What's the matter with Obama?

Traveling the country the past few months, I have encountered habitual Republican voters so entranced by Barack Obama’s potential to lead the nation that they plan to vote for him in November. Once Hillary Clinton’s defected supporters return to loyalty, Obama Republicans could produce a Democratic presidential landslide. But Obama’s current missteps jeopardize their support and imperil his election.

These apostate Republicans never were deluded into considering him anything other than a doctrinaire liberal who wants a more intrusive government with higher taxation and tougher regulation. But they have leaned toward him as an exceptional candidate in the mold of John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, a post-partisan leader and a welcome contrast to George W. Bush’s failed presidency. That impression is threatened by Obama’s performance the last 10 days, climaxed by Wednesday night’s debate with Hillary Clinton.

Obama’s new resemblance is less to Kennedy or Reagan than to leftist author Thomas Frank, whose 2004 book, “What’s the Matter With Kansas?” answered the liberal conundrum: Why do ordinary Americans vote against their own economic interests to support Republicans? Frank explained that “deranged” and “lunatic” Kansans were led away by Republicans from material concerns to social issues. Obama similarly described small town Americans turning to guns and the Bible in frustration over government’s failure to take care of them — a more genteel version of Frank. That raises the question, “What’s the matter with Obama?”

I've been overly optimistic this spring. And most of my predictions are wrong anyway. But I just can't see an older democrat from Ohio or the PA voting for Obama. I'm really curious to see how hillary does tomorrow. If she wins by 10 or more points, I think that's a good sign for McCain. And nationally, things are as bad as they're going to get for McCain. I think the economy will be better on election day, and the militias in Iraq will be wiped out. So this is Obama’s high water mark.If he gets beaten badly in Pennsylvania tomorrow things will only get worse for him as the general election campaign moves on.

Totally clueless!

Obama would be a big loser in the election. The older dem party is totally racist and will not vote Obama especially in the South and mid West so you do not get the middle age and older whites. Good luck getting the Asians, Hispanics to vote for him they really dislike blacks, and the Jews have had an eye opener concerning blacks in the last 2 primaries good luck with them also.

The republicans will not go and vote for McCain but they will go and vote against Obama. You might not get the most conservative but you gain the blue dog dems in droves. Probably a low turn out election but all McCain has to do is keep his mouth shut and run commercials on the stupid liberal things Obama has already said.

www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-oped0420chapmanapr20,1,2975893.column
chicagotribune.com

About Obama’s terrorist acquaintance

Steve Chapman

April 20, 2008

But his comfortable association with an unrepentant former terrorist should induce queasiness in anyone who shares the humane values that Obama extols.

When the issue came up in Wednesday’s Democratic debate, the Illinois senator tried to duck it. “This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who’s a professor of English in Chicago, who I know and who I have not received some official endorsement from,” he said. He added that to suggest “knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8 years old, somehow reflects on me and my values, doesn’t make much sense.”

Obama went on, “I’m also friendly with Tom Coburn, one of the most conservative Republicans in the United States Senate, who during his campaign once said that it might be appropriate to apply the death penalty to those who carried out abortions. Do I need to apologize for Mr. Coburn’s statements?”

This exercise in moral equivalence is unconvincing, if not dishonest. Would Obama be friendly with someone who actually bombed abortion clinics and defends that conduct? Not likely. But he is friendly with William Ayers, a leader of the radical Weather Underground, which in the 1970s carried out numerous bombings, including one inside the U.S. Capitol. (Though the last person who should object is Hillary Clinton, whose husband pardoned two Weather Underground members.)

Obama minimized his relationship by acknowledging only that he knows Ayers. But they have quite a bit more of a connection than that. He’s appeared on panels with Ayers, served on a foundation board with him and held a 1995 campaign event at the home of Ayers and his wife, fellow former terrorist Bernardine Dohrn. Ayers even gave money to one of his campaigns.

It’s not as though Ayers and Dohrn have denied or repudiated their crimes. After emerging from years in hiding, they escaped federal prosecution because of government misconduct in gathering evidence, but they don’t pretend they were innocent. In 2001, Ayers said, “I don’t regret setting bombs. I feel we didn’t do enough.”

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