Obamamania

[criddic3]

At least I'm not like Svengali of a while back, who really did bombard us with nonsense.

As opposed to what? Your erotic fantasies about Worst President Ever that call to mind the Hitler Youth's fetishizing Der Furheur?

I know I know, it's bait and I should ignore it. Damien, where did you get this idea that I have a sexual thing for the President?

So I agree with many if his policies. So I think he's a good person trying to protect the American people in a fight against terrorism. He is definitely not a Hitler and he is far from the worst we've ever had as a president. I can't believe I have to defend my position to a guy who thinks Dennis Kucinich would make a viable candidate for President.

[Damien]

At least I'm not like Svengali of a while back, who really did bombard us with nonsense.

As opposed to what? Your erotic fantasies about Worst President Ever that call to mind the Hitler Youth's fetishizing Der Furheur?

[criddic3]

This man and his proselytizing are everywhere on this board. It amounts to a barrage. I think: if you ignore him, he will go away.

Not likely, cam. I'll still add my two cents into the conversation. At least I'm not like Svengali of a while back, who really did bombard us with nonsense. Careful what you wish for.

[99-1100896887]

This man and his proselytizing are everywhere on this board. It amounts to a barrage. I think: if you ignore him, he will go away.

[criddic3]

This may be a dumb question, but why isn’t Pelosi running? Given her current position, wouldn’t she be a natural contender? I haven’t even heard anyone consider her.

(btw, Greg, I like your signature - I have sometimes felt the same way)

Pelosi knows she can't win. That's why she isn't running. Oscarguy has it right, too, that she has just begun her new position. Being the first woman in the job, she has to prove herself. She hasn't really done that yet. Hey, if Hilary Clinton is already running into problems with her campaign, just imagine a Pelosi campaign.

By the way, many people are open to voting in a woman or a black man as president, including me, but the people running right now aren't the ones who can carry the vote right now. Obama may seem exciting, but I think enough people are aware of his inexperience to know that he's unlikely to make it all the way in 2008.

[99-1100896887]

Nothing on this topic since mid-Feb? This week's New Yorker has a flattering article about Mr. Obama--he appears, to this writer at least, to be very Lincolnesque, and indeed, Obama's hero is Lincoln; announced his run for the prsidency in Springfield. We should keep our eyes on him.

[Akash]

I read the 60 minutes transcript with Obama and after watching him in interviews and what not, I've come to think that he may be more realistic about his chances than I had anticipated. No I don't think enough Americans at this point would vote for a woman or a "black" man, but I also suspect that the Dems know this . . . I think they are attempting to amass as much political capital as possible before throwing their full weight behind a more viable candidate. (read: white man) It would be a clever way to pretend that they are actually distinct from the Republicans and not just a lite version of big business, free trade, and American Empire.

Obama might be aware of this but I think Hilary Clinton seriously thinks she has a reasonable chance, and that's the danger for the Dems. If she makes a real run for it, she can win the Dem candidacy easily and lose the Big One.

However, this thread is about Obama so back to him. I'm fascinated by how limited the media is in questioning whether or not Obama can "carry the black vote?" Obama is a CREATION of the media. He has not come out of the black community (literally or symbolically), and as smart as his wife is, her indigenous credentials aren't enough to convince black voters to vote for him. Everyone (read: white corporate owned media) assumes he should be popular among black voters because of the rigid and narrow manner race is understood in America. As a matter fact, I think it is smart of black people not to automatically choose someone because he is black. Although some of the reports in the media focus on the famous comment - "he is not black enough" - this comment really means that blacks don't know him. He is not attached to any of their institutions, ie, the Church and social organizations. Usually, this comment is read as being simplistic, racist and narrow. In this case I think it is a fair assesment of his relationship with the black community.

Oh and on a related note, did you guys read that Sen. Robert Ford had to apologize for speaking the truth? From AP:

Ford said Tuesday that Obama, a first-term senator, has much to prove. "The media made this guy bigger than life," Ford said. "This guy isn't tested and they made him a rock star."

Ford said one reason he was supporting Clinton, the New York senator, is that he is skeptical Obama can win the presidency and worries his nomination could hurt other Democratic candidates.

"Every Democrat running on that ticket next year would lose — because he's black and he's top of the ticket. We'd lose the House and the Senate and the governors and everything," Ford said.

How outrageous that we can't have a real conversation about race, politics and winning in America! He was criticised and had to apologize.

[Damien]

I hadn't thought of this guy in years -- and didn't even know he was still alive -- but when I heard he was running for the nomination I recalled him as a voice against the Vietnam War. I also remember him at the 1972 convention, where he got a number of votes for vice-president. In any case, his candidacy is not without interest. From My Direct Democracy:

Mike Gravel : Gravel will be the voice of the pissed-off Democrats, saying about the Oct 2002 vote, "political calculations trumped morality" and "anyone who voted for the war... is not qualified to hold the office of the Presidency." In short, Gravel will not give Edwards, Biden, Dodd, Clinton any breathing room. As a Senator, he says, "I spoke truth to power... and as a result Nixon sued me." Gravel is coming back from being on the Senate floor during the Vietnam war, and as he stood up then to end the war,he now will be the thorn in the side of those "that did nothing" when they were in office, as a Democratic majority in the Senate, and allowed it to happen. "And we all know, 'vital interest' is a code word for oil." With Gravel in the race, there's really no need for the vanity candidacy of Kucinich. Gravel is an anti-war candidate that speaks well and carries a stick. "Power to the People" is the song and "Let the People Decide" the slogan of Gravel.

[Damien]

This clown was better off in 1988 when all he did was plagierize:

A BIDEN PROBLEM: FOOT IN MOUTH
After Announcing Presidential Bid, Biden Slammed for Obama Remarks

By JAKE TAPPER
WASHINGTON, Jan. 31, 2007 — - Senator Joe Biden, D-Del., the loquacious chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who launched his presidential campaign today, may be experiencing an ailment not entirely unknown to him: foot in mouth disease.

Biden is taking some heat for comments he made to the New York Observer, in which he said of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., a rival for the nomination: "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man."

Immediately the conservative media establishment -- Rush Limbaugh, the Drudge Report, bloggers -- publicly pounced. At Townhall.com, Mary Katherine Ham wrote: "A clean black man? The first black guy on the American political scene who can both shower regularly and speak properly? Is that really what Biden thinks? If a Republican had said this, we'd have a national outpouring of grief over the residual ignorance and racial insensitivity in our country, and the guy would be in sensitivity training until around about the time John Kerry is elected president."


Obama Responds

And notably, Obama himself didn't do much to knock the story down.

Asked about the comments at a press conference this afternoon, Obama said, "you'd have to ask Senator Clinton, uh, Senator Biden what he was thinking," initially stumbling by mentioning the name of the Democratic front-runner for the nomination, Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York. "I don't spend too much time worrying about what folks are talking about during a campaign season."

Asked if Biden meant to be complimentary, Obama said, "I'm not going to parse his words that carefully."

In a conference call with reporters about his presidential campaign, Biden acknowledged that he "was quoted accurately" in the New York Observer, but insists his comments are being misunderstood.

"Barack Obama is probably the most exciting candidate that either the Democratic or Republican party has produced at least since I've been around," Biden said. "He's fresh, he's new, he's insightful."

Biden said he regretted that "some have taken totally out of context my use of the word 'clean.'"

"My mother has an expression 'clean as a whistle, sharp as a tack,'" Biden said. "Look, the idea is, this guy is something brand new no one has seen before."

Biden reminded those on the call that he has a long record of support within the African-American community in Delaware and claimed he had spoken with Obama personally about the remark.

According to Biden, Obama told his colleague, "'Joe, you don't have to explain anything to me.'" Biden said he felt Obama "knew what I meant by it."

When asked why, if he feels so strongly about Obama, he is running against him for the Democratic nomination, Biden responded: "I think he's great, I think they're all great. I think I'm better. I think I'm more prepared."

Democratic observers shook their heads at the latest example of how Biden's garrulousness often gets him into trouble.

Biden's campaign insists he is being misunderstood.

"Clean is a synonym for fresh and new," Biden campaign spokesman Larry Rasky told ABC News. "And if you look at the context of the quote it's obvious that's what he meant. And certainly anybody who knows Sen. Biden wouldn't question that."

The Biden campaign also pointed out that on "Good Morning America" today, the senator disputed the notion that Obama is too inexperienced to be president.

"Look, this guy's incredible," Biden said on the program. "He is really bright. He's fresh. He's new. He has great ideas. And the question will be whether or not on the campaign trail he fleshes out his ideas. I think experience does matter, but you'd expect me to say that. But, you know, this also relates to judgment, as he says. And so the folks are going to look at all of us. But he is a real star. This is a really incredible person."


History of Gaffes

This is not the first accusation of racial insensitivity Biden has faced. In June 2006, C-SPAN caught him speaking to an Indian-American man, saying: "In Delaware, the largest growth in population is Indian-Americans moving from India. You cannot go to a 7-11 or a Dunkin Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I'm not joking." (You can see the Youtube video of that here.)

Last November at a Rotary Club meeting in Columbia, S.C., Biden joked about the state's Confederate history, saying that his home state of Delaware was "a slave state that fought beside the North." He added, "that's only because we couldn't figure out how to get to the South, there were a couple of other states in the way."

But Biden has been a consistent liberal voice on civil rights issues. This month he joined an NAACP rally against the presence of the Confederate flag at the South Carolina statehouse, and said, "if I were a state legislator, I'd vote for it to move off the grounds, out of the state."

Biden is occasionally criticized by colleagues for his talkative nature.

Asked if that might hinder his presidential hopes, Rasky earlier told ABC News that "it's a double-edged sword."

"It's chatter for the grist in Washington, D.C., but when you walk into a living room in Cedar Rapids [Iowa], or spend time as he recently did with college students in Manchester [N.H.] and give them a 20-minute answer on Iraq or North Korea, they know the answers to these problems are not simple and they want to be respected. We have seen this repeatedly."

"Yes, he does sometimes talk more than is politically correct," Rasky added. "But he always has something meaningful to say."

Biden ran for president 20 years ago and saw his campaign consumed by scandal after senior aides to campaign rival Mike Dukakis, the former governor of Massachusetts, made sure reporters saw that Biden had plagiarized a campaign speech from Neil Kinnock, then the leader of the British Labor Party. Biden had mentioned Kinnock in previous deliveries of that speech, though not in the one distributed to the press.

Other similar revelations -- news of "borrowing" from speeches by former Democratic icons Robert Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey, the story that he'd received a failing grade in a Syracuse Law School course for plagiarizing a legal article, a C-SPAN video of him telling New Hampshire voters that he'd graduated in the "top half" of his law school class (actual standing: 76 out of 85) -- combined to drive him from the race. The Delaware Supreme Court's board on professional responsibility later ruled that Biden had not violated any rules in the law school incident.

On today's conference call, Biden concluded: "I have no doubt that Jesse Jackson and every other black leader -- Al Sharpton and the rest -- will know exactly what I meant. I have a long, long relationship with these folks, they all know what I was saying & (Obama) is a very special guy, this is a guy that's like catching lightning in a jar."

As to whether Biden's penchant for "straight talk" might eventually hurt his campaign, the senator demurred.

"That will be something for the voters to decide," he said. "I don't see it as the problem you apparently see it. The voters will decide that."

[OscarGuy]

Pelosi JUST got the job. I think she's well aware that any commitment to running for president would significantly detract from her work as House leader. I think she'll stay put. If the dems lose, then she'd be a good candidte for '12. If the dems win, then she may be unable to run until 2016 and then have to run against the VP, which might push a run until 2020...at which point she's going to be way too old to win. I think Pelosi's out of the running for now. She'll stick with being top of the house dems for now.

[Heksagon]

This may be a dumb question, but why isn’t Pelosi running? Given her current position, wouldn’t she be a natural contender? I haven’t even heard anyone consider her.

(btw, Greg, I like your signature - I have sometimes felt the same way)

[Greg]

I honestly think the Democratic race will be killed off. I think Dubya will actually go of the deep end and attack Iran. Then there'll be enough Republican senators affraid of committing political suicide by not doing it, that there'll be enough votes not only to impeach, but actually remove, both Bush and Cheney from office. Nancy Pelosi will become preident; and, as the incumbent president in 2008, she'll be unchallenged for the Democratic nomination to run for president in her own right.

[OscarGuy]

It's amusing when you consider the race to put Kerry as the front-runner started off with Howard Dean as the front-runner, then Iowa went 38% Kerry and 32% Edwards. Edwards' strong showing may be indication that he's a stronger candidate than we might otherwise expect. I would love for him to be the nominee, but I would support Hillary or Barack if they ended up the nominee.

[Big Magilla]

I think the press is very slow to realize how strong Edwards can be. He was, by all polls, the most broadly popular candidate in '04. He's not quite in Obama's charisma class, but has more personality than anyone else on the scene. And he's a wonderful combination of a moderate persona (that Southern accent bewitches so many people) and truly progressive politics. I think he could win 30-35 states, and usher in a major period of Democratic dominance (helped along by the complete implosion of the GOP). I don't expect this story to emerge in '07 -- the press, limited in outlook as ever, will concentrate on Hillary/Obama all year -- but in the end I think he's the guy most likely to be left standing.

Oddly enough, I've been thinking the same thing, and it's a good thing for him. The current front-runners will all seem like old hat, more of the same by thsi time next year. Edwards, though he's been around all along, will suddenly seem like a new face. He does have a commanding lead in Iowa. An Edwards/Obama ticket in '08 wouldn't surprise me.

[Mister Tee]

Just to toss in how I see the electoral environment for '08.:

1) Bush is poisoning the well for any Republican candidate. Presidential elections for the most part are up/down votes on the previous four years, even if the incumbent president is not the candidate (Democrats suffered from failed administrations in 1920, 1952 and 1968, despite having fresh candidates).

2) I grant Guiliani and, to a lesser extent, McCain would do better nationwide than a more generic GOP candidate -- if only because the DC press corps will spend a year-plus fluffing them ("America's Mayor"; "Mr. Straight Talk"). But I still don't think this will be enough to overcome the trough into which Bush insists on leading his party.

3) In the end, I doubt either Guiliani or McCain WILL be the nominee, as neither appeals to the right-wing core of the party. If I saw a Democratic poll telling me Lieberman and Evan Bayh were the top-polling candidates, I'd say, Someone else will emerge more in line with the party's zeitgeist. I'm not sure who, but I think Huckabee, Brownback and Gingrich are all worth watching.

4) Since any Democrat is likely to be favored in that circumstance, the party has the leisure of picking the candidate they most like (as opposed to '04's obsession with "electability", always a dubious standard).

5) I think Obama is, bar none, the most charismatic candidate in either party since Clinton, and that's no small factor -- no charismatic challenger has lost in the past century, even in years ('80 and '92) when those candidates were considered "flawed" candidates. Obama, too, has flaws -- his inexperience and, let's be frank, his race. This is a country that almost elected the reptilian Nixon over John Kennedy solely because of anti-Catholic bigotry, and may well have cost Gore a bigger margin in 2000 over anti-Jewish bigotry vis a vis his running mate. Anti-black bigotry easily dwarfs those earlier strains, and we shouldn't kid ourselves Obama's sunny demeanor will automatically blind voters to it. This is not to say I think Obama "can't win". Of course he can -- the Southern states Akash references aren't going to any Democrat up to and including Christ, and the remaining close calls could easily tip against the GOP despite racist tendencies. But I don't think Obama is the safest bet.

6) I think Hillary also "could win" -- she's already ahead of alleged world-beaters McCain and Guiliani in national polls -- but I think the party can do better. She's still playing the 90s game of triangulation in a time when the party should be absolutely on the march. (Jim Webb, for Christ's sake, is more straightforwardly liberal) If it comes down to a general election choice, of course I'd vote for her. But I have no intention of supporting her in the primaries.

7) I think the press is very slow to realize how strong Edwards can be. He was, by all polls, the most broadly popular candidate in '04. He's not quite in Obama's charisma class, but has more personality than anyone else on the scene. And he's a wonderful combination of a moderate persona (that Southern accent bewitches so many people) and truly progressive politics. I think he could win 30-35 states, and usher in a major period of Democratic dominance (helped along by the complete implosion of the GOP). I don't expect this story to emerge in '07 -- the press, limited in outlook as ever, will concentrate on Hillary/Obama all year -- but in the end I think he's the guy most likely to be left standing.