Obama '08?

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/01/rasmussen_obama_37_hillary_27.html

Rassmussen sez that Obama gets big bounce from IA moving into NH.

He's going to win there, and Hillary is going to be on the ropes a little. I think that those who are waiting for Super Tuesday don't understand how malleable people's opinions are in these later states. The vast majority of those voters are quite used to the contest being well decided by the time they go to vote; whoever wins the first couple of states has a massive advantage.

Cycloptichorn

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Luntz Focus group in NH doesn't buy Hillary's attempts to co-opt the 'change' message.

http://cayankee.blogs.com/cayankee/2008/01/hillary-loses-a.html

Actually, I think that Hillary is being really stupid with this tack. Really dumb.

The focus group also brought up a good point that she runs on her husband's record, as if it was her own. Her own record of accomplishment is somewhere around Obama's in depth.

Cycloptichorn

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Clinton Campaign Falsifies Obama Abortion Record link

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

Luntz Focus group in NH doesn't buy Hillary's attempts to co-opt the 'change' message.

http://cayankee.blogs.com/cayankee/2008/01/hillary-loses-a.html

Actually, I think that Hillary is being really stupid with this tack. Really dumb.

The focus group also brought up a good point that she runs on her husband's record, as if it was her own. Her own record of accomplishment is somewhere around Obama's in depth.

Cycloptichorn

That's what irritates me most about Hillary; trying to say her time in the White House was "experience." That's almost similar to saying that Bill Gates' wife has experience at Microsoft.

My wife plans on voting for Hillary.

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Not only does she claim the white house years as political "experience", but all the years she has been the spouse of someone holding, or pursuing a public office.

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A commenter on TNR I rarely agree with had an (in my view) enlightened moment:

Quote:

teplukhin2you said:

.. Increasingly I think of Obama as being similar, in terms of the popular perception and his political positioning, to Ronald Reagan in late summer/early autumn of 1980. A largely unknown quantity into which people from across the spectrum poured all kinds of hopes ..

This is not a "change" election any more than 1980 was. We are an utterly exhausted nation entering a recession, nervous about foreign economic rivals, fighting two wars that are both going badly as the world spins out of control. People want someone who seems to be able to turn things around, which means, in best American fashion, they want a new and sunny face, a happy warrior who speaks about "hope" and optimistic mush, preferably in preacher-like cadences.

I've no idea what Obama stands for either, but he knows the script that Americans want him to read from, and he's a good reader. Maybe he's just more cunning than the rest of us. For our sake I certainly hope so.

January 4, 2008 7:58 PM

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Anyone who says they don't "have any idea what Obama stands for" at this point doesn't want to know.

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sozobe wrote:

I posted this a while back, but I posted a TON of stuff at the same time so I'm not surprised if it got lost... it's not my whole answer to the above but it's a lot of it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/03/AR2008010303303.html

Quote:
[..] Since most of Obama's legislation was enacted in Illinois, most of the evidence is found there -- and it has been largely ignored by the media in a kind of Washington snobbery that assumes state legislatures are not to be taken seriously. [..]

There is another, more obvious reason why the pundits have not bought into the argument that Obama's achievements as state legislator in Illinois credibly illustrate how he'd be able to get things done in Washington. Especially when it comes to persuading Republicans to work with him.

Well, two reasons.

The first major reason why the "he did it in Illinois!" argument is, in my view, rightly ignored that Illinois is hardly a representative state for the US. One day it was a swing state, yes, twenty, thirty years ago. But nowaways it is one of the more solidly Democratic-minded states in the country.

On state level, where one votes more in pragmatic grounds, Republicans still stand a chance, but in presidential elections the ideological colour of the state relative to the rest of the US stands out clear enough. It hasnt voted for a Republican since 1988. In the 2004 race between Bush and Kerry, it ranked as the 7th most pro-Kerry state in the country!
The other reason is that Republican legislators on a state level, a large and ideologized state like Texas excepted, are incomparable with their peers in Congress.

Two factors in that are that they generally are much more pragmatic and less ideoligized, and that old traditions of bipartisanism have persisted far more on state level; but I dont know how either of those things work out specifically in Illinois. A more important third factor is that the Republicans in Congress are simply much more indebted and invested in a Republican power machine that's far more about real positions of financial and political power than about mere political orientation. They are much less free agents; there is enormous pressure on them to safeguard the political and economic interests of people that have a LOT hanging on it.

And that's just talking Congressmen; let alone talking, say, health insurance companies who have billions of dollars hanging on maintaining the status quo.

To think that reaching out to national Republicans, beyond the dozen or so usual dissenting suspects, can be done the same way as reaching out to Illinois Republicans - that experience and success in doing the latter is in any way proof of the possibility to do the former - to me seems just incredibly naive. Let alone when you're thinking that you can deal with the insurance companies the same way you'd deal with local business interests.

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Good point, nimh; can't compare state and federal governments.

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cicerone imposter wrote:

My wife plans on voting for Hillary.[/color]

I'd be drawing up divorce papers.

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snood wrote:

Anyone who says they don't "have any idea what Obama stands for" at this point doesn't want to know.

Well, I think I roughly know what he stands for. But different people sure seem to think he stands for very different things - what I call the Rohrschach quality of his candidacy.

For example, to O'Bill, Obama apparently stands for "those of us in the middle"; is someone who's not in thrall to "the far Left". Now I know you dont think much of Bill right now, but he's hardly the only one here who seem to perceive Obama as a centre-ground kind of moderate.

But to you, he is apparently someone who will not "play the center", he is "NOT another mealy-mouthed 'moderate'", but someone who will represent "the progressive wing of the party".

O'Bill commendably tried to square that circle earlier on (which I forgot to reply to, sorry Bill). But considering this range of perceptions of what Obama does stand for, I do understand Teplukhin's confusion...

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I'll grant the existence of a kind of "7 blind men and the elephant" phenomenon that can go on when people look at things, including political candidates. It has nothing to do with predisposition, but only perspective.

I'm sure you'll grant the existence, on the other hand, of a kind of predisposition that persuasion from any perspective cannot touch.

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"Predisposition" has to do with almost everything we do in life that's political and religious.

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snood wrote-

Quote:

I'm sure you'll grant the existence, on the other hand, of a kind of predisposition that persuasion from any perspective cannot touch.

I won't. Such a sentiment is a mere affectation.

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blatham wrote:

OK. The morphing smears on Obama

The first from Reza Aslan at the Wash Post... http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5286

The second from neocon warmonger Daniel Pipes... http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5286

Hi Blatham,

I think it was this article you wanted to link in?

[b][url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/28/AR2007122801899_pf.html]He Could Care Less About Obama's Story[/url][/b] By Reza Aslan Sunday, December 30, 2007 My question: how is this article a "smear"? It seems like a legitimate take to me.. what do you see as its insidiousness?

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snood wrote:

I'll grant the existence of a kind of "7 blind men and the elephant" phenomenon that can go on when people look at things, including political candidates.

Do you see what I mean when I say there seems to be more of that going on with Obama than with Hillary or, say, Richardson or Giuliani or Huckabee or McCain?

(I'm not listing Edwards because he's got some of that going on as well - combative progressive campaign juxtaposed with lingering support from '04 among conservative Democrats. But I dont think there's anything like the varying interpretations/notions of what Obama stands for about him among those who follow politics closely enough).

Or would you disagree?

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I don't know.

I can't understand what it means.

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nimh wrote:

snood wrote:
I'll grant the existence of a kind of "7 blind men and the elephant" phenomenon that can go on when people look at things, including political candidates.

Do you see what I mean when I say there seems to be more of that going on with Obama than with Hillary or, say, Richardson or Giuliani or Huckabee or McCain?

(I'm not listing Edwards because he's got some of that going on as well - combative progressive campaign juxtaposed with lingering support from '04 among conservative Democrats. But I dont think there's anything like the varying interpretations/notions of what Obama stands for about him among those who follow politics closely enough).

Or would you disagree?

You seem to be asking if there is more 'creative interpretation' going on when people look at Obama, than when they look at the others. Dunno. Could be. Hell, some people still think all black people look alike, as far as I know... Laughing

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Personally, I think that people of many different stripes like him for reasons which are difficult to put into words, and then find the adjectives that fit their worldview the best. Nobody likes to like someone who they feel deeply disagrees with their policy positions; when you spend as much time looking at politics as we do, character and personality aren't supposed to be as important to you as policy and leadership.

But they are.

I agree with Snood, however, that Obama has been pretty straight-forward about what policies he supports. How can you say 'I don't know what he stands for.' unless you just haven't bothered to listen to anything he says at all?

I also think that there is a certain point to be made that Obama's optimism in the face of difficult problems is a selling point for many. He gets complaints that the insurance industry, or Congressional Republicans, aren't just going to roll over and play nice; and that's fair enough to say. But the one thing that has always made people play nice after enough application is public pressure. If Obama can leverage that, he can get what he wants.

Reagan comparisons are apt (though he is far younger!) and I think you will see him win in grand fashion.

Cycloptichorn

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snood wrote:

You seem to be asking if there is more 'creative interpretation' going on when people look at Obama, than when they look at the others.

Yeah, something like that...

And although I know Obama's put out a sleigh of concrete proposals too, I do think his - discourse, for lack of a better word - and his political strategies, play into that, or partly lie at the root of it...

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