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The Candidate We Still Don't Know
AS I went on vacation at the end of July, Barack Obama was leading John McCain by three to four percentage points in national polls. When I returned last week he still was. But lo and behold, a whole new plot twist had rolled off the bloviation assembly line in those intervening two weeks: Obama had lost the election!
The poor guy should be winning in a landslide against the despised party of Bush-Cheney, and he's not. He should be passing the 50 percent mark in polls, and he's not. He's been done in by that ad with Britney and Paris and by a new international crisis that allows McCain to again flex his Manchurian Candidate military cred. Let the neocons identify a new battleground for igniting World War III, whether Baghdad or Tehran or Moscow, and McCain gets with the program as if Angela Lansbury has just dealt him the Queen of Hearts.
Obama has also been defeated by racism (again). He can't connect and "close the deal" with ordinary Americans too doltish to comprehend a multicultural biography that includes what Cokie Roberts of ABC News has damned as the "foreign, exotic place" of Hawaii. As The Economist sums up the received wisdom, "lunch-pail Ohio Democrats" find Obama's ideas of change "airy-fairy" and are all asking, "Who on earth is this guy?"
It seems almost churlish to look at some actual facts. No presidential candidate was breaking the 50 percent mark in mid-August polls in 2004 or 2000. Obama's average lead of three to four points is marginally larger than both John Kerry's and Al Gore's leads then (each was winning by one point in Gallup surveys). Obama is also ahead of Ronald Reagan in mid-August 1980 (40 percent to Jimmy Carter's 46). At Pollster.com, which aggregates polls and gauges the electoral count, Obama as of Friday stood at 284 electoral votes, McCain at 169. That means McCain could win all 85 electoral votes in current toss-up states and still lose the election.
Yet surely, we keep hearing, Obama should be running away with the thing. Even Michael Dukakis was beating the first George Bush by 17 percentage points in the summer of 1988. Of course, were Obama ahead by 17 points today, the same prognosticators now fussing over his narrow lead would be predicting that the arrogant and presumptuous Obama was destined to squander that landslide on vacation and tank just like his hapless predecessor.
The truth is we have no idea what will happen in November. But for the sake of argument, let's posit that one thread of the Obama-is-doomed scenario is right: His lead should be huge in a year when the G.O.P. is in such disrepute that at least eight of the party's own senatorial incumbents are skipping their own convention, the fail-safe way to avoid being caught near the Larry Craig Memorial Men's Room at the Twin Cities airport.
So why isn't Obama romping? The obvious answer - and both the excessively genteel Obama campaign and a too-compliant press bear responsibility for it - is that the public doesn't know who on earth John McCain is. The most revealing poll this month by far is the Pew Research Center survey finding that 48 percent of Americans feel they're "hearing too much" about Obama. Pew found that only 26 percent feel that way about McCain, and that nearly 4 in 10 Americans feel they hear too little about him. It's past time for that pressing educational need to be met.
What is widely known is the skin-deep, out-of-date McCain image. As this fairy tale has it, the hero who survived the Hanoi Hilton has stood up as rebelliously in Washington as he did to his Vietnamese captors. He strenuously opposed the execution of the Iraq war; he slammed the president's response to Katrina; he fought the "agents of intolerance" of the religious right; he crusaded against the G.O.P. House leader Tom DeLay, the criminal lobbyist Jack Abramoff and their coterie of influence-peddlers.
With the exception of McCain's imprisonment in Vietnam, every aspect of this profile in courage is inaccurate or defunct.
McCain never called for Donald Rumsfeld to be fired and didn't start criticizing the war plan until late August 2003, nearly four months after "Mission Accomplished." By then the growing insurgency was undeniable. On the day Hurricane Katrina hit, McCain laughed it up with the oblivious president at a birthday photo-op in Arizona. McCain didn't get to New Orleans for another six months and didn't sharply express public criticism of the Bush response to the calamity until this April, when he traveled to the Gulf Coast in desperate search of election-year pageantry surrounding him with black extras.
McCain long ago embraced the right's agents of intolerance, even spending months courting the Rev. John Hagee, whose fringe views about Roman Catholics and the Holocaust were known to anyone who can use the Internet. (Once the McCain campaign discovered YouTube, it ditched Hagee.) On Monday McCain is scheduled to appear at an Atlanta fund-raiser being promoted by Ralph Reed, who is not only the former aide de camp to one of the agents of intolerance McCain once vilified (Pat Robertson) but is also the former Abramoff acolyte showcased in McCain's own Senate investigation of Indian casino lobbying.
Though the McCain campaign announced a new no-lobbyists policy three months after The Washington Post's February report that lobbyists were "essentially running" the whole operation, the fact remains that McCain's top officials and fund-raisers have past financial ties to nearly every domestic and foreign flashpoint, from Fannie Mae to Blackwater to Ahmad Chalabi to the government of Georgia. No sooner does McCain flip-flop on oil drilling than a bevy of Hess Oil family members and executives, not to mention a lowly Hess office manager and his wife, each give a maximum $28,500 to the Republican Party.
While reporters at The Post and The New York Times have been vetting McCain, many others give him a free pass. Their default cliché is to present him as the Old Faithful everyone already knows. They routinely salute his "independence," his "maverick image" and his "renegade reputation" - as the hackneyed script was reiterated by Karl Rove in a Wall Street Journal op-ed column last week. At Talking Points Memo, the essential blog vigilantly pursuing the McCain revelations often ignored elsewhere, Josh Marshall accurately observes that the Republican candidate is "graded on a curve."
Most Americans still don't know, as Marshall writes, that on the campaign trail "McCain frequently forgets key elements of policies, gets countries' names wrong, forgets things he's said only hours or days before and is frequently just confused." Most Americans still don't know it is precisely for this reason that the McCain campaign has now shut down the press's previously unfettered access to the candidate on the Straight Talk Express.
To appreciate the discrepancy in what we know about McCain and Obama, merely look at the coverage of the potential first ladies. We have heard too much indeed about Michelle Obama's Princeton thesis, her pay raises at the University of Chicago hospital, her statement about being "proud" of her country and the false rumor of a video of her ranting about "whitey." But we still haven't been inside Cindy McCain's tax returns, all her multiple homes or private plane. The Los Angeles Times reported in June that Hensley & Company, the enormous beer distributorship she controls, "lobbies regulatory agencies on alcohol issues that involve public health and safety," in opposition to groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving. The McCain campaign told The Times that Mrs. McCain's future role in her beer empire won't be revealed before the election.
Some of those who know McCain best - Republicans - are tougher on him than the press is. Rita Hauser, who was a Bush financial chairwoman in New York in 2000 and served on the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board in the administration's first term, joined other players in the G.O.P. establishment in forming Republicans for Obama last week. Why? The leadership qualities she admires in Obama - temperament, sustained judgment, the ability to play well with others - are missing in McCain. "He doesn't listen carefully to people and make reasoned judgments," Hauser told me. "If John says ‘I'm going with so and so,' you can't count on that the next morning," she complained, adding, "That's not the man we want for president."
McCain has even prompted alarms from the right's own favorite hit man du jour: Jerome Corsi, who Swift-boated John Kerry as co-author of "Unfit to Command" in 2004 and who is trying to do the same to Obama in his newly minted best seller, "The Obama Nation."
Corsi's writings have been repeatedly promoted by Sean Hannity on Fox News; Corsi's publisher, Mary Matalin, has praised her author's "scholarship." If Republican warriors like Hannity and Matalin think so highly of Corsi's research into Obama, then perhaps we should take seriously Corsi's scholarship about McCain. In recent articles at worldnetdaily.com, Corsi has claimed (among other charges) that the McCain campaign received "strong" financial support from a "group tied to Al Qaeda" and that "McCain's personal fortune traces back to organized crime in Arizona."
As everyone says, polls are meaningless in the summers of election years. Especially this year, when there's one candidate whose real story has yet to be fully told.
Frank Rich is a columnist for The New York Times.
© 2008 The New York Times
74 Comments so far
Show AllObama needs to hit back with the evidence that the Republicans(captured by the extreme Right Wing faction of that party)have with malice deliberately looted the U.S. Treasury to line their own pockets and launched a perpetual war for the purpose of retaining permanent power and control of the American people. Get it?!!
Hmmm, if the two parties are the same, and there's no difference between McCain and Obama, then why does the corporate media favor McCain? Why are they out to destroy Obama?
I wonder.
"AS I went on vacation at the end of July, Barack Obama was leading John McCain by three to four percentage points in national polls. When I returned last week he still was."
From what I've read Obama and McCain are tied in at least one poll. And Obama's own actions cannot be completely disregarded when considering his demise.
His vote on the FISA bill. His backtracking on his stand on Iraq. His wanting to expand the military and the war in Afghanistan to name just a few.
Lobo Gris
McCain is indeed unknown and is indeed a babbling idiot at times. He sold his soul on the torture vote thereby taking the shine off of his years as a POW. He contradicts himself so many times it's frightening that he is taken seriously as a candidate. But then again Bush was taken seriously and to some, like Brittany Spears he is still the one we should listen to and abide by. If the media fails us (in pointing out McCain's foibles) we may once again be doomed to years of ignorance and war. John McCain is not the man to lead America.
Yaayyy, change!!!
We also haven't heard much about Cindy McCain's past addiction to prescription drugs that she fraudulently procurred using money absconded from her own charity. Imagine if Michelle Obama had done this. Would FOX ever let us hear the end of it. And where is Rush (Oxycontin) Limbaugh? He hasn't had much to say about this either.
Obama wrote his own books. McCain's was written by Mark Salter.
Well, Obama is loaded with flaws, but during that "mock debate" with Obama and McCain this week, when McCain was asked which three people he respected the most and would seek their advice, McCain immediately replied and said, ___"General Petraius"___ was his number one choice. That should most certainly be the best and only needed reason to never ever consider voting for McCain. Of course there are a zillion other good reasons.
I think a major potential problem for Obama is that after having fored up his base with populist and progressive rhetoric during the primary, now that he has flipped so solidly to the center-right, those people who saught him out fo his populist and priogressive message will no stay away in November, or, vote elsehwere, for actual progressive and populist candiates. *hint hint*
"He's been done in by that ad with Britney and Paris and by a new international crisis that allows McCain to again flex his Manchurian Candidate military cred."
"Obama has also been defeated by racism (again)."
__________________
Don't get suckered by Frank Rich's horse-race jive talk.
Obama hasn't been done in. He did himself in by abandoning his Democratic base on the important issues. Polls show both Obama and McCain now totally out-of-touch with the voters on the issues voters care about.
Frank Rich should be condemning Obama's warmongering and sell-out to AIPAC and the MIC. But Frank is always careful never to advocate serious change of our corrupt, murderous political system. Instead he cynically, although artfully, toes the official DNC line.
Frank Rich's hollow, deceitful analysis is part of the problem, not the solution.
Obama since being nominated has...
Refused to vote against immunity for the telecom industry (FISA)
Agreed to offshore drilling
Reversed his stand on NAFTA
Agreed to the death penalty
Is against late term abortion for the emotional distress of the mother. Most late term abortions are when a fetus is already dead, has no brain, or is seriously malformed and will not live outside the womb. I know that would distress me.
Has reversed on seating delegates of Michigan and Florida.
Refused Public Financing
Has told Democrats who have disagreed with him to skip the convention.
What else do you need to know???
If you google any of this you will see it is fact.
Incidently I will not vote for McCain. Since I am from a state that will go Democratic I have the unique position of my vote not reallly counting so I am voting GREEN.
Giving his speech on the 48th anniversary of the MLK I have a dream speech is very ironic, since they are caging protestors far enough from the convention so they are not a disruptive force. Since I was one of the ones who marched for civil rights in the 60's I have to point out that Senator Obama would not be a Senator from Illinois if we had not been permitted to conduct peaceful protest.
If you like what Nancy Pelosi has done for the hous you are going to love Obama.
"Obama has also been defeated by racism (again). He can't connect and "close the deal" with ordinary Americans too doltish to comprehend a multicultural biography that includes what Cokie Roberts of ABC News has damned as the "foreign, exotic place" of Hawaii."
Pat Buchanan was the first to employ the euphemism "exotic" as a high falutin' substitute for the N word. Go through your thesaurus or dictionary for the myriad others waiting their turn to steamroll Obama into the ground. AMERICANS WILL NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, MAKE A BLACK MAN PRESIDENT. McCain will win the election - rigged or not - and Uncle Sam, the serial killer, will continue his rampage until our inevitable economic collapse finally puts a stop to it.
John McCain voluntarily traveled to the other side of the world to invade a country that had never done anything to America except seek it's help. On October 26, 1967, McCain, an enemy combatant in an undeclared war, was personally dropping bombs on that nation for the 23rd time when his plane was shot down directly over the city of Hanoi. That's how he became a North Vietnamese prisoner.
No Vietnamese had ever committed any act of violence on U.S. soil, or, until Americans invaded their country, against any American. Yet the United States rained death and destruction from bullets, bombs and chemical agents on that small impoverished nation for 10 years. Had Criminal McCain been an enemy of the US and done such things, he would have been like one of the many prisoners sodomized and tortured to death at Abu Ghraib and other rendition sites. To deny the unrepentant McCain the well deserved label of terrorist, and war criminal would require whole new definitions for the words.
RichM deftly summarizes the differences between Obama and McCain. There are stylistic nuances to Obama, while McCain only embodies the typical one-dimensionality of your standard Republican. But both are imperialists and dedicated militarists, so the current US trajectory, straight into history's toilet, will be pretty much the same under either of them. At least under Obama we can say we're self-destructing under "intelligent" leadership.
wrensis:
"[Obama]Has told Democrats who have disagreed with him to skip the convention."
I'll go the good Senator one better--I have left the Democratic Party altogether.
This article really bugs me - yet another cd article about the horse race/pro-Obama b.s. Where are the articles about Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney? About other progressives running for Senate, House, Governor, etc.? About how we can start to pull together (if we can, and that is a big "IF") to turn things around??
The horrific mess Bush has created during his two terms is so bad, that I personally do not see how any new president could ever hope to get it straightened out, be it Obama, Nader, McCain, Hillary, Paul, whomever.
The United States is teetering on the edge of a depression, the Iraq war and occupation is breaking the bank, it already has in fact. The costs of everything has gone sky high, our infastructures across the country are in dire need of replacement and repairs and there isno money for that. all of the viable candidates support nuclear or coal fired power in some form or other and our atmosphere is in very serious trouble.
The illegal immigtration sitation is totally out of control, our borders and shipping ports are not secure, our army an dnational guards units are broken, according to many credible militay generals. We now import 40 to 50% of our food and we don't manufacture much of anything except military hardware and ammunition anymore. The American auto industry is about ready for the history books.
The housing industy is in a shambles, our banks, many small and large are in serious trouble, the airlines are all about ready for bankruptsy with extra charges for any and everything from a glass of water to a surcharge for an emergency landing and use of the emergency exit slides. Our schools and court systems are now a damn joke and a new president is going to cure anything? ___ I don't see it.
P/S, not sure about the emergency landing surcharge. The rest is posted here in depressing articles everyday. My wife's cat is going to die soon though, there is hope.
Obama and McCain, two sides of the same coin of corporatism. Cannot believe that the folks here on CD seem to have fallen right into the trap and are doing their best to support Obama, who is NOT a progressive at all. He's just young and savvy at use of the internet to gather the youth base. We are screwed whichever candidate is allowed to "win" the election in November. Both candidates intend to continue our occupation of both Iraq and Afghanistan and will certainly not remove our 600/700 military bases from countries across the globe. Go McKinney.
The John McCain... we do not know.
The fact is that the discussion of John McCain, needs to take on the light of his psychological make up. He is suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome... from being tortured as a prisoner of war... and The Stockholm Effect. This can be seen in his acid temper and verbal attacks he makes on those close to him( PTSS ) and through his overly friendly nature to those in opposition and potentially dominant over him (TSE).He abuses those he feels dominant over and appeases those whom he fears being dominated by. This is the John McCain we need to know... and who can guess where the switch is and how it is flipped... at 3:00AM wake up calls...
For those of you who missed it, Tom Friedman's recent op-ed exposed McCain's phony-balony alternative energy views. While a recent mcCain ad showed wind turbines spinning, in actuality McCain has missed all 8 votes this year to extend the tax incentive program for wind and solar. One time he was even in his Senate office apparently hiding. He's in the pocket of big oil and coal; just what we need.
"This article really bugs me - yet another cd article about the horse race/pro-Obama b.s. Where are the articles about Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney? About other progressives running for Senate, House, Governor, etc.? About how we can start to pull together (if we can, and that is a big "IF") to turn things around??"
Rich Griffin,
I keep hammering on that and get attacked by party hacks such as Daniel FUCKING David and the likes. You see, most of the so-called "progressive" blogosphere doesn't give a shit about true progressives who don't have a D next to their name. Even for the ones, that just happen to be running as Democrats, they're SOLed all the while corporate/socialconservative phonies are heavily funded. They're no different from so-called "conservatives" who are anything but conservative given that they failed on their so-called social "reforms" on god, abortion, gays, etc ... Both sides talk one thing but walk corporate when push comes to shove.
Let me rewrite this section of Rich's column:
Most Americans still don't know, as Marshall writes, that on the campaign trail "McCain frequently forgets key elements of policies, gets countries' names wrong, forgets things he's said only hours or days before and is frequently just confused."
....
Most Americans frequently forget key elements of policies, get countries' names wrong, forget things they have said only hours or days before and are frequently just confused. That's why so many people identify with McCain. He's one of them. Most importantly, he's white and male, essential elements for leadership of "real" America. Negroes, most Hispanics, liberals (all tenured professors and rich Hollywood stars with limousines), pacifists, Unitarians, feminists, non-Pentagon/CIA/FBI/Coast Guard bureaucrats, and non-Republican college students aren't REAL Americans. Did I forget anyone?
madcow August 17th, 2008 11:53 am
==========================
The answer is: the corporate (media) would prefer that the Reps win. But the Dems will do just fine as a second choice. For them it is really win-win situation. And for the rest of it is, you know what....
Vote anybody but the two parties...
Dear Frank Rich @ New YOrk Times,
***YOu could have printed the very last sentence then ommitted all the garbage above--...summertime polls are meaningless.....and what more do we need to know about John McBush ????
****LOOK, after the last 8 years, any American who votes for any candidate with an "R" after their name is truly a sick American==are we masochists who want another 4 long, long years of pain and political corruption?? Do we want another madman sitting up there with his Neocon finger on the big red button===while all we can do is hold our breaths and listen to McCain sing another chorus of 'BOMBIRAN==BOMBIRAN==BOMBIRAN' !!! C'Mon
****We, the Public are not dumb==who do you New YOrkers think gives King George a 20% approval, and the US Senate and Congress a 9% approval rating, curently and for the past two years at least !! HOW can you put any faith in a poll then that would pretend to show John McCain ahead of Senator Obama in any proportion ???? How can you even stretch our collective imaginations to grasp that Paris and Brittany had that affect ?
****Certainly, O'bamas actions are clearly betraying the inspiring speeches he gives so well==his vote FOR FISA crimes and wiretapping; his speech before the right wing radical Zionist cabal called AIPAC; his public renouncing of a great TV speech by 4-star General Wesley Clark supporting Obama's campaign; his flip flop on possible oil drilling off the coast of Florida; his massive time concessions to the Clintonistas in Convention air time! all these purveying the SAME politics as usual and NO CHANGE AS PROMISED !! No Hope, NO Change, No Belief Just the Audacity of Sameness from the Culture of CORRUPTION.
****wHAT IS mOREOVER, BOTH Mc Cain and Obama must share that 9% Congressional approval rating Nationwide, but the record GLARES OUT that MCCain voted FOR the War and Obama voted AGAINST the War==and both still do !!!
D'ont think we need to know any more about John McCain, period !! JUst ask the Beachboys !!!
o'bama?
he's irish too?!?
Madcow - Besides every point that RichM made (above), also you have to be aware of the psychological manipulation the corporate two-parties use to keep the powerful in power/control.... forever. When Obama is criticized by flaming right wingers as being a way out liberal, it causes liberal voters to be protective and even more supportive of him. What the two parties do best is keep the myth going that Democrats are more liberal, they're the party of the people, right? In reality, their most important job is to keep voters from discovering the real anti-war candidates, the real progressive candidates. They use this manipulation to distract voters from the actual record and positions of Obama, who is not a progressive at all.
Rather than see both parties as fascist enablers, voters are led to believe that there is some basic and important difference between the two candidates. Otherwise, as madcow mistakenly pointed out, why is media so supportive of McCain. It's all tricks and manipulation.
Get smart!
Vote for a real anti-war candidate. I can recommend two: Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney.
Get off your knees and demand! for a real change.
Satr9 that was a good one.
We have to give Obama a chance. Just think about the powers the next president will have thanks to Bush Inc.
I doubt that Obama is so altruistic as to try to give those powers back to the people they belong to, but he might use them to do all the things that a government should do for its people. I don't say he will but he MIGHT.
With McCain no such hope is possible.
~SATR9~ We have cool acting multi-colored cat that's a mix breed. O'bama may be part Irish. That's not exaclty a benefit, and I'll hope my wife don't see I just wrote that comment.
I understand a lot of us white folk here in the States have all kinds of blood mixes in us. I understand one of my great grand-pops was part Indian, the Genessee tribe and part African American. I don't know what tribe there, and he was part French, part English, and part stupid. I have all of those bloody traits mixed in with my other three Great grand-pops-and moms blood lines.
We humans are all the same under the skin. What causes the trouble is, when some forget they are Americans when we live here In America and some try to be what their ancestors were and group up and build imaginary boundry lines in neighborhoods and streets, fear others religious beliefs and act like they're better than others who may have a different shade of skin color or type of eyes. ___ It's called prejudice.
But heh. As Obama pandered and said in the forum with the pastor. Jesus is his savior and Jesus is part of the equation in his marriage. Must be tough in those intimate moments. McCain is forgiven, so there you go. Panderers both. Run Ralph. Run!
madcow wrote"
"Hmmm, if the two parties are the same, and there's no difference between McCain and Obama, then why does the corporate media favor McCain? Why are they out to destroy Obama?"
madcow,
Only Fox news favors McCain and the rest of the corporate media either
neutral or favors Obama.
Obama is beholden to big Money/Business exactly like McCain and Bush.
He got much more campaign contributions from Wall St. than McCain!!
He will follw Bush policies both Domestic and foreign with minor changes
in details and procedures accompanied with a lot of empty oratory about
"CHANGE" and yes, "HOPE". There will be no CHANGE and business will be
as usual in Washington D.C.
Want to know more about McCain the eldest? Here is a re-blogged news piece about unrest and "regime change" in Kyrgyzstan. McCain has always been a raving militaristic maniac and if many Americans are stupid enough to vote for him,then let them fight his perpetual wars to America's everlasting damnation.
"The case of Freedom House is particularly arresting. Chaired by the former CIA director James Woolsey, Freedom House was a major sponsor of the orange revolution in Ukraine. It set up a printing press in Bishkek in November 2003, which prints 60 opposition journals. Although it is described as an "independent" press, the body that officially owns it is chaired by the bellicose Republican senator John McCain, while the former national security adviser Anthony Lake sits on the board. The US also supports opposition radio and TV." (Laughland 2005: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20531.htm)
I would strongly suggest following the link and reading the whole 2005 article from a Guardian (London) writer because it is highly relevant to the Georgia situation. The United States has its fingerprints all over this one in Georgia; no doubt about it.
Just read Obamas book, Dreams from My Father, written 12 years ago. Thats one reason.
And if you think you are getting change on matters of war, this is simply wishful thinking. Obama's foreign policy is driven by Brzezinski, a Russian war hawk. Brzezinski's son, Ian Brzezinski, is current US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for European and NATO Affairs. He is a devout backer of US missile defense policy, as well as Kosovo independence and NATO expansion into Ukraine and Georgia, as is his father. Gates BTW is a Brzezinski guy and may stay on as Obamas SOD.
On August 14, the US signed a missile defense agreement with Poland where we will place 10 interceptor missiles in Russias backyard, supposedly as defense against rogue states missiles, and everyone knows that is BS. This is like Cuba making the same agreement with Russia. Russia has threatened to use nuclear weapons against Poland to take out the sites in the event of war with the US. NATO expansion to the Balkans and former Soviet territories will make war with Russia inevitable. It's the same insanity that created WW I. These guys know their history, and thats why they do it. History repeats. They want another great war.
Democrats give us the biggest wars. Obama will have you in a war with Russia and maybe even China before his term is up. McCain might do the same of course, but at least people will see it coming and might be able to get Congress to stop it. Obama will be given a couple of blank checks to bring on change, and when people figure out they have been screwed, it will be too late.
Obama has zero credentials for being President. Has done little as Senator and has not completed a full term even. Never was governor of a state. Not a CEO. He looks pretty, money is backing him, and he can give a speech. He refuses to participitate in town hall debates with McCain, since he needs to know the questions in advance to give a good answer. He will not be a leader, he will simply be a facilitator for the elite who give him his orders.
The fact that we have 2 candidates like Obama and McCain to choose from shows the 2 party system is corrupted. Time to end the 2 party system, deregister from the Republican and Democratic parties and vote only for independents or 3rd party candidates. Boycott the Republican and Democratic parties.
Of course, 80% of Americans are brain dead or brainwashed, and 10% are in denial, so I am not optimistic that they will wake up.
I'm convinced it will be aipac, the MSM, and swift boaters that will try to defeat obama. Sucking up to aipac gained him nothing,
Frank Rich is right to ask why Obama doesn't have crushing poll numbers. The vast Democratic Party loyalists will vote for him and a smaller number of Republicans will vote for him too.
Obama's political positions, since becoming the presumptive Democratic Party presidential candidate, have stayed firmly on the right wing of the political spectrum. He has lots of appeal for Republicans. Loyalist Dems don't seem to notice the rightward shift, or they think it's just a stance for political expediency. (No, it isn't.)
Why McCain wasn't thrown in jail years ago for accepting bribes from Charles Keating and precipitating the collapse of the taxpayer-backed savings and loan industry is anyone's guess.
It seems like every presidential election, the bewildered herd mentality steps in. Pull the lever for one of the two parties. It seems like that sort of voter makes the decision, and the campaign with the most corporate funds always wins.
So, from a strict bewildered herd point of view, Obama should have an overwhelming lead by now. We'll have the Goldman Sachs agenda when he's elected.
Progressive thinkers won't vote for Obama, and shouldn't. But dumb voting prevails here. And in a dumb voting world, Obama wins.
Republicans can still win through vote fraud. Starting another war would be a failed tactic by this time, but a crisis might give McCain some fear points with the electorate. However, Obama's short list of countries to bomb looks a lot like McCain's, so it looks like a tie on the "who's the biggest warmonger" front.
Isn't it strange how you have two candidates, same policy?
"Dumping The National Phone Directory. Electing The President of The United States."
http://www.metaphoria.org/ac4t0808.html
FredJohnson/Rich Griffin -- Maybe even TPTB at Common Dreams have come to the realization that Nader and McKinney have no chance and therefore have decided to focus more on the race between the two candidates that CAN actually win? You know, maybe pointing out that regardless of his flaws Obama IS better than McCain? Perhaps even trying to pull Obama a little to the left as well?
You know, instead of throwing eggs at him for not being Karl Marx.
RichM writes:
"It's that they are both parties of empire, militarism, & corporatism. It's that together, they form a united force that controls all political power, presents only a narrow range of choice to the electorate, & refuses to allow a wider range to even be recognized.
Together, they comprise a de facto tyranny — virtually the same as a one-party system,"
I agree that the two party system is messed up, but until we change it into a parliamentarian system where a smaller fringe party can join with a larger party and rule together in a coalition, we have to deal with what we have. As things stand now a vote for a green party or for Nader does nothing but split up the more progressive votes and allow the right-wingers to rule.
As messed up as it is, that's our choice come Nov.
Here's some Obama positions on various progressive issues---things that the neocons are no doubt against.
Strengthen Civil Rights Enforcement
Combat Employment Discrimination
Expand Hate Crimes Statutes
End Deceptive Voting Practices
End Racial Profiling
Reduce Crime Recidivism by Providing Ex-Offender Support
Eliminate Sentencing Disparities
Expand Use of Drug Courts
Shine the Light on Washington Lobbying
Shine the Light on Federal Contracts, Tax Breaks and Earmarks
Bring Americans Back into their Government
Free the Executive Branch from Special Interest Influence
Invest in a 21st Century Military
Build Defense Capabilities for the 21st Century
Restore the Readiness of the National Guard and Reserves
Develop Whole of Government Initiatives to Promote Security
Restore Our Alliances
Reform Contracting
Fight Global Poverty: Obama will embrace the Millennium Development Goal of cutting extreme poverty around the world in half by 2015, and he will double our foreign assistance to $50 billion to achieve that goal. He will help the world's weakest states to build healthy and educated communities, reduce poverty, develop markets, and generate wealth.
Create a Green Jobs Corps: Obama will create a program to directly engage disadvantaged youth in energy efficiency opportunities to strengthen their communities, while also providing them with practical skills in this important high-growth career field.
The Status-of-Forces-Agreement
Obama believes any Status of Forces Agreement, or any strategic framework agreement, should be negotiated in the context of a broader commitment by the U.S. to begin withdrawing its troops and forswearing permanent bases. Obama also believes that any security accord must be subject to Congressional approval. It is unacceptable that the Iraqi government will present the agreement to the Iraqi parliament for approval—yet the Bush administration will not do the same with the U.S. Congress. The Bush administration must submit the agreement to Congress or allow the next administration to negotiate an agreement that has bipartisan support here at home and makes absolutely clear that the U.S. will not maintain permanent bases in Iraq.
Preventing Humanitarian Crisis
Barack Obama believes that America has both a moral obligation and a responsibility for security that demands we confront Iraq's humanitarian crisis—more than five million Iraqis are refugees or are displaced inside their own country. Obama will form an international working group to address this crisis. He will provide at least $2 billion to expand services to Iraqi refugees in neighboring countries, and ensure that Iraqis inside their own country can find sanctuary. Obama would also work with Iraqi authorities and the international community to hold the perpetrators of potential war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide accountable. He would reserve the right to intervene militarily, with our international partners, to suppress potential genocidal violence within Iraq.
MiMiCcS, Just for the record, Brzezinski came from Poland, not Russia. Part of his plan is to surround Russia and destroy it.
Other than that, I agree with your comments. You said it well.
RichM, KEM PATRICK, Ostragoth...excellent comments. KEM hit the bulls eye dead center. Well said.
You naled it MIMICCS. (7:28pm)___ Well said right on.
No anti-Obama poster here has read "The Audacity of Hope". If you did, you would not be one.
Who wrote it Ezeflyer?
No anti-Obama poster here has read "The Audacity of Hope".
KEM PATRICK August 18th, 2008 12:03 am asked:
"Who wrote it Ezeflyer?"
Obama wrote and published "The Audacity of Hope" in 2006 and it became the NYTimes #1 bestseller.
If you read it, doubts will vanish and you will feel good about voting for him.
McCain likes to talk about ALL of his experience... but you should consider these facts:
McCain has had 26 years to sell all of his good ideas to Congress... maybe they aren't so good... or maybe he just isn't persuasive enough to sell the ideas.
Obama's brain trust reads like "Who's Who in American Geniuses"... maybe he has some pretty good ideas all lined up.
The feeble-minded in this country bought all of the crap the Republicans have sold them for the past 15 years... and look at the mess the country is in now!
Don't let the Republican Military-Industrial Complex sell you another ineffective idiot!
it was erased again.
Thank you ~Ezeflyer~, but I'll wait to read Nancy Pelosi's book. I bet she sounds great in it. Or maybe Petraius will write one about himself, another best seller. In the meantime, I'll go by Obamma's voting record as a U.S. senator thanks.
I wont vote for McCain anyway.
peaceman said -"MiMiCcS, Just for the record, Brzezinski came from Poland, not Russia. Part of his plan is to surround Russia and destroy it.
Other than that, I agree with your comments. You said it well."
By Russian war hawk I mean he wants war with Russia as part of his strategy in winning the Great Game in Euroasia
As for Audacity of Hope some have commented on. This was a ghost written book, basically a marketing tool for his coming campaign, and his brand making "Hope & Change". As a Junior Senator at the time for only 2 years, he surely would have been too busy to write his own book. Dreams From My Father was written by Obama long before. This book may best reflect his true beliefs, and if so, well, you have to read it.
For all of you who argue, correctly, that Obama is not progressive enough, let me ask you some questions. Are you now engaged in organizing a union or fighting directly for workers' rights and power? Are you organizing your neighborhood or city for sustainability in food and energy? Are you working to help kids get educated and integrated into the community so that they won't need to go out and kill each other?
If it true that, "Of course, 80% of Americans are brain dead or brainwashed, and 10% are in denial, so I am not optimistic that they will wake up," are you doing anything to provide real community so that we won't have to be narcotized by television?
No my friends, a real progressive is not going to get elected this year. The average American watches over four hours a day of TV, and the corporate media will not loosen its grip unless WE learn how to ORGANIZE. Bitching about the two party corporate monopoly won't change many minds. We have to TALK FACE TO FACE. with our fellow workers, neighbors, students and parishioners; listen, and help people to listen to each other; learn how to forge common goals and fight common battles. When we have learned how to organize, then and only then will an alternative politics be possible.