2008 Primaries Thread 2: THE QUICKENING

"first interracial co-presidency" am i right?

"Hillary is our friend"

the goal is to get them to stay home

ostensibly by likening McCain's stated positions to Obama's (both against Gay Marriage amendment, pro-choice, pro-stem cell, etc.)

the goal is to get them to stay home

-- Shakey

No joke. 1000% OTM. Hopefully, that'll be McCain's great gift to this election.

McCain is pro-life.

pro-choice

Um, McCain's pro-life.

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/11/19/mccain-abortion/

xpost

Yes, but also pro stem-cell, which to an evangelical is not pro-life at all. (You know, because they're all fucking idiots.)

Robstown, Texas.

wauuu what a campaign stop

In 1999, the “moderate” version of John McCain said that overturning Roe v. Wade would be dangerous for women and he would not support it, even in “the long term.”

flip-flop, etc

here comes the substance

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/02/obama-takes-it.html
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/002855.php

infrastructure is way up there on my list of what gubmint should do in a positive sense

i dont think that obama is trying to get them to stay home, i bet hes trying to get a decent part of the evangelical vote (as much as a pro choice dem can - which i bet is more than most "fuck red states dude!!! did u know they have lower IQs???" liberals would figure)

Yes, but also pro stem-cell, which to an evangelical is not pro-life at all. (You know, because they're all fucking idiots.)

there's some expectation that he's gonna say we can develop stem cells in the lab now, so forget about the fetuses

Misperceptions About McCain's Abortion Stance

i dont think that obama is trying to get them to stay home, i bet hes trying to get a decent part of the evangelical vote

True enough. But overall, the more Evangelicals sit this one out, the better off Democrats are.

The funny thing is that, from what I understand, Obama has as -- if not more -- detailed a set of policy papers as any other remaining candidate.
I mean, what "substance" have you heard in John McCain's speeches, other than "We must be vigilent against terrorists and support our military and cut taxes" and lots of other fairly empty platitudes.

I think the "Obama lacks substance" criticism is really just a shallow way of trying to both acknowledge and mitigate Obama's great strength as a stump speaker. See, e.g., the last Democratic debate. Obama's plenty substantive.

(xp)

its more like the right covering their ass cuz they haven't bothered to dig up any dirt on him - they exhausted the majority of the primary cycle gearing up against Hillary

I followed a Drudge Report link to a Washington Times article about potential veep candidates. The article was missing, but these google ads appeared:
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Don't you know who I am?!

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1712834,00.html

want to reiterate i really like this thread and i dont get why some folks are all "i vowed not to read it." even when the argument is stupid it brings together some good insights and serves pretty well as a one stop shop for election updates/perspectives both internal and outside. Also, liveblogging the debates was a riot

Obama's got the papers, if anyone wants to see them. But while campaigning he doesn't need to be specific; every winner since FDR doesn't do much more than articulate principles instead of policy.

his campaign needs to kill this 'soaring rhetoric no substance' before it becomes Truth.

Looks like he did that this afternoon, if you follow the link to the GM speech.

oh i know he's showing substance, but if the charge is repeated ad nauseam it's still gonna stick.

deej i hope you're not including me in that. I very much enjoy this thread, despite myself.

he just needs to preface his policy talk more like he did there: "i'm gonna dig into it here folks sorry no applause lines".

this is a bit off topic, and i don't know what thread would be more relevant, but i got to axe bill clinton a question on a conference call today about free trade, so yay for college shit.

if the call were about the election i'd be all, dear mr pimp lobster of hope blah blah calm down on obama plz, but it the call was regarding his clinton global initiatives get-up.

i would have asked him to agree to a debate with Michelle.

she was awes on Larry King.

you do realize by not calling him dear mr pimp lobster of hope youve blown the chance to be a hero to us all - i mean if you got that on tape i dont know what id do

b clinton: why did you call me that
m bison: um internet joek
ilx: lololololololololol

the temptation was there

BRAEKIN LOCAL NEWS: apparently the archbishop in town is upset that known abortion-looker-awayer hrc is speaking at a catholic university (st marys) today, oh noes all around.

http://catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=11774

Keith Olberman:

"There are children who were unborn at the time of the first Democrat debate who are now walking."

how does a sentence manage to use the word 'unborn' and democrat as an adjective and not be george bush

so i went to the obama ri volunteer coordination meeting tonight, and i don't know if it's just because the organizers did a decent job of convincing me of the fact, but i think RI is entirely winnable due to the small manageable size of the state -- and due to how aggressively mobilized volunteers can reach the state. obama's good on the ground, and it's reasonable to suggest that ri will go for obama much like connecticut did.

http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=9674

I didn't fully digest john cole's previous post on this from yesterday, but I can definitely buy this

That way, when they are blown out of the water in 2008, they don’t have to do any reflection, they don’t have to assess, re-prioritize, or re-think their policies. They can simply pin it all on McCain, claim he lost because he didn’t offer the voters a “real” conservative alternative, and get back to championing the end of the “death tax” and other important issues without skipping a beat.

yah mccain is in third behind obama and hillary right now

yeah that def seems like the plan

So my friend who lives in Wash. Heights says a big story in the spanish-language papers right now is that Hillary's original campaign manager was Latina, and that was a big part of why she was getting such a big portion of the latino vote. But they are pissed that one of their own got fired. Has anyone seen any tracking polls specifically tracking hispanic voters since the firing happened?

I already linked to this but I think that this was probably a considerably larger factor in the large latino and asian vote for hillary
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-chang/why-latinos-and-asian-ame_b_85359.html

That seems to be way more about the asians than the hispanics.

how so? its entitled "Why Latinos and Asian Americans Went for Hillary" and his major evidence is "In Los Angeles, that meant securing Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's support, and the predominantly Latino unions that have supported him. She also landed the support of Fabian Nunez and Dolores Huerta."

i dont see a spot in the entire essay where he focuses more on asians than latino voters

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/12/mccain-received-100000-_n_86245.html

xpost He has a whole lot of specific points about the asian vote ("the influential Chinese American Democratic Club" "Obama is from Hawai'i, has Asian family members, and is beloved there" "the Democrat from Punjab" "whether he'd promote affirmative action for Asian Americans") but for latinos all he has is the endorsement point, which I could've got from CNN. As for the emergent/insurgent thing, I have no idea if he's getting that from someone else, but it doesn't make sense--what about the voters that are neither? Is he getting this distinction from someone else or is he just using buzzwords to say that immigrant populations tend to follow the more mainstream candidate when they themselves are trying to attain mainstream status? And if that's all he's saying, won't they swing over to Obama if he's perceived as the mainstream candidate?

no, you're not reading the article dude! the key to the whole article is that its about how HRC offers community leaders access to the halls of power, which barack cannot do; in return, those community leaders deliver the votes of their communities to HRC. He explains what emergent and insurgent means, and he doesnt imply that this covers all voters - he's just speaking about communities of immigrants (aka communities that do not have access to legislative power already)

whats so hard to understand?

So he's just saying that she got the latino and asian vote because she got the endorsement of community leaders? Well sure, but duh. I'll definitely agree that Obama's handling of those communities was a weak spot. I do disagree that he couldn't have gotten their endorsement, and again, if it's looking like Obama's going to be the nominee then I think community leaders might have more of an interest in backing him, at least by Chang's logic, no?