Campaign 2008

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Yes, Alan Keyes can!

[Kinetic 0]

I heard on Glenn Beck's show that Obama's Illinois state senate voting record includes at least one instance of him being in favor of killing actual living, breathing, crying, shitting babies. The audacity of hope, indeed.

[Nightwing 0]

What will kill Obama in the general election is an apaprent unwillingness to fight dirty.

 

The "Obama was raised a muslim and is trying to hide it" thing is already widely believed, though proven false. I see references to it EVERY DAY on the internet.

 

Campaigns are about creating a fog, an impression around a candidate, Just like 2004's campaign message was essentially "Kerry's kind of a pussy", hammered in so many different ways (I'll make a list if you want), hell it actually started WAY early during the primaries with the "he looks french" comment.... this one is going to be "Obama isn't a real american".

 

-In the general election, you watch, there will be a few opportune public references to Obama being raised a muslim.....

-lots of "reminders" that his middle name is Hussein

-remember the attempt at controversy about how he didn't wear his American flag pin?

-Him not putting his hand on his chest for the stars and stripes?

-George W's rare comment the other day about how he is going to "embrace" Iran's president?

-lots of people referencing the FOX News story as proof... why do you think they never retracted it? It's laying seeds for the general election

-I bet money a prominent figure "accidentally" refers to him as Osama just once, at the right time to get plastered on Drudge. I'm not talking about misspeaking like ted kennedy, I'm talking about, "misspeaking" if you catch my drift.

-Add to this the fact that by forcefully denying the claims (which you have to do or it'll stick) actually feeds the feelings that it's so bad if it were true.

 

Mark my words, Obama's losing because of prejudice, just not the kind people are focused on now.

 

I'm not too sure about that. If this campaign has shown us anything, it is that people aren't reacting to the same things they used to: Money, in particular, is not working like it used to. Negative Campaigning is another part of that: People didn't react well to McCain grilling Romney about a "Timetable", people didn't like Bill Clinton in South Carolina. No one reacted well when Hillary and Obama went to each other's throats in the three-way debate. A large-scale "race-baiting" campaign is not something that I think that the Republicans want to do, because it's going to garner ridiculously bad press and lose independents, which are John McCain's biggest strength. I'm not saying that this is going to be a squeaky clean campaign (I'm sure both sides will get their shots in), but it feels like Americans are finally tired of the blatant slander ads out there, so you are going to see a cleaner campaign than in recent years.

[ZGangsta 0]

I heard on Glenn Beck's show that Obama's Illinois state senate voting record includes at least one instance of him being in favor of killing actual living, breathing, crying, shitting babies. The audacity of hope, indeed.

Holy fuck! Marvin where were you on this one?

 

What will kill Obama in the general election is an apaprent unwillingness to fight dirty.

 

The "Obama was raised a muslim and is trying to hide it" thing is already widely believed, though proven false. I see references to it EVERY DAY on the internet.

 

Campaigns are about creating a fog, an impression around a candidate, Just like 2004's campaign message was essentially "Kerry's kind of a pussy", hammered in so many different ways (I'll make a list if you want), hell it actually started WAY early during the primaries with the "he looks french" comment.... this one is going to be "Obama isn't a real american".

 

-In the general election, you watch, there will be a few opportune public references to Obama being raised a muslim.....

-lots of "reminders" that his middle name is Hussein

-remember the attempt at controversy about how he didn't wear his American flag pin?

-Him not putting his hand on his chest for the stars and stripes?

-George W's rare comment the other day about how he is going to "embrace" Iran's president?

-lots of people referencing the FOX News story as proof... why do you think they never retracted it? It's laying seeds for the general election

-I bet money a prominent figure "accidentally" refers to him as Osama just once, at the right time to get plastered on Drudge. I'm not talking about misspeaking like ted kennedy, I'm talking about, "misspeaking" if you catch my drift.

-Add to this the fact that by forcefully denying the claims (which you have to do or it'll stick) actually feeds the feelings that it's so bad if it were true.

 

Mark my words, Obama's losing because of prejudice, just not the kind people are focused on now.

 

I'm not too sure about that. If this campaign has shown us anything, it is that people aren't reacting to the same things they used to: Money, in particular, is not working like it used to. Negative Campaigning is another part of that: People didn't react well to McCain grilling Romney about a "Timetable", people didn't like Bill Clinton in South Carolina. No one reacted well when Hillary and Obama went to each other's throats in the three-way debate. A large-scale "race-baiting" campaign is not something that I think that the Republicans want to do, because it's going to garner ridiculously bad press and lose independents, which are John McCain's biggest strength. I'm not saying that this is going to be a squeaky clean campaign (I'm sure both sides will get their shots in), but it feels like Americans are finally tired of the blatant slander ads out there, so you are going to see a cleaner campaign than in recent years.

And honestly, I think McCain's above that. He's better than the dirty bullshit that W pulled to get himself elected twice.

Sure you're going to have Fox News and the usual gang of conservative pundit idiots (yes that means Glen Beck too) trying to stir up as much fake shit as possible but that stuff was only really damaging when it was playing along with Rove's plans.

So unless McCain gets so desparate that he sinks to that level, or Karl Rove somehow gets himself onboard, I think this one will be better than the horrible shit pulled in the W elections.

[snuffbox 0]

McCain has been lying left-and-right during his own nominating process. Maybe he did back in the day, but let's not pretend the guy still has any integrity left now.

[Nightwing 0]

Lying left and right? I'm not sure about that.

[snuffbox 0]

Considering he's been throwing out the same Democrats-are-terrorists-themselves stuff for years, and has said consistent bullshit about both Paul and Romney, I'd say it's a perfectly apt statement. But, I'm not nearly as politically in-tune as you, Nightwing.

[snuffbox 0]

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8...;show_article=1

 

Another Obama endorsement.

[Nightwing 0]

Considering he's been throwing out the same Democrats-are-terrorists-themselves stuff for years, and has said consistent bullshit about both Paul and Romney, I'd say it's a perfectly apt statement. But, I'm not nearly as politically in-tune as you, Nightwing.

Wow, such bitterness from a 24-year old. I didn't realize you could become crusty in such a short amount of time. Is this because I pointed out the minor flaw in your "McCain is like Gerald Ford" comparison a few pages back? God help me for questioning the incredible wisdom of snuffbox!

 

Christ, get off your own dick. Let's start from the beginning of your list:

 

The "Democratic Surrender" line is just the same as "Vietnam-esque Quagmire". The Republicans started it, and Democrats went to the easy fallback line. It's something both sides have been playing with for a while now, and I frankly don't care much about it. Both aren't true, and both are hurting any work being done over there. I just don't care enough about it because everyone is playing the same card, except for Ron Paul who plays the "American Empire" card. So it's all political maneuvering at the cost of Iraq. But I have to give special recognition to Republicans for starting that whole Goddamn mess.

 

I already talked about McCain talking about Romney's "record" on Iraq. He got a free pass on that, which is wrong. But I never claimed he didn't like or spin things. I just said he didn't lie out his ass the entire time, and from what I've seen, he's tried to avoid talking so that he doesn't have to lie. Look at his immigration policy, for God's sake. If he was lying out his ass, he's obviously not lying about the right things. I know there are others (I do pay a decent amount of attention to factcheck.org), but I haven't seen anything quite as bad as the "Iraq timetable" thing. Most of what I've seen from his camp isn't horrible spin, and for the most part has fact behind it. From factcheck.org, he's gotten off quite well (Romney gets FRIED, though, worse than anyone. Man...), but his own faults have been recognized. But I haven't seen anything yet that qualifies as "Lying left and right".

 

I accept a certain amount of lies or spin in a campaign. It's going to happen, which is (again) why I put the qualifier "cleaner" for this year's campaign. This doesn't mean I believe them, but I recognize that they will be there no matter what. No one in this campaign is completely clean. Let's look at untouchable Obama completely taking "100 Year War" completely out of context as well. Keeping troops there in a peaceful environment is something both Obama and Clinton support as well, and yet we see it as one of the biggest talking points the Democrats have been using. Or how about implying the other is a secret Republican? Politics isn't clean, and it will never e completely clean. But the current candidates are cleaner than the ones we have.

 

Finally, the only thing I can find on McCain and Paul is McCain saying "Eisenhower didn't bail out on Korea", which actually is true, considering we still have a ton of troops over there. Unless, of course, you want to disagree with that, oh infinitely wise snuffbox. If you have any you yourself want to talk about, please mention them. And just to note: It's not like Ron Paul hasn't had his own share of 'spin', either. How about the fact that he (Along with every other Republican) continues to suck on Reagan's dick when he publicly talked about completely dissociating himself from the man in 1987-88. I actually respect that move (considering Paul's values), but everything for the Republican Party begins and ends with Ronald Reagan (He's like Superman!), so he's turned around on that, apparently, supporting one of the biggest spenders ever.

 

So I guess you aren't as politically in-tune as I am, even though I never actually tried make that claim. So feel free to feel sorry for yourself a little longer, good buddy!

[snuffbox 0]

Lots of words there.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Two things:

 

1. I like to think an Obama-McCain general would be a lot less sleazy than the '04 election, but there's no way to be sure. Even if the campaigns themselves keep things above the belt, independent groups like 527s (think Swiftboat Vets) could still pull the campaign down into the muck. I'm thinking attacking Obama's race and background will be a big thing on the right. I've also heard that McCain opponents (not sure if they were attacking him from the left or right) have already been questioning his time in the Hanoi Hilton (kind of like how SBVT questioned Kerry's silver star back in '04).

 

2. Even if McCain didn't mean a 100 year war, I still think keeping a Korea-like presence in Iraq for decades to come would be a mistake.

 

I also think his "Bomb Iran" song was incredibly stupid. Imagine a foreign leader of a seemingly hostile nation joking about bombing or attacking the United States.

[ZGangsta 0]

I like to think an Obama-McCain general would be a lot less sleazy than the '04 election, but there's no way to be sure. Even if the campaigns themselves keep things above the belt, independent groups like 527s (think Swiftboat Vets) could still pull the campaign down into the muck.

Oh come on though, there were a million and a half connections (oh right, all 'coincidences') between the Swiftboat Vets and the Bush campaign. And that whole despicable thing could have been shot down if Bush had come out denouncing it. Hell, John McCain condemned it saying "I hope that the president will also condemn it."

[Guest Blue Man Czech]

I can't imagine this being very negative at all, and we saw hints of that in Obama's speech: McCain is a great American and a fine public servant, but he's not the right man for the job at this time. Being that these are two candidates generally liked or respected by the public (except Coulter, who hates both), there's not going to be much tolerance for negativity from either side.

 

How are they going about questioning McCain? You'd think his time in Hanoi had been pretty well confirmed by now.

[Guest]

Nobody's going to cross the line in questioning one's status as a POW. You can get away with slandering someone's military record, how they weaseled out of combat and the like or whatever, but questioning McCain's time as a POW is something that the public in general won't take a liking to at all. If anything, it's better for Democrats just to ignore it entirely, because McCain's status as a POW in Vietnam is going to garner him more votes, if anything.

 

That's just the impression I've gotten. If someone related to any way in Obama's campaign references it and makes light of it, people will jump all over them.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

I was listening to Dennis Miller's show today (he's a McCain guy), and apparently some anti-McCain rightwing group had brought up questions about his time as a POW.

[snuffbox 0]

The gullibility of the American people seems to be the consistent strategy with stuff like that. Just throwing out completely retarded bullshit like "Democrats are terrorists!" "John Kerry didn't really go to Vietnam" "John McCain has a black baby" etc and hoping that people, somehow, believe it. And, they do.

 

If it's McCain vs. Obama, you can expect that the two will be personally respectful towards each other, outside of at least a few uncomfortable moments of McCain using Terrorism Rhetoric. However, there will also be the people/groups who are going to milk 'B. Hussein Osama' and 'black baby/Vietnam conspiracies' for all they're worth.

 

Count on McCain to make several major gaffes on the trail & at the debates.

 

It's an entirely different story if Hillary gets the nomination, though. Kinda.

[Kawalimus 0]

If Obama wins the primary I don't see him winning the general as easily as some people think he might. Obama is a liberal. And I am liberal myself, but the problem is most of America isn't. And that's not gonna sit well for him in the general and I doubt he will swing any of the red states. Now the swing states are another tough one. I certainly don't see Obama doing very well in Florida, after the Democratic party saying don't campaign there. And then they vote for Hillary when he does. And the senior voters aren't as into Obama as others.

 

So I see it coming down to Ohio again. Obama is gonna have to win Ohio if he is in the general election. Does anyone think he can swing another state besides that one? Maybe Pennsylvania? I don't.

 

Fact is when thinking of the electoral college, this country is as deadlocked as its ever been. Obama may have tons of momentum now but if he wins the primary between now and november you're gonna see a tighter race than you would think.

[Guest Blue Man Czech]

Obama is gaining ground in every possible demographic, be it white men, white women, Catholics, the elderly, you name it. Hillary might win Ohio or Texas, but she's not going to get the margins she needs.

[ZGangsta 0]

If Obama wins the primary I don't see him winning the general as easily as some people think he might. Obama is a liberal. And I am liberal myself, but the problem is most of America isn't. And that's not gonna sit well for him in the general and I doubt he will swing any of the red states. Now the swing states are another tough one. I certainly don't see Obama doing very well in Florida, after the Democratic party saying don't campaign there. And then they vote for Hillary when he does. And the senior voters aren't as into Obama as others.

 

So I see it coming down to Ohio again. Obama is gonna have to win Ohio if he is in the general election. Does anyone think he can swing another state besides that one? Maybe Pennsylvania? I don't.

 

Fact is when thinking of the electoral college, this country is as deadlocked as its ever been. Obama may have tons of momentum now but if he wins the primary between now and november you're gonna see a tighter race than you would think.

Yeah but aren't people just pissed off enough at the Republican party overall to swing things the other way.

 

I just can't believe how the GOP candidates have been getting away with "LOL if a Democrat's elected they'll spend sooooooooo much!!" (and yes they actually said "LOL") after the debacle of overspending that was the Rebublicans controlling the house, senate, and WH.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

I agree with Kawilimus broadly, that an Obama-McCain general will be very close.

 

Not sure on your state by state analysis, but I think Obama stands a good change of swinging some states to the D side, namely Missouri, New Mexico, Colorado, Iowa, Nevada, & Virginia. Mostly western states. More doubtful on Florida & Ohio. Kerry won PA in '04, and I would say that stays in the D column.

[Kawalimus 0]

Sorry, I fucked up Penn. For some reason I had it remembered as a red state in 04. I think it will stay blue for Obama like you do.

 

I admit I am not sure on the state by state nether. But he will need to swing some of those that you mentioned, and I think an Ohio win is very very important. He will probably swing a few of those but it may not be enough to overcome an Ohio loss.

 

I honestly don't remember how many electoral votes each of these states has, I always forget.

[Guest Blue Man Czech]

# of Senators + Representatives, and 3 for the District.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Electoral_map.svg

[Nightwing 0]

I'm not sure he could swing that many states out West, only because those states are

 

1) Traditionally very conservative,

2) Is close to McCain's home ground,

3) Obama isn't that good.

 

I think Obama stands a better chance in places you mentioned like Virginia (where he can use the large African-American base) and the Midwest, like Iowa, Ohio, and Missouri. Especially in Ohio, where his economic hopefulness might reach a few more people than it normally could due to the hard times. I'll give you Nevada, though. McCain could take Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, as he's more appealing as a moderate Republican than most Republican Candidates in the Northeast. I think he almost definitely has New Mexico, if only due to proximity. Depending on how the Democratic Party deals with them, I'd give the Republican Party Florida and give them a better chance in Michigan than they've had the last few years. If Obama's serious troubles with the Latino vote continues, McCain might have a marginal chance at California... but that's very wishful thinking.

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

2. Even if McCain didn't mean a 100 year war, I still think keeping a Korea-like presence in Iraq for decades to come would be a mistake.

 

I also think his "Bomb Iran" song was incredibly stupid. Imagine a foreign leader of a seemingly hostile nation joking about bombing or attacking the United States.

 

the US still has military bases in Japan, Germany and Italy dating back to shortly after WW2..

 

I happen to think that there probably should be a military base or two in Iraq just to have a presence in the middle east in case something happens...

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

There is a major difference between having a military base in a place like Germany and having one in Iraq.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Senate Passes Interrogation Ban

 

By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

Published: February 13, 2008

 

WASHINGTON — The Senate voted 51 to 45 on Wednesday afternoon to ban waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods used by the Central Intelligence Agency against high-level terrorism suspects...

 

The House approved the bill in December by a vote of 222 to 199, mostly along party lines. Wednesday’s vote in the Senate was also along party lines. All the “no” votes were cast by Republicans, except for those of Senators Joseph I. Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, and Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska. Five Republicans and Senator Bernard Sanders, independent of Vermont, voted “yes.”

 

...

 

[John] McCain, a former prisoner of war, has consistently voiced opposition to waterboarding and other methods that critics say is a form torture. But the Republicans, confident of a White House veto, did not mount the challenge. Mr. McCain voted “no” on Wednesday afternoon.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/13/washingt...amp;oref=slogin

 

I don't know why McCain voted against this torture ban today, given his vocal opposition to torture thus far in this campaign and in debates with the other candidates.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

Somewhere, President Bush is cursing and ranting about how the terrorists are winning because of this vote.

[Nightwing 0]

Senate Passes Interrogation Ban

 

By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

Published: February 13, 2008

 

WASHINGTON — The Senate voted 51 to 45 on Wednesday afternoon to ban waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods used by the Central Intelligence Agency against high-level terrorism suspects...

 

The House approved the bill in December by a vote of 222 to 199, mostly along party lines. Wednesday’s vote in the Senate was also along party lines. All the “no” votes were cast by Republicans, except for those of Senators Joseph I. Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, and Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska. Five Republicans and Senator Bernard Sanders, independent of Vermont, voted “yes.”

 

...

 

[John] McCain, a former prisoner of war, has consistently voiced opposition to waterboarding and other methods that critics say is a form torture. But the Republicans, confident of a White House veto, did not mount the challenge. Mr. McCain voted “no” on Wednesday afternoon.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/13/washingt...amp;oref=slogin

 

I don't know why McCain voted against this torture ban today, given his vocal opposition to torture thus far in this campaign and in debates with the other candidates.

 

It is pretty baffling. The only reason I could guess why is that he knew it was going to be vetoed anyways... but that's more of a reason to vote for it. This is going to be nice ammo for the Democrats.

[ZGangsta 0]

Wait, McCain just voted FOR torturing?

The fuck?

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

Wait, McCain just voted FOR torturing?

The fuck?

 

The brain implant he got while he was a POW must be malfunctioning