2008 Primaries Thread 2: THE QUICKENING

ANNOUNCER: What do you think of Howard Dean's plan to raise taxes on families by $1900 a year?

MAN: What do I think? Well, I think Howard Dean should take his tax-hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading...

WOMAN: ...body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freakshow back to Vermont. Where it belongs.

He's a poet, not a fighter.”

i think this consistent underestimation of obama's willingness and ability to mix it up is only gonna help him. i don't know why it's been so under-noticed, he's had plenty of dust-ups. i think he kind of likes a little tough-guy stuff, that's what's not getting picked up on. and the longer people go not picking up on it, the better for him.

(but maybe i'm just biased toward poker players.)

yeah lolz Chicago politics is for pansies dontchaknow

Mayor Daley? PUSSY

it's part of the game. the point of the game is to win. not to get all hung up making a stand on the principles of the rulebook.

yeah see this is the kind of calculating machine politics way of thinking that we need to move beyond

Damn, the shithead's name is Buffenbarger. I guess I'd be pissed too.

The silver-tongued orator from Kansas, Hawaii and Illinois?

Is the fact that Obama claims three states supposed to be a knock against him? Because you could say the exact same thing about Hillary (Illinois, Arkansas, and New York -- not to mention D.C.).

yeah see this is the kind of calculating machine politics way of thinking that we need to move beyond

mm-hm. look, it's not so much that obama is a different kind of politician than hillary. it's that he is possibly a better politician than her. they're all playing the same game, but their skill sets are different. you use what you've got. (you know, within legal limits etc etc.) if obama bound himself to public financing and lost, i don't think there'd be a bunch of happy pro-public-financing liberals.

i mean, let's not confuse obama's message with his means. if you can play the game but present yourself as being above the game, that's some high-level playing. if you can win the game while seeming to be above it, that's some jedi-level stuff. but you still do actually have to play the game.

its v possible that im being completely naive here but i do think obama has a legit interest in campaign finance reform - and might if his conditions were met agree to it in the g.e.

which is not to say that he not thinking well shit if i can raise like a mil every day maybe i should just forget the whole thing

i cant believe o nate and tracer continue to be cynical about this ... i mean even considering the way that hes RAISED his million dollars a day is like, are you serious??? Its not like hes taking this shit from corporations or whatever. he's more than doubled Hillary's individual donor count.

ya, obama has surpassed 500,000 donors in 2008 alone, and is well on the way to a million individual donors since his campaign began

its v possible that im being completely naive here but i do think obama has a legit interest in campaign finance reform - and might if his conditions were met agree to it in the g.e.

i think he does have a commitment to it, and maybe his response to mccain is more than posturing. but in the meantime, the posturing serves its own purpose, pushing back at the pushback. and in any case, having a commitment to public financing is fine but unilaterally giving up a likely advantage would be a questionable move. what's more important here, winning or virtue?

It's too early to even mention the v-word yet.

vagina? vietnam?

except he prob thinks he can have both - which v well may be true

not that theres anyway in hell they can craft an agreement before the g.e. thatll control soft money

lol xp

Vasectomy

http://www.vecernji.hr/system/galleries/pics/060525/a-borat2.jpg

"Vah-geene!"

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080220/ap_on_el_pr/mccain_torture

wtf McCain your position MAKES NO SENSE

I've been out-of-the-loop today. Sorry if this is redundant. I'm not sure I agree with this, but it's an interesting point about HRC making GOP talking-points that might harm eventual Democratic Nominee Obama in the GE. I mean, no one says that HRC is obligated to stand aside, but maybe seeing the writing on the wall, she shouldn't do what could be very serious damage to the party's nominee in the GE.

deej did you leave your sarcasm receptors in your other pants??

daniel i don't think that's an interesting point. it's made in every primary race, and you could say the same thing about obama's critiques of clinton.

except that Clinton isn't going to win

so it kinda doesn't matter what Obama says about her at this point. Clinton's in the loser's seat now, and what she says (or her surrogates say) out of anger and desperation isn't going to help anybody, least of all her.

theres gonna be a lot of pressure on hillary to step aside starting right abt now

well it's kind of true in every primary race, isn't it? You need to attack your opponent but not sully him/her so much that it could do serious harm in a general election (cuz we're all on the same side right?!)

What amuses me no end about the commentariat is the amnesia to which they willingly submit each election cycle. Does anyone really believe that -- after years in which we've learned about Nixon's back channels to China, Carter's quiet defense buildups, and Reagan's runaway NSC -- HRC or Obama would really pull ALL our troops out of Iraq or wouldn't consider offensive manuevers against a rogue state? Or that McCain would really commit troops in Iraq for 100 years? I mean, really? It's called "sending signals" to your base, but if any one of these talking meatheads calls it what it is he'd send 500 luckless cable network talking heads to the unemployment line.

^^^ this is totally OTM, my wife and I were discussing the stupidity of hammering McCain about the "100 years in Iraq" thing last night. I mean clearly it was a rhetorical blunder on his part, but its blown way out of proportion.

plz think of the 500 luckless cable network talking heads :(

I'm being cranky, guys, but REALLY we're smarter than this -- talkign endlessly in Russertspeak about how things will "play out."

Yeah, Alfred totally OTM. I'm always torn between pointing this kind of thing out and keeping my mouth shut because I want Obama to win.

I think the way it's discussed as a talking point is kind of stupid (lolz 100 years of Iraq war if you vote for zombie man), but it does betray a style of thinking about (or at least publicly talking about) Iraq as if it were Germany, Korea, or Japan, which it just ain't. If Dems hammer him on the 100 years because of this, however, I'm all for it, and think it's the smarter move.

xxxpost

i dont think its ridiculous to hammer mccain on the 100 years in iraq at all - the dude may have not meant it in exactly that way but hes never met a war he didnt like - so it does sum up his hawkish attitude nicely

do you think its stupid to hit him on his charming bomb bomb bomb iran number because he was obv fucking around?

just cause neither of them are completely literally valid doesnt mean they dont speak to his insano war-mongering hawk-mind

not to mention that just being cool w/having a military presence in a peaceful iraq for a hundred years is kinda fucked up on its own

The thing is, I really DO think Obama promises more than he can deliver. All campaigning politicians do that, but he probably does it to an even greater extent. I still like him and want to be pres, but I'm wondering whether there's a point at which he should turn the intensity and hyperbole down slightly to avoid being vulnerable.

McCain probably just means a moderate-sized deployment of troops at a military base or some such, which is what we do all over the world. Joke's on him for being honest about imperialism, I guess.

I like Obama because his clarity bespeaks transparency, and the hint of a snarl in his delivery suggests that he's got plenty of guile, but c'mon. The history of the Republic is strewn with presidencies, failures and successes, whose governance had fuck-all to do with what they said in public.

sorry maybe im misunderstanding but why on earth does it matter whether or not a) mccain actually will spend 100 years in iraq or b) whether or not we actually believe him?? he said something really dumb and theres no reason not to repeat it as many times as possible in the hopes that enough people either believe it enough to not vote for him or on the other hand recognize it as representative of an unacceptable attitude about the situation. or is that too cynical?

the cynical side of me tends to agree with you max. I mean I guess if I were working on a campaign I'd absolutely grab hold of that line.

if Obama were really clever, he'd confront McCain. "Does Senator McCain, whom I respect and admire enormously -- who knows the horror of war all too well, in fact, much better than I or Senator Clinton -- REALLY mean we're going to commit American troops in Iraq for a hundred years? Surely he misspoke." And if he delivers this at his airy best he'd leave the crowd in stiches.

sorry maybe im misunderstanding but why on earth does it matter whether or not a) mccain actually will spend 100 years in iraq or b) whether or not we actually believe him??

It means you don't have to pay too much attention to it. Some things are worth ignoring. Did you expect McCain to say anything else?

he said something really dumb and theres no reason not to repeat it as many times as possible in the hopes that enough people either believe it enough to not vote for him or on the other hand recognize it as representative of an unacceptable attitude about the situation. or is that too cynical?

the cynical side of me tends to agree with you max. I mean I guess if I were working on a campaign I'd absolutely grab hold of that line.

taken straight from the Republican playbook. Fuck yeah, play that shit on repeat 'til everyone's sick to the back teeth from it.

I haven't mentioned this yet (or on the other thread either), but I thought some of you (and the press, of course) blew HRC's remark about LBJ and MLK way out of proportion: reading Caro's LBJ biography this week, I realized it was impossible for any other president without LBJ's mastery of Senate parliamentary procedure to have signed such landmark legislation. But the commentariat's motif tha week was "the Clinton campaign is RACIST omigod." I mean, these things are STUPID, ultimately, and a distraction.

and I'm second to Morbs in loathing for HRC.

taken straight from the Republican playbook. Fuck yeah, play that shit on repeat 'til everyone's sick to the back teeth from it.

-- will, Wednesday, February 20, 2008 6:20 PM (59 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

O yeah I keep forgetting how the GOP invented campaign tactics

the LBJ vs MLK thing was just a kind a dumb comparison for her to say, it was very clumsy. She would've been better to point out that JFK couldn't get civil rights legislation passed, but LBJ could, and left MLK out of it entirely. Altho lolz in the popular mind because of Nam LBJ will always be considered the lesser prez of the two.

(LBJ also a funny, nasty motherfucker)

I guess really the underlying issue with each of these rhetorical blunders is not the nature of the blunder itself, but the fact that the candidate said something stupid without giving it much thought. It belies a certain political ineptitude.

like "duh, when you're trying to win black votes don't belittle MLK"

eh when taken in the context of the other nastiness they were spreading around s. carolina i dont think the reaction was inappropriate.

in fact id go so far as to say the clintons permanently damaged their reputations w/that shit.