According to MSNBC, McCain has erased Obama’s ten point lead over him. If the senator from Illinois doesn’t start running like a Democrat, and stop acting like a fucking Republican, he’s going to find himself making one hell of a concession speech come November. And that shall be bad in far more ways than one.
If Obama really wanted to win this thing, he could have distinguished himself by running to the left of Hillary Clinton — not to the right of her. His failure to seal the deal, combined with his Republican-style attacks (not that Mrs. Clinton is innocent of following suit) and condescending dismissals of the challenges faced by minorities, indicates that he is fully prepared to blow it come November. Consider this: Recent polls show that Ralph Nader may actually get up to five percent of the vote in November, and that a sizable number of Clinton supporters are likely to vote for McCain — twenty-eight percent, in fact.
That is how things stand at this point. Can you imagine what shall happen if a bruised and battered Obama comes out of the Democratic National Convention, having alienated upwards of 33% of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters, and with the media attacking him at every turn having smelled blood in the water? Imagine that pathetic creature going up against McCain. We cannot allow overconfidence to cost us this time. There really is far too much at stake.
UPDATED @ 9:34 PM EDT
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I agree with every word of it, and I love the title, made me laugh.
Hell, in that way Obama IS acting like a typical Democrat.
As a battered member of the Democratic base, that slightly annoys me.
…I think that the appeal of Obama is so intrinsically tied up in his post-partisanship that running to the left would hurt him.
For what it is worth, there is a partisan candidate out there – Clinton. Obama, McCain, and even Huckabee got where they did by not running to the left or the right, but by playing on the American desire for unity, “The people’s romance” with united national purpose.
this early out.
But I would like to see Obama take more clearly defined stands on a whole host of issues.
That’s not going to happen, however.
He’s not only ignoring core progressive issues, like holding this administration accountable, but here’s a report that all members of congress get. It does not include small arms. Below is a table of interest:
Table 9B. Arms Deliveries to the World, by Supplier 1999-2006
(expressed as a percent of total, by year)
In 2006, we accounted for better than half of all arms delivered throughout the world.
Here is a massive report on small arms. In it should be a figure that says 49% of all deaths around the world due to armed conflict were at the hands of weapons that say Made In America on them.
When McCain gets up there and talks about defending ourselves, don’t you think Obama would do good pointing some of these things out? I think it could make McCain look a bit like an asshole.
On Obama’s website, on his foreign policy page, he has the following quote:
At the bottom of the same page he talks about his unwavering support for existing policy toward Israel. There is no balancing statement about our policy amounting to collective punishment of a population that now exceeds that of Israel. I’ll stop there, lest I get spanked.
He is trying to please both sides and McCain could trounce him if he doesn’t define his whole hope thing. We want real change, and it doesn’t look like his Senate record.
Rest assured, though, the D has my vote.
“pathetic creature”? Good lord.
There is no way Ralph Nader is getting 5% of the vote. A huge number of his 2000 voters regret that they cast their ballots for him. My neighbor had a bumper sticker that said “Don’t blame me, I voted for Nader” and she scratched off the “Don’t”.
Next, I want to talk about the 28% of Clinton supporters who say they’ll vote for McCain. Yuck. They, and the 18% of Obama supporters who say the same thing are as bad as any Nader voters.
Personally I think those 28% and the 18% are acting crazy. What a victory they’ll have if McCain wins! Boy, they really showed Obama (or Clinton)! Ha! Obama gamed the system by going for delegates! The nerve! I’m voting for McCain! Hillary cheated by going after the superdelegates! I’m voting for McCain!
Anyway, Obama led Clinton by 8…8 full points! Then went into a “death spiral” (according to Hillary’s people) after the Wright flap as she went up by 6 or 7 or whatever it was. But now he’s up by 10 according to the latest national polls.
And that’s what will happen here, once he’s the nominee. Or she is…although we pretty much think it’ll be him. Either Hillary will commit political suicide and continue to act like Obama isn’t qualified or else she’ll talk him up, bringing her supporters back to the the ticket.
And when the intra-party fighting is over the “tie” between Obama and McCain will once again be an Obama lead.
to the left of Hillary, what nonsense. Hillary has spun herself centrist. They are both running to the great stupid center. I think he is managing to tread a path, which gets his message out while running the gauntlet of the media and the fear of the voters who have been conditioned to either fear change or believe that ‘security’ is a warm gun.
The media just runs the part of his speeches that are the rah rah bits, but if you listen to them intact he sure has a more liberal world view then Hillary. Maybe your concerns are founded in filtering this primary through the filter of polls and the media.
Hillary’s record, so touted, is way more neocon and corporate. The Third Way isn’t going to cut it this time around. Nadar fans I know and Greeners like Obama. The fearful ones are the ones who buy into the political fictions that the status quo is the only way to win. Fear of the right or of the ‘other’ is no way to win anything but more of the same. If Obama ran the way you think he should he would fricken’ lose.
BTW: I read a diary at dkos that was a summary of both HRC and Obama’s congressional records and his was impressive as a liberal. Hers was not, she had few co sponsers and a lot of it was calcuculated and definitely pandering to the right of that line.