Is this the end of the Reagan/Rove right?

[polystyle]

ObamaNasPac

Hillary fans, Billbo's eruptions, ex vets, polls and "Recount" style vote screwing aside,
Obama's got Nas a bit ambivalently behind him with an appearance from beyond the grave by Tupac
Aha
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/06/hip-hop-star-raps-for-obamas-victory/

 

[Mr. Tea]

Whats to stop the GOP from simply cheating their way in like the last two times? The last two elections wouldnt have withstood the kind of international monitoring standards that are regularly applied to third world countries.

Did that really happen in the last one, though? I mean the cheating fuckery in Bush's first election is well known, but didn't he beat Kerry by about 10 million votes in the end? I wouldn't be at all surprised if there had been some degree of cheating as well, but it seems hard to credit 10 million votes' worth of cheating.

 

[aMinadaB]

Did that really happen in the last one, though? I mean the cheating fuckery in Bush's first election is well known, but didn't he beat Kerry by about 10 million votes in the end? I wouldn't be at all surprised if there had been some degree of cheating as well, but it seems hard to credit 10 million votes' worth of cheating.

Maybe look into the facts before posting? The margin was 3 million votes, but that's not particularly insightful, since the election came down to Florida and Ohio. At midnight of election night I still believed that Kerry would take Ohio (20 electoral votes) and thereby win the election. The final electoral tally was 286 for bush to 251 for Kerry. Put Ohio in Kerry's column and he wins the election. There isn't really a lot of question as to the fact that the Ohio voting machines were tampered with. A lot of investigation of it has come to that conclusion, anyway. And to the extent that pre-election polls mean anything (they don't, really, but I'll mention this one anyway), John Zogby, the most reliable *right-wing approved* pollster at the time, had polled Kerry winning both Florida AND Ohio the day before the actual election.

And of course we know that in the 2000 election, not only were ballots in Florida completely messed up, and not only were Nader voters complete self-absorbed assholes in Florida (just to name two problems plaguing that particular election), but the United States Fucking Supreme Court had to intercede in order to give the election to Bush.

So yeah, to respond to Droid's question, it is very, very much a real and pressing concern to think what the Republicans are capable of manipulating. The last two presidential elections in the US were complete miscarriages of fairness and rule-based electoral procedure, and anyone who thinks that the Repubs won't try to do it again is laboring under a massive misprision. They would, in a heartbeat.

One only hopes that Obama will have tilted enough so-called red or purple states into the blue column that no such meddling would make a difference.

But yeah, it's scary, and the election system in the US for the past 8 years at least comprises an ugly chapter in what can only be described as a very, very ugly period in US (and world, unfortunately) history.

 

[aMinadaB]

What will be very interesting to watch as the weeks unfold and the pollsters and analysts start producing their dumbed-down statistics, is to what degree there is a ceiling, or floor, or whatever, of white voters who will simply not vote for Obama b/c he is biracial. I personally cannot wait to see what the pundits and pollsters produce on this front (whether it will be accurate or not is another matter entirely). I can already envision the amount of time given to the topic by the chattering class, I suspect that September will be filled with scads of this kind of discussion ...

The democratic primary in West Virginia and other places showed quite clearly, through exit poll data and such, that there are voters who will refuse to vote for an african-american candidate. We know that this percentage of the electorate exists. *I* know personally that it exists, because I have heard with my own ears as people said, "We're not ready for a black president, and I am not ready to vote for a black president." (I've heard people say the same about a woman president as well, it's really fucking depressing on both counts.) Those folks are out there, they admit the point when asked by pollsters upon leaving the polling booth, and there is no question but that McCain and shadow-McCain groups will attempt to appeal to this population. *How* many people out there are like this, what the actual numbers are among likely voters, remains to be seen. But you can absolutely take it to the bank that they are there, and that McCain supporters are feverishly polling in order to find out what that number is.

As far as US history and basic contemporary US cultural understanding are concerned, it is going to be very, very, very interesting to find out what these numbers actually are.

 

[polystyle]

Right ...
Obama's gotten this far,
lots of hurdles to go through enroute to a presidency -
not the least of all the brains of those who would 'never' vote for a black man or a woman.
At some point in the nomination process there was this idea floated that 'people can only take so much change' .
Sounds funny to me in NYC sure,
but if one think of how your parents would vote and compare that with how younger generations will vote and how they think.
My Dad lives in South Carolina,
and so I've already heard the Republican attack attitudes come out of his mouth and he's not rabid about it -it's just what he's heard from 'around' ... 'Obama's a muslim' and so on.

Aha -a Japanese TV program about Obama vs Mccain just came on. gonna catch it .
Hillary suspending her campaign' speech coming up today , will she concede , or just 'suspend' with eyes on 2012 ...
There is dread !

 

[aMinadaB]

Right ...
Hillary suspending her campaign' speech coming up today , will she concede , or just 'suspend' with eyes on 2012 ...
There is dread !

No, there is no dread. She will not only concede but she will also ENDORSE him. The question will be how convincing her endorsement is. But if she were to appear hesitant or unsupportive, she'd be dead meat politically, no democrat would forgive her, she would kiss future presidential hopes goodbye, because now that he's won fair and square, there is only one task ahead: beating mccain. If she were to look as though she were obstructing that goal in any way, she would be skewered by democrats and media alike. So whether or not she concedes is not the question at all. The question is this: how enthusiastically she will endorse him, and what she will say to inspire her followers to support Obama? How far will she go? Will she lay it on thick or will she still show some hint of reservation? Hillary and Barack met privately yesterday at Feinstein's house, so they've already begun to discuss the next steps.

(By the way, 'suspending' one's campaign is just standard terminology, right? Most presidential campaigns that go down to the last two end that way. It's nomenclature, means nothing really.)

But yeah, her speech is going to be very interesting to watch, starts in ten minutes I think?

 

[polystyle]

Ok aMinadaB - if you say there is no dread, I feel assured now.
There was dread, there were and probably still are rabids about Hillary.
'Suspending' her campaign is supposed to be code for 'I am holding my Delegates',
meaning maybe 'something' will happen between now and August's convention (another preacher eruption, some bad news from O's past or worse as she's brought up recently) and if Clinton does not actually say Obama won ('conceding') that's code too.
Splitting nubs here, but those are the terms being thrown back and forth.
You haven't heard those sentiments ?
they are out there, whether one agrees or not.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/...oodbye-clinton-to-endorse-obama/index.html?hp
Cheers

 

[aMinadaB]

Ok aMinadaB - if you say there is no dread, I feel assured now.

There's really no need for sarcasm, though this being a message board, I realize that such is practically a default reaction. Even though I probably share your point of view on the campaign my loyalty is to a good analysis, not to posters whom I perceive to share my points of view. And in the case of your last post, unless I misunderstood the meaning and reason for 'dread' (and it's quite possible that I did), there was not a political observer in the country who thought that she might not both concede and endorse -that wasn't the question, since it had been widely reported that she would be endorsing, and since not to endorse would have damaged her reputation with the party for all time, and would have made her political viability within even her own party virtually nil for any future position, aspiration, or participation. These are not my opinions, these were widely known facts, and widely understood circumstances. I simply responded to your claim, or to what I perceived to be your claim, namely, that going into her concession speech there was an open question as to whether she would both concede and endorse. But that wasn't an open question, her endorsement was guaranteed and widely known, hence my post above. And, to no one's surprise, she did exactly what I said she would do: she conceded and warmly endorsed Obama, and took a minute to talk about the importance of feminism, which was much appreciated, since the media has shown such utter disdain for any such talk.

'Suspending' her campaign is supposed to be code for 'I am holding my Delegates',
meaning maybe 'something' will happen between now and August's convention (another preacher eruption, some bad news from O's past or worse as she's brought up recently).

Suspending a campaign is by no means simply code for 'I'm holding my delegates' (though she probably will, and it will be interesting to see how and when she releases them). First and foremost it is the absolutely standard declaration in presidential campaigns when the campaign has conceded but stilll must stay open in order to raise money to compensate for the debt accrued - in Clinton's case, she still has an estimated 30 million to raise in order to pay off the campaign debt, and to legally close the campaign would make it difficult to raise that money (at least as far as I understand campaign finance law, which is to say not particularly, so I may be missing a detail here).

Secondly, suspending a campaign in case some sort of disaster may happen to the nominee is not particularly sinister or cynical, it's absolutely standard practice for front runners who lose but who feel that they have earned the right to remain viable in the case of such disaster. What *was* particularly sinister, in my opinion, in Clinton's campaign, was the fact that her people were openly claiming, months ago, that some such disaster or skeleton in the closet would in fact occur before Obama had secured enough delegates - and the Clinton campaign also openly claimed to be hurling "everything including the kitchen sink" at him in order to see "if something might stick" in order to bring that disaster about. This, to me, was vile, and unprincipled, and smacked of the worst kind of desperate politics. Soon after these claims the Reverend Wright controversy erupted, but, happily, after the media had made a field day of it and after some of Obama's shine had been sullied, it turned out that not many people really cared what his former pastor said.

So, to summarize: on the one hand, I don't begrudge her suspending her campaign, since that is standard practice. Yet I acknowledge that her campaign had nasty cynical hopes for an Obama collapse, and if there were any sign whatsoever that Clinton were still pursuing that line, she would be, I think, villified for all time by democrats in her own party.

and if Clinton does not actually say Obama won ('conceding') that's code too.

Yes, but she did say that, and there was not an observer on earth who thought she actually wouldn't. She didn't do it Tuesday night, election night, which was bizarre, and she was criticized by her own most ardent supporters for not doing so (e.g., Charles Rangel), as was also widely reported.

Splitting nubs here, but those are the terms being thrown back and forth.
You haven't heard those sentiments ?
they are out there, whether one agrees or not.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/...oodbye-clinton-to-endorse-obama/index.html?hp
Cheers

"Sentiments out there" are one thing, knowing with some precision what she planned to say and why, and what the political outcome might be, are another. I was responding to perceived imprecisions in what you said regarding the latter.

I absolutely do not mean to sound like a dickhead here, but since there seem to be a lot of UK readers on this board, I feel some sort of abstract compulsion to try to represent the situation as best as I can. Your posts, polystyle, are always spot on and I generally agree with the thrust of all of them, it's just that I would rather try to understand both the Obama and Clinton circumstances so that we can have as best a political understanding as possible, in order to achieve the ultimate goal here: replacing one of the most dishonest, abusive, corrupt, and consequential presidencies in US history, and to make sure that Mccain isn't elected, since his adminstration would be filled with Bush holdovers and would bode ill for any possible positive developments in national, and international, politics and justice.

 

[polystyle]

Aha, back to this thread.
In this course of commenting on the 'end of the ... Rove right' ,
I think we all have been appreciating your analysis and yes have often agreed aMinadaB.
Things have become a bit sweeping and absolute and you get some pushback.

Once when I mention that there are women out there who would have voted for Hillary because she was a woman.
I don't know how one can prove your point because again - there were, there still are, and some may hang on that until August or even Nov.
We don't agree with that but if one really wants to persist that there are none -
then one is simply wrong.
It was being talked about on all levels of society, in the media, in the comments boxes responding to articles and editorials in ever paper I had chance to read online or hard copy.
Thankfully that hardcore sentiment seems to be dying down, and hopefully time will er 'heal'.
I mean is some crowd, dozens, however many women (or men, for that matter) really going to vote Mccain because Hillary didn't win !

Similarly, to start a response denying 'there is dread' when the only real heat and buzz before Hillary speech yesterday was about how far she would go in endorsing and conceding.
There was all kinds of speculation about it and I WAS dreading she would fudge it ,
especially after her speech earlier in the week.
People didn't want this to go on again until a next speech.
So again , one may believe that it wasn't there, that's your perogative -but there was.
It WAS an open question.
I didn't hear a reply as to whether you had caught any of the speculation,
because it was all the bubble ... frothing into media lather.

To our relief - she did utter words to the effect that she was admitting Obama won and was going to support him.
She acted the part yesterday, as you point out - she HAD too.
After catching the replay I agree with what was heard by some in the media -
it was a few speeches in one - with one part being her 'getting behind' Obama.
Dunno how comfortable it will be to have her there, still one to watch
( grr meaning two to watch).

The sexism issue is complex, certainly there has been / still is a good deal of it out there.
Hillary's been a magnet - target in private and in the media.
She's also been deplorable, has played us and media as well as she got played.
It was a battle, you saw her in some of the debates.
It took a few iterations for her to light on 'fighter for the people' , plastic as money can buy.

We have a moment where concievably there could have been the first black candidate and the first woman candidate.
They could have gone forward side by side as Pres and Vp nom ,
now she's left to deal with aftermath, $30 million in the hole, hopefully taking care of her workers health care which I hear is an issue despite the oratory .
Still think she's looking for some kind of break, despite yesterday's ... words .

Looking forward to agreeing, disagreeing and in the RW, hoping that Obama makes it into office.
His choice of Vp looks to be crucial.
Thoughts on that ?

 

[polystyle]

Between today and Nov.

Interesting additions to the story by today ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/08/us/politics/08obama.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Obama's hiring of an old hand digger of political dirt - and a disgruntled ex -Clinton campaign manager or more could be part of his signaling that he will try to head off the attacks that will come his way now.
It also may serve him well, he's going to have throw down the dirt if they do so to him.
He can't change those old 'rules'.
Can imagine Obama can be as tough as he needs to be in order to win.
Perceptions of 'tough' - perceptions of being above it -young vs old(er) - Red states vs Blue
doesn't alot come down to brains and how they are used ...
*amn luck, timing and which way the wind blows too.

Over here we've had the recent reminder of the past bungled, mangled elections in the form of HBO's "Recount" on the first Bush coronation thanks to quite a few manipulations, perceptions , Jim Baker and plain old timely action on the part of the more ruthless Repubs.
Twice burned though and this time they cannot be allowed to slip in there.

Think it's easy to dismiss Obama as not up to the challenge
but for one thing is Mccain really strong in any sense ?
And is Obama's being 'a bit green' going to be a liability or an asset ?
He looks like a quick study.

 

[vimothy]

Introducing the Obamacons

Andrew Leonard provides a good over-view, and Bruce Bartlett in The New Republic puts plenty of meat on those bones. Personally, I think that Obama has some good economics advisors, probably better than McCain, although you have to worry about a Dem government precipitating the Great Depression Part II, what with the extremely fragile global situation.

The New Yorker is hardly the optimal vehicle for reaching the conservative intelligentsia. But, last year, Barack Obama cooperated with a profile for that magazine where he seemed to be speaking directly to the right. Because he paid obeisance to the virtues of stability and continuity, his interlocutor, Larissa MacFarquhar, came away with the impression that the Illinois senator was an adherent of Edmund Burke: "In his view of history, in his respect for tradition, in his skepticism that the world can be changed any way but very, very slowly, Obama is deeply conservative."

As The New Yorker's assessment shot across blogs, many conservatives listened eagerly. A broad swath of the movement has been in open revolt against George W. Bush--and the Republican Party establishment--for some time. They don't much care for the Iraq war or the federal government's vast expansion over the last seven-and-a-half years. And, in the eyes of these discontents, the nomination of John McCain only confirmed the continuation of the worst of the Bush-era deviations from first principles.

But it was hardly inevitable that this revolt would translate into enthusiasm for the Democratic standard-bearer. After all, you could see similar signs of unhappiness four years ago, and none of that translated into mass defections to the John Kerry camp. And, despite Ann Coulter's vow to campaign for Hillary Clinton over John McCain, the old bête noir of the right would have never attracted many conservatives. That's what makes the rise of the Obamacons such an interesting development. Conservatives of almost all ideological flavors (even, gasp, some supply-siders) have been drawn to Obama--out of a genuine affection and a belief that he may actually better embody movement ideals than McCain.

There have been a few celebrated cases of conservatives endorsing Obama, like the blogger Andrew Sullivan and the legal scholar Douglas Kmiec. But you probably have not have heard of many of the Obamacons--and neither has the Obama campaign. When I checked with it to ask for a list of prominent conservative supporters, the campaign seemed genuinely unaware that such supporters even existed. But those of us on the right who pay attention to think tanks, blogs, and little magazines have watched Obama compile a coterie drawn from the movement's most stalwart and impressive thinkers. It's a group that will no doubt grow even larger in the coming months....​

 

[aMinadaB]

His choice of Vp looks to be crucial.
Thoughts on that ?

The appointment today of Patty Solis Doyle to be chief of staff for the VP pick is a pretty good sign that the VP choice won't be Clinton, lol. My guess? No idea, really, but if I had to guess today I'd say Evan Bayh, a very bright fellow from Indiana who was a Clinton supporter and who as much as anyone meets the one criterion that ultimately determines a VP choice (or should), namely, that he could handle the presidency if called. There are many women being mentioned, but the problem there is that few are well enough known to make the choice effective: it's been difficult enough introducing Obama to the electorate, and some 10%+ still think that he is a Muslim, so introducing a complete unknown, no matter how excellent or qualified she might be, seems unlikely. But again, I haven't any clue really, or any strong intuition about a VP choice. Will def look forward to seeing whom he chooses, though.

 

[polystyle]

VP's ...

With ol' Al Gore throwing in for Obama today ( a bit belatedly ? ),
you can see some people bubbling about an Obama /Gore ticket ... mixed on that
but hey, who knows ...
In the past months Bayh seemed to be standing close behind Hillary,
would he go for - go with Obama ?
The candidates for Vp being trotted out such as Joe Biden, Chuck Hagel have some good qualities, probably 'mean well' but seem lacking essential spark ... ?
Sam Nunn seemed to make sense for awhile too, but lately not much speculation around him ...
A women would make a lot of sense, like to see it happen for many reasons.

Saw this today on Mccain.
Sad if true
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/11/mccain-admits-he-doesnt-k_n_106478.html

See no real evidence that Mccain has any real traction ...

 

[aMinadaB]

I was thinking, if Obama wins...

won't there be loads of pissed off right-wing nutcases up in arms about it?

I can imagine a huge rise in dodgy militias and general far-right crankery. Give Louis Theroux some good subject matter, I suppose.

I was optimistic at first, but it's pretty clear that things are going to get very ugly. Let's just hope that the percentage of people participating and receptive remains low.

But yeah, the Washington Post on the rise of hate groups focusing on Obama, it's basically the evil horseshit you'd expect:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/21/AR2008062101471.html

"I haven't seen this much anger in a long, long time," said Billy Roper, a 36-year-old who runs a group called White Revolution in Russellville, Ark. "Nothing has awakened normally complacent white Americans more than the prospect of America having an overtly nonwhite president."

What a fucking joke, 'anger' , b/c he's "nonwhite" ? ... the people spewing this are the lowest filth of the earth but there's going to be more and more of them coming out, sadly ...

 

[polystyle]

Yep, the ol' White Vs Black.
More an issue then the other obvious 'old' vs 'young'.
It's perhaps the only way the Republicans can battle.
But they will need money to spread their stuff , some indication they may not get as much traction as last go round.
One can hope !
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/21/us/politics/21ads.html?scp=2&sq=Attacking Obama&st=cse

 

[swears]

Does anyone think The Bradley Effect could come into play in November? Or are people going to be pretty much straightfoward about who they're voting for?

 

[crackerjack]

Does anyone think The Bradley Effect could come into play in November? Or are people going to be pretty much straightfoward about who they're voting for?

That is the great imponderable and no one will know the answer til november. Obama has quite a nice poll lead right now, but it's noticeable those same polls regard him as the risky option and McCain as the safe one. If Obama can navigate that tightrope for the next 5 months he'll have done well.

 

[aMinadaB]

Does anyone think The Bradley Effect could come into play in November? Or are people going to be pretty much straightfoward about who they're voting for?

It's a good question, and something of an imponderable, to be sure. But for the non-US readers out there, it might be interesting to know that 'the Bradley effect' has penetrated the mass media and is discussed constantly. It comes up even on CNN quite frequently, and usually without any explanation, which indicates that this 'effect' has become something in the public consciousness, which is probably a good thing, in order that those susceptible to it might stop and give pause, perhaps even reconsider behaving in such a manner? Will be interesting to see, for sure ...

One would like to think, perhaps too optimistically, that this effect is waning -- or that Barack and Michelle Obama's utterly impressive and principled campaign will overcome it. Here's an article on a poll conducted by ABC news in which fully 9 out of 10 people said that they are comfortable with a black president. Even IF these numbers are not accurate (b/c of Bradley effect), it is still a good thing to have stories like this out there, to the degree that maybe just maybe it innoculates those fence sitters to the idea that a black president is anything but completely normal ... was somewhat humorous to see that the numbers of folks who are comfortable with a black president are double the percentage of those comfortable with a 72 yr old president. But yeah, read on in the article, and you come to the ugliness that I posted about immediately above :

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/22/obama-and-race-most-white_n_108503.html

And, of course, polls are pretty meaningless at this point, even though Obama has a 15 point lead nationwide according to the latest Newsweek poll (Michael Dukakis did too at this juncture in the campaign, and we all know how that turned out ...).

But then, there is this as well:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/21/AR2008062101825.html?hpid=topnews

So yeah, complicated situation ... and many, many months to go ...

 

[polystyle]

Getting this stuff out in the air and sunshine does hopefully ease it's bite and lasting sting.
Like that number about black candidate vs a 72 year old one.
The media seems to love making it all seem so close to keep the population watching till exhausted, that's the biz.
That was a bit odd shock about Tim Russert no ?

Just reading that both candidates are left handed , as many past Prez have been ...

 

[crackerjack]

Getting this stuff out in the air and sunshine does hopefully ease it's bite and lasting sting.
Like that number about black candidate vs a 72 year old one.

Weird how they should even link the two, as if old people and black people are both victims of the same discrimination. You're right to be concerned a 72-year-old won't last 4 years; you're a dick to be concerned that a black man might be running your country.