RRC Archives

Personally, I'm underwhelmed. But I'm glad to see that our Porcine friend more-or-less approves. It's a choice that totally fits with the "do what it takes to win" approach that he supports. I don't know who would be better, but it does reinforce the reality that Obama actually isn't a "spacey liberal" but is actually a "clear-eyed pragmatist."

Biden was picked for a bunch of reasons. Obviously he's intended to cover the "Foreign Policy cred" base. In reality, Obama handles that pretty well himself. And, of course, if the majority of voters understood that McCain is a bellicose hothead who isn't particularly strong on foreign policy this also wouldn't be an issue. (he talks as though Czechoslovakia still exists, talks about the Iraq/Pakistan border, isn't real clear on the distinction/history/reality of Sunni/Shiite relations, is still fighting "his" war, takes advice from lobbyists who get cash from foreign governments, etc., etc., etc.)

Biden will turn a few people off of the Obama ticket, but he will probably cleave a percent or so off of McCain and pulling them over to his ticket. Also, Biden is expected to play well to older voters and is seen as "strong on Israel". These are important nationally, but are expected to particularly influence Florida - where McCain's lead is only about 2%. (FL is a very expensive media market, so Obama's cash lead for the general election is going to help him, plus Obama has a much bigger "ground game" going there than McCain. Swinging FL would pretty much doom McCain, but Obama can win without it. After all, motherf@*king Montana is currently polling as a tie! This is going to a weird electoral college map!)

Expect Biden to be a "smiling hit man" for the campaign, keeping Obama's hands clean. Biden gets on my nerves a bit, but with any luck, he'll be effective at delivering attacks in a pleasant, smiling way.

Biden's #1 purpose is to secure more of the Democratic base. Of the "VP Finalists" that the press was speculating about (H. Clinton, Biden, Bayh, Sebelius and Kaine), Biden had the 2nd highest "Favorable" (after HC) and the lowest "Unfavorable" in national polling, plus he has good name recognition. (Despite his connections to weaselly-assed credit card companies) He's seen as good at connecting with "blue collar Democrats", which is the current weak spot for Obama. Of all the demographic breakdowns (M/F, age, education, etc.) the one demographic where Obama isn't outperforming Kerry is among Democrats. If he can hold his current support among "independents" and Obamacans, and move from his current ~70% support among Democrats to the high 70's percent-wise in November, that will secure a win. That's Biden's main job - to pull in that additional 6 or so percent of Democrats.

and now tomdarch, please give us the run down on how Obama CAN lose this election.....

seriously, I'd like to hear your "road to victory" for McCain....becasue like it or not, it is still a real possibility.

tomdarch wrote:Personally,.................&etc.........................&etc.........................................&etc. & etc., etc.

Obama probably could have guaranteed victory by choosing Hillary as his running mate. But Baracko would prefer death to a co-presidency with the Clintons. And thus the choice of Biden - which, from this vantage point, may well guarantee McCain's election. There are several wild cards yet to be played however, one of them being McCain's choice for VP. Pull up a chair. This is going to be entertaining.

entertaining? when I hear any politician all I hear is blah blah blah,more of the same old blah blah blah and a few lies. hell I can get that from my ex wife

Sorry Trad Grandaddy, but if you only hear a few lies, it's past time for the old man to get a hearing test.

pigsteak wrote:seriously, I'd like to hear your "road to victory" for McCain....becasue like it or not, it is still a real possibility.

Sure - McCain winning is the "water flows downhill", easy result. America electing a "black" person goes against so much that is so deeply rooted, that it will take extraordinary effort. Fear, uncertainty and doubt ("FUD") are natural, powerful aspects of the human mind - they've been used to sell trillions of dollars of products and keep despots in power for decades. Fearful, uncertain people full of doubt about America - our present and our future - will choose the "wrinkly, white haired guy", the person most media tells them is a "great guy" and the safe bet. It's the easy choice, not the courageous one, not the confident one.

McCain has a good chance of winning - the polling is close nationally, and the state-by-state breakdown is also very close. McCain can win by continuing to fall back on "I was a POW!" The chant of "9/11! 9/11! 9/11!" worked in '04, and "I was a POW!" will work well this time. When a retired general pointed out that simply being a POW wasn't a qualification to be president, the Republican shrieking twisted his words and most of the media repeated the shrieking lies - the POW chant stood strong. When it's pointed out that McCain is wildly out of touch with the reality of most Americans, his response is literally "but I was a POW!" (Sure, when he was cheating on his disabled first wife, the POW thing was a pretty solid excuse. But it's thirty years later - the chant of "OMFG! 9/11!!!!" didn't work this time for Giuliani, and McCain is risking wearing out the POW chant - but for now, it's working...)

McCain is neck-and-neck in the polls thanks to his and others lies, so that will probably keep working. This round's "Swift Boat" book seems to be falling flat - but there are millions of stupid+ignorant people who may yet be swayed by those simple, bald-faced lies. (Remember how "FUD" links deeply into our minds - the "secret Muslim" lie is like mainlining for lots of people.) So far, McCain's TV ads have been chock full of lies and misrepresentations and "the fourth estate" has been mum on the lies - so that will probably keep working. (A recent McCain ad tries to play the "Rezko thing" - it just makes stuff up, because there's no "there" there with Rezko and Obama. McCain ads are endlessly full of simply wrong claims about Obama and taxes - both his voting record and his plans.) So continuing to lie can win this for McCain.

McCain plays up his "maverick" image - so that's working for him. As long as McCain can keep things vague on the issues, most voters will think that he's a moderate on critical issues. For example, roughly half of his supporters think that McCain doesn't support a legal prohibition on abortion. (aka "he's pro-choice") Of course, McCain (at least now) supports both legislation and the selection of judges to enact just such a prohibition. Many people think that McCain is somehow divorced from the Washington/lobbyist sleaze pit. Of course, McCain's campaign is chock full of lobbyists - McCain doesn't dislike lobbyists - he dislikes lobbyists who don't play with him. McCain tried to get more telecom deregulation in the late 90's, but was stymied by industry lobbyists - the result: McCain-Feingold. Hell, McCain even acted as a de-facto lobbyist while he was in office - it's called "the Keating Five scandal".

Much of the DC/National press personally love McCain, eat up whatever he says and present a glowing image of him - that's certainly a big fat "path to the white house" in '08. One reporter explained that he and his colleagues were mostly geeks in high school - so here's the Varsity jock inviting them on his bus and acting like he wants to be friends! Doughnuts with his favorite sprinkles? Check! When McCain makes "little slips" do they report it? No, they edit the tape or leave it out of the story! (Sadly for McCain, the press back in Arizona don't have such a high opinion of him. They've seen his out of control temper, they've stood back and watched how he's manipulated the national reporters. Lucky for John, the national press look down on the local reporters, so they don't talk as much.)

What does the McCain map look like when the votes are counted? If Obama takes HI - CA,OR,WA - MN,WI,IL,IA,MI - PA,MD,NJ and the rest of the north east, and McCain takes everything else (AK, the west, the plains, the south and FL), then McCain wins by a few electoral college votes. With the current state-by-state polling, that's entirely possible.

Biden locked me into the Obama camp, I have high regard for him- any take on on Hillary's speech last night? I thought she was in good form. The Anna Rosanna Dana woman was pretty engaging as well.

Xenophobia, gun control, and inaccurate understandings about who's actually instituting large government and infringing on our rights will get anyone elected (see also 2 reigns of the Cheney administration).

Just take a look at some of our friends......

http://www.seclimbers.org/modules.php?n ... sc&start=0

Looks like I've been missing the good stuff out of Denver:

Ted Strickland: "George Bush started on third base, and then he stole second."

And Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer is getting a lot of kudos:
http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/ ... chweitzer/

I'm going to have to watch the video when I get home - "a rousing speech on renewable energy policy" - must be good...

The quote I've seen: "the petro dictators will never own American wind and sunshine." Not bad...

I don't know that Hillary's speech was anything too special. I guess she clarified her support for Obama, and she was obviously critical of McCain. I may have missed it, but did she ever say, "If you support me - don't be a dumbfuck by voting for McCain!"

"Change" vs. "no change"

I heard a bit of a recent ad by the "Swift Boat" liars - it was focusing on the fact that Obama served on a charity board with former Weather Underground member, Bill Ayers. How could Obama associate himself with this domestic terrorist? Ayers even said he was proud of what he had done, and he'd do it again! (This was 'printed' int eh NYT on Sept. 11, 2001 no less!)

John McCain proved his character during his years as a POW - ironically, at the same time that Ayers was an underground activist. Well, do people change - or are they permanently the same people they were 40 years ago?

Ayers was pretty much kicked out of the Weathermen for being too 'soft' - for making sure that after March, 1970, none of their bombs killed anyone. As to his later statements, he immediately responded to the NYT to clarify that they didn't just get the context of his statements wrong - he felt that they must have intentionally distorted them. Since turning himself in, he went on to dedicate himself to childhood education, including earning a PhD and becoming a Distinguished Professor at the U of Illinois. While he still says that he wishes that he had "done more" to stop the US violence in Southeast Asia, he has clearly turned his back on using bombs to change America. That's the Bill Ayers that Obama met in Chicago. Is that possible? Could Bill Ayers change over forty years from a violent radical to a peaceful, dedicated educator?

Forty years ago, John McCain left his new wife and newborn child, gave up his position on a ship in the Mediterranean, and volunteered for combat duty in Viet Nam. He was quickly shot down, captured and started years of abuse and torture as a POW in Viet Nam. When his father was named Commander of all US forces in Viet Nam, his captors offered to release him, but John McCain refused special treatment and stayed with his fellow POWs. He endured months of torture and solitary confinement, then years more imprisonment. He returned home a true war hero.

Since then, he cheated on his disabled wife, married a young heiress whose fortune comes from a state-law based scam, got into politics with loans from his wife's family, became one of the ultimate "beltway insiders", he paid back a campaign contributor (and business partner of Cindy) by interfering with a federal investigation as part of the Keating Five, became a close collaborator of Phil Grahm (who bears a great deal of responsibility for both the Enron scandal and the current "mortgage meltdown" crisis, and advises McCain today, and is expected to be named to a McCain cabinet, if he wins), went along with the bogus Clinton impeachment, and figured out how to play the national and DC press (including referring to himself as a "maverick"). He ran for president in 2000, and tried being fairly honest and direct, turning away from a lot of the more stupid Republican positions and speaking frankly about things like "agents of intolerance." His campaign failed quickly.

Did these forty years of experience change John McCain? Is he the same person he was while a POW in Viet Nam? I would say no. Just as Bill Ayers seems to have changed over four decades, John McCain certainly seems to have also changed.

Decades of wealth and power brought him to the point where he was pulling strings for a crooked banker who was loosing the savings of regular families. He took the lesson of his 2000 campaign and ditched the "straight talk express." Instead he has plowed full speed into bed with scummy religious fundamentalists and lobbyists. Instead of 'straight talk,' his campaign has been based on endless misrepresentations and lies. When McCain repeatedly said that Obama's position on Iraq was putting personal political interest ahead of national interest, he spat on his own formerly honorable status as a war hero, and he certainly swept away his reputation as a "straight talker."

Yep, this campaign is about more than changing Washington. It's also about how people change over time.