One week to Pennsylvania Primary

[iplaw]

quote: admire him because it's obvious that he understands that he must remain unknown to be viable.

[we vs us]

quote:Originally posted by Gaspar

quote:Originally posted by FOTD

Just wait until Obama faces down McSame in the debates. It will be sad. I just worry people will feel so sorry for McSame that they will be willing to live with the Repug Veep choice over Barack. Not gonna happen. Landslide coming....

For the sake of your candidate, I hope so.  

Perhaps someone should suggest that he prepare himself more for direct questions (not related  to fluffy speeches and talking points).  That's what got him off his skateboard last night.  He was expected to take a stance of his own on issues.  No projected platforms or "I want" speeches.

I admire him because it's obvious that he understands that he must remain unknown to be viable.  His personality and platform is currently projected on him  by his supporters. This allows him to be anything to anyone.

If he shows the slightest inkling of his own opinion, the cult of personality will be broken, and all of the clever Huffingtonesque or Soroesque nicknames for whoever his opponent is will be of little aid.

I wish him the best, because last night was hard to watch.  It was the wizard when they pulled away the curtain.

I think you're overstating it just a tad.  Obama was off his game, definitely.  But he looked exhausted more than anything, which, one assumes, is what a slugfest campaign like this might do to a person.  I'm not telling you not to knock him for a bad performance, but don't overstate it either.  You've seen him give a good show, too . . . and when he does he's completely on.

That's why having 26 Democratic debate face-offs like this becomes completely useless over time.  Someone's gonna have a bad one . . . hell, someone might have a couple of bad ones . . . but what you've learned by #26 is exactly bupkiss. You learned everything important by #18 at the latest.

[iplaw]

Are you kidding me!  These face offs yield nothing, whether they're dem v dem or rep v dem.  After any of these morons, Clinton, McCain, or Obama regurgitate their talking points at least twice I'm done...

[we vs us]

quote:Originally posted by iplaw

Are you kidding me!  These face offs yield nothing, whether they're dem v dem or rep v dem.  After any of these morons, Clinton, McCain, or Obama regurgitate their talking points at least twice I'm done...

Uh, that was my point.

[TheArtist]

I saw a good portion of the debate last night. I thought Hillary wone it. I like Obama but that only made me more frustrated that he didnt answer the questions about "knowing someone who said something extreme or did something wrong" with the same clear moral voice I have heard him speak in before.

"Pushing people away doesnt help them learn good from you. A good person that is growing will impart that upon the people they are around" "Everyone needs to learn something and grow, why else would we need mentors or pastors?, What kind of world would it be if those people pushed us away or disowned us because we were not perfect, were mistaken in our beliefs?" "Though pastors are to be teachers, even pastors learn from their flock, how many times have you heard a sermon from a pastor telling a story about something he learned from someone in his church? I think we all have" I am a good person, I wouldnt want to be pushed away from those wiser than me that I could learn from because they dont agree with me. I wouldnt want to push others away because they have sinned or I disagree with them either.

Something of that sort, would have been great. He knew the question was coming and should have formulated an aswer like that. And heck even turned it on the Republicans who so often are the people who "push others away" because they dont believe like they do.

I expected better from Obama. Hopefully he will get back on his game. I can imagine that a person in the middle of all of this has a lot less quiet time to think, to gather the better angels of ones thoughts and come up with answers to these questions like you can at other times. I still think he can, and he must in order to win in this heated, electoral cauldron.

[we vs us]

quote:Originally posted by TheArtist

I expected better from Obama. Hopefully he will get back on his game. I can imagine that a person in the middle of all of this has a lot less quiet time to think, to gather the better angels of ones thoughts and come up with answers to these questions like you can at other times. I still think he can, and he must in order to win in this heated, electoral cauldron.

And that's my frustration right now. We've seen both of these candidates be excellent at different times, IMO, but it feels like we've gotten to the point of creating useless pitfalls for them.  I don't know what's being proven anymore other than useless tit-for-tat.  Talking Points Memo said "Obama looked weary and had what I can only think to compare to the look of a staggering boxer," and it seemed that way to me, too.  That's why I can't shake the notion that the primary has completely exited out of the realm of the political and into straight up useless entertainment.

[FOTD]

quote:Originally posted by iplaw

Are you kidding me!  These face offs yield nothing, whether they're dem v dem or rep v dem.  After any of these morons, Clinton, McCain, or Obama regurgitate their talking points at least twice I'm done...

Definately.

But I seem to recall that from every debate in the past 40 years.

[Conan71]

Harvard Law.  President of the Harvard Law Review, and he can't think on his feet any better than he showed last night?  Tsk Tsk.

Did anyone catch the comment when they were talking about gaffes?  Obama said something along the lines of:  "We are campaigning.  Every minute of everything we say is recorded, so they are going to catch every mistake."  That made him sound like a machine to me.

I think he might have been better-served to show some humility with a comment like: "I'm only human, I make mistakes."

Again, hardly a debate, more like a forum.

[FOTD]

Gaffes....?

Like al queda? Or was it Shi'ites?

We're still waiting for Dumbya to say he's made mistakes......

[pmcalk]

So, RM--what's your prediction?

You posted this on another thread--you'll stop talking about Hillary if she loses, but that Obama supporters should admit he has problems if he loses by double digits.  I'll say this, if he loses by double digits, then I think he should rethink his strategy, and that Hillary should stay in till the end--we'll see then what happens.  But what happens when she wins by less than double digits?  What if she ends up with only a handful of more delegates (which will be erased in the North Carolina primary)?  If she wins by 5% or less, will you admit that her staying in the race really serves no purpose other than increasing the odds of a McCain presidency?

[FOTD]

Barack Obama will stomp McCain.....it's the millenium prediction!

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/19/MNN7107FVE.DTL&type=politics

'Millennial Generation' set to rock the vote
Carla Marinucci, Chronicle Political Writer

Sunday, April 20, 2008


No, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama hasn't been in the habit of wearing an American flag on his lapel.

Yes, he's got some controversial acquaintances and has made some slipups lately about working Americans who "cling" to religion.

So won't it be easy for Republican Sen. John McCain, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton - and the media - to keep painting Obama as an ultraliberal elitist who is out of touch with American values and working people?

In another era - when Baby Boomers were the overwhelmingly dominant generation - maybe so.

But with just two days until Pennsylvania kicks off the final round of primaries, political observers say there's clear evidence that the election of 2008 represents a new universe - and a new generation - when it comes to White House contests. And the political phenomenon of Barack Obama is symbolic of the game-changing attitudes and growing influence to be wielded by the upcoming generation of "Millennial" voters - the largest and most diverse generation in American history, born between 1982 and 2003 - who already are helping to shape the race.

Authors Morley Winograd and Michael Hais, who just released "Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube and the Future of American Politics," a book that examines the seismic generational and cultural realignments at play on the political stage this year, say the political pileups of the past week represent a perfect example of how the 20-somethings have managed to reshape conventional politics in the current race for the White House.

There was Obama's brouhaha over the "bitter" comments in San Francisco - fueled by Clinton, McCain and the media - followed by a rough Philadelphia debate in which Clinton got tough and ABC moderators got tougher, peppering him about his recent stumbles and gaffes.

That looked to be a perfect storm that might have swamped a first-time presidential candidate, but it wasn't Obama who took the body blows. Instead, ABC's George Stephanopoulos and Charles Gibson, the journalists, were publicly pummeled for "gotcha games," and Clinton came away with nary a new superdelegate in her pocket.

Nothing sticking
Meanwhile, Obama literally brushed it all off as the old way of doing things, while both Pennsylvania and national polls appear to suggest that none of it has stuck to him. Indeed, he looks even stronger, said Winograd, a former senior adviser to Vice President Al Gore during the Clinton administration.

Twenty-somethings "are driving the presidential race in a huge way," said Annemarie Stephens, an organizer for the youth-oriented "Nation for Change" rally to celebrate Obama's campaign today at Frank Ogawa Plaza in Oakland. The event, which will star gospel, hip-hop and ethnic musicians - like similar rallies planned in nearly all 50 states today - has been put together almost entirely on the Internet, she said.

"People are concerned about the well-being of this country," she said. "It's no longer politics as usual; we're not going to stand for the pettiness."

Jordan D'Amato, 20, a political science major at UC Berkeley and one of the "Millennial Generation," says coming of age in an era of the two-term presidency of George W. Bush has had a clear impact on his political outlook.

"I think the country is headed in the wrong direction, and there have been monumental failures, like the war in Iraq," the health care system and the economy, he said.

Obama, he said, has "run a very successful campaign so far, proposing a message of hope" to address those issues.

"So when he makes a slipup, and people point out his relationship to Jeremiah Wright," the senator's controversial former pastor, "you say, 'Yes, he has faults.' " But, D'Amato said, Obama isn't influenced by pundits and politicians "trying to pick him apart."

The apparent inability of Clinton and McCain to influence voters like D'Amato and blunt Obama's trajectory underscores the different world and political view of the "Millennial Generation," which some have suggested looks increasingly like the "Obamanation."

Unlike their Boomer parents - those millions of 50- and 60-something activists born of protest and conflict who accept politics as a blood sport - the younger generation has come of age in an era of burgeoning new technologies providing tangible evidence of the promise of change.

"Unlike the conservative Gen-Xers who preceded them, or the harshly divided Baby Boomer Generation, the Millennials are united across gender and race in their desire to find win-win solutions to America's problems," Winograd and Hais write.

'Sense of urgency'
"My students feel a sense of urgency about the times and the urgency of now," said James Taylor, an associate professor of politics at the University of San Francisco. "They're not interested in personal attack, and much more interested in the hard issues facing the country. ... So to talk about his misstatements is off-putting for young people who want hope and their futures to mean something."

Indeed, said Winograd and Hais, younger voters are increasingly more likely to question - and openly dismiss - the old rules of the "gotcha" politics game.

Practically born networking on social sites like Facebook and MySpace, "their attitude regarding the media is, 'Who anointed them the experts?' " said Hais, who is credited with identifying the power of "wired" tech workers in his research as a marketing executive. " 'I'd rather pay attention to my friends online, and we'll decide what we think.' "

And neither are they wedded to blogosphere slugfests or the talking-head shouting matches that have been the last generation's hallmarks in political contests, said Hais.

Irreverent influences
Instead they look to figures like Comedy Central's Jon Stewart, who has jabbed at the kings of conflict (MSNBC's Chris Matthews and Tucker Carlson) on his "Daily Show," and tongue-in-cheek cable commentator Keith Olbermann, who has won their hearts by skewering media self-importance with nightly coronations of "The Worst Person in the World."

So far, Obama - who has referenced how the "Joshua Generation" holds the promise to make good on the past struggles of the previous "Moses Generation" - has "intuitively appeared to address these generational themes," Winograd said. "He's saying we've got to heal divisions."

By contrast, both Clinton and McCain have appeared old-school, "trying to say (Obama is) channeling Dukakis, an insensitive elite who doesn't understand people's fears and love of country," said Winograd, referring to former Massachusetts governor and failed Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis. That is "an attempt to characterize him in Boomer terms - but it's not being heard by those who listen to a civic message."

Not all political observers agree, and some suggest younger voters are a long way from proving their mettle.

"This is a generation far removed from any real troubles in this country; they've had every advantage," said Patrick Dorinson, a veteran GOP strategist in Sacramento. "They didn't sign up for the draft not knowing if they would be called; they've had the greatest prosperity of any generation in history ... look in their bedroom, and there are iPods, video games and cell phones."

He said that 20-somethings better recognize that - like it or not - they can't expect McCain, Clinton or any other contender to back off their candidate.

"This generation is going to have to step up and run this country some day," he said. "I'm sorry, politics is tough, tough sport and it should test the mettle of the people we ask to lead us.

"And we need to know that a person who leads this country can take it," he said.

Get used to it
But Winograd and Hais warn that Baby Boomers, Gen-Xers and political insiders - including candidates - who hope to continue to make a difference in the political universe have one real option: get used to the new guys.

The Millennials' power, the authors say, has only just begun to be felt.

"By 2008, almost half of the largest generation in American history will be eligible to vote, making Millennial attitudes and beliefs the key to understanding how much the dynamics of American politics will change before the first decade of the 21st century is over," they write.

"The campaigns, candidates and events of the rest of this decade will determine which party gains the lifelong allegiance of this new generation - and with it, the dominant advantage in the next civic era of American politics."


In Pennsylvania: Obama accuses Clinton of "slash and burn" tactics, while she implies that she's substance, he's flash. A13


Who are the influential Millennial Voters?
-- Born between 1982-2003, the largest and most diverse generation in history, numbering roughly 100 million, or a third of the total U.S. population.

-- More optimistic and upbeat than Gen-Xers or Baby Boomers before them, they believe they have a greater chance of bringing about social change.

-- Technology-born and bred on YouTube, Google, Napster, Facebook, MySpace and other innovations.

-- Have "confidence in the federal government" and have no fear of having a role in it.

-- Two-thirds say things in America are currently "off track."

-- Place greater significance on their feeling about the Republican and Democratic parties.

-- Voted for Democratic house candidates over Republicans by 60 to 30 percent.

Source: "Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube and the Future of American Politics," Morley Winograd and Michael Hais

[RecycleMichael]

My prediction is that Clinton wins by eight points or more in Pennsylvania.

Obama people will immediately claim victory and say that Pennsylvanians are bitter and that Hillary was once ahead by more. They will instantly change the conversation to the delegate count and say that Hillary can't win, so the contest doesn't matter. Obama will refuse to do any more debates because he doesn't want to answer any more questions about his relationships with bad people.

Obama has outspent Hillary three to one on ads in the state and five to one in paid staffers. I have read reports that he is spending a half a million dollars a day in Pennsylvania. I can't imagine how he could lose after spending that amount of money.

Hillary just keeps winning all the big states and all the swing states. Obama folks need to realize that their candidate may have jumped the shark.

[waterboy]

She's the shark.

[cannon_fodder]

quote:Obama has outspent Hillary three to one on ads in the state and five to one in paid staffers. I have read reports that he is spending a half a million dollars a day in Pennsylvania. I can't imagine how he could lose after spending that amount of money.

Because it is an Eastern state that started off +30 for Hillary.  And since when does that matter?  Hillary has the cash to spend if she wanted to, but choses not to.

quote:Hillary just keeps winning all the big states and all the swing states.

And all those pesky bitter states keep voting for Obama.  Which is why he is so far in the lead.  

RM, are you on the Clinton staff somehow?  Co-Chair of her Oklahoma campaign or her Tulsa office or something?  Your tenacity is over whelming.

[pmcalk]

quote:Originally posted by RecycleMichael

My prediction is that Clinton wins by eight points or more in Pennsylvania.

Obama people will immediately claim victory and say that Pennsylvanians are bitter and that Hillary was once ahead by more. They will instantly change the conversation to the delegate count and say that Hillary can't win, so the contest doesn't matter. Obama will refuse to do any more debates because he doesn't want to answer any more questions about his relationships with bad people.

Obama has outspent Hillary three to one on ads in the state and five to one in paid staffers. I have read reports that he is spending a half a million dollars a day in Pennsylvania. I can't imagine how he could lose after spending that amount of money.

Hillary just keeps winning all the big states and all the swing states. Obama folks need to realize that their candidate may have jumped the shark.

Considering that Clinton's very own surrogates have said she needs a huge win, I would think Obama's team is justified in making the argument that anything short of a double digit win is meaningless.  A single digit win would mean that Hillary is no better off than before Pennsylvania.  After all, Obama has won 24 states by double digits.  Some of those he won by 20, 30, up 60% of the votes.  Absent a huge win, coupled by a huge turnout, there is no way that Hillary could catch him in the popular vote.  So, if tomorrow, Hillary wins by 8%, Obama will still have more:

*pledged delegates
*popular votes
*states won
*primaries won
*caucuses won
*donors
*money raised
*cash on hand
*Governor endorsements
*Senatorial endorsements

She isn't more "electable" than Obama, given that nationwide polling, and state by state polling, show almost identical results.  Winning a state in the primary means nothing when it comes to the general election (which the Clinton team likes to point out in respect to all of the "red states" that Obama won).  Look at California--Hillary won there, but Obama polls better against McCain there.  

Obama has gotten 8 times more superdelegate endorsements than Hillary since February.  He has run a better campaign, and is in a better position financially and organizationally to run against McCain in the fall.

What argument could she possibly give to the few remaining superdelegates (many of whom are "ad-ons" and likely to reflect the results of their states' election) that they should not honor the vote of the people?