Barack Hussein Obama wins Iowa (97% Whites)

[winnie]

http://presidentobama2008.blogspot.com/2008/04/work-to-do-remix-kidz-in-hall-feat.html

[Jacpher]

In Pa. Debate, The Clear Loser Is ABC

 

By Tom Shales

Thursday, April 17, 2008; Page C01

 

When Barack Obama met Hillary Clinton for another televised Democratic candidates' debate last night, it was more than a step forward in the 2008 presidential election. It was another step downward for network news -- in particular ABC News, which hosted the debate from Philadelphia and whose usually dependable anchors, Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, turned in shoddy, despicable performances.

 

For the first 52 minutes of the two-hour, commercial-crammed show, Gibson and Stephanopoulos dwelled entirely on specious and gossipy trivia that already has been hashed and rehashed, in the hope of getting the candidates to claw at one another over disputes that are no longer news. Some were barely news to begin with.

 

The fact is, cable networks CNN and MSNBC both did better jobs with earlier candidate debates. Also, neither of those cable networks, if memory serves, rushed to a commercial break just five minutes into the proceedings, after giving each candidate a tiny, token moment to make an opening statement. Cable news is indeed taking over from network news, and merely by being competent.

 

Gibson sat there peering down at the candidates over glasses perched on the end of his nose, looking prosecutorial and at times portraying himself as a spokesman for the working class. Blunderingly he addressed an early question, about whether each would be willing to serve as the other's running mate, "to both of you," which is simple ineptitude or bad manners. It was his job to indicate which candidate should answer first. When, understandably, both waited politely for the other to talk, Gibson said snidely, "Don't all speak at once."

 

For that matter, the running-mate question that Gibson made such a big deal over was decidedly not a big deal -- especially since Wolf Blitzer asked it during a previous debate televised and produced by CNN.

 

The boyish Stephanopoulos, who has done wonders with the network's Sunday morning hour, "This Week" (as, indeed, has Gibson with the nightly "World News"), looked like an overly ambitious intern helping out at a subcommittee hearing, digging through notes for something smart-alecky and slimy. He came up with such tired tripe as a charge that Obama once associated with a nutty bomb-throwing anarchist. That was "40 years ago, when I was 8 years old," Obama said with exasperation.

 

Obama was right on the money when he complained about the campaign being bogged down in media-driven inanities and obsessiveness over any misstatement a candidate might make along the way, whether in a speech or while being eavesdropped upon by the opposition. The tactic has been to "take one statement and beat it to death," he said.

 

No sooner was that said than Gibson brought up, yet again, the controversial ravings of the pastor at a church attended by Obama. "Charlie, I've discussed this," he said, and indeed he has, ad infinitum. If he tried to avoid repeating himself when clarifying his position, the networks would accuse him of changing his story, or changing his tune, or some other baloney.

 

This is precisely what has happened with widely reported comments that Obama made about working-class people "clinging" to religion and guns during these times of cynicism about their federal government.

 

"It's not the first time I made a misstatement that was mangled up, and it won't be the last," said Obama, with refreshing candor. But candor is dangerous in a national campaign, what with network newsniks waiting for mistakes or foul-ups like dogs panting for treats after performing a trick. The networks' trick is covering an election with as little emphasis on issues as possible, then blaming everyone else for failing to focus on "the issues."

 

Some news may have come out of the debate (ABC News will pretend it did a great job on today's edition of its soppy, soap-operatic "Good Morning America"). Asked point-blank if she thought Obama could defeat presumptive Republican contender John McCain in the general election, Clinton said, "Yes, yes, yes," in apparent contrast to previous remarks in which she reportedly told other Democrats that Obama could never win. And in turn, Obama said that Clinton could "absolutely" win against McCain.

 

To this observer, ABC's coverage seemed slanted against Obama. The director cut several times to reaction shots of such Clinton supporters as her daughter, Chelsea, who sat in the audience at the Kimmel Theater in Philly's National Constitution Center. Obama supporters did not get equal screen time, giving the impression that there weren't any in the hall. The director also clumsily chose to pan the audience at the very start of the debate, when the candidates made their opening statements, so Obama and Clinton were barely seen before the first commercial break.

 

At the end, Gibson pompously thanked the candidates -- or was he really patting himself on the back? -- for "what I think has been a fascinating debate." He's entitled to his opinion, but the most fascinating aspect was waiting to see how low he and Stephanopoulos would go, and then being appalled at the answer.

[Ameen]

Often times, the "liberal" media gets accused of "over supporting" Obama but clearly, this debate seemed to support Senator Clinton. I cant fully say, “it supported” Senator Clinton because I grew frustrated watching the debate but what the heck was the producer doing playing with the camera shots? For my part, I flicked back and forth from the debate to the Raptors game, not because I was more interested in watching game 82 of the season, but rather, I hated watching the arrogant attitudes of both Gibson and Stephanopoulos. Fine and it’s a fact. Yes, Im an Obama supporter. But believe it or not, it’s not that I like Obama's stance on issues (although I support him when he speaks about talking to both your friend and your enemies), I heartly feel, Senator Clinton will say ANYTHING to win the White House. Let’s face it. They're both Politians and they’ll both look you in the eyes and promises you whatever but what seperates them is her playing a dirty game. Fortunately for Obama, the American public might actually be growing frustrated with the tactics of old school politics and perhaps, their frustrations might end up awarding him the White House.

 

Lets just sit patiently and see what Allah has decreed.

[Pujah]

I don't think anyone can call that a debate - whole hour was wasted on non issues like a lapel pin flag, 60s radical leftists, rev Wright and the 'bitter' debacle that consumed the airwaves last few days. Obama was put on the defense most of the night and most questions came from right wing radio and faux news host Sean Hannity of all people. Oh yeah and Clinton's sniper gate was sandwiched somewhere between accusations of his patriotism and judgment with no follow up either from him or the moderators.

 

Over all big fat F for Obama and D mines for Clinton. I gotta admit she seemed more prepared but then again I wouldn't put past George to have been in the tank with Mrs. Clinton considering all his connections with the former president.

[Pujah]

In

The Audacity of Hope

, Barack Obama tells an amusing story about his first tour through downstate Illinois, when he had the audacity to order Dijon mustard on his cheeseburger at a TGI Friday's. His political aide hastily informed the waitress that Obama didn't want Dijon at all, and thrust a yellow bottle of ordinary-American heartland-values mustard at him instead. The perplexed waitress informed Obama that she had Dijon if he wanted. He smiled and said thanks. "As the waitress walked away, I leaned over and whispered that I didn't think there were any photographers around," Obama recalled.

 

Obama's memoir dripped with contempt for modern gotcha politics, for a campaign culture obsessed with substantively irrelevant but supposedly symbolic gaffes like John Kerry ordering Swiss cheese or Al Gore sighing or George H.W. Bush checking his watch or Michael Dukakis looking dorky in a tank. "What's troubling is the gap between the magnitude of our challenges and the smallness of our politics—the ease with which we are distracted by the petty and trivial," he wrote.

 

Last night at the National Constitution Center, at a Democratic debate that was hyped by ABC as a discussion of serious constitutional issues, America got to see exactly what Obama was complaining about. At a time of foreign wars, economic collapse and environmental peril, the cringe-worthy first half of the debate focused on such crucial matters as Senator Obama's comments about rural bitterness, his former pastor, an obscure sixties radical with whom he was allegedly "friendly," and the burning constitutional question of why he doesn't wear an American flag pin on his lapel — with a single detour into Senator Hillary Clinton's yarn about sniper fire in Tuzla. Apparently, Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos ran out of time before they could ask Obama why he's such a lousy bowler.

 

It must be said that Obama did not seem very comfortable on the defensive, and he had trouble answering questions like whether he's more patriotic than the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Since "performance" is all that the talking heads ever notice, they'll probably declare Clinton the winner of the debate. She constantly salted Obama's wounds, all the while insisting that she was merely concerned that Republicans would salt them in the fall, and that his various controversies simply "raised questions" about his electability; at one point she claimed that his exhaustively chewed-over relationship with Wright "deserves further exploration," which is kind of like saying that Whitewater deserves further investigation. "These are legitimate questions, as everything is when you run for office," Clinton said.

 

But maybe Obama is right that Americans are tired of "the kind of manufactured issue that our politics has become obsessed with," as he put in his lapel-pin answer. And even if they aren't, it's nice to hear someone critique that image-obsessed, context-deprived soundbite culture-a culture, incidentally, in which Stephanopoulos flourished when he was spinning for the Clintons.

 

Last night's debate did not reveal any big policy differences between Obama and Clinton. But it did reveal their different approaches to politics, and the different arguments for their candidacies that stem from those approaches.

 

Clinton's main argument was that she can beat John McCain because she's already been vetted in this culture, "having gone through 16 years on the receiving end of what the Republican Party dishes out." She's basically saying that her dirty laundry-the questionable money she made in cattle futures, the Travelgate firings, her kiss of Suha Arafat, her husband's pardons, the unpleasantries of 1998-is no longer newsworthy, and the mere fact of her political survival shows that it's irrelevant.

"I have a lot of baggage, and everyone has rummaged through it for many years," she said. Obama hasn't rehashed that baggage, although he did slyly remind Americans about her 1992 crack about staying home and baking cookies, ostensibly to make that point that she had been treated unfairly, probably with an ulterior motive. But in any case, it's not like she's survived all that baggage unscathed; she's got sky-high unfavorable ratings. And it's not like Republicans would agree not to raise all that baggage in the fall if she somehow became the nominee. Hey, she even said everything's legitimate when you run for office.

 

Obama's argument is that he can rise above the divisive politics of the nineties—not just the intense partisanship, but the constant posturing and point-scoring in the service of winning a news cycle. He portrays Clinton as a victim of those war-room politics—but also a veteran practitioner. "Senator Clinton learned the wrong lesson, because she's adopted the same tactics,"

he said last night. He's talking about the culture of perpetual spin, where everything is fair game in the service, including your opponent's kindergarten dreams of grandeur. It's a game of guilt by association, as Obama said last night, "the kind of game in which anybody I know, regardless of how flimsy the relationship, their ideas can be attributed to me."

 

This makes for extremely stup!d politics, where substance is only relevant to catch politicians in flip-flops or mistakes. Last night, for example, Gibson tried to nail Obama over capital gains taxes, revealing only his own misunderstanding of the difference between correlation and causation.

For all the back-and-forth over a crazy Weatherman he once served with on a board, Obama never got to tell voters that he opposed the war in Iraq from the start. For all the back-and-forth over her Tuzla goof—Obama stayed out of it, although he acknowledged that his campaign aides addressed it when asked—Clinton never got to mention anything she's done in the Senate. And the only real constitutional issue that got discussed was the right to bear arms.

 

It's funny, because the intended point of Obama's ill-advised comments about small-town voters was that they "cling" to wedge issues involving God and guns because they've lost faith in our political culture's ability to solve problems. It's an arguable point. But last night suggests that there's little denying that our political culture has lost its ability to illuminate any issue more complicated than the appropriate condiments for a red blooded American to eat.

 

[Libaax-Sankataabte]

A big win for the skinny African. He seems to have regained his edge again. A big blow-out win in North Carolina (230,000 votes) and a narrow loss (20,000 votes short) in Indiana is just not what pundits expected after Hillary's "momentum" and Obama's troubles in the last few weeks.

 

He surprised many and I am sure the Republicans didn't have a good night tonight. We shall see how things play out in the next few days. His speech was great tonight.

[Libaax-Sankataabte]

PROJECTED ELECTORAL NUMBERS FOR THE GENERAL ELECTION

 

Safely Democratic States: California (55), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), District of Columbia (3), Hawaii (4), Illinois (21), Maine (4), Maryland (10), Massachusetts (12), New York (31), Rhode Island (4), and Vermont (3).

 

Likely Democratic: Minnesota (10), New Jersey (15), Oregon (7), and Washington (11).

 

Leans Democratic: Iowa (7), Michigan (17), New Mexico (5), Pennsylvania (21) and Wisconsin (10).

 

Toss-Up State: Colorado (9), Nevada (5), New Hampshire (4), and Ohio (20).

 

Leans Republican: Florida (27), Missouri (11), Virginia (13).

 

Likely Republican: Arkansas (6) and North Carolina (15).

 

Safely Republican: Alabama (9), Alaska (3), Arizona (10), Georgia (15), Idaho (4), Indiana (11), Kansas (6), Kentucky (8), Louisiana (9), Mississippi (6), Montana (3), Nebraska (5), North Dakota (3), Oklahoma (7), South Carolina (8), South Dakota (3), Tennessee (11), Texas (34), Utah (5), West Virginia (5) and Wyoming (3).

 

Source: Rassmussen

[Faarax-Brawn]

Originally posted by Libaax-Sankataabte:

PROJECTED ELECTORAL NUMBERS FOR THE GENERAL ELECTION

 

Safely Democratic States:

California (55), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), District of Columbia (3), Hawaii (4), Illinois (21), Maine (4), Maryland (10), Massachusetts (12), New York (31), Rhode Island (4), and Vermont (3).

 

Total: 157

 

Likely Democratic:

Minnesota (10), New Jersey (15), Oregon (7), and Washington (11).

 

Total: 43

 

Leans Democratic:

Iowa (7), Michigan (17), New Mexico (5), Pennsylvania (21) and Wisconsin (10).

 

total 36

 

Toss-Up State:

Colorado (9), Nevada (5), New Hampshire (4), and Ohio (20).

 

Nevada and NH & CO total: 18 total Dems: 254

 

[

Source: Rassmussen

total Dems: 254, how many shy of winning? you need 270+ right?

 

Obama is toast.

[xiinfaniin]

Obama has won this contest. He's being humble. Come may 20th and he will formally announce his delegate victory.

[STOIC]

^^^^^O-man just got an endorsement from Edward yesterday just in time when he needed to convince the White blue collar workers in every swing state that he is the right man for the job (if they ever cared to think outside their racist self). Hillary took a swath on this demographic during this primary. Through it all many wondered if O-man will ever win the vote of this Appalachian Hillbillies, but with the backing of Edwards we hope to see a shift of support. Significantly, the politics of race is much more focused by these voters than on economic and policy issues. To the consternation of Hillary the man is closing the gap and stealing the spotlight from her. I hope this endorsement will increase the hunger for more in depth meaning of what the man is capable of than clipping his feathers before he even tried to fly!

[Baashi]

My boy Obama -- what a man -- set out to expose Potomac Game. It downed on him that won't work so he started to try to play the game like a pro and from what I see (flag pins, Israel praising, pretending to be one of the rednecks) he intends to come out at the top. He is my man. That's how this thing is played. Keep your strongest card close to your chest and be all smiles.

 

He won't be a diff kind of politician. I'm pretty mindfull about that fact, But make no mistake he will break the glass ceiling big time. Go get it boowe.

[NGONGE]

^^ Heh! Even when he changes colours and finally plays the game of politics you still find a way to turn that into a positive thing!

[Pujah]

^^Doesn’t he look hypocrite though donning the flag pin on his lapel this late in the game after taking a principled opposition to it? I am afraid the right wing will start to label him as flip flopper like they did to John Kerry. I mean he could have continued wearing it on special occasions like whenever he is addressing the veterans or some veteran gave it to him. And continued to say my patriotism speaks for it self.

[xiinfaniin]

^^The man never rulled out wearing a flag pin, he just said it was unfair to make the lapel the measure of his patriotism!

[Baashi]

Yes NG. He was, is , and continues to be a politician. That's not the point awoowe. The fact that he changed colors is not a revelation to me baba.

 

At issue is how to deal with polity so advanced in every aspect of modern life yet harbours a deep mistrust in everything black.

 

His candidacy, if successful, will go a lonh way to modify, it won't erase it though, that mindset. My kids will see their kind in position of leadership -- that's a paradigm shift in this society. I'm sure for that paradigm shift.

 

This is a game and any1 who wants to change its rules must played first. In the primaries he run left of the field. Now he must go to the center.