

"Hillary is in the 21st century solutions business. She knows that we all need grow our electoral synergies and co-innovate outside the box."

sorry, i just can't get over the bullshit

Yeah she looks desperate, no doubt, and voters can smell fear.

David Brooks gave kind of an interesting assessment of the prospects for Republicans on NPR's election coverage last night. In the event of a McCain-Obama contest, he suggested that the GOP strategy would be to peel off white, working-class voters. Whereas, in a McCain-Clinton contest, the battleground would be independents.

the GOP strategy would be to peel off white, working-class voters

a.k.a. tax cuts tax cuts tax cuts

can you entice working-class voters by promising tax-cuts that don't benefit the working class? lol

Maybe someone's mentioned this already; if so, I apologize. I think HRC has more problems in Texas than she thinks. If I vaguely understand it right, delegates aren't apportioned in Texas simply based on the popular vote. The state is divided into 32 districts. Each district has one delegate who goes to the winner of that district. The rest of the delegates that come from a district are based on how many people voted from that district in the previous two election cycles (or something like that). In 2004, historically black districts in Texas experienced huge increases in voter turnout (apparently, a popular African-American was on the ballot for prominent state office in 2004, thus encouraging high-voter turnout in largely African-American districts).

So even if HRC wins high percentages of the Hispanic vote in Texas (which, at this point, isn't so certain anyway), those districts will likely yield far fewer delegates than traditionally African-American districts, where Obama is a very strong candidate.

So again, there may be serious trouble ahead for HRC in a state she needs to win by a substantial margin.

I didn't say that very well, but I hope the point is clear.

Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, is the obvious counter to that although not guaranteed to work

xposts

can you entice working-class voters by promising tax-cuts that don't benefit the working class? lol

Hey- it worked for Reagan. He averaged 61% among white, working-class voters in '80 and '84.

hint: never ever listen to anything david brooks says. cause why? always wrong.

Bush also carried white, working-class voters in 2000 and 2004:

http://www.thedemocraticstrategist.org/donkeyrising/2004/12/bushs_reagan_lite_coalition.html

yeah except the reagan figure in this race is obama

Only 126 of the 228 Democratic delegates from Texas will be chosen via election results.

.....Bush failed to capture any of the northeastern or Pacific Coast states that Reagan had won easily in 1980 and '84, and he failed to make dramatic gains nationally among the voting groups that had moved into the Democratic Party in the 1990s. Rather, the key to Bush's victory was reviving Reagan's support among the white working class. According to the post-election survey by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner for Democracy Corps/Institute for America's Future, Bush enjoyed a whopping 24-percent edge among non-college-educated whites, compared with a 19-percent advantage in 2000. (Clinton had actually carried this group by a point in each of his election victories.) Insofar as whites still make up 77 percent of the electorate and non-college-educated whites represent a majority of the white vote, that increase alone accounts for most -- perhaps 70 percent -- of Bush's improved performance in 2004.

...

....Barring [successful Republican exploitation of a new terrorist attack], the Republicans' "Reagan-lite" coalition does not appear to have broad enough support to dominate American politics for the rest of the decade. That should open the door to the Democrats and their new coalition -- especially if they can find a way to both mobilize their new center-left and nominate candidates with some comfort level among white working-class voters. The results of the 2004 election suggest that's the right formula. If Democrats want to win and bring their majority into being by the end of the decade, they should adopt it.

-from that Ruy Teixeira article linked above

what will mccain do (WWMD!) on healthcare? will he just be calling any Dem plan commie socialized medicine or have some alternative "reform" proposal or what

gallup tracker for today has Obama ahead for the first time so far, 45% to 44%:

http://media.gallup.com/poll/graphs/021308DailyUpdateGraph1.gif

If nothing else, it makes me a bit skeptical when all of these conservative paragons are so united in their refrain that Obama would be the more fearsome Democratic candidate to face in the general. It starts to have a bit of that "Please don't throw me in that briar patch" ring to it. Head-to-head polls are pretty meaningless. You need to look at the swing states and the key voter demographics. By that measure, it should give us pause that Obama seems to be weakest in the demographic that was key to Bush's victories in '00 and '04. I take some consolation in the fact that some big swing state primaries are yet to come (esp. Ohio). If that state ends up deciding the nomination, I think that would be probably a good thing for the Democrat's general election hopes.

Oversimplified to be sure (and long, be forewarned), but this is an interesting discussion of broad political narratives and Sen. Obama, by former Sec. Labor Robert Reich.

obama camp hits clinton on nafta in an ohio mailer:

http://www.ohiodailyblog.com/images/mailer0002.jpg
http://www.ohiodailyblog.com/images/mailer0003.jpg
http://www.ohiodailyblog.com/images/mailer0004.jpg

http://www.ohiodailyblog.com/content/obama-mailer-slams-clinton-nafta

I can't make that out, can you find a version that's a little bigger...?

THAT MAILER HAS BLINDED ME.

Opposed NAFTA! Really, I haven't heard anything from Obama that I disagree with. Usually I have to ignore a few compromises when I vote for someone.

ugh, sorry, i didn't know the images were so big :(

LOL OBAMA IS HUEG

Really, I haven't heard anything from Obama that I disagree with.

So, the CULT OF OBAMA has fooled you, too. Break free:

That's not hope. . . . . . . That's a platitude

Usually when I join a cult, I notice little things like the Kool-Aid tasting funny. Not with this one.

But this is special, "self-glory," "empty rhetoric" Kool-Aid.