Completely agree. She may have bailed him out of the grease by making it clear there was a difference, which gave him the opening to clean it up. It could have been a pivotal moment.
Interesting. If Farrakhan offered no actual aid or support to Obama, what was he supposed to reject? He'd already said he renounced it. But I guess I'm in the minority on this one. I didn't think there was really that big of a difference between denouncing and rejecting. I'm curious, what do you think the difference is between rejecting and denouncing given that in this case there was no real aid to reject? I ask not to be argumentative, but because I seem to be in the minority on this question, and I really want to know what the others are thinking on this. Same question to pgabriel if I might ask.
You are actually in the majority. I watched a Cleveland TV station's coverage after the debate and everyone gave Obama the edge on that subject. In fact, most people commented that Obama won the debate, period. When it comes to the debates, Obama seems to come off worse to me than what others think. He's gotten a lot better over the last several months, but he still isn't very good IMO. I don't hold it against him because debates are a very poor way to make decisions on candidates.
I believe Hillary wasn't clear, Obama said he denounced Farrakhan's statements about jewish people. hillary made the point that she totally rejected whatever group she was referring to in NY. I think that was really the original question, in other words not do you reject what Farrakhan has said, do you reject Farrakhan. I do agree with your point it isn't fair for him having to deal with that. But that's another issue.
Ok, I see. Given that perspective I can see that her original answer was different than Obama's. I will say then that his answer was effective at getting out of the situation, by saying fine I'll reject AND denounce it. Once he did that, the issue was pretty much dead at that point.
Thanks for the article. I think Obama handled the question well with his response. As he said, there isn't a difference between "reject" and "denounce," but if anyone thinks there is a difference, he rejects and denounces Farrakhan.
Thanks for the link. I read the article and after the discussions here, and those on the article I can see where some people may not have thought his initial answer was sufficient. But I have a problem with the article continuing on, asking if Obama was initially trying to sidestep the answer and be too nuanced, and then go on about Obama's initial reluctance to be strong enough in rejecting Farrakhan seems made up. Obama made the statement and 20 seconds later he clarified it by both rejecting and denouncing Farrakhan. He did this after explaining that from his point of view, his initial condemnation was equally as strong, but that if others felt there was a stronger way to do it, he conceded that it should be done, and agreed. Honestly it seems like a very honest and unique thing for a politician to do that in a debate, and I thought it played in his favor.
I think where the reluctance in his answer came from was the hesitation to alienate the thousands of people that do follow Farrakhan. Now Obama said he doesn’t agree with Farrakhan’s stance on Jewish people (and rightly so) but do you disenfranchise thousands of voters because of one man’s ideology? Do we ask McCain to disavow Dobson and the like when they call their flock to pray for the death of SC justices so a conservative president can install the judges of their choosing?
I agree with the article that Obama didn't want to offend some in his black base by totally rejecting Farrakhan. But I don't agree with its analogy. There's a difference between a white candidate rejecting david duke and a black candidate rejecting Farrakhan. That being said, Farrakhan is so 1990 that if obama needs to clean this up further down the road, it won't be a problem. Farrakhan doesn't weild the influence he did 20 years ago. I like Tim Russert, but that was kind of unfair. Another tough question was that Russert asked both candidates about Putin's successor in Russia. He asked Hillary first and he didn't give the name of the guy. He was obviously testing them on the foreign relations knowledge and he even asked hillary at the end of her answer the guy's name. luckily for her she knew of his name, didn't know it completely. but it was kind of fair that she got that question first because whom ever went second had the benefit of the knowledge from the first answer.
Acually Russert didn't ask Hillary first. He simply asked the question as a jump ball, and she answered first. Russert said afterwards that he intentionally didn't address the question to either candidate, and tossed it up to see who would answer first. Despite Hillary's earlier complaint, she jumped in and was the first to answer.
1) Once McCain taps into the GOP money machine, there is no guarantee Obama can raise more money. The GOP ers have more money and if they think they have a chance will spend it. 2) Obama should be able to beat McCain with even money. 3) Obama will look like just another politico if changes on this because it looks at this point like he will get the most money. 4) This would be an excellent chance for the perceived front runner on the money raising to take the high road and maybe he can lead us out of the money for vote game that is the key to the whole stalemate on national health care, wars for profit, corruption etc. in government. If Obama could succeed on this issue (McCain is a phoney on this) it would be the most important thing he could do to restore government for the advantage of the average person. The negative to the above is if the GOP just flood the campaign with Swiftboat type money which I think is completely unregulated and just shows how bad the money to corrupt election problem is. I just don't know if the public financing money can be dwarfed by the Swiftboat type money from outside interest groups.
What I heard was that Obama can accept public financing, but the Democrats themselves can raise and spend any amount they want on the race. That would make Obama keep his word, and the Dems could still out raise and spend the GOP. It would be a 2 fer win for Obama.
Letting elected politicians control the purse strings for campaigning is a huge step down the road to totalitarianism.
There are publicly funded elections in virtually every democracy in the world. They prefer the compeition of ideas, not just letting big money drown out all other ideas. In Western Europe for instance it is ridiculous to raise the fear of "huge step down the road to totalitarianism". The biggest threat in our country is just having rule by the wealthy and the corporate elite. It is the reason why government is increasingly run less and less to the benefit of the middle and lower class.
Yes, it can. Ari's group alone has a quarter of a billion ready to spend this cycle. Which is why Obama would be a fool to take any weapon out of his arsenal. I'm all for publicly financed election, but the Dems should not sacrifice elections just to make a point about election monies. And furthermore, the DSCC and the DCCC are crushing their GOP counterparts in money raised. Obama and Hillary are crushing the GOP field. I think Dems easily win the average American money race this year. The Repubs will literally be banking on huge money from a few people disguised as 527s. That tells you everything you need to know.
Wow. Look at the Texas early vote tallies compared to 2004. http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pJ0M6W5tNQCPqqvt9qXh0Gw&gid=1 (Sorry, I don't know how to make that table display in a post.) In most places, the early voting shows a ten fold increase. http://www.burntorangereport.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=5163
Freedom's Watch will have a big impact on this campaign season. It's been setup to counter Moveon.org's liberal propaganda pieces and assaults on our military leaders, like General David Patraeus. Expect big things, that's all I have to say.
One thing I the talking heads pointed out after the debate was that the whole issue of the differences in health care plans is currently a waste of time. the cart before the horse type deal. you need to have a health care plan before you can start arguing about its structure. I totally agree, i've said that since the first difference in the healthcare plans came out.
