Obama '08?

And do it in a monotone, robotic voice if you can. That will help.

Politics, for some of us, is an exciting experience. Why shouldn't it be for anybody?

But it's not lack of excitement what we're -or at least I am- talking about, but clarity of the path.

If everything in the rivals is wrong, and everything of our candidate is perfect, perspective is lost, and we move into the realms of propaganda.

Propaganda works from the power-full to the power-less. Not the other way around.

If a political movement is to really change things up, it certainly has to create some kind of "love affair" among its followers. A special kind of excitement and kinship. If you want to name it "church-like", be my guest. But it should be critical inside, specially if we are working to strenghthen a democracy. If it isn't, then we depend on charisma.
Charisma, a dangerous word.

In a democracy, a political movement has to achieve majorities in order to prosper. This means not only commitment to the cause, but also eyes wide open so the cause can achieve its goal. If the feeling "us vs. them" extends, the result could be dissapointing.

The entire point of Obama's campaign is that this isn't true; that Republicans are not wrong all the time, that Hillary Clinton isn't wrong.

Cycloptichorn

I understand that, fbaezer, and I know what you're talking about. That's not really what I'm poking fun at, though (I posted before I saw your response to george). I don't think most people on this thread think that Obama can do no wrong, and I'm sure the same can be said for Clinton's supporters with regard to her. But a certain defensiveness of one's candidate is to be expected and shouldn't be mistaken for its more destructive cousin.

On that, I gotta agree FreeDuck.

The other point to make is that we're advocating for our candidate here, not offering campaign advisories.

Internally, there is plenty of criticism going around for some of the boneheaded things the Obama campaign and supporters do.

When you go out on sales calls seeking advertisers for your paper, do you bring along a presentation of all the typos, letters of complaint and and corrections your paper makes or do you talk enthusiastically about your paper's award-winning achievements and the readership statistics?

Yeah, granted. But, who the hell here has said or suggested that?

I don't think he's saying that anyone here is saying it -- just that it's dangerous when these things take on a life of their own and the hype gets out of control.

I'm just one of those that likes to celebrate one win a time for Obama. HURRAY!

I disagree. That is exactly what has been said when the A2K Obama supporters are described as cultists and kool-aid drinkers who freak out anytime Obama is criticized.

Obama won WIS

I know. I just don't think that's what fbaezer is saying. But I'll let him speak for himself.

What is Hillary trying to say? As if Hillary doesn't use "words" to win votes.


Clinton says Obama relies on 'words' 16 minutes ago



YOUNGSTOWN, OHIO - Hillary Rodham Clinton is pressing her case that Democratic rival Barack Obama offers little more than words. She spoke to a Youngstown, Ohio, rally on Tuesday night after Obama defeated her in the Wisconsin primary.

Hillary doesn't know what she's trying to say. Something along the lines of boo-hoo-hoo.

Yeeeeeeehaaaaaaaa!
(I don't know how to change color and font size)

I think part of the problem with the perception here is that there are more than a few vocal Obama supporters and any time something negative or critical is said about the Obama campaign, we all want to respond to it with our own defense of it. After awhile it looks like an orchestrated pile-on effort of a bunch of political flies.

Not sure how to overcome that other than to read all the replies first before responding to anything in case someone else has already posted what we were going to say, and take turns responding to things.

I'm not sorry that I'm excited. Why should I be?

Cycloptichorn

Followed by a silent scream...

Obama has a lot of work to do for March 4th and a large amount of territory to cover while doing it.

I hope things calm down a bit in tornado alley. We're having a week's worth of rain here in California that will be heading that way.

So, what does the Obama campaign need to do to finish big on March 4th? More of the same or something different?

I'm thinking that he needs to get back to doing his town hall meetings and discussing his plans and policies and answering questions from grassroots citizens rather than with media reporters.

I also think he needs to cut back on the constant barage of fundraising/donation requests of his supporters. I am so sick of receiving numerous emails and snail mails asking me to donate. What makes it worse is getting them an hour after you've already donated and received a thank you letter for doing so... that's a real put-off.

His supporters need to wise up when being interviewed by the media about him. If you're asked why you support Obama, don't just say "because he makes me feel good." That's the only thing that will be used in the story.

They also need to start focusing efforts on getting local people in the states that have already voted to announce their candidacy for national convention delegates. They can't leave it to chance. They need to tell people how to get themselves nominated and elected and get the local groups to help them collect the needed signatures.

Speaking of boneheaded goofs, I hear MSNBC's Matthews just made mince meat of one of Obama's surrogates by asking him to name one of Obama's legislative accomplishments and the poor guy flubbed it up and didn't say a thing.

On a side note...the HRC supporter was also lacking in "specifics"....but Matthews didn't pick up on that...

For anyone looking for a list, here's a website with a list of every bill sponsored and co-sponsored by Obama and the latest action on that Bill. There are hundreds of them. There are links to the text of each bill too.

http://www.statesurge.com/members/923


and here is Hillary's list:

http://www.statesurge.com/members/908