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Robert Stacy McCain: Overrated Obama
The American Spectator ^ | August 20, 2008 | Robert Stacy McCain

Posted on 08/19/2008 11:53:45 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

The mainstream media spent months ignoring the National Enquirer's scoop about John Edwards' mistress. Now they're ignoring a potentially bigger Democratic scandal: The political incompetence of Team Obama.

Sen. Barack Obama's brain trust of David Axelrod and David Plouffe emerged from the Democratic primary campaign with a reputation for strategic genius. That reputation is deeply entwined with the conventional wisdom among the political press that Obama is a sure thing to win in November.

Since Obama clinched the nomination in June, however, evidence has steadily accumulated that Axelrod and Plouffe -- who masterminded the Illinois Democrat's upset of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton -- are out of their league when matched against a Republican in a national election.

Two months ago, on the same day a Newsweek poll showed Obama ahead by 15 points, the Democrat debuted his own personalized presidential seal. That emblem, with its Latin translation of his "Yes, We Can!" motto ("vero possumus"), quickly became an object of derision, symbolizing the overconfidence of a campaign that now finds itself locked in a neck-and-neck contest with 75 days remaining until Election Day.

Not since Frank Mankiewicz and Gary Hart steered George McGovern to the nomination in 1972 has a Democratic presidential campaign committed such laughable blunders. With few exceptions, however, the media ignore the possibility that the Axelrod-Plouffe magic simply won't work against Republican Sen. John McCain.

And perhaps it was never magic at all.

THE ANALOGY TO the McGovern campaign is apt, because Hillary Clinton's status as the prohibitive favorite -- her nomination apparently inevitable a year ago -- so much resembled Sen. Edmund Muskie's position coming into the 1972 campaign. Hubert Humphrey's 1968 running mate, the "Man from Maine" went from sure thing to lost hope in a matter of weeks.

(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...


TOPICS: Editorial; News/Current Events; Philosophy; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2008; democrats; election; electionpresident; elections; hillary; mccain; obama
Good points.
1 posted on 08/19/2008 11:53:45 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
But while Clinton's advisers hesitated to "go negative," the Republican stayed on the attack, repeating the mocking message that Obama is a lightweight "celebrity." Now, two months after an L.A. Times poll showed Obama leading by 12 points, the same poll shows him in a statistical dead heat with McCain. But none of the press wizards who gushed about the "surgical precision" of Team Obama's strategy seem to have started wondering if Axelrod and Plouffe actually know what they're doing.

This misses the issue, I think. It assumes that if he had good campaign managers, he would still be ahead. But Obama seems to me to be the problem, not his team. We haven't even started on his real negatives--noone in the general public knows anything about William Ayers, noone knows he has embraced a forged birth certificate as authentic, noone knows that he has flat out lied about the Live Birth Act, noone knows that his most difficult decision (his "vote" on the Iraq war) NEVER took place. He wasn't in the Senate then! The Illinois legislature did not vote to authorize the war. And on and on.

The best campaign team in the world can put lipstick on a pig. But it's still a pig.

2 posted on 08/20/2008 12:08:55 AM PDT by ModelBreaker
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To: ModelBreaker

And everything that comes out of his mouth is an Oink!


3 posted on 08/20/2008 12:57:14 AM PDT by John Valentine
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To: ModelBreaker
noone knows that his most difficult decision (his "vote" on the Iraq war) NEVER took place. He wasn't in the Senate then!

I didn't know that. Perhaps because he's so obviously a sleazeball phony, I change channels whenever he's being discussed.

4 posted on 08/20/2008 1:29:58 AM PDT by Veto! (Opinions freely dispensed as advice)
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To: ModelBreaker

I think the point is that both his campaign and his candidacy are overrated.

I’ve felt that way from the very beginning. People were scared of him because he beat Hilary, but in my opinion Hilary was a terrible candidate all along, she was built up by the media. He won because of how awful she was, not because of how great he was.

Bottom line is that the Democrats were dumb enough that their final two fighting for the nomination were both unelectable candidates, Hilary because of Clinton fatigue and overall negatives, and Obama because he has no substance. Him being black does not really help him because any Democrat will get 90+% of the black vote, and there are more blue collar white Democrats that would hesitate to vote for a black president than everyone is willing to discuss openly.

If McCain doesn’t screw it up he should win handily in November.


5 posted on 08/20/2008 1:47:49 AM PDT by Truthsearcher
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

The Presidential election is decided by votes. It is not a caucus, but if it were, Obama would probably win.

That’s how they won the RAT nomination, the caucuses, pure and simple.


6 posted on 08/20/2008 2:12:39 AM PDT by jerod (They were pro-abortion, for gun control & wanted a cleaner environment at all cost - The NAZI party)
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To: jerod
Obama has gotten kid glove treatments since he started running for any political office. When Obama could not win primaries in Pennsylvania, Kentucky (next to Arkansas don't you know)etc the Dems should have realized they had a problem!! Will now we are using real gloves and Obama can't counter punch.
7 posted on 08/20/2008 2:43:38 AM PDT by carcraft (The Obamalator, sold on TV, very expensive,doesn't work , is a cheap copy of the original Caterlator)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

It’s not the messenger(s) it’s the message.


8 posted on 08/20/2008 2:51:46 AM PDT by JohnLongIsland
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To: carcraft
Correction: Obama has been treated with kid gloves since the day his grandmother tried to enroll him in that private school in Hawaii...it's all been a wash...Columbia, Harvard, Law Review, The first book, the underhanded way he became a state senator, the lucky way he slid into the senate and now this. The guy is a PHONY.
9 posted on 08/20/2008 3:24:47 AM PDT by johnnycap (I would really like the model of Civil Forum that Warren has created to be repeated across the count)
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To: carcraft
That is because media liberals are supporting the first black candidate who shares their worldview and they want to see him succeed and also because they think his victory this fall is inevitable that they don't have to revisit their assumptions about his electability. So its all based on two assumptions: Obama the affirmative action candidate will make history and and he can get votes no other Democratic presidential candidate has been able to get. If both assumptions are right, then the media won't have to eat crow. But if those assumptions turn out to be wrong, the media will say they didn't see it coming. And since liberals think every one else sees the world the same way they do, they don't have the fortitude to question whether Obama is in fact even electable at all in November.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

10 posted on 08/20/2008 3:31:18 AM PDT by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives In My Heart Forever)
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To: goldstategop

But they will not eat that crow. They will blame it all on cheating and lies and chicanery and racism. And they will be right. The Democrat cheating and lies and chicanery and racism will have been major contributors to the loss.


11 posted on 08/20/2008 7:02:38 AM PDT by arthurus
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Wow the Spectator finally got around to comparing Fauxbama to McGovern... Welcome to the party guys, I beat you by several months, but welcome anyway.


12 posted on 08/20/2008 7:06:29 AM PDT by HamiltonJay
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
And perhaps it was never magic at all.

Uh-bama has been going downhill since Super Tuesday.

He barely limped across the finish line to be the presumptive nominee.

Conclusion: The more he is seen and heard, the more he loses.

13 posted on 08/20/2008 7:16:23 AM PDT by N. Theknow (Kennedys: Can't drive, can't fly, can't ski, can't skipper a boat; but they know what's best for us)
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To: ModelBreaker

“But Obama seems to me to be the problem, not his team.”

Correct. The problem with Obama is that he has the credentials to win the nomination, not the general election ...
- he is a left-liberal
- he was not in Washington when the Iraq war vote was taken, so was not ‘besmirched’ with a pro-war vote and an ‘anti-war’ rhetoric, that got Hillary tangled up.

These 2 things won him the nomination, since he won with a combo of black votes and white progressive anti-war voters.

The people who nominated Obama were the ones who thought nothing was wrong with Rev Jeremiah “Good damn America” Wright, or ex-terrorist William Ayers, or Obama giving drivers licenses to illegals, etc.


14 posted on 08/20/2008 7:58:14 AM PDT by WOSG (http://no-bama.blogspot.com/ - NObama, stop the Hype and Chains candidate)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Obama’s version of “Mission Accomplished”? Audacious indeed.

“Two months ago, on the same day a Newsweek poll showed Obama ahead by 15 points, the Democrat debuted his own personalized presidential seal. That emblem, with its Latin translation of his “Yes, We Can!” motto (”vero possumus”), quickly became an object of derision, symbolizing the overconfidence of a campaign that now finds itself locked in a neck-and-neck contest with 75 days remaining until Election Day.”


15 posted on 08/21/2008 4:31:04 AM PDT by Religion and Politics
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