Obama '08?

You can enjoy singing that little bit of nonsense along with the rest of the Left-Wing choir just as the Right-Wing choir will pretended America ever really bought into the self-righteous claptrap they were peddling in the first place.

The biggest story of this presidential campaign is the success of Hillary Clinton. Six months ago, many people thought she was too brittle and calculating and that voters would never really bond with her. But now she seems to offer the perfect combination of experience and change.

She's demonstrating that it really helps to have lived in the White House. She can draw on a range of experiences unmatched by her rivals. She's dominated most of the debates. She's transformed her position on Iraq without a ripple. Her measured, statistic-filled speeches rarely inspire passion, but always confidence...

Clinton's performance will also have an effect on the Republican race, though many Republicans are only now beginning to realize it.

When you ask Republican presidential candidates about Clinton, a smile of professional respect comes over their faces.

But their world is transformed. The one thing Republicans had going for them was the head-to-heads. Bush, the war and the party could all be unpopular, but individual GOP candidates beat Clinton because her negatives were so high.

But she is changing that. People who've said they would never vote for her will take a second look once they see her campaign.

That means in 2008, Hillary won't save the GOP. An orthodox Republican will not beat an orthodox Democrat. If Republicans want to have any chance next year, they have to go for broke.

You can see hints of the bad environment at Republican campaign events. A city councilman in Franklin, N.H., introduced Mitt Romney by saying that America is looking for a leader "to take us out of the shadows." A questioner in New London asked how Romney will bring honesty back to the White House. A questioner at a McCain event in Keene charged, "We've had 16 years of draft dodgers in the White House!" These are Republicans talking about seven years of GOP rule.

Then there are the issues. Iraq will still be a shooting war in 2008. Health care is emerging as the biggest domestic concern. This is natural Democratic turf. So as I travel around watching the Republican candidates, I'm looking for signs that they're willing to try something unorthodox. Eighty percent of the time, what I see is the Dole campaign: Republican candidates uttering their normal principles -- small government, military strength, strong families -- and heading inexorably toward defeat.

But there are times when they break out of the conventional trench warfare and touch the anger and longing that define this historical moment.

One occurred at a McCain event Wednesday. In Washington, the McCain campaign is considered dead, but somebody seems to have forgotten to tell the people up here. A man at one packed event rose to vent his outrage at Washington, igniting something in McCain, who started talking about what he'd learned from the failure of immigration reform. McCain worked himself up, recounting one failure and disgrace after another, culminating finally with an angry bellow: "Nobody trusts us to do what we say we're going to do!" The crowd was with him all the way.

The other flash I saw was at a Romney event in Concord. Romney had slipped away from the policy chunks of his stump speech and was talking about his success in business and in running the Olympics. He was talking about how you assemble a team of people with complementary skills. How you use data and analysis to replace opinion. How you set benchmarks and how often you should perform self-evaluation.

It wasn't impassioned or angry (he doesn't do anger). But it was Romney losing himself in something he really cares about, and it opened up a vista of how government might operate.

The McCain and Romney flashes weren't about policy. They weren't part of the normal Republican vs. Democratic dynamic. They were about leadership, honor and intelligence. If Republicans are going to have a chance, it'll be because they reshape the battleground under everyone's feet.

So is he calling Hillary "an orthodox Democrat"?

It is hard to imagine that with all the electoral tides running in their favor, the Democrats would risk it all by nominating a novice for a wartime presidency.

Mr. Obama did not bring revolution to Springfield in his eight years in the Senate, the longest chapter in his short public life. But he turned out to be practical and shrewd, a politician capable of playing hardball to win election (he squeezed every opponent out of his first race), a legislator with a sharp eye for an opportunity, a strategist willing to compromise to accomplish things.

He positioned himself early on as a protégé of the powerful Democratic leader, Senator Emil Jones, a beneficiary of the Chicago political machine. He courted collaboration with Republicans. He endured hazing from a few black colleagues, played poker with lobbyists, studiously took up golf. ("An awful lot happens on the golf course," a friend, Jean Rudd, says he told her.)

By the time he left Springfield in 2004, he had built not only the connections necessary to win election to the United States Senate but a record not inconsistent with his lofty rhetoric of consensus building and bipartisanship.

You asked for it...
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Winning the support of women will be essential if Obama hopes to win his party's nomination early next year. And his wife keeps logging miles close to and far from home toward that goal.

He's got the steel, he's got the resolve, and he's got the ruthlessness -- I want him to display that more.

I love to read you guys talk about image instead of substance in your candidates. Says alot. Remember Kerry driving the boat into Boston and the lame salute? This is all very humorous, but sad as well.

I love to read you guys talk about image instead of substance in your candidates. Says alot. Remember Kerry driving the boat into Boston and the lame salute? This is all very humorous, but sad as well.

okie wrote:

I love to read you guys talk about image instead of substance in your candidates. Says alot. Remember Kerry driving the boat into Boston and the lame salute? This is all very humorous, but sad as well.

With that wannabe toughguy/cowboy/fighter pilot you call a president, you want to sneer about image? Well "bring 'em on!"

I love to read you guys talk about image instead of substance in your candidates.