Yes, this speech is good, and much more forthright and challenging than what you usually hear.
Obama is my senator. I was mobilized early in 2004 when it looked like he'd be a long shot in the primary. As it happened, both the primary and general fell into place in an almost comical way. I just wish I liked him better. Maybe the fact that I don't like him is a very good sign, as my feelings as opposed to expectations are always such outliers.
I'm running to a meeting, but why not? His demeanor rubs you the wrong way, or something definable about his positions?
Obama endorsed Lieberman. Fuck him.
He's too much of a "team player" for my tastes.
Nothing wrong with being sexually adventurous.
I can't see him as a candidate for President in '08, but I assume that as long as Clinton isn't the nominee, we'll have either a female VP candidate (Napolitano) or Obama as the VP candidate. I'm very much for either, though I think I prefer the former.
I don't know what Hillary does for a VP, though. Someone made the argument that Hillary will be hard for a Republican male candidate to attack - it will look indecent in the way that Lazio did when he crowded her in their debate. If that's true, I think the same factors make it hard for her to have a white male running mate; you'd worry about him unintentionally overshadowing her in many minds. But it's impossible for me to imagine the country voting for an all female ticket, or voting for a woman and a black man. Maybe a Hispanic like Bill Richardson - as we all know, "Mexican" means white but not white, so maybe that splits the difference.
We live in interesting times.
Hillary will be hard for a Republican male candidate to attack
Pshaw. They attack any and everybody, including their own.
He seems always to be reaching to appeal to people I don't respect. I'm ambivalent about this because it may be necessary for success. I was at an event about a year ago, where both he and Durbin spoke. I came away liking Durbin more and Obama much less, although he was being mobbed afterward by worshipers. I suppose the "awesome god" speech was my single worst moment with him. My daughter went to Washington with an activist group and met with him. She says his star power is mesmerizing.
Harry Reid might be a useful contrast. He really seems to have the Emersonian point down, that Republican elected officials are simply not worth working with.
As a cock-eyed optimist, maybe it's a good thing to have a take-no-prisoners realist as Senate leader and an outreacher as your rising rock star.
3: Oh god, can we please stop insisting on absolute ideological purity before we'll back a politician?
Well, there's ideological purity, and then there's party discipline. The problem with Lieberman isn't nearly so much the way he votes, as that politically he's just not on our team. He should be a pariah in the Democratic party not because of his opinions, but because of his disloyalty -- if he were a Republican who voted the way he does, he'd actually be quite a reasonable person to work with.
An endorsement from Obama suggests that Obama either doesn't get that, or is going to be the same kind of loyalty problem.
I just got #10; I was sitting here thinking: "Self-reliance?" "The Conservative?""American Scholar?" "Fate?"
Is loyalty as important in a Presidential candidate (as opposed to a Senator, who should vote with the bloc)?
I like Obama. A lot.
Clinton is only a good candidate if the Dems want to lose. She's very easy to get the red base fired up over, and as we saw in 2004, the red fired-up base comes out en masse.
12: I agree that Lieberman should be a pariah, but if the balance of a candidate's (Obama's) ideas and alliances and arguments seem good, it annoys me when people find one thing they don't like and declare the whole thing null and void. I have the same issue with Clinton, actually.
Oh, I'd vote for him in a heartbeat. He may not have party discipline but I do.
Eh. I'm fine with Obama endorsing Lieberman. Obama's job right now is to be African-American and non-threatening. And that's it. He needs to play nice with the power base. He needs to be seen as smart, competent, and not the least bit of a bomb-thrower. He's doing the right thing to become VP.
He has to run for president now; he can't wait.
He may not have party discipline but I do.
Likewise.
And likewise with 15 -- while there are unforgivable sins, endorsing Lieberman isn't one of them. I'm just hoping it doesn't indicate larger scale missing-the-point on Obama's behalf.
Clinton blows. She's got a safe seat and massive structural backing; if there's one person who can afford a few ideological bricks to be thrown at her, it's Clinton. Moreover, her power base is made up of precisely the TNR-DLC Dems who've been hitting their knees every time a Republican walks into the room. If she wins, we further institutionalize that group.
If she's the nominee, I'll vote for her. But I'll do it reluctantly.
I thought I understood 10, but I have no idea what 13 is talking about.
Anti-McCain information really needs to start circulating, maybe we should work on a quick soundbite to deliver when ever anyone says anything non-negative about him? As far as I can tell, he's still perceived, by everyone who doesn't spend a time following politics, as a reasonable moderate.
I thought I understood 10, but I have no idea what 13 is talking about.
Idp at first thought I was talking about RW Emerson, not John.
As for McCain, talk about Falwell and Bob Jones?
I have very little info on McCain but I know relatively liberal people who would vote for him, and I know conservative people who think he's 'not really a Republican'. He'd be tough to smear as a right-winger.
Talking Falwell and Bob Jones didn't hurt Bush, though.
I know conservative people who think he's 'not really a Republican'.
I think he's seen as having Lieberman's problem -- not that they don't like his positions, but that they think he's disloyal. Disloyalty, OTOH, doesn't make him liberal -- it makes him a conservative with poor party discipline.
Talking Falwell and Bob Jones didn't hurt Bush, though.
But Bush wasn't on the record condeming Falwell as intolerant.
I know the only real issue is the terrible font, but Krugman is savaging McCain on Falwell this morning.
w/d, those are the names of essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Wait, are we attacking McCain for attacking Falwell? That seems like a plus.
Or are we attacking McCain for being a hypocrite? (Which may well be, but hypocrisy rarely seems to stick.)
No, we're attacking him for sucking up to Falwell, just four short years after he attacked him.
We're attacking McCain for sucking up to Falwell. Will your liberal friends really brush that off?
Maybe we should attack him for sucking up to Bush instead.
I don't think McCain is going to make it out of the primaries. If he does, someone on the Republican side will run as an idependent, and we might win that way.
He has to run for president now; he can't wait.
Is that because being a senator forces even rising young rock stars to compromise themselves?
We're attacking McCain for sucking up to Falwell. Will your liberal friends really brush that off?
I don't know. They would have voted for McCain over Kerry. (Most would have voted for my cat over Kerry, though, so take that with a grain of salt.)
But I am suspicious of charges of hypocrisy really convincing people to revoke support for a candidate. It didn't work against Bush. (I suspect a charge of hypocrisy works better against perceived liberals than conservatives.)
They would have voted for McCain over Kerry. (Most would have voted for my cat over Kerry, though, so take that with a grain of salt.)
See, that comes off to me as either not so much a liberal, or so vastly out of touch that tailoring a message to them is kind of pointless -- they're going to vote based on the phase of the moon, anyway.
I agree with 32, but that's no reason not to have a contingency plan.
If I was someone who saw McCain as a reasonable moderate, then I may well also view kissing up to Falwell as a savvy political move, not as an expression of how he would govern.
35: I don't know how liberal you need them to be. Gay marriage? Check. Pro-choice? Check. Pro-environment? Check. Anti-Iraq war? Check.
Maybe they aren't really liberals, but the real liberals aren't the ones needing to be talked out of voting for McCain, no? It's the moderates who need to be convinced not to support McCain, and given
If I was someone who saw McCain as a reasonable moderate, then I may well also view kissing up to Falwell as a savvy political move, not as an expression of how he would govern. [Bingo]
I think it'll take more than a hypocrisy charge.
That sounds like more in the 'vastly out of touch' column than 'not real liberals'. At that point, what they need is a steady drumbeat of information about McCain's positions, to get it across to them that to the extent that they are liberals, they wouldn't be happy with him running anything. And noting that McCain is warm and friendly with Falwell can be part of that.
People worry too much about McCain. If it comes down to McCain vs. Democrat X, we're left in the lucky world of "not bad" vs. "better." A McCain win means that the lock that the Southern Republicans have on the party will lessen. If it lessens enough, that's worth a single loss.
the lucky world of "not bad"
The 3rd most conservative member of the Senate (at a time when GOP moderates have all but disappeared) is not my platonic ideal of "not bad." In fact, it's edging close to "really fucking terrible."
Cala's cat in '08!
I know the consensus in some Democratic quarters is that if McCain wins the nomination we're DOOMED. Of course, there's also consensus in some Democratic quarters that if Clinton wins our nomination we're DOOMED. I've recently let myself believe that the latter isn't true. What do you all think about the McCain aura of invincibility?
No, I think he's beatable. Most of the Democratic support for him is among people who don't know his positions -- I should expect it would evaporate early in a campaign. Or if he tried to hold onto it, he'd lose his base.
40: I think I worry a lot more about the Southern Republicans than you do. It's entirely possible that I don't know enough about McCain and his positions. Other than foreign policy, I'm not sure where I have a specific disagreement with him. (And, I suspect, we're going to be so well and truly fucked foreign policy-wise by '08 that he won't have much leeway there.) But those views will get well ventilated in '08, if he gets the nomination.
I think I worry a lot more about the Southern Republicans than you do.
I think I worry a lot more about Republicans period than you do. Sure, we grow 'em crazy down here, but I don't see much difference throughout the rest of the party, aside from a few ineffective New Englanders.
McCain is one of the few people calling for massive troop increases in Iraq. He's decided to suck up to the religious right. He's called for all of Bush's tax cuts to be made permanent. He said he'd sign the South Dakota abortion ban.
Maybe the proper place to start is: where do you have specific agreement with him?
I think it'll take more than a hypocrisy charge.
Actually, McCain could be more vulnerable than most to that. His big attraction is that he's Mr. Straight-Talking Maverick. A bit of "No, he's Mr. Weaseling Suck-Up to the Religious Right" could damage him. Remember Rove's strategy of going after the other guy's strength; now with extra bonus truth.
See, I think I'd end up liking a McCain presidency much, much less than I like the BushII presidency, because he's even further away from me ideologically than Bush is. The only thing that would be better is that he doesn't come off as a complete moron.
McCain is one of the few people calling for massive troop increases in Iraq. Believe he means it, don't believe we as a nation have the political will to do it.
He's decided to suck up to the religious right. Obama on Leiberman to me; he's got to do what he's got to do. I don't believe he means it, given his prior comments on Falwell.
He's called for all of Bush's tax cuts to be made permanent. Don't believe he means it, as he voted against the enactment of the cuts. More Obama-ing.
He said he'd sign the South Dakota abortion ban. Really don't believe it. Or believe it on federalism grounds. Increasingly, I'm OK with that. It would drive free riding white women back to the Party, I suspect.
SCMT: Here's The Nation on McCain's positions -- everything apo said above, plus he's an ID fan. I might take him over Bush on the theory that someone with coherent positions that I disagree with is a step up from pure incoherent cynicism, but not with any enthusiasm, and certainly not over anyone I agreed with on anything substantial at all.
47 is me. Link to Nation is broken. The sky appears to be crying in SCMTville.
Apo, McCain's not being a complete moron probably means that he'd be a more *effective* conservative ideologue.
Yes, I understand that, JM (which is part of why I think he'd actually be worse than Bush), but it would still be comforting on some basic level.
Yeah -- a sort of vague, empty hope that if some problem came along in which he was on our side, that he wouldn't fuck it all up out of sheer uselessness.
Why I don't think McCain as Republican avatar would be an entirely bad thing:
"a conservative before conservatism was bankrupted by fundamentalism and corporatism. His centrist reputation simply proves how far right the center has shifted in Republican politics. "The median stance for Senate Republicans in the early 1970s was significantly to the left of current GOP maverick John McCain," write political scientists Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson in their book Off-Center. "By the early 2000s, however, the median Senate Republican was essentially twice as conservative--just shy of the ultraconservative position of Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania.""
Even with such a mainstream conservative message, who makes up McCain's base? "It's not the far right but conservative, practical thinkers in the Republican Party," says Fose. And how many of those currently exist? "Enough," he chuckles.(The Nation, 2-3.)
Also, see I Miss Republicans, and all the various bit from Kevin Phillips recently.
He'd just be moving the center of debate further to the right, SCMT. I can't see for the life of me how that's a good thing.
I took the first quoted paragraph to mean that he is not that conservative by comparison to most of his now existing breathren. (And I tend to be distrustful of report cards, because I don't know how they weight different issues, etc.) But I may just be an example of why McCain makes a scary person for the Dems to run against. Also, that hero shit works on me. (Rest assured that I'll vote Dem.)
Re Obama on Lieberman - reportedly L mentored O when he entered the senate, and for O not to support L now would be uncollegial, ungrateful, and remembered. And I think O's "the elephant in the room" remark about L drawing liberal ire is a subtle but clear acknowledgement of the reasonablenesss of our viewpoint, whether he agrees with it or not. So, what bitchphd said in 11. I'm finding the way the Daily Kosmmentariat etc are turning on O increasingly tiresome.
I only started reading Kos regularly in the last five months. I was surprised at how straightforward kos come off as. And he's pretty centrist. The new front pagers on Kos suck, though.
he is not that conservative by comparison to most of his now existing breathren
A perfect 100 from Phyllis Schlafley's Eagle Forum. What it means is that the center of the GOP has moved closer to him, not that he's in any sense moderate.
11:"The outsider, progressive and populist Democrats can do this, whereas much of the Democratic establishment let itself become too collusive and contributor-driven to criticize. They remind me of the Rockefeller Republicans in the 1960s who did not want to seriously challenge the existing Democratic policies but rather to make the GOP much the same with a few caveats. Upheaval came only as they were pushed aside." ...Kevin Phillips, who will be probably get less blog space than Charles Murray, seeing as how cowering Democrats love playing defense.
Ideological purity hell. I would just like a trace of personal integrity. I will vote straight a Democratic ticket as usual, but would really like the whole gang of incestuous corrupt weasels out of there. Incrementalism will get stomped. Any small victory under these conditions will get turned into a dispiriting loss, as Hillary compromises on a pro-life justice and the Welfare state gets slashed. If you don't see what's coming, look at the bankruptcy bill. We need dominance, not a marginal success. We need revolution, not comity. We need a new party, or an old turned as unrecognizable as the Republicans have become. We need progressive primary opponents for every sitting Democrat. Whatever Obama was, he is now becoming just another tool.
I am becoming much less interested in national politics. Washington is the scum floating to the top.
bob, what do you have against ponies?