From Cheryl Flores of Wyoming, a caucus goer in that state yesterday as to why she supports Obama rather than Clinton:
“[B]ecause his campaign was more organized, he didn’t have as many negative attacks and he wants to get the troops out of Iraq as soon as possible.”
I think it was very telling that out West, at least (and as a former long time resident of Colorado I know a little bit of the mindset of the people who live out there) it seems that the negative “3:00 am” ads didn’t impress very many voters yesterday. As for negative attacks, well here is a classic one from Rep. Steve King of Iowa, who apparently believes Obama ultimately will be the nominee (either that or he’s a secret Clinton supporter), otherwise why would he say the following regarding the effect of an Obama electoral victory this November:
“The radical Islamists, the al-Qaida … would be dancing in the streets in greater numbers than they did on Sept. 11 because they would declare victory in this war on terror,” King said in an interview with the Daily Reporter in Spencer. […]
“His middle name does matter,” King said. “It matters because they read a meaning into that.”
Gotta love those Republicans. No matter how dirty the Democratic primary campaign has seemed to partisans for both Clinton and Obama, rest assured it will be nothing like the relentless fear-mongering and smears the vaunted GOP message machine will roll out (and already is rolling out). How much you want to bet Rep. King was given those talking points about Obama by someone at the RNC?
Great quotes. I love this series.
After spending a few moments at CNN- at least after I ice picked my way up the pro-HRC slant- I noticed a little something.
I think John Edwards is in a position to settle this now, or at least right after Mississippi. If he threw to Obama after those two wins, HRC’s superdelegate lead would be neutralized and Obama’s clear voter delegate lead would finally have to be addressed by the corporate media. Right now she has a supershield hiding the magnitude of her losses.
Thanks. Finding the quotes is easy. Picking and choosing is the hard part, lol.
I talked to my mother about Edwards right after he dropped from the race. Both of us think he’s a bit phony – not quite the knight in shining armor he portrays himself to be. (I’ll note that Russ Feingold, who worked with him in the Senate, shares this suspicion).
I told her if he’s for real, if he’s really the good guy he claims to be, if he means what he has said, he’ll support Obama before it’s clear he’ll be the winner.
I said if he doesn’t, it will just prove we’re right about him. She agreed.
Well, were we right? It’s clear Obama is going to be the nominee now, so his endorsement hardly matters. But his voice telling Hillary to stop elevating McCain over Obama would be nice. There’s no excuse for him staying silent re the McCain comments.
I think he’s been promised something by Hillary and may still think she has a chance so he’s waiting it out. If he endorses her just before the PA/NC primary, he’ll be even WORSE than I suspect him to be.
Back in 2004, one of my friends in the US supported Edwards over Dean in the Presidential Primary because he thought Dean was an empty suit who was mouthing the right phrases with no intention of backing them up, interested in his own candidacy for its own sake, while Edwards had real conviction. (To his credit, he’s supported Obama from the start this year) I’d say the 2004 general and the last four years have shown exactly the opposite.
Edwards didn’t even have the backbone to investigate the rampant electoral fraud in his own Presidential election. He’s run for President again, dropped out, and is now mulling support for Hillary Clinton, the antithesis of everything he claims to care about. Meanwhile, Dean’s championed the 50 state strategy, worked to reform the Democratic party from the ground up, supported all kinds of progressive candidates, and generally been a brilliant and effective campaigner for genuine reform.
I know Edwards’ wife has cancer, but that’s not the kind of behaviour a real progressive should display. I still think the blatant backstabbing of Dean by the DLC in 2004 is unforgivable. I think he’d have had a shot at the Presidency (unlike Kerry, who never, ever had a chance), and if he won, we’d have a very different world today. But remember: the Edwards, Gephardt, and Kerry campaigns all worked together with the DLC to kill the Dean campaign.
TLDR: don’t expect too much from Edwards, he’s an empty suit with a plastic smile. If he doesn’t endorse Hillary or damn Obama with faint praise, he’ll just stay quiet.
He had a chance to be a player before Super Tuesday. So many of his supporters and campaign workers had already, vocally switched to Obama. For them, it was a no-brainer.
I never bought into Edwards spiel or persona, he never sat right with me. So, from where I sit, and Edwards endorsement means crap, but I understand as the former VP candidate, he has some weight in certain circles. I had hoped he’d take that high road he professed to travel and announce that he wouldn’t make an endorsement at all. But, I figured if he didn’t make an endorsement by the Potomac Primaries, he was holding out for promises. Here we are a month out from the Potomacs and he’s still playing coy? Right now, any endorsement from him for either candidate would lead everyone to ask: What was he promised?
As a progressive I’ve got similar doubts. Sweet nothings are better than nothing, but they’re not the same as the real thing.
If he is ready to endorse Obama, good. I supported him (knew Kucinich had no chance) but this long silence has bothered me. If he’d come out and said something definitive, like, “I will not endorse either candidate” then he’d made a decision. But this dangling is disconcerting. Like who’s offering the better deal?
By the way, does anyone think that he’d help as a Veep on either ticket? As the AG?
back in North Carolina, I had a guy in here to clean the carpet two days ago and, I guess because I had CNN on the tv in the background, he felt it was a good idea to comment on Muslims and how violent their religion is and how they hate us and want to kill us and how their “Core-ANN” tells them to kill all nonbelievers and how he has to deal with two of “them” after they come back from their “temple or whatever you call it” and how they look so scary when they come out of there. Additionally, people at his church tell him that they know soldiers who have served time in Iraq and those soldiers have told these church-goers that everything they report on the news is wrong. It’s a giant conspiracy by the liberal media to make it seem like things are going badly over there.
For my part I managed to stammer that that kind of talk does not go over very well with me and that the bible is an extremely violent little book as well considering that it advocates things like killing belligerent children and that there are extremists in all religions…yada yada yada. You know what, Buddy? Just clean my damn carpet and shut your mouth. I felt like I needed to bleach my whole house when he left. That’s what democrats are up against.
We have some of those in Western NY as well. Dinosaurs still walk the earth, lol.
Another point to make. When I come across people like that I ask them if they have ever read the Koran. When they admit they haven’t I ask them how they can know so much about a book they haven’t read.
Most of them have never read the bible, a book they profess to be 100% correct on all issues, either. That’s some hard readin’, y’know.
Sometimes when I come up against these people I try to talk with them, sometimes there isn’t the time or the energy to make a good argument, sometimes I am so dumbfounded I just walk away.
If the guy is a Christian you can argue Christ with him. That is, you say, well you can pick and choose verses in the Koran and you can pick and choose verses in the Bible. The old Testament says […] but Jesus said […].
Or you can always pull out Timothy McVeigh. He thought he was a true Christian and was blowing up buildings and killing children, but most Christians think that kind of stuff is awful. Most Christians want to get up in the morning, go to work and do their jobs. And that’s the way most people are, whether they’re Christian, Muslim or what ever.
Of course, if the guy thinks McVeigh was right, you’ll have to come up with another answer.
If he supports McVeigh, you might want to get out of the house!
If he’s cleaning your rug, hope it’s not with anthrax.
Upon yet another discussion of Obama’s name and heritage, I’ll reference my comment noting a remarkable post from Juan (don’t call him John) Cole:
http://www.boomantribune.com/comments/2008/3/6/125431/6660/4#4
Barack Hussein Obama, Omar Bradley, Benjamin Franklin and other Semitically Named American Heroes
The whole thing is simply outstanding; go read it all, but here’s a portion:
much more over there.
I remember reading Professor Cole’s commentary when it came out. The Obama campaign should ask permission to republish it as part of their campaign literature and media packet.
Second Nature, I live in NC too. My 91 yo Dad, who lives with me, just shook his head when he saw this on CNN and said, “Only a very stupid or ignorant person would believe him.” I guess you met one of these yesterday.
I think there are more of those people than we’d ever like to believe. They just don’t speak up like this guy did. :/
I hear whispers like these all too often, from the most unlikely sources. Very scary stuff. My most used comebacks involve ridicule. “Oh, so now you believe everything the liberal media tells you?” laced with heavy sarcasm.
Hey StevenD-the election is over! Forget the remaining Primaries. Forget the vote in November. The dems are finished. All you had to do was listen to the Sunday Pundits. Now, I don’t hav cable so I can’t speak for Wolfie but the networks – every one of them are prett much in agreement: The dems is dead! Now, that is hillarious of it wasn’t sod sad since they are the source for the “NEWS” that the citizenry watches.
It was amazing!
The Rush Limbaugh strategy is the MSM strategy. Limbaugh is an outrider for the oligarchy. The game plan is to stretch it out. Bloody Obama. If he wins the nomination he’ll be weaker in November. If Clinton wins she’ll be weaker in November. Anyway, we can work with her. If Obama wins the nomination, make him weak enough to have to carry Clinton as Veep. Like JFK/LBJ.