Posted on 05/13/2008 9:50:43 AM PDT by shortstop
Obama can't win.
It's not that complex, really. He just can't win.
A candidate who can't win over his own party certainly can't win over the country.
The traits and flaws which make him an unacceptable candidate to roughly a third of Democrats will make him an unacceptable candidate to a majority of Americans.
And that's how you lose elections.
This isn't meant to bash him, it's just meant to be honest and lay the cards on the table. The nagging question from the Clinton camp -- Why can't he close the deal? -- is legitimate and haunting, and it gets to the point. Barack Obama has fared poorly in big, electorally rich states in his quest for the Democratic nomination. The reasons for that are only going to be exacerbated when he faces independents and Republicans.
And here are those reasons.
Barack Obama is a black nationalist with a condescending attitude toward people who are different from him and, just for good measure, he has the most liberal voting record in the United States Senate. His viewpoints on taxation are confiscatory, his attitudes toward entitlement are socialist, his thoughts on the war are defeatist.
And he doesn't seem to like white people who live in small towns, own guns or go to church.
And those attitudes don't win many friends across the electorate. And before you denounce that perspective as racist or reactionary or unfair, please note that it is an assessment which has been made by hundreds of thousands of Democrat primary voters.
And if the white Democrats don't think they can trust you, you don't have a chance with the white Republicans. If Democrats think you're too liberal, you're not going to win over very many independents or conservatives.
Though I am a Republican, and am going to vote for John McCain, the Hillary Clinton campaign has a very valid point when it raises the issue of Barack Obama's electability. They are right to point out that he doesn't have any. The darling of the news media and the favorite most liberal Democrats is not a good match for the country as a whole.
Barack Obama has been a fulltime candidate for a year, and today West Virginia Democrats are going to hand him his lunch. Barack Obama has been a fulltime candidate for a year, and he couldn't win California, New York, Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan or Florida. That's a murderer's row of electoral-vote states and Obama whiffed in each one of them.
Granted, he came close in some, and two of them the Democrats aren't going to count, but in the states where you need to win a majority of voters to become president, he hasn't even gotten a majority of Democrats.
And he's running against a liberal Republican who appeals to independents and disaffected Democrats.
Against a conservative, maybe people would rally to Obama as an alternative, but against a Republican who's not very Republican, he's more frightening to the center than is his opponent.
So the math on Barack Obama becoming president is sketchy at best. His only hope is that Democrats rally to him with complete enthusiasm, that bygones are truly bygones, and that somehow John McCain has a meltdown that completely alienates everyone but diehard Republicans. Barack Obama's best hope is that Democrat hatred for George W. Bush can be transplanted -- without a good reason -- to John McCain. That's why Obama says McCain is running for Bush's third term, because he knows he can't beat McCain, but he can beat Bush.
The last successful Democratic presidential candidate who campaigned as a liberal was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton all campaigned and were seen by the voters as moderates. Some of them didn't turn out to be, but they kept that little fact hidden until after the election. There is a reason they did it that way -- America isn't really comfortable with liberals, not in a majority way.
That's why candidates like Hubert Humphrey, Eugene McCarthy, Michael Dukakis and John Kerry have done so poorly. They each were clearly identified as liberals -- in fairly liberal eras -- and they all lost.
Though he has since taken a hard-left turn, Al Gore campaigned as a moderate -- and scored a virtual tie for the presidency.
America doesn't like liberals in the White House. That's why there have been so few of them there. Just Wilson, Roosevelt, Carter and Clinton in a century.
Obama's liberalism goes against the electoral experience of the Democratic Party and against the electoral tastes of the American people.
His arrogance and elitism, and his 20 years of listening to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, are just icing on the cake.
If a man can't even win his own party, it's not likely he can win the country.
Barack Obama has faced the Democratic primary voters and he couldn't win their nomination. He couldn't quite get it over the top.
And that's just how he will do in November.
In any case, I say with no hypocrisy intended: McCain sucks, is more liberal than conservative, and is an arrogant global warming believing fool that I will gladly vote for because he supports NOT throwing away the sacrifice of thousands of young American soldiers by retreating from Iraq.
There is nothing else any of these candidates stand for that I care about because they all agree on everything I disagree with except that most important issue.
< / runonsentences>
Unfortunately you are right. Obama is so radical and so liberal that, coupled with a democratic Congress, will absolutely ruin this country for a generation. It will take decades to overcome the damage. I sincerely am concerned about our future as a nation if this guy is elected and I am simply stunned at the Svengali effect this radical, racist, fascist has over seemingly normal and intelligent people. It's scary as hell.
This election will probably have the largest turnout in over half-a-century. The liberal kooks and kids will actually vote this time, for Obama of course. The conservative kooks will stay home. The independents and conservatives will realize just how dangerous Obama is for America and vote in large numbers to save us.
Then we have another candidate, worth approximately $3.4 million, self-made millionaire (in recent years), through his own works (writing books), paid his own way through school; he is the elitist, he does not share or know the struggles of the hardworking men and women, and to top it off, his advantage according to conventional wisdom: he's black.
Rod Serling and his writers with their wild imaginations never could have conceived of such an improbable scenario.
Wishful thinking and total delusion, after Pubs had Presidency, House and Senat doing NOTHING they promised to do, instead they acted like Democrats or even worse, wrecking the economy with irresponsible spending, and the worst fiscal policy in the US history indebting US to Red China for generations, voters will elect anybody including your friendly county dog catcher for a President.
The only difference between the idiot McCain and two other 2 democratic clowns is War in Iraq (people are tired of it) and abortion issue (not many gives a s#$%t about it when they can,t pay mortgage, or buy gas).
The latest McCain's pandering to envirowacos: "he believes in global warming and he is willing to sign Kyoto even China and India won't is very sad indeed.
Go to: https://www.intrade.com/aav2/menu.jsp then to Politics and find out that people who put their money where their mouth is are betting that Obama will defeat McCain 51:37.
Talk is cheap, as is fantasy and wishful thinking.
The traits and flaws which make him an unacceptable candidate to roughly a third of Democrats will make him an unacceptable candidate to a majority of Americans.
And that's how you lose elections.
Sadly, the very same can be said about McCain and the Republicans/Conservatives.
“but he sure should fight for Oil in Gulf of Mexico that is 100 miles away from the Coast.”
McCain supports this, however Obama voted against this (something the trolls urging folks to stay at home don’t want to talk about):
mm long time no see.
Op Chaos will go down as one of Rush's finest hours.
The author of the article left out one possibility: Hillary can benefit by making Obama lose. Her last chance to run for the presidency will probably be in 2012. McCain might well be a one-termer. But if Obama wins, she won't be able to run till 2016, when she is 68 (I think). She's got a lot to lose with an Obama presidency. She might well benefit more from a McCain admin than an Obama admin. I think there's a good chance she'll campaign for Obama in public, only to undermine him behind the scenes. Wouldn't it be strange if we have Hillary to thank for a republican victory this Fall? This has been one weird election season.
As for the right, well, who knows. McCain, or his handlers, have calculated that we love the country to much to hand it to an Islamist/Black Values type. He’s right about that. Crazy is likely better than evil in this case.
Yes, and I think back to when Richard Nixon was running for Pres. You know, conservatives were demoralized then too. Nixon was indeed very liberal on many issues (affirmative action and price controls, for example), but people voted for him. Nixon had many flaws. He caused the country much damage. Nevertheless--and I will probably get flamed for saying this--the country was better off for having elected Nixon rather than his opponents. He was hardly ideal, but he was the only choice available. It's a bitter pill to swallow after 25 years of victories, but that's where we're at.
It's important to take the long view of these things. We had a pretty long run of success (Reagan's election in '80 to W's re-election in '04), so things were bound to go sour eventually. Now seems to be that time. Better times will come round again. As Lady Thatcher put it, "There are no permanent defeats in politics because there are no permanent victories." With hindsight we can see that the country was better off for Nixon's election, even though he was a problematic candidate and president. That' one reason I can make my peace with voting for McCain, even though he is hugely problematic on a number of issues.
What a choice.
What you said. Someone above said that the Gingrich revolution of '94 is dead. I would agree, but would expand it to all post WW II conservatism in forms it had from about '52 to about 2000. The deaths of Reagan, John Paul II, and more recently, William F Buckley, symbolize this. We seem to be in a time of transition and there just are not any really good options out there. There's a lot of ferment. The one true thing that Obama's campaign hit upon was the desire for change. There's probably some minor realignment going on.
The important thing for us conservatives is to position ourselves to take advantage of it when our "brand name" improves again--and it will, because we're right. Till then, things are gonna be discouraging.
Guess what, skippy, that one cuts both ways.
I would point out that with the matter of who will be the GOP nominee completely settled, somwhere between a third and a quarter of the GOP voters in the last two primaries voted against McCain. That's how the GOP loses elections.
McCain is opportunist. When push comes to shove, he'll drill for oil and maybe even coal for coal/oil conversion. He'll throw the greens under the bus just like throws us under the bus when it suits him.
Nobody wants to go down as a loser president. But energy production will be crucial to the next pres. McCain will drill if his legacy depends on it, "green" ideals be damned. If he tries to "walk the walk" of green economics, his proposals will get shot down like HillaryCare. The business community will only put up with so much "green" economics. It is fine as a superficial marketing tool, but no one takes green economics that seriously.
Try reading what I SAID... stop putting additional meanings to it. It’s SIMPLE. READ:
How many Conservatives are staying home? How many here are planning on not voting at all? How many are planning to vote for a third party? How many simply WILL NOT, under any circumstances vote for McCain.
I ASKED questions... that’s all, and they are damned valid questions so pay more attention.
Let me see now... I wasn’t going to vote for McCain because I wanted a Thompson/Hunter ticket. That isn’t going to happen, and I said later on that I’d consider voting for him because he was the only thing we HAD to OFFER...
Now, in the past few days I’ve been posting how we have a choice of Obama and McCain, and I’ll give McCain a chance, but fight him on anything he makes a bad decision on (like global warming, not protecting the border, increasing taxes, getting OUT of Iraq before we’re finished, etc)...
and in this thread I’ve had one person accuse me of being a troll and doom-and-gloomer, and another try to make it sound like I said something I DIDN’T say. LOL
You people are pathetic.
Don’t like my opinions? I don’t care, STFU and move on.
If I wanted to find the post from yesterday I could easily refute your statement that you find Al Gore full of it. You were defending his statement that storms are caused by global warming. You are a lib plant, no doubt in my mind. I don’t have time to find your idiotic posts but we both know what I said is true. Gore supporter, kinda like an athletic supporter.
All my posts are available for viewing so find the post you're claiming I made or shut the hell up.
I, and I suspect others, don't care for how you are speaking of our men and women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, and those who have served in the past.
Your ostensibly laudatory words on the troops are nothing but words of crass disrespect.
You pretend to be a McCain supporter but you are nothing but a venomous snake of a trollop seeking to obliquely attack McCain through deceit. Slither back from whence thou comest, scum.
I will vote for McCain; I will donate but I will not campaign for him.
Only because of those I personally know back from Iraq who have to go to the VA every weekend for a variety of reasons. The reasons they go are not pleasant, however their sacrifices should not be for nothing.
Have a good day and flame me all you want, I think I am tired of talking to you.
Admit you made a mistake and move on.
Are you man or woman enough to do that?
An honorable exit used to mean something.
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