I don't think it is cut and dried. Rich probably bought into Obama's unrealistic hype and is feeling personally betrayed with his personal unfulfilled expectations of Obama. I like to give Rich that benefit of the doubt despite his flurry of enthusiatic Obama posts. You're right Rich. Obama is a man. But unlike other politicians he can inspire the American people and make them listen. I haven't listened to Bush in 6 years. I don't really care about the DeLays, Reids, or Frists. And it's a damn shame because the more we tune them out, the more we rely on them, the government, to help us get by with our needs. You quoted Sam Powers in the other thread. Well Powers has also described the sound, calm and pragmatic judgment of Obama when dealing with his team. He realizes his election won't automatically vindicate our world standing, that we won't be able to erase the last 8 years like a blank slate. The people who craft his economic policy aren't from the ideological cores. Obama is not chained to the political trenches that have existed for the past 15 years. As a self claimed independent, do you realize the potential of that? I mean if you can't believe he can succeed in spite of that bad blood, that's understandable, but I haven't seen that in your replies. Now Obama or any other politician WILL STUMBLE. That's the president's job, to choose wrong or wronger. But he has publically carried himself with dignity and has shown respect for his opponents while I personally don't think they deserve any. He has shown traits of a leader who can delegate responsibility and have known when to assume control when needed. That's something Bush has clearly and symptomatically shown to have been lacking. The failures of the Bush Admin is not attributed to the President's lack of experience, but rather his lack of leadership and sound judgment. If you believe Hillary has the traits of Presidential leadership, as she's been boosting, that's fine. I can give her that hotly contested point, but I do not like the direction she or her husband has been steering or promoting. I simply don't believe her ideals suit independent minded Americans whose interests aren't directly catered to by both political parties. She's trying to place herself with Obama's general ideals when she's the antithesis of them. She's a polarizing political figure with a static ideology who relishes upon dissension to capitalize upon her own goals. I do like that Obama is challenged because he is relatively new. The difference is how he is challenged. Maybe the overwhelming negativity on him is due in the age of modern politics. However, you got to ask yourself again why people were excited about him in the first place and after all this time that people still believe in him despite the immature photos. There's more underlying the man even after discovering that he's just as human as any of us.
Thank you. It IS how I am feeling. Listen, as I said, I was enthusiastic and on the Obama bandwagon since the Iowa caucus along with my fellow Independents, Democrats and some Republican friends. Just when I started to listen to him a little more carefully and especially the Houston speech, I started to question. I got tired of my friends telling me how great he was and you need to be part of a movement. I felt like I was being force fed to like him at that point. I don't like being told to just shut up and enjoy the ride. My Caucus experience left me feeling left out and mad. Maybe because I was on the wrong side (Clinton side), but when you live and have a wife that tells you otherwise, I have no choice but to listen. My main concerns is how it affects my family and me. It has only been a couple of days. Maybe over the next couple of weeks of digesting his economic plans along with everybody else, I will change my mind. My rants and attacks on Obama was due to my disgust at how my caucus experience went. I understand that the conduct of ignorant Obama caucus people shouldn't reflect on how he would be an effective leader. However, your people is an extension of who you are. Granted, there will be bad seeds, but Obama and his team should be in a little more control especially with Independents that are looking at him for the first time. The resignation of one of his top aides actually made me feel a little better about him. This is one example I'm talking about how Obama needs to set an example within his own organization.
Have you read Hillary's response to the resignation? First she said it was the right thing to do and then proceeded to turn it around on him and use it to question his judgment about the people he surrounds himself with. Set em' up and knock em' down. Hillary didn't care about being called a monster but she used the situation politically. That's the kind of stuff I don't like. She's going to be one tough cookie to beat. Obama has said he will never "scare" up votes. That's important to me.
You'll notice it's not a question Barack asks. Well, except for that crazy Mark Penn. That guy's a knucklehead.
Hillary's campaign recently has accused Obama of being a second Ken Star. They've gone after Obama on NAFTA and Canada even though we now know that it was Clinton's campaign that were telling Canada to not pay attention to what she was saying on the campaign trail and not to worry about it. Meanwhile everyone involved from Canada's side has said that nothing in the meetings with Obama's campaign was contradictory to what Obama has been saying on the campaign trail. Hillary has said that Obama wasn't a Muslim... as far as she knew (I saw on Countdown they said something to the effect that...) when the Obama staffer who called her a monster was gone in hours, Obama didn't say Hillary isn't a monster... as far as he knows. For those who say that Obama is also running a politics as usual negative campaign, please show me how it works. Sorry, but there appears to be a huge difference in how the two campaigns are being run, and one is slinging a lot more mud than the other. I'm proud that Obama's campaign isn't operating in the same fashion as Hillary's.
