Hillary's momentum hits a brick wall

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by FOTD

All the chemistry would change quickly if the Persians would take their country back from the fanatics....

Hasn't happened in 29 years...

What's your idea?

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by si_uk_lon_ok

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

quote:Originally posted by FOTD

For all us typical white people:

http://thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c55_a5420/Editorial__Opinion/Opinion.html

"Obama's strong positions on poverty and the climate, his early and consistent opposition to the Iraq War, his commitment to ending the Darfur genocide - all these speak directly to Jewish concerns. If we're sidetracked by Wright's words, we'll be working against these interests. After all, a preacher speaks to a congregation, not for the congregation."

"Obama is no anti-Semite. He is not anti-Israel. He is one of our own, the one figure on the political scene who remembers our past, and has a real vision for repairing our present. "

I did hear an interesting comment on Savage last night- we've spent $3 trillion in Iraq and it will still be an anti-semitic country.

Do American Jews not worry about the relative security of Israel?  What do they think of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? Would they be against U.S. intervention in Iran if Israel is attacked by Iran?

There have been no more scud missile attacks since the takeover though......

I thought all the SCUD's had been used or confiscated by the end of Iraq I.

[pmcalk]

Today's poll shows that Hillary is continuing to lose ground.  She has lost ground with white voters, and for the first time, the number of women with negative views of her exceed the number of women with positive views.  The majority of voters say they do not identify with her.  The number of people who view her positively (at 37%) is the lowest since 2001.

On the other hand, Obama appears to be weathering the Wright incident quite well.  While he has lost some support among republicans, he still maintains significant support among independents.  More people believed that Obama could unite the country than either of the other two candidates.    His positive ratings remain virtually unchanged.

Unfortunately, the bad news for democrats is that more and more people are starting to say that they won't support the other candidate if theirs loses.  I guess that is to be expected as the primaries drag on and on, and people become more polarized.

[si_uk_lon_ok]

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

quote:Originally posted by si_uk_lon_ok

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

quote:Originally posted by FOTD

For all us typical white people:

http://thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c55_a5420/Editorial__Opinion/Opinion.html

"Obama's strong positions on poverty and the climate, his early and consistent opposition to the Iraq War, his commitment to ending the Darfur genocide - all these speak directly to Jewish concerns. If we're sidetracked by Wright's words, we'll be working against these interests. After all, a preacher speaks to a congregation, not for the congregation."

"Obama is no anti-Semite. He is not anti-Israel. He is one of our own, the one figure on the political scene who remembers our past, and has a real vision for repairing our present. "

I did hear an interesting comment on Savage last night- we've spent $3 trillion in Iraq and it will still be an anti-semitic country.

Do American Jews not worry about the relative security of Israel?  What do they think of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? Would they be against U.S. intervention in Iran if Israel is attacked by Iran?

There have been no more scud missile attacks since the takeover though......

I thought all the SCUD's had been used or confiscated by the end of Iraq I.

Well they never found any after the invasion, so you're probably right. I just think there has been a big improvement on Saddam. Not a $3 trillion improvement, but some.

[Hometown]

"Unfortunately, the bad news for democrats is that more and more people are starting to say that they won't support the other candidate if theirs loses.  I guess that is to be expected as the primaries drag on and on, and people become more polarized."

Dream ticket is the solution.  Loser should be asked to join ticket as vice-president.

[Conan71]

You can blame the superdelegate system for this.

I finally sat down and read the entire process, history, and purpose.  To me, it sounds like 20% of the delegates are literally for sale.  I think it also smacks of an attitude of the general electorate not knowing what's good for itself, which sort of fits a lot of the "nanny" policies of the Democratic party in the first place.  Another reason I'm not a registered Democrat.

I really don't understand why the primary system isn't the same as Oklahomas all over the country and in both parties.  The closed primary system makes the most sense.  Seating delegates strictly by popular vote also is the only thing which makes proper sense.  

Why would it be right for a registered Republican or independent to vote in a Democrat primary and vice versa?  How will it feel to have a candidate with the majority of the popular vote in the primaries lose the nomination because a klatsch of 800 or so priveleged party officials were politicked to vote for someone the people clearly did not approve?

That's right about 20% of the delegate total at the DNC, and enough to change the outcome of the nomination.  Obama's precarious lead of  100 and something delegates means nothing considering there's still close to 800 superdelegates and other un-committed delegates.

Hillary lacks the humility to step back and end the in-fighting.  I really do not see any reason nor incentive for her to concede this race before the national convention.  Be prepared for five more months of skullduggery.

As far as one candidate's supporters not voting for the other, I can see Hillary supporters going to Obama rather than McCain and likely much of Obama's white support going to Hillary eventually, at least from die-hard party loyalists.

What I don't see is the black vote showing up in November if Obama is not #1 on the ticket.  If Obama had the delegate lead going into the convention and comes out second-fiddle, there's going to be a lot of pissed off African American voters who will most likely boycot the '08 election.

This is the penalty of a long, long campaign cycle this time.  In the meantime, the GOP has unified behind their candidate and can focus on the DNC foibles for the next five months.  The Democrats will get about ten weeks to focus on McCain finally after the convention and I think will eventually unite.

This could also be a ripe year for a fringe candidate to grab 10 to 15% of the vote from voters who will say "none of the above".

[YoungTulsan]

I'm not unified behind McCain.

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by YoungTulsan

I'm not unified behind McCain.

Can't say I am either.  I couldn't think of a better way to say that the RNC has a clear-cut candidate and we don't have two Republicans lobbing **** bombs back and forth at each other.  Hey, prolly what I should have said in the first place.

To Obama's credit, I think he's tried to wage a clean campaign, but Clinton isn't allowing the race to be a clean one.

Yet, Hillary supporters seem to be blaming Obama for not capitulating while he's still got an earned delegate lead.

[RecycleMichael]

I am so glad the republicans have picked McCain. We are guaranteed a liberal in the White House.

[FOTD]

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

quote:Originally posted by FOTD

All the chemistry would change quickly if the Persians would take their country back from the fanatics....

Hasn't happened in 29 years...

What's your idea?

29 years is a mere moment in this region. Once China hits the skids and the world goes into a recession there will be new alliances forming. The Sauds have already started to make overtures for a process to start talks.

Iran will someday follow their people's desire to be a major player in both the world economy and the global culture. Only the neo cons want them portrayed as Al Queda.....

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by FOTD

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

quote:Originally posted by FOTD

All the chemistry would change quickly if the Persians would take their country back from the fanatics....

Hasn't happened in 29 years...

What's your idea?

29 years is a mere moment in this region. Once China hits the skids and the world goes into a recession there will be new alliances forming. The Sauds have already started to make overtures for a process to start talks.

Iran will someday follow their people's desire to be a major player in both the world economy and the global culture. Only the neo cons want them portrayed as Al Queda.....

The last 29 years has slid us perilously close to WWIII ever since Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini checked into power.

A lot of their agenda has been played out against Israel with puppets like Air-a-fart and Que-daffy.

[HazMatCFO]

Just as Obama's issue with Jeremiah Wright seemed to have maximum impact and give Hillary a chance to seize momentum. Hillary has the Bosnia sniper fire gaff and takes a hit too.

I call it even, both candidates having to emerge from major hits to their campaigns and trying to regain momentum. If Hillary beats Obama bad in PA, I think that that gives her momentum to the convention.

[FOTD]

Here's something to keep it in perspective and proportional!

Imagined Snipers, Real Challenges
By ROGER COHEN
Published: March 27, 2008
Here's some news for Hillary Clinton: the Bosnian war was over in 1996.


"Passages Those of us, like myself, who first went to Bosnia at the start of the war in 1992 and then, in 1994 and 1995, endured President Bill Clinton's circumlocutions as we sat in an encircled Sarajevo watching pregnant women getting blown away by shelling from Serbian gunners, know that.

We know that as President Clinton mumbled about "enmities that go back 500 years, some would say almost a thousand years," Bosnia burned. We know what that talk of intractable grievances dating back to 995 was meant to communicate: no western intervention could achieve anything in the Balkan pit.

Only after the mass murder of Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica, three years after the initial Serbian genocide of 1992 against that population (and one year after a genocide on his watch in Rwanda), did the gelatinous Clinton develop some backbone. NATO bombed, Richard Holbrooke did his brilliant work at Dayton in November 1995, and the guns fell silent in Bosnia.

So, yes, the war was well and truly over when Hillary Clinton arrived in the northeastern Bosnian town of Tuzla on March 25, 1996. It was over, although she recently recalled "landing under sniper fire." It was over when "we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base."

Oh, please. Researching a book, I also visited that base in 1996 to talk to Maj. Gen. William Nash, then the commander of U.S. troops in Bosnia. If you'd lived the war, the base was a small miracle of American order and security.

Hillary Clinton's transference is intriguing: Suffering Sarajevans ran from snipers during the war her husband let fester. Invented danger, supposed to showcase bravery, may instead betray guilt.

But I'm not going to psychoanalyze the Clintons. I don't have the space to plumb such unquenchable ambition. Few do. Anyway, she now says she "misspoke" about Tuzla. End of story, you might say. But I'd say it's the beginning of another, more important one.

Clinton made up Bosnian sniper fire in an attempt to show that she's tougher than Barack Obama; that she's a hardened, seasoned, putative commander in chief ready to respond to crisis when the "red phone" of her fear-mongering ad rings.

John McCain's own recent "misspeaking" about Iran, placing (Sunni) Al Qaeda in (Shiite) Iran, also smacked of muscle-flexing: he wanted to signal toughness to the mullahs in Tehran, where Obama has suggested he'd seek dialogue.

But what the United States, and those that look to it, need now is not more braggadocio from the White House. We've had a seven-year dose. That's enough.

What's needed, rather, is some new, creative thinking about a changed world in which authoritarianism is enjoying a renaissance and America and its allies need to work together to spread peace, prosperity, freedom, equity, security and, yes, democracy.

American hard power has not worked. The Iraq invasion was bungled. European soft power is insufficient.

As Constanze Stelzenmuller of the German Marshall Fund notes in an important recent essay called "Transatlantic Power Failures," a "European Union with 27 member states and a total of 1.8 million men and women under arms" is incapable of pacifying little Kosovo ("one-quarter the size of Switzerland") on its own.

The transatlantic bond of cold war years is gone forever. The alliance is going to be looser, more pragmatic. But it has to find "the right mix of idealism and realism," and new cohesion, if one-pipeline Russia and one-party, Tibet-tormenting China are not to prosper with authoritarianism-for-export.

Foreign policy debate in this election campaign has been paltry. I'd like to hear something about GWOT – the "Global War on Terror" – the heart of U.S. national security strategy. It amounts to war without end because "terror" is a tactic and tactics don't surrender. GWOT should be abandoned: it's externally divisive and internally treacherous. Al Qaeda can be beaten sans GWOT.

I'd like some discussion of what NATO might do to help spread the Iraqi burden and ease a gradual extrication of most U.S. troops from Iraq.

On issues that cross borders – terrorism, financial market volatility, global warming – and on Iran, Israel-Palestine, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq – three things are essential: a new moral authority in the White House, the capacity for original strategic thought, and a 21st-century understanding of the border-jumping networks that have knit humanity into new relationships.

Obama, in his speech on race, did important things. He confronted reality, thought big, probed division, sketched convergence. He took Americans and many people beyond U.S. shores to a different mental place. Imagine that capacity applied to GWOT, Iran, Russia, China and Israel-Palestine.
If you don't like the sound of that, there's always seasoned swagger of the sort that runs from imaginary snipers. "

[Conan71]

Wow, it took roughly 700 words or so to say "Obama good, Clinton bad".

I guess that's why they pay essayists the big bucks for "news".

[FOTD]

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

Wow, it took roughly 700 words or so to say "Obama good, Clinton bad".

I guess that's why they pay essayists the big bucks for "news".

Geez Conan. You really need to understand what's considered "news" and what's editorial.

Clinton is not only bad. She is a self defeatest. Using the vast right wing conspirators as her allies makes a reasonable person wonder if she would be more like Cheney than like Bill.

The devil may wear a blue dress but Hillary stands naked now. And the vision is scary.