For GOP only

[HuskyCaucasian]

Are you going to start posting all of the negative McCain stories now, like you have been the Hillary stories? If you are, could you put them in a general election thread, and not here? Thanks.

If you read what i said afterwards. I am not saying this is negative of McCain. Yes the article might be framed negatively, but i think it is worth debating. Heck, i am torn on the issue. I dont see this as anti-McCain.

[lostfan]

Trying to equate John with George isn't 'going negative'? I thought GWB was a dirty word for liberals?

If he's equating GWB with McCain based on his stances on certain issues (e.g., the economy) it's entirely relevant IMO. And a lot of people see things that way, not just Obama. It's not really "going negative" to highlight someone's stance on the #1 issue on voters' minds just because somebody who supports that stance doesn't agree. Otherwise there would be no point in campaigning at all and we could just have the candidates fill out a written test or something.

 

Personally I've always thought of McCain as moderate and pragmatic, and I understand he's trying to walk a delicate line between all the independents that like him (like me for example) and the die-hard conservatives that don't like him but will only begrudgingly support him to keep a Democrat out of office. So I don't really jump on him too much when it looks like he's flip-flopping.

[BearSox]

I don't know where else to put this, so I'll put it here...

 

I love how Jeremiah Wright gets interviewed by the king of the far left, radical nutjobs in George Soros.

[Balta1701]

I don't know where else to put this, so I'll put it here...

 

I love how Jeremiah Wright gets interviewed by the king of the far left, radical nutjobs in George Soros.

Um, by George Soros, do you mean, um, Bill Moyers? George Soros is an international financier and Billionaire, and I can't find anything about him and Jeremiah Wright online. Bill Moyers, however, is a member of the media and has in fact interviewed Wright in the last few days.

[BearSox]

Um, by George Soros, do you mean, um, Bill Moyers? George Soros is an international financier and Billionaire, and I can't find anything about him and Jeremiah Wright online. Bill Moyers, however, is a member of the media and has in fact interviewed Wright in the last few days.

I always confuse the two for some reason... even so, Moyers is a far left dummy too, IMO. In fact, anyone at those take back america conferences, I consider a goofball.

 

However, Moyers is no where as bad as Soros.

[Controlled Chaos]

Thanks to Hillary putting chinks in the Obama armor, this is the kind of stuff that McCain will be able to fry Obama on in the issues part of the race.

 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120847505709424727.html

Great read.

[EvilMonkey]

Obama camp plays the race card first against John.

http://www.nationaljournal.com/njonline/no_20080425_7012.php

Q: Well, one of the things to which some Democrats point -- the Clinton campaign has not said this publicly at least, but one certainly hears it in talking to supporters in more of a background way. Look at the racial polarization in the last several contests -- Pennsylvania, Ohio, Mississippi -- is that going to be a problem? Is race going to be a problem for Barack Obama in the general election?

 

Plouffe: We really don't think so. I mean the vast, vast majority of voters who would not vote for Barack Obama in November based on race are probably firmly in John McCain's camp already.

[NorthSideSox72]

Obama camp plays the race card first against John.

http://www.nationaljournal.com/njonline/no_20080425_7012.php

No, the reporter played the race card. And heck, Obama wasn't even involved here.

 

[EvilMonkey]

No, the reporter played the race card. And heck, Obama wasn't even involved here.

Obama's CAMP. David Plouffe is Barack Obama's campaign manager. Imagine McCain's campaign guy saying "the vast, vast majority of voters who would not vote for John McCain in November based on race are probably firmly in Obama's camp already."

 

[NorthSideSox72]

Obama's CAMP. David Plouffe is Barack Obama's campaign manager. Imagine McCain's campaign guy saying "the vast, vast majority of voters who would not vote for John McCain in November based on race are probably firmly in Obama's camp already."

OK. Putting aside for the moment that it was brought up by the media and not Obama's camp, I'll play along. I'm imagining it... and I'm not seeing the big deal. In fact, I think that's a statement of the obvious. If people are voting based on race, then the choice is already made.

 

[lostfan]

Obama's CAMP. David Plouffe is Barack Obama's campaign manager. Imagine McCain's campaign guy saying "the vast, vast majority of voters who would not vote for John McCain in November based on race are probably firmly in Obama's camp already."

That would be a true statement and I wouldn't really care to be honest.

[EvilMonkey]

A John McCain update!

[southsider2k5]

Did anyone else catch the highlights of the correspondents dinner with George Bush? He was pretty darned funny, especially when he was explaining why the Presidential candidates weren't there... Hillary was ducking sniper fire, and Obama was in church...

[NorthSideSox72]

Did anyone else catch the highlights of the correspondents dinner with George Bush? He was pretty darned funny, especially when he was explaining why the Presidential candidates weren't there... Hillary was ducking sniper fire, and Obama was in church...

I read some of the highlights, but they lose their charm when written in an article. Those dinners are usually pretty funny.

 

I'd also be curious how the Obama 1-on-1 with Chris Wallace went last night - did anyone get to see that?

 

[southsider2k5]

It was interesting. I watched bits and pieces around another show. He seemed to hold his own pretty well, and effectively ducked the questions that he didn't want to answer. There was nothing earthshattering. The interesting duck was when he asked him about his assertation that he was a person who worked on bi-partisian issues and to give an example of an important piece of legislation that he crossed the aisle on.

[NorthSideSox72]

It was interesting. I watched bits and pieces around another show. He seemed to hold his own pretty well, and effectively ducked the questions that he didn't want to answer. There was nothing earthshattering. The interesting duck was when he asked him about his assertation that he was a person who worked on bi-partisian issues and to give an example of an important piece of legislation that he crossed the aisle on.

Hm. Weird he would duck that one (bi-partisan issues), because he has done that - with McCain even. Maybe that's why he didn't want to bring it up? I'm actually not sure if the bill those two did together ever passed. That may also be the reason for ducking it - maybe all his joint bill attempts have failed to pass?

 

 

[lostfan]

A John McCain update!

That is hilarious

[southsider2k5]

More good news for McCain. It seems that the longer this goes on, the less likely that people backing one of the Dem candidates are likely to vote for the other if they are the nominee.

 

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gIux4Z1...3EWwIAD90BCVC80

 

Heated campaign souring Democrats on rival candidates

 

By ALAN FRAM – 5 hours ago

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — Loyal Democrat Richard Somer says if Hillary Rodham Clinton gets his party's presidential nomination, he just may sit it out this Election Day.

 

A Barack Obama supporter, Somer says he has been repulsed by her use of "slimy insinuations" in the campaign. He especially disliked her attacking the Illinois senator for his relationship with William Ayers, a former Weather Underground radical with provocative views.

 

"She's better than that," said Somer, 72, a retired professor from Clinton, N.Y. He said he expects the Democrats to carry New York anyway, so he might not vote "as a protest to Mrs. Clinton."

 

Somer is not the only Democrat whose views of his party's rival candidate have soured.

 

Party members increasingly dislike the contender they are not supporting in the bruising nomination fight, an Associated Press-Yahoo News survey and exit polls of voters show. That is raising questions about how faithful some will be by the November general election.

 

In the AP-Yahoo poll — which has tracked the same 2,000 people since November — Obama supporters with negative views of the New York senator have grown from 35 percent in November to 44 percent this month, including one-quarter with very unfavorable feelings.

 

Those Obama backers who don't like Clinton say they would vote for Republican candidate John McCain over her by a two-to-one margin, with many undecided.

 

As for Clinton supporters, those with unfavorable views of Obama have grown from 26 percent to 42 percent during this same period — including a doubling to 20 percent of those with very negative opinions.

 

The Clinton backers with unfavorable views of Obama say they would vote for McCain over him by nearly three-to-one, though many haven't made up their minds.

 

"I'd be hard pressed" to vote for Obama, said April Glenn, 66, a Clinton supporter from Philadelphia, who said his handling of the controversy over the anti-American preachings of his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, made her doubt his leadership skills. "I don't think he's capable."

 

Clinton backers who have taken a dislike to Obama have a sharply lower regard for his honesty and ethics than they did last fall, the poll shows. Obama supporters whose view of Clinton has dimmed see her as far less compassionate and refreshing than they did then.

 

The feelings seem especially widespread among the candidates' strongest supporters.

 

_About half of Obama's white backers with college degrees have negative views of Clinton. Fewer black Obama supporters dislike Clinton but their numbers have grown faster, more than doubling during the period to 33 percent.

 

_Among Clinton's supporters, Obama is disliked by nearly half the whites who have not gone beyond high school, a near doubling since November. Four in 10 white women backing her have unfavorable views of Obama.

 

Intensified passions during contentious intraparty fights are nothing new, and voters often return to the fold by the time the general election rolls around and people focus on partisan and issue differences.

 

"These are snapshots of today," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., a member of his party's congressional leadership who has not committed to Clinton or Obama. By autumn, he said, "the party will come together."

 

Yet with the battle between the two contenders threatening to stretch into June or beyond, some Democrats are wondering whether the party will have time to regain the loyalty of those whose candidate failed to win the party's nomination.

 

"If we can bring this to a conclusion by mid-June or something, I think that healing can take place," Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen, who has been pressing party leaders to settle on a nominee quickly, said in an interview. "If it goes till late August, then it's a real problem."

 

Others express concern but argue that the divisions are not nearly as intense as when the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago was split over the Vietnam War; when Ronald Reagan unsuccessfully fought President Ford for the Republican nomination in 1976; or when Sen. Edward Kennedy lost a bitter duel with President Carter to be the 1980 Democratic nominee. In each case, those parties' nominees lost the general election.

 

"It is not the same kind of rancor or bitterness" as those years, said Democratic pollster Peter Hart.

 

If by July 4 the Obama and Clinton campaigns are still maneuvering for advantage at the party's August convention, it will be harder to unify party voters and "Democrats will have done grievous harm to themselves," he said.

 

Obama and Clinton campaign officials express little concern their fight will leave Democratic voters disaffected come November.

 

"When the family squabble is over, the family will come back together," said Obama pollster Cornell Belcher.

 

Current Democratic divisions are "par for the course" at this stage of a campaign," said Clinton strategist Geoffrey Garin.

 

"I know a lot of party leaders are concerned about this. But the Democratic rank and file doesn't seem to be," Garin said, citing polls showing people want the nomination race to continue.

 

Exit polls of voters in this year's Democratic primaries tell a similar tale of hard feelings.

 

_In Pennsylvania's primary last week, which Clinton won, 68 percent of Obama voters said they would back Clinton against McCain. Just 54 percent of her supporters would vote for Obama against the Republican — including less than half of her white voters who have not finished college.

 

_In the 16 states that held primaries on Super Tuesday Feb. 5, a combined 47 percent of Clinton voters said they would be satisfied only if she won the nomination. That figure has grown to 53 percent in the nine states with primaries since then — including 58 percent who said so in Pennsylvania.

 

_In Pennsylvania, while Clinton voters overall would vote heavily for Obama over McCain, her supporters who expressed displeasure should Obama win the nomination were evenly split in a contest between Obama and the Arizona Republican senator.

 

_Obama voters have also grown more surly, though more modestly. On Super Tuesday, 44 percent of his supporters said they would only settle for him as nominee — a number that has risen to 49 percent in states voting since that day.

 

Exit polls also show key voting blocs' negative feelings about their candidate's rival have grown, though it is less intense on Obama's side.

 

On Super Tuesday, about half of Clinton's white supporters with less than college degrees said they would be satisfied only if she won the nomination. In voting since then, six in 10 have said so — including 68 percent in Pennsylvania last week.

 

On the other hand, 46 percent of Obama's black supporters on Super Tuesday said he was the only candidate they wanted to win. That number has edged up to 49 percent since that Feb. 5 voting — including 55 percent in Pennsylvania.

 

The findings from the AP-Yahoo News poll are from telephone interviews with 863 Democrats on a panel of adults questioned in November, December, January and April. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.

 

The poll was conducted over the Internet by Knowledge Networks, which initially contacted people using traditional telephone polling methods and followed with online interviews. People chosen for the study who had no Internet access were given it free.

 

The exit poll is based on in-person interviews with more than 36,000 voters in 28 states that have held primaries this year in which both candidates actively competed. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 1 percentage point, larger for some subgroups.

 

AP Director of Surveys Trevor Tompson and AP News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius contributed to this report.

[NorthSideSox72]

More good news for McCain. It seems that the longer this goes on, the less likely that people backing one of the Dem candidates are likely to vote for the other if they are the nominee.

People have short attention spans. Come June when the Dems have a nominee, given a few weeks to cool down over the decision, the middle and left of the party will all fall in line behind the candidate in question.

 

But, and I think this is among the key reasons why the Dems will pick Obama... the independents and moderates consistently favor Obama over Clinton, polls have shown. That group will have some defections either way, but particularly so among Obama supporters.

 

[kapkomet]

People have short attention spans. Come June when the Dems have a nominee, given a few weeks to cool down over the decision, the middle and left of the party will all fall in line behind the candidate in question.

 

But, and I think this is among the key reasons why the Dems will pick Obama... the independents and moderates consistently favor Obama over Clinton, polls have shown. That group will have some defections either way, but particularly so among Obama supporters.

I bet you dollars to donuts that this is changing before our eyes.

[southsider2k5]

I bet you dollars to donuts that this is changing before our eyes.

 

The way you can tell this is true is by the slide in people who view Obama as honest or trustworthy, and the rise in the people who view him negatively. This will only continue as the campaign trudges along, and he makes more mistakes.

[NorthSideSox72]

The way you can tell this is true is by the slide in people who view Obama as honest or trustworthy, and the rise in the people who view him negatively. This will only continue as the campaign trudges along, and he makes more mistakes.

I certainly see what you and Kap are getting at, and it is happening. From the Dems' perspective, I am not sure its as negative as the media portrays it. People have short memories and shorter attention spans. But most importantly, if Hillary uses all the GOP ammo on Obama now, I think that actually makes it harder for McCain to use some of those issues later.

 

Either way, it pisses me off to see Clinton continue to flap around like this, when she just cannot win. The only way she wins is a back room deal with the remaining supers, and if that happens, against the wishes of voters, the Dems are fully aware of what kind of long term damage that does to the party. As big as the Clintons are, the party is bigger.

 

[Controlled Chaos]

An Old Newness

By Thomas Sowell

April 29, 2008

 

Many years ago, a great hitter named Paul Waner was nearing the end of his long career. He entered a ballgame with 2,999 hits -- one hit away from the landmark total of 3,000, which so many hitters want to reach, but which relatively few actually do reach.

 

Waner hit a ball that the fielder did not handle cleanly but the official scorer called it a hit, making it Waner's 3,000th. Paul Waner then sent word to the official scorer that he did not want that questionable hit to be the one that put him over the top.

 

The official scorer reversed himself and called it an error. Later Paul Waner got a clean hit for number 3,000.

 

What reminded me of this is the great fervor that many seem to feel over the prospect of the first black President of the United States.

 

No doubt it is only a matter of time before there is a black president, just as it was only a matter of time before Paul Waner got his 3,000th hit. The issue is whether we want to reach that landmark so badly that we are willing to overlook how questionably that landmark is reached.

 

Paul Waner had too much pride to accept a scratch hit. Choosing a President of the United States is a lot more momentous than a baseball record. We the voters need to have far more concern about who we put in that office that holds the destiny of a nation and of generations yet unborn.

 

There is no reason why someone as arrogant, foolishly clever and ultimately dangerous as Barack Obama should become president -- especially not at a time when the threat of international terrorists with nuclear weapons looms over 300 million Americans.

 

Many people seem to regard elections as occasions for venting emotions, like cheering for your favorite team or choosing a Homecoming Queen.

 

The three leading candidates for their party's nomination are being discussed in terms of their demographics -- race, sex and age -- as if that is what the job is about.

 

One of the painful aspects of studying great catastrophes of the past is discovering how many times people were preoccupied with trivialities when they were teetering on the edge of doom. The demographics of the presidency are far less important than the momentous weight of responsibility that office carries.

 

Just the power to nominate federal judges to trial courts and appellate courts across the country, including the Supreme Court, can have an enormous impact for decades to come. There is no point feeling outraged by things done by federal judges, if you vote on the basis of emotion for those who appoint them.

 

Barack Obama has already indicated that he wants judges who make social policy instead of just applying the law. He has already tried to stop young violent criminals from being tried as adults.

 

Although Senator Obama has presented himself as the candidate of new things -- using the mantra of "change" endlessly -- the cold fact is that virtually everything has says about domestic policy is straight out of the 1960s and virtually everything he says about foreign policy is straight out of the 1930s.

 

Protecting criminals, attacking business, increasing government spending, promoting a sense of envy and grievance, raising taxes on people who are productive and subsidizing those who are not -- all this is a re-run of the 1960s.

 

We paid a terrible price for such 1960s notions in the years that followed, in the form of soaring crime rates, double-digit inflation and double-digit unemployment. During the 1960s, ghettoes across the countries were ravaged by riots from which many have not fully recovered to this day.

 

The violence and destruction were concentrated not where there was the greatest poverty or injustice but where there were the most liberal politicians, promoting grievances and hamstringing the police.

 

Internationally, the approach that Senator Obama proposes -- including the media magic of meetings between heads of state -- was tried during the 1930s. That approach, in the name of peace, is what led to the most catastrophic war in human history.

 

Everything seems new to those too young to remember the old and too ignorant of history to have heard about it.

 

---

 

Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. His Web site is www.tsowell.com.

 

COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

 

 

[Controlled Chaos]

The Rev. Wright Just Can't Help Himself

By David Limbaugh

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

 

When it comes to the connection between Barack Obama and his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright -- or to John McCain's various positions on whether criticizing Obama for his relationship with Wright is fair game -- my head is spinning.

 

At first, the Obama defenders said Jeremiah Wright doesn't speak for Obama. Not only have Obama's ill-wishers taken Wright's statements out of context but they have unfairly imputed those statements to Obama.

 

Next, we witnessed the beginning of the Jeremiah Wright rehabilitation tour. He appeared on Bill Moyers' show, endeavoring to present himself as a calm, reasonable person whose statements had been twisted against him.

 

Then he spoke at the Detroit NAACP dinner. Forgive me if I have a different take than most Wright critics, but I read the transcript of the Detroit speech in its entirety and did not detect too much, if any, incendiary language.

 

Wright presented a rather innocuous talk about the differences in human beings and how our differences do not mean certain groups are deficient -- "just different." His theme seemed to be that we should strive to overlook people's differences and work toward reconciliation because we are all made in God's image. Bravo. Who could object to that?

 

In his speech the next morning at the National Press Club, Wright continued with that theme, which was fine as far as it went. But alas, he couldn't help dipping his foot a little further into the waters of controversy.

 

He touched on black liberation theology, revealing, inadvertently or not, that his religious views are formed through a racially tinted prism. He strategically characterized the recent scrutiny of his sermons as "not an attack on Jeremiah Wright," but "an attack on the black church." And he huffed that his congregation has sent dozens of kids to fight in this nation's wars, while those who have called him unpatriotic have sent "4,000 American boys and girls of every race to die over a lie."

 

But these subjects were tame compared to his responses to the moderator's questions following the speech, where Wright reverted -- full bore -- to the offensive themes to which we've been exposed recently.

 

In so doing, he undid the undoing of the damage he tried to undo with his two "reconciliation" speeches. In front of a large audience, he fatally undermined his recent protest that Obama's opponents have taken his sermon utterances grossly out of context.

 

Among the highlights, Wright said, "In biblical history, there's not one word written in the Bible between Genesis and Revelations that was not written under one of six different kinds of oppression." This, I suppose, is part of his justification for black liberation theology's presumed reading of the Bible through the lens of race and oppression.

 

He also clarified his thoughts on reconciliation, plainly articulating that our "country's leaders have refused to apologize" for slavery and "until racism and slavery are confessed and asked for forgiveness," there can't be reconciliation. He mentioned nothing, of course, about the Civil War. He also indignantly stood by his statement "God damn America," saying, "God damns some practices."

 

When given an opportunity to retract or soften his statement that the government lied about inventing HIV as a means of genocide against African-Americans, he said, "I believe our government is capable of doing anything." And he strongly refused to denounce Louis Farrakhan, saying, "Louis Farrakhan is not my enemy. He did not put me in chains."

 

In view of Wright's elucidations, I find it difficult to understand how the candidacy of Barack Obama cannot be mortally wounded by his longtime, voluntary and intimate association with this man. How can Obama possibly preach national harmony, reconciliation and bipartisanship coming from this type of church culture -- which Wright appears to say harbors an unforgiving spirit? Where else, if not from his church, are we to assume Obama gets his ideas on reconciliation?

 

But in the interest of that spirit of bipartisanship to which Obama claims to aspire, let me also confess that I can't begin to comprehend John McCain's regrettable condemnation of North Carolina Republicans for reasonably raising the Wright issue -- which, by the way, is bigger than John McCain or his candidacy. Nor can I understand McCain's belated halfhearted about-face on this subject.

 

The Rev. Wright is certainly entitled to his opinions, and he is certainly entitled to deliver them from his pulpit -- tax questions aside. And John McCain is certainly entitled to continually bite the hand that feeds him.

 

But voters also have rights -- and duties. Among them is their duty to decide whether they want to elevate to the presidency a man who can't plausibly separate himself from the disturbing, toxic views of his own pastor.

 

 

David Limbaugh, brother of radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, is an expert in law and politics and author of Bankrupt: The Intellectual and Moral Bankruptcy of Today's Democratic Party.

 

 

[NorthSideSox72]

I like the 2nd article. But the 1st one is more appropriately aimed at the likes of Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Alan Keyes.