All Things Probama

[NorthSideSox72]

New thread for Pro-Obama and/or anit-McCain specific stuff.

 

[BigSqwert]

Per the local fire marshal in St Paul there were approximately 17K in the stadium last night and an additional 15K outside of the stadium. The guy can really draw a crowd.

[BigSqwert]

Was nice to hear Obama mention in his speech that he won't use religion and patriotism to divide America. Somehow I doubt the GOP will do the same.

[EvilMonkey]

Was nice to hear Obama mention in his speech that he won't use religion and patriotism to divide America. Somehow I doubt the GOP will do the same.

Nope. He will use class warfare and subtle racism instead.

[lostfan]

Nope. He will use class warfare and subtle racism instead.

Come on now with that, for real

[EvilMonkey]

Come on now with that, for real

C'mon yourself here. How many stories have you read insinuating that if whitey doesn't vote for Obama, it's because he's black? And they are not put out by Obama, but by his 'supporters'. And the class warfare, that is a Democratic staple, blame the rich for taking money from everyone else.

[HuskyCaucasian]

Obama just WHACKED McCain on his "support" for divestment and increased pressure on Iran. Basically, He said "I put forth a bi-partisan bill to put the screws on on Iran. John McCain did NOT support it and there is a secret senator who is blocking the bill"

[lostfan]

And they are not put out by Obama

Jesus. This is quoted from your post, mind you.

 

And I don't read things like that. Honestly the only place I ever see things like that - the Obama camp playing the whole "if you're white and don't vote for Obama it's because you're racist" card - is on conservative blogs (Michelle Malkin, etc). The fact that there are actually people that don't vote for him based on his skin color notwithstanding.

Edited June 4, 2008 by lostfan

[NorthSideSox72]

C'mon yourself here. How many stories have you read insinuating that if whitey doesn't vote for Obama, it's because he's black? And they are not put out by Obama, but by his 'supporters'. And the class warfare, that is a Democratic staple, blame the rich for taking money from everyone else.

Find me one instance of any kind where Obama or his campaign staff or future cabinet folks have done or said anything racist, subtly or otherwise.

 

Obama can't control his voters who go off like that, any more than McCain can. There will be McCain supporters on the far right that will do all sorts of awful things, say awful things... but I don't put that on McCain. Same way, I don't put that on Obama.

 

[EvilMonkey]

Find me one instance of any kind where Obama or his campaign staff or future cabinet folks have done or said anything racist, subtly or otherwise.

 

Obama can't control his voters who go off like that, any more than McCain can. There will be McCain supporters on the far right that will do all sorts of awful things, say awful things... but I don't put that on McCain. Same way, I don't put that on Obama.

I didn't say Obama or staff said that. However, I will refrain from commenting on this further, in here, since I forgot it was the 'pro' thread. Sorry. And NSS, you are a more level headed person than most,and I believe what you said in your last two lines.

[NorthSideSox72]

I didn't say Obama or staff said that. However, I will refrain from commenting on this further, in here, since I forgot it was the 'pro' thread. Sorry. And NSS, you are a more level headed person than most,and I believe what you said in your last two lines.

You can comment further if you want - I was just trying to keep the General thread free of some of the rah-rah stuff.

 

Thanks on that last bit. I think both candidates will find themselves being held responsible for what some idiot supporter of theirs does, and I don't think that's a good reason to judge a candidate.

 

[lostfan]

I just take issue with the fact that for all the complaining people do (justifiably so, to a certain degree) about the "race card" being played, the "reverse race" card gets played what seems like every other day in here even more frivolously.

 

I mean, really now - let's just ignore the fact that if Obama does get elected that it'll be the most significant milestone for race relations since the Emancipation Proclamation since it doesn't have anything to do with his ability to govern - the Obama camp is not race baiting, and black people who are enthusiastic about it happening are not racist. That's just so grating to me.

[Balta1701]

It's still from, well, the last race, but hey they closed that thread, so I'll stick this here. Piece from the WaPo today on how the Obama team pulled off the win.

The insurgent strategy the group devised instead was to virtually cede the most important battlegrounds of the Democratic nomination fight to Clinton, using precision targeting to minimize her delegate hauls, while going all out to crush her in states where Democratic candidates rarely ventured.

 

The result may have lacked the glamour of a sweep, but last night, with the delegates he picked up in Montana and South Dakota and a flood of superdelegate endorsements, Obama sealed one of the biggest upsets in U.S. political history and became the first Democrat since Jimmy Carter to wrest his party's nomination from the candidate of the party establishment. The surprise was how well his strategy held up -- and how little resistance it met.

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"We kept waiting for the Clinton people to send people into the caucus states," marveled Jon Carson, one of Obama's top ground-game strategists.

 

"It's the big mystery of the campaign," said campaign manager David Plouffe, "because every delegate counts."

 

The Obama strategy had its limits. Like a basketball team entering halftime with a 30-point lead, the campaign played a less-than-inspired second half. Obama managed only a split yesterday, losing South Dakota and winning Montana, meaning that he lost nine of the last 14 primaries. Before last night, that erratic finish translated into losing 458 of the 867 pledged delegates available since Wisconsin voted on Feb. 19, and 53.2 percent of the popular vote.

 

His inability to capture battleground states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania may be a portent of what could await him in November against Sen. John McCain. But victory did come -- not in a rush of momentum but in what his own staff calls a "slog."

 

"Here's a person who nobody had heard of. The nomination was Hillary Clinton's. She was being coronated 16 months ago," said former congressman Timothy J. Roemer, who helped turn Indiana into a narrow defeat that worked to Obama's favor. "He's gone through a long, gut-wrenching, difficult process and emerged as a very talented, tough candidate."

[BigSqwert]

The Veepstakes begins...

AP: Obama Taps Three to Lead Veep Search

Supporter Caroline Kennedy will manage the vetting process with former Fannie May CEO Jim Johnson (who led Kerry and Mondale’s Veep search) and former Clinton deputy attorney general Eric Holder, an Obama legal adviser.

[BigSqwert]

Some quality entertainment from TPM regarding McCain's speech last night. It's about 5 minutes long but worth watching all the way through.

 

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/198681.php

[HuskyCaucasian]

Some quality entertainment from TPM regarding McCain's speech last night. It's about 5 minutes long but worth watching all the way through.

 

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/198681.php

that guys comment on his smile is dead on! It seems so forced lame.

[southsider2k5]

The Veepstakes begins...

 

Wait a sec... The former head of FNMA is one of the people heading Obama's Veep search? LMAO.

[BigSqwert]

Wait a sec... The former head of FNMA is one of the people heading Obama's Veep search? LMAO.

And this is funny because?

[southsider2k5]

And this is funny because?

 

This is one of the people personally responsible for the mortgage crisis, credit crunch, and falling housing prices. I guess the dude is unemployed anyway, so it isn't exactly like taking money from lobbyists... Yes, it's politics as usual.

[BigSqwert]

Johnson served as Fannie Mae CEO from 1991 to 1998 and has a long history in both Washington politics and business. He served on the boards of numerous companies, including The Goldman Sachs Group, KB Home, and Target Corporation, and has been Vice Chairman of Perseus LLC. He also was a corporate finance managing director for Lehman Brothers. He was an executive assistant for Vice President Walter Mondale (1977-1981) and a U.S. Senate staff member. Johnson also helped screen running mates for Democratic presidential nominees Walter Mondale in 1984 and John Kerry in 2004.

[BigSqwert]

Yes, it's politics as usual.

I don't think Obama picked him because of his Fannie Mae experience. It might have to do with his experience in vetting VP choices.

 

And by any chance do you know any of Johnson's stances on predatory lending? Was he a big proponent of it back in the day?

[southsider2k5]

Johnson served as Fannie Mae CEO from 1991 to 1998 and has a long history in both Washington politics and business. He served on the boards of numerous companies, including The Goldman Sachs Group, KB Home, and Target Corporation, and has been Vice Chairman of Perseus LLC. He also was a corporate finance managing director for Lehman Brothers. He was an executive assistant for Vice President Walter Mondale (1977-1981) and a U.S. Senate staff member. Johnson also helped screen running mates for Democratic presidential nominees Walter Mondale in 1984 and John Kerry in 2004.

 

In other words his a Washington insider, a corporate head honcho, and a guy who helped shape the policies that led to the biggest banking crisis since 1929. He is pretty much one of the guys that he has turned into a villian on the campaign trail. Yeah, real change there

[BigSqwert]

In other words his a Washington insider, a corporate head honcho, and a guy who helped shape the policies that led to the biggest banking crisis since 1929. He is pretty much one of the guys that he has turned into a villian on the campaign trail. Yeah, real change there

I'm not sure what your issue is here. Obama is not asking him to be the VP. He's asked him to be part of the staff that vets the potential VP. Johnson isn't being asked to help out with policies or stances of the Obama campaign. I think you are manufacturing your own outrage.

 

I honestly doubt this is something that will impact voters.

Edited June 4, 2008 by BigSqwert

[BigSqwert]

And my final attempt at bashing McCain's awful speech last night...

 

Seventeen Tired White People In a Room: John McCain Gives the Single Worst Speech In the History of American Politics

 

First of all, John, you weren't in New Orleans.

 

You were in Kenner, Louisiana. I have spent a fair amount of time in both Kenner and New Orleans, and believe me, the people who live there are acutely aware of the difference. The competition in CYO basketball alone runs at fratricidal levels. So your very first words were stunningly dumb.

 

And not only wrong, not only dumb, but wrong, dumb, and mis-pronounced: it's not New Or-lee-eyens, as any resident of New Orleans (or Kenner) will insist on telling you: it's New Or-lins. Down there in New Orleans -- sorry, I mean Kenner -- these are life-and-death issues.

 

So: one sentence into the single worst speech in the history of American politics, in front of what looked like seventeen tired white people in a room, John McCain -- comb-over plastered down, grinning inanely, with his strange collection of jowls and wattles a-quiver at various tempos (a separate flopping-rhythm to every fleshy sac, in a display of trembling facial-jelly unmatched since the heyday of Jesse Helms) -- had:

 

a) proved he didn't know where he was,

 

b ) showed he was too lazy to even ask a random passer-by the name of the city he wrongly believed himself to be in, and

 

c) beamed out to America -- for the first but unmercifully not the last time on a crucial night of political theater--that bizarre frozen rictus of a grin that he quite wrongly thinks charming and down-home.

 

Mere seconds into an address that gladdened Obama supporters everywhere and drove giant ripples of buyer's-remorse down the gut of every Obama-hating white Clinton supporter, John McCain had proudly displayed his Wooden Soldier persona to the world.

 

It was a miscalculation of stunning proportions -- not just by McCain, but by the once-fearsome Republican strategists who'd propped him up in front of that eye-torturing green backdrop. How the mighty have fallen: last night, we witnessed the arrival of the Anti-Reagan, the pitiful obverse of the Great Communicator. Here, instead, was the Grating Obfuscator, mangling an already-terrible speech like some mildewed Howdy Doody with Alzheimer's Disease.

 

His ideas were puerile -- and his ideas were the best part of the speech. He turned instantly-forgettable phrases into unforgettable moments of black comedy, at one point so garbling the phrase "change in strategy" that it almost came out as "strange in tragedy" -- which would have been a far better description of his support for the war than any he gave in his remarks.

 

For the love of God, you should pardon the expression, who's coaching this man? At several points he actually spoke the phrase "heh-heh-heh" as if reading it from a Teleprompter. He paused after what he believed to be winning lines, blatantly milking applause from those seventeen tired white people (and here's a Note to John: when the applause is so sparse that you can actually hear and identify the separate clapping-patterns of individual clappers, dispense with the dramatic pauses.)

Worst of all was The Blinking. It should be illegal to hustle John McCain in a poker-game, because his "tell" is so freaking obvious: whenever he's spoken a lie that he knows flat-out is a lie, he stops and performs a nightmarish combo of The Rictus and The Blink, a rapid eye-flutter that reads like a Bettie Boop parody and should not be attempted by anyone even vaguely male.

 

Do I focus more on theater than on substance? Well, so did McCain. And so did Ronald Reagan, for that matter, but according to popular opinion -- one I have always been unable to share, since my loathing for the man put the whammy on objective judgement -- Reagan played his games of political three-card-monte with skill and charm. The fact that the Republican Party has fallen on such hard times that it can only offer a John McCain as their presidential candidate means that not only have they lost their Reagans, but they have lost their Michael Deavers, Lee Atwaters, and (vintage) Karl Roves as well. And that loss is the truly critical one.

 

Case in point: Republican strategists knew that Obama would be taking the stage an hour later to deliver a typically hypnotic speech in front of an SRO house of ecstatic devotees. So the fact that they threw McCain into the gladiator-pit of American TV armed only with his own charisma -- which, of course, is to say without any weapons at all -- is further proof that it's Amateur Hour at the GOP. To which -- John Hagee and Jeremiah Wright aside -- one can only say: thank God.

 

Edited June 4, 2008 by BigSqwert

[EvilMonkey]

I'm not sure what your issue is here. Obama is not asking him to be the VP. He's asked him to be part of the staff that vets the potential VP. Johnson isn't being asked to help out with policies or stances of the Obama campaign. I think you are manufacturing your own outrage.

 

I honestly doubt this is something that will impact voters.

I think you are confusing outrage with something else. Everytime someone points out something wrong or something that doesn't look quite right, it isn't 'outrage'. Now if the reply would have been something like "That f&cking Obama chose that a$$hole to pick his vp! He couldn't pick his nose right, how's he gonna pick a vp!", you might have outrage.