^^^Wanted to respond to one thing, he's raised the most money because he's the first candidate to tap the internet successfully. the race issue comes into play with the older generation, you'd be a fool to disagree. About a month ago Chris Matthews hit the nail on the head, obama has about a 15% lead among the under forty crowd, and mccain had a similar lead in the over forty crowd, or forty five. somewhere in that age group. there's your difference.
I'd expect democrats, in general, to have a lead with a younger crowd. WOuld the racist old guys be voting for a white democrat?
i believe it was in virginia...after the primary....roughly 30% of those who voted for hillary said race was a factor. look..there are ugly, uncomfortable stereotypes about black men and black families. if obama had mismanaged his marriage as mccain did his first....if he had a pregnant teenage daughter....i think it would be looked at very differently. i don't think it would be smiled away the way it has been for palin who's "just making lemonade out of lemons, dontcha know??" give it a generation or so, and i think those things will be fairly wiped clean.
Especially if the pregnant teenage daughter's baby-daddy was also black had social networking pages proclaiming he liked to shoot sh** up with guns, and would kick anyone's a** who messed with him. While also proclaiming he didn't want any children or to get married.
You've said this a number of times. Let me address it. Obama has a limited track record but the record he does have demonstrates sound judgement across the board (as opposed to McCain or Palin). Furthermore, Obama has demonstrated that he can intelligently discuss virtually any topic unscripted. He's been interviewed 800,000 times and more than held his own during the debates. Palin, yes she is in experienced and her interviews clearly demonstrate that. Obama isn't as inexperienced but at least he can string together coherant statements. There is a difference between being capable and inexperienced and just incapable. Now, McCain OBVIOUSLY just rattles off stuff directly from scripts during the debates. He simply tossed out sound bites the whole time and rarely could actually just speak about a topic without rehashing talking points verbatim, scripts and 'gotchas'. He sounds very disingenious.
Well, McCain's recent crowds blow a hole in that theory. This is from today's rally of 6,000 people in Ohio...
This is going down as the most divisive election in history. And there will be no winner in this election.
I disagree with this, though it always feels this way in late october. I don't think it's even close to some of the other campaigns we've seen. 2004 was much more divisive. Overall voter sentiment, about the competence of both candidates, is much more positive than for Bush vs Kerry. I think the core Obama-haters and core McCain haters are relatively small groups.
I respectfully disagree. The 2000 election set the stage. Democrats were very very bitter by the Witch Hunt politics on Bill Clinton and then lost that election. Google: "wedge strategy" It's the republicans objective to be devisive. That is literally their goal. Now that the democrats are putting out a decent candidate, the devisiveness is rearing it's ugly head like cornered animal. I'm HOPING that Obama can eventually heal some of these woulds and let Americans realize that wedge politics is not in our country's best interest. We'll see. In the meantime, here's to hoping the Repubs lose power.
Completely wrong, I can think of several more divisive ones this century: 2000 1968 1948 Several around the antebellum era, the Reconstruction era, the run-up to the civil war, and the early 19th C dating back to John Adams. The divisions then were way deeper ... and way bloodier.
I wouldn't say it is their objective so much as it is a direct byproduct of their get-in-line, toe-the-party-line-because-its-our-way-or-the-highway political strategy and message. I would say that they do deliberately amplify and stress wedge issues to the point of divisiveness, but their ultimate intent is to galvanize and mobilize their base just enough to outvote the opposition, especially the Christian right that they have played for suckers for so long. I hope this election and the next four years under President Obama finally put the nails to that coffin. Maybe then the Republican party can actually return to finding ideas that work and broadening their appeal to the general American public instead of depending solely on this horrible strategy of relentless fear-mongering. I look forward to the day when men like Rush Limbaugh are relegated to the fringe of political lunacy and real conservatives can eventually rise to places of leadership both in the party and in the nation.
Ummm.. pretty sure it was Barack who cracked that joke on himself at that Smith dinner. Which I thought was in poor taste, I'll add. I don't allow any self-deprecating, or other race "humor" in my home though.
I'm trying to imagine the indignation from the right in the hypothetical event that the black unwed father of obama's future grandchild was paraded on stage post-debate. the hypocrisy is so thick that i can't even fathom the possibility of such an occurrence much less the reaction. and TheFreak: great job stripping down MadMax's post into a comfortable strawman.
In fairness, 2000 wasn't that divisive til after the election. That's when the water parted like crazy. The run up to that election was the biggest race to the middle I can remember.
