How Obama lost the election

Atimes ^ | Sep 3, 2008 | Spengler

[RipSawyer]

Obama is the most talented and persuasive politician of his generation, the intellectual superior of all his competitors, but a fatally insecure personality.
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Spengler seems to be on the mark about a lot of things but there is still the insistence on painting Obama as intellectually superior, he definitely is not!

[BellStar]

I am so excited
about this ticket!

[darth]

You reminded me of a joke from ten years back: Bill Clinton and Al Gore are discussing how to convince their democrat base that they are truly liberal. Al suggests swapping spouses and then letting the story leak out. Bill says, “Great idea!”. The next morning Bill Clinton wakes up in the hotel room, rolls over, and asks, “So, how do you think the girls got along last night?”.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Palin has three homes. Expect this line to continue until it stops working.

Palin's parents are retired schoolteachers, and Governor and Mr. Palin eloped because they were too strapped to put on a wedding. Mr. Palin is a union steelworker.

Against that background I question whether it actually matters how many houses they have earned.

[CatOwner]

Premature. Way too premature to predict that Obama lost the election. I have yet to see McCain take a lead in the polls and keep it. It is Obama's election to lose, and McCain and Co. did nothing to make a dent in his lead (if anything, lost some ground this weekend).

[beejaa]

Articles like this are only useful after the election. Right now it’s all speculation.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

I did read it. All of it. Yes, it is devastating for Obama, but any praise of Palin to be found in it is of the backhanded variety.

Let's face it - plenty of FReepers have as much intelligence as Governor Palin has manifested. She is Everywoman. And that is what we like about her - she's not putting on airs; 15 years ago she was an unremarkable unknown like legions of other less-than-prodigiously-rich successful business people. In retrospect her selection as Senator McCain's VP noiminee is easily made to seem inevitable, but like many events this one seemed startling when it was revealed to us, and since we have a psychological need to make sense of the world, we rationalize the event's "inevitability."

(That is in fact a paraphrase of part of an excellent book: The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable  by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I recommend it highly).

Governor Palin is us, only more so. More grit and initiative, less willing to take things as they are without raising a fuss. Which is what usually, IMHO, distinguishes the businessman from the more typical middle class salaryman. But that small difference met opportunity, which has led to her elevation to Governor and soon, please God, to VPOTUS.

My own suggestion for VP was similar to McCain's actual choice - I would have looked for a black conservative like Lynn Swann, perhaps, or possibly an Iraq veteran like Col. West. Still wouldn't have had the resume for nomination to POTUS - but like Palin the very thinness of his resume would have pointed up the hole where Obama's resume should be. I simply do not believe that the qualifications for VP are the same as those for POTUS. VP should have an identity which helps unify the country. A positive, conservative, black would have highlighted the negativity of Sen. and Mrs. Obama as well as raising the issue of qualifications to the disadvantage of Obama, as Palin's nomination has done.

[Don Corleone]

But Spengler does analyze the source of his attraction, which is that Obama is a sociopathic personality who can gain everybody’s confidence by somehow making them think he is speaking to them personally, on the same wave-length with them, regardless of his actual words. A sociopath has no core of being; all of his life is devoted to getting others to do his will simply because that is what makes him feel real. He is not subject to the rules of his society and has no inner moral or ethical restraints. But this is precisely the thing that makes sociopaths such effective con-men.

Hitler was a sociopath and BTW ran on the same kind of "Hope and Change" platform as B.H.O.Check it out. No specifics, just "Hope and Change".

[MCOAvalanche]

You know, for all the talk about The One’s oratory skills, I am really not impressed. I still think back to the Reagan speeches and how simple he made it seem. I will remember his description of the US as the Shining City on the hill my entire life. His speeches were inspiring and created a vision of hope... The One’s speeches all seem contrived to hit all the political check points.

I will say this, in Palin’s acceptance speech she had a few Reaganesque moments that caught my ear. I could almost hear Reagan say the boat in a harbor line instead of Palin.

I think Palin of any of the 4 on the two tickets, gets the vision thing and can paint a hopeful, bright vision for the future that people will get behind and support. The majority of voter will not get behind a message of gloom and doom - people vote for hope!

[karnage]

Tighten up. All McCain has to do is stand tall and let Palin be Palin.

[Christian4Bush]

mark

[wintertime]

Obama is the most talented and persuasive politician of his generation, the intellectual superior of all his competitors, but a fatally insecure personality. American voters are not intellectual, but they are shrewd, like animals.

Someone who thinks the U.S. has 57 states and is confused about Memorial Day does NOT have a superior intellect. And....I don't thing much of of the author's ( Mr. Spengler) intellect if he thinks Obama is anyone's intellectual superior.

Next, Mr. Spengler compares Americans to animals! Unbelievable!

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

"The speech itself dragged on for three-quarters of an hour."

It's deliberate. He's using the North Korean-style mind control of Saul Alinksy community agitation theory, similar to "est" (Erhard Seminars Training). A long, drawn-out harangue designed to lure people into the same bummer, the same downer, depressive, negative message. There has been very little attention focused by the media on Obama's use of classic fallacies and sophistry, the appeal to emotion and hysteria. It had just about everything except the story of an orphan's little dog being kidnapped or run over by a billionaire on the way to a Republican fundraiser.

[beejaa]

Somebody just posted “Palin’s Responses on Talk Radio Show Very Unbecoming”. Oh well. Obama is no saint, and either is Palin.

[Defiant]

The battle has not been won, or lost, but it has been joined.

That is a fact the Dems did not have to contend with last week.

[Lexinom]

Weather this storm. The waves will get very high at times and wash over the deck.

At all costs, do not let them demoralize you. The storm we are seeing is that of desperation, of grasping at ANYTHING. They see it slipping away. Just look at the shrill attacks on the Republican VP nominee - weigh carefully the subject of the attacks against the effort put into them, and then apply rational analysis. That will help you see what is going on, and what is going through the enemy's mind.

Be of good cheer, FRiend. True "hope" and "change" is on the horizon.

[Borderline]

Landslide?!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’ve been really depressed these couple of days and even started smoking again because I’m really scared we might lose and never see Sarah Palin on the national stage again.

KavMan,

Don't let the tanked Obama mainstream press get to you. This race is nothing like what they are portraying it to be. Obama is BEHIND, by a pretty good chunk, where Kerry was at this point, where Gore was at this point. Just like all of the Dems that lost their races to the evil Republicans. The media said it would be a Gore and a Kerry wipeout of Bush.

This race is really just getting started. Americans are just starting to tune in. And McCain is running ahead of any reasonable expectations, even by those that would pick him to win.

I suspect that McCain will lead most truthful polls after the Republican Convention and maintain a lead right to the wire.

Rick

[nfldgirl]

But Spengler does analyze the source of his attraction, which is that Obama is a sociopathic personality who can gain everybody’s confidence by somehow making them think he is speaking to them personally, on the same wave-length with them, regardless of his actual words. A sociopath has no core of being; all of his life is devoted to getting others to do his will simply because that is what makes him feel real. He is not subject to the rules of his society and has no inner moral or ethical restraints. But this is precisely the thing that makes sociopaths such effective con-men.

Sounds just like Bill Clinton.