Why some conservatives are backing Obama (flashback)

San Fransicso Gate ^ | 07/07/2008 | Carolyn Lochhead

[LifeComesFirst]

"I do know libertarians who think Obama is the Antichrist, that he's farther left than John Kerry, much farther left than Bill Clinton, and you'd clearly have to be insane to vote for this guy," said David Boaz, executive vice president of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. "But there are libertarians who say, 'Oh yeah? Do you think Obama will increase spending by $1 trillion, because that's what Republicans did over the past two presidential terms. So really, how much worse can he be?' And there are certainly libertarians who think Obama will be better on the war and on foreign policy, on executive power and on surveillance than McCain."

[PubliusMM]

The world is welcome to them. Use them as you see fit.

I raise them regularly with the elected reps who are suppose to have my interests at heart, but...

It’s going to take millions of us, all singing from the same page in the hymnal, if we are going to achieve the fundamental change this government requires, IMO.

If we can’t settle on a short slate of demands, we’ll never get anywhere. A list such as this one should be a starting point. We should have a few major items on which to focus. Once those have been settled, then we can move on to other issues as well.

[2harddrive]

O ne

B ig

A ss

M istake

A merica!

[autumnraine]

They would never admit it if they did regret it.

They went out on a political limb and their ego won’t let them admit to themselves or anyone else that they were wrong. Dead wrong.

[LifeComesFirst]

Let me tweak that to add that the pay of members of Congress should either be abolished OR tied directly to the growth of the economy, as they do in Singapore I believe.

Also, a balanced budget amendment whereby all expenditures cannot exceed tax revenue. In order to borrow money by issuing bonds (or any other means of borrowing money) a two-thirds majority vote is required in both houses. In this way, deficit spending ought to be limited only to those emergency situations where most people can agree it is needed.

[LifeComesFirst]

I imagine a lot of those votes were from black church goers. Many black people I talk to have this Catholic, works-oriented attitude towards faith. They can have kids out of wedlock, all kinds of sin, etc., so long as they are in that church every Sunday they are saved. No, lurking DUers, that’s not a stereotype, that’s an observation based on my experience, so go argue with my experience if you don’t like it.

Anyway, many people are personally against abortion but support keeping it legal. This attitude wouldn’t withstand five minutes of scrutiny, but there you have it. Tyranny of the status quo.

[heye2monn]

Let’s not forget the dubious Ken Duberstein, the former Reagan chief of staff who endorsed Obama at the last minute. A week before the election, the fat cat lobbyist came out for the heavily favored Obama while dumping all over Sarah Palin. How convenient.

Duberstein is probably delighted with the trillion-dollar budget-busting president. As a high profile supporter of the Obama campaign, he can get high White House officials on the phone. The ever-flexible lobbyist will grow even richer as government swells to a mindblowing size.

[Erik Latranyi]

Um, let’s not forget the people here on FR and even certain radio and print true conservatives who stupidly argued that Obama would be as bad as McCain and that we needed another Carter so we could get another Reagan.

They will still hold out hope that some white knight will come riding in to save the day.

I say they are short-sighted, all-or-nothing conservatives whose 'purity' rules are destroying our movement.

[snowsislander]

Guys? Any second thoughts? Ready to admit that you were hoodwinked by a smooth-talking Chicago thug?

For what it is worth, I went back and re-read the first posting of this article to Free Republic back in July of 2008 (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2041681/posts). From what I see, those postings didn't reflect any support from anyone at Free Republic at that time for Mr. Obama.

[nathanbedford]

This article is utterly fascinating for what it reveals about the psychology of the American voter. It is truly surprising that conservative elites were no less vulnerable to Barak Obama's Saul Alinsky two step than were guilty white liberals.

Here is a post I wrote six months before the election outlining the reasons why Obama campaigned as an empty suit. I should have added that the ploy was equally effective against elites as against liberals and uninvolved undecideds:

The American left, indeed the international left, is a hodgepodge of mutually inconsistent plans and programs which history has demonstrated cannot work. Leftists persist in their leftism because they believe that they are smarter than everybody else. Which really means," I am smarter than all the leftists who've come before and failed with this idea." The glue which holds leftism together when it should splinter apart because of its mutually inconsistent precepts, because it has shopped the entire country to ravening special-interest groups, is their idea that Republicans/conservatives are racists and they are not.

As long as we are racists and they are not, the left need not face up to its own looniness. This is why the left reacts so vehemently to politically incorrect racist remarks.... The coin of this political race card is white guilt.

Now comes Obama. As one black writer has pointed out, he has made a tacit deal with white liberal America: you support me blindly and I will in turn refrain from rubbing America's nose in its history of slavery and segregation. You can expiate your white guilt by voting for me. But Obama has to hold up his end of the deal, he must not rub our noses in our sins like Jesse Jackson or Reverend Al. As long as he was seen to be an empty suit-offering no reproach to America-we were comfortable with him.

Now comes The Right Reverend Wright. He has broken the deal. This is why Obama had to disown him. Wright rubs our noses in racism. To a conservative his crazy allegations are so bizarre that it makes not much sense and doesn't change the equation. We don't buy into this AIDS in Africa business, for example. But for a liberal, Reverend Wright's allegations are not bizarre but actually within the realm of intellectual respectability. We can dismiss them, but the left cannot because much of it comes right out of their own catechism.

What about the great mass in the middle? The moderates, the undecideds, the people who don't follow politics until after Labor Day, the folks who permit the likes of Barbara Walters or Oprah Winfrey to persuade them, what about them, the people who actually decide our elections? These decent folks don't want to be racists. They are always looking for a savior because they will tell you, "I always vote for the man." They shrink from the very idea of voting based on ideology. So an empty suit is no problem for them as long as he is also a savior. Obama was a savior. More, he was an empty vessel into which we could pour all of our yearnings and our simplistic hopes about the political process.

[familyop]

"Electors should be: a male, married to and living with the woman who is the mother of all his children."

Agreed! But the favored constituents and leaders of both political parties are way too far to the left to accept that.

[who knows what evil?]

I couldn’t agree more...a short concise ‘laundry list’ as you suggested is something we can all get behind.

[leilani]

I imagine a lot of those votes were from black church goers. Many black people I talk to have this Catholic, works-oriented attitude towards faith. They can have kids out of wedlock, all kinds of sin, etc., so long as they are in that church every Sunday they are saved.

You've gotten it exactly backwards. It's Roman Catholics who believe that works (refraining from sin) independent of faith (proclaiming they are saved) is the path to salvation. Protestants reject that and believe that salvation comes as a result of divine grace & is unconditonal, regardless of the sins, "mortal" or otherwise, they have committed on this earth. Most African-Americans in this country are Protestants & what you describe is in fact compatible with their Protestantism.

[LifeComesFirst]

Well I think you have Protestant theology confused. In any case, I go by what the Bible says.

[JimRed]

WHO IS BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA?

I'll take "Manchurian candidate" for $500, Paige.

Doing Soros' bidding to the end.

[danamco]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEnaAZrYqQI

[pistolpetestoys]

He’s (half)black;thats all most of his coven care about.

[leilani]

Well I think you have Protestant theology confused. In any case, I go by what the Bible says.

LOL. This conflict was what the whole Enlightenment was all about!

((Sigh).

Protestantism vs. Roman Catholicism & the Faith versus Works Debate

[RipSawyer]

Beware of Scotch drinkers! Real conservatives drink Bourbon 8o)

[meyer]

Beware of Scotch drinkers! Real conservatives drink Bourbon 8o)

Woah!! I partake of Scotch on occasion. But I use it in moderation, lest it decrease my conservative mindset!

[Maine Mariner]

You must be joking. A good single malt scotch beats bourbon any time of day and any day of the week.