Obama '08?

Odd how the accidental misplacement of one single letter has us now living in Oregon.

1) No, of course "a large number" "most".

2) I did not extrapolate anything; I was referring to the concrete large number of your fellow liberals/Democrats, even just here on this very board, who have expressed their doubts about Hillary as a person. Her personality, character, way of doing things, modus operandi, whatever you prefer to call the non-policy stuff.

By answering my question, "What if there are flaws of character to be considered?" with the dismissal that you dont think there are any and that "these dirty tricks will come soon enough from the Republicans, we don't have to help them out before they get started," you're effectively telling fellow-liberals who do think there are some, and do want to talk about them, that they're just "helping out" the Republicans and their dirty tricks.

You might not even be aware of the upshot of your argument - it's all well-intentioned I'm sure - but that's exactly backwards. Liberals should never self-censor their lively internal criticism out of fear of emboldening Karl Rove c.s. For the same reason that, as Blatham and you never tire to explain to our more blockheaded conservatives, America should never self-censor its lively internal criticism out of fear of emboldening the enemy abroad. Even if it includes calling Bush a boorish, shallow, narrow-minded ignorant with a messianic complex and a dangerously manichean world view.

This is what primaries are for: to weigh each and all candidates on their merits - primarily policy-wise, of course, but yes, also personality/character/whatever-wise. And that includes discussion of whether people are comfortable with their candidates as a person: is he honest, is she trustworthy, does he have the drive, does she have the scruples? I like Edwards' platform best, but does he have the personality to be able to actually push it through if he were elected? If I were a US voter, that would have to be a question I'd have to consider. And does he actually even mean what he says? I really think he does, but that too is a completely valid consideration.

Trying to already invoke party unity in face of the Republicans at this stage merely comes down to safeguarding the current frontrunner her future victory (possible buyer's remorse be damned).

A lot of left-leaning people, posters here included, have doubts about Hillary's sincerity, reliability, and scruples. That doesnt mean that they are just acting, effectively, as stooges for the Republicans and their dirty tricks -- it just means that they disagree.

my personal objection to Hillary is that she is far too conservative for my taste. As was Bill.

Well, there's that too..

Good night nimh, I didn't say all that. I don't think they're being stooges, and I would never agree to the use of the word "just" in your sentence above. I don't doubt their sincerity.

Our differences in view point on this may have to do with the fact that I have seen no basis for these doubts about Hillary's sincerity, reliability, and scruples. Since many say they have them, I would need a better one that the one about Spitzer. I saw the debate, I saw all the news coverage afterward.

Those people pretending not to understand what she said, including Edwards, Obama and Dodd were feigning surprise that she had "answered the question two ways in less than three minutes." Chris Matthews was stoking the fire in the most obvious way afterwards. I've seen news commentators do this several times in the past weeks. No matter who is the target, whether Republican or Democrat, whether I agree with the person or like him/her or not, I'm always angered by it. Just ask Bernie, I aways say so, and never with a soft voice.

Hillary was obviously qualifying her answer because it was a trick question. I understood her answer. Thomas understood her answer. Bernie understood her answer. I think even oakie admitted that he understood her answer too. Then Edwards took small sound bites from that answer and made a campaign ad that made her look like she wasn't answering a question or was "parsing." This was not only unfair, it was a lie.

As a matter of fact, Hillary could have done the same with Obama's and even Edward's answer to the same question in the next debate. But she didn't. This says to me that she has too much integrity to trump up demonstrations of his "inability to answer a straight yes or no question." If Hillary expresses a doubt about the other candidates, it's always about their abilities or lack thereof, I've never heard her accuse them of being dishonest. If my fellow liberals have doubts about Hillary's character, I would appreciate them telling me what, other than the Spitzer answer, those doubts are based upon. And I would appreciate an example that does not require a bent-over-backwards contortion in reasoning. I need to see some facts.

I don't mind if we talk about doubts about any candidate on a2k, or in other informal discussions. But I do think that if too much of that kind of gotcha behavior goes on within our own party it will not help us when the election campaign gets under way. So to repeat myself, it's not the discussion of doubts that I am objecting too, it's the trumped up outrage over nothing that I think is bad for our party.

Since there are many of my fellow liberals who agree with me, does that mean that your opinion demonstrates that you think they are stooges of Hillary's campaign? No, of course it doesn't. You've attributed some meanings to what I've said that are not there.



Why do you keep repeating this to me? Do you think I don't know it or don't agree? I must be misunderstanding you because it couldn't possibly as condescending as it sounds. Maybe we could go out and come back in again and start this conversation over and then we could both get off our high horses and have a respectful conversation.

And please never again accuse me of being well intentioned.

I know Dys, you're so far left, you've fallen over the edge. Pity. I'd be there with you if I thought it was make any difference.

Here's the criticism or worry that hits home with me. Along with the likely tendencies towards maintenance of a lot of existing power structures related to the corporate/financial world and military industries if she is that far right, though I'm not sure she is. There seems to be sincere appreciation of the role of government in leading and encouraging a communtarian ethos. I'm hoping that a combination of circumstance and an invigorated left and her own sense of community will demonstrate to her that her interests and the nation's interests will be best served if she moves to rebuild the necessary machinery and consensus for a return to New Deal policies and values. In fact, I think that if she (or any new dem president) doesn't move exactly this way, that the party will lose a huge and almost unprecedented opportunity to distinguish themselves from modern conservatism through positive and citizen-friendly policies.

I would never accuse you of being well intentioned or having any other endearing characteristics..... which is exactly why you and your boyfriend are among my very favorite people here. :wink:

Hillary's not only too conservative, but I don't trust her like I don't trust Rudy. For different reasons, ofcoarse!

The logic behind the candidacy of Barack Obama is not, in the end, about Barack Obama. It has little to do with his policy proposals, which are very close to his Democratic rivals' and which, with a few exceptions, exist firmly within the conventions of our politics. It has little to do with Obama's considerable skills as a conciliator, legislator, or even thinker. It has even less to do with his ideological pedigree or legal background or rhetorical skills. Yes, as the many profiles prove, he has considerable intelligence and not a little guile. But so do others, not least his formidably polished and practiced opponent Senator Hillary Clinton.

Obama, moreover, is no saint. He has flaws and tics: Often tired, sometimes crabby, intermittently solipsistic, he's a surprisingly uneven campaigner.
A soaring rhetorical flourish one day is undercut by a lackluster debate performance the next. He is certainly not without self-regard. He has more experience in public life than his opponents want to acknowledge, but he has not spent much time in Washington and has never run a business. His lean physique, close-cropped hair, and stick-out ears can give the impression of a slightly pushy undergraduate. You can see why many of his friends and admirers have urged him to wait his turn. He could be president in five or nine years' time?-why the rush?

But he knows, and privately acknowledges, that the fundamental point of his candidacy is that it is happening now. In politics, timing matters. And the most persuasive case for Obama has less to do with him than with the moment he is meeting. The moment has been a long time coming, and it is the result of a confluence of events, from one traumatizing war in Southeast Asia to another in the most fractious country in the Middle East. The legacy is a cultural climate that stultifies our politics and corrupts our discourse.
At its best, the Obama candidacy is about ending a war?-not so much the war in Iraq, which now has a mo­mentum that will propel the occupation into the next decade?-but the war within America that has prevailed since Vietnam and that shows dangerous signs of intensifying, a nonviolent civil war that has crippled America at the very time the world needs it most. It is a war about war?-and about culture and about religion and about race. And in that war, Obama?-and Obama alone?-offers the possibility of a truce.

Of the viable national candidates, only Obama and possibly McCain have the potential to bridge this widening partisan gulf. Polling reveals Obama to be the favored Democrat among Republicans. McCain's bipartisan appeal has receded in recent years, especially with his enthusiastic embrace of the latest phase of the Iraq War. And his personal history can only reinforce the Vietnam divide. But Obama's reach outside his own ranks remains striking. Why? It's a good question: How has a black, urban liberal gained far stronger support among Republicans than the made-over moderate Clinton or the southern charmer Edwards? Perhaps because the Republicans and independents who are open to an Obama candidacy see his primary advantage in prosecuting the war on Islamist terrorism. It isn't about his policies as such; it is about his person. They are prepared to set their own ideological preferences to one side in favor of what Obama offers America in a critical moment in our dealings with the rest of the world. The war today matters enormously. The war of the last generation? Not so much. If you are an American who yearns to finally get beyond the symbolic battles of the Boomer generation and face today's actual problems, Obama may be your man.

The act of picking the next president will be in some ways a statement of America's view of Iraq. Clinton is running as a centrist Democrat?-voting for war, accepting the need for an occupation at least through her first term, while attempting to do triage as practically as possible. Obama is running as the clearer antiwar candidate. At the same time, Obama's candidacy cannot fairly be cast as a McGovernite revival in tone or substance. He is not opposed to war as such. He is not opposed to the use of unilateral force, either?-as demonstrated by his willingness to target al-Qaeda in Pakistan over the objections of the Pakistani government. He does not oppose the idea of democratization in the Muslim world as a general principle or the concept of nation building as such. He is not an isolationist, as his support for the campaign in Afghanistan proves. It is worth recalling the key passages of the speech Obama gave in Chicago on October 2, 2002, five months before the war:

I don't oppose all wars. And I know that in this crowd today, there is no shortage of patriots, or of patriotism. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war … I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars.
If you believe that America's current crisis is not a deep one, if you think that pragmatism alone will be enough to navigate a world on the verge of even more religious warfare, if you believe that today's ideological polarization is not dangerous, and that what appears dark today is an illusion fostered by the lingering trauma of the Bush presidency, then the argument for Obama is not that strong. Clinton will do. And a Clinton-Giuliani race could be as invigorating as it is utterly predictable.

But if you sense, as I do, that greater danger lies ahead, and that our divisions and recent history have combined to make the American polity and constitutional order increasingly vulnerable, then the calculus of risk changes. Sometimes, when the world is changing rapidly, the greater risk is caution. Close-up in this election campaign, Obama is unlikely. From a distance, he is necessary. At a time when America's estrangement from the world risks tipping into dangerous imbalance, when a country at war with lethal enemies is also increasingly at war with itself, when humankind's spiritual yearnings veer between an excess of certainty and an inability to believe anything at all, and when sectarian and racial divides seem as intractable as ever, a man who is a bridge between these worlds may be indispensable.

We may in fact have finally found that bridge to the 21st century that Bill Clinton told us about. Its name is Obama.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200712/obama/4

We would like to meet you on the astral plane for a spiritual threesome.

And that's a hell of a nice argument for an Obama presidency. Thanks, ramafuchs.

I merely responded directly to where you wrote, quote,

"If there are [any flaws of character to be considered as you suggest], we should consider them in any candidate. However I haven't heard any valid example of character flaws in any of the democratic candidates so far. Manufactured character assassination is a dirty trick of the Republicans .. These dirty tricks will come soon enough from the Republicans, we don't have to help them out before they get started."

That was really pretty straightforward - a conflation of the character flaws other libs like me have suggested with the dirty tricks from the Republicans. So I responded that I thought such a conflation was wrong. You have since explained that that's not how you meant it, which is fine, but there shouldnt be any puzzlement about what I was responding to.


Maybe I'm repeating myself because pretty much every time someone here criticizes Hillary for her personal traits, strategies, modus operandi or whatever, either Blatham or, this last time, you seem to come out to sternly speak to us about how we should be wary of Republican character smears. It's that which is condescending, as has been said here several times before.

Bill wasn't for me but I think she is -- though that may have more to do with me than with her. At least where it comes to foreign affairs. She voted for that ridiculous resolution declaring a military wing of a foreign government a terrorist organization, and she appears to be a favored candidate of the military industrial complex, though I haven't been able to sort out the accuracy of those reports. I just have a really bad feeling that, as with Bush II, Clinton II will be different in unexpected ways from her dynastic forbearer.

I know she can win, and maybe that's the problem. I'm a bit cynical about our system to the point where I think that if someone CAN win then they're not worth having.

Time to change the presidential debate format


Butrflynet is right. Since the League of Women Voters were dumped from debate sponsorship and management, the debates have been tools for TV networks to make a pile of money.

The networks so-called "journalists" top priority are to make a name for themselves to earn higher salaries. Journalists are more interested in the presidential "horse race" than they are in useful information to voters. They concentrate on the top presidential money raisers instead of inclusion fairness to the so-called second-tier candidates. They do this because they are looking for opportunities to create conflict and wallops to increase their network's ratings, which financially benefits the networks.

The debates are useless and little better than one minute tV ads. Let's stop the sound-bite time restrictions and give candidates sufficient time to present their policies, which is what voters need. I prefer one hour or one-half hour interviews by fair moderators. Even 15 minute interviews would be better than the current debates model.

If we want to have debates of any value to voters, we must stop the network-sponsored-management by the networks. Let's put the League of Women Voters back in charge. PLEASE!

BBB

Glad you've read your Douglas Adams. I feel the same way.

Well, at least I'm in good company then. Of course, the logical next question is why do I bother participating then. And I don't have an answer for that one.

For East Coast folks, Obama will be at The Apollo in New York on the 29th and at the Park Plaza Castle in Boston on December 1st.

For the West Coast folks (Lola and Blatham, etc) he will be at the Showbox SoDo in Seattle on December 11th.


If anyone wants details, you can find them on his campaign website or send me a PM and I'll send them to you.

"And then, Obama went out of his way to belittle Clinton's experience as first lady.

"I think the fact of the matter is that Sen. Clinton is claiming basically the entire eight years of the Clinton presidency as her own, except for the stuff that didn't work out, in which case she says she has nothing to do with it," Obama said, and added, referring to his relationship with his wife, Michelle, "There is no doubt that Bill Clinton had faith in her and consulted with her on issues, in the same way that I would consult with Michelle, if there were issues," Obama said. "On the other had, I don't think Michelle would claim that she is the best qualified person to be a United States Senator by virtue of me talking to her on occasion about the work I've done."

With this line of attack, Obama is openly calling Clinton out on one of the basic arguments of her candidacy and her career -- that her experience at Bill Clinton's side in the White House and before, make her the most qualified person in the race. "

http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=3913284

Because partisanship and Monday-morning quarterbacking are fun! For example, when you cut through Sozobe's talk about being inspired by Obama and stuff, methinks you will find that she supports him for reasons similar to the ones that make her support the Packers. I also think that most of us work that way.