Who is Obama

UPS Lifer

Well-Known Member
Here is another point... It is always good to look at how the campaign is being run.
Who is running the lean & mean campaign?
Who spends more money than they are taking in?
Who has a $10 million debt to get rid of?
Who doesn't want campaign spending limits?

The answers to these questions are an indicator of how each candidate and party will spend money once in office.
 

wkmac

Well-Known Member
Here is another point... It is always good to look at how the campaign is being run.
Who is running the lean & mean campaign?
Who spends more money than they are taking in?
Who has a $10 million debt to get rid of?
Who doesn't want campaign spending limits?

The answers to these questions are an indicator of how each candidate and party will spend money once in office.

In theory or maybe I should say, in our dreams :happy-very: that might be true but in reality that IMO just doesn't pan out. If you go back to 2000' and look at what Georgre Bush was not only doing but consider the above criteria you listed, Bush literally did the exact opposite once in office. Now on the one hand you could try and justify everything with 9/11 but I'd point out that when a family faces a huge crisis in their lives, vacations, movies, eating out, etc. etc. are eliminated as a cost cutting measure to help pay for the cost of the crisis. Bush and the republican Congress as well as the democrats (let's be fair here) never once suggested that we not go to the beach, not go to the movies or not eat out. In fact, they encouraged more vacations, more movies and more eating out with the idea of moving the debt forward to future generations to deal with the payback.

IMHO, it's just not as simplistic as you mentioned above although I love the idea if it were! I'm with ya there all the way.

As for Obama himself. Much has been the news the last few days about Obama moving to the "right" if you will on Iraq. The republicans, not having much in a candidate themselves must less a message (original and exciting ideas that move) to run on, have resorted to formenting myths and creating something from nothing about Obama. Wright worked somewhat in moving the base but that steam didn't last and the flag pin was good for a week or so. The bigger myth was that Obama was solid anti-war (helped also by a little myth making on Obama's part too in order to fool his own base) but looking at facts of action in voting, the record tells a different picture.

But it seems the "antiwar" myth is breaking down and Obama himself is helping the cause to which of course the repubs. are in turn using to paint the old flip/flop message and it will work for a time too. What I find interesting is watching Obama not from the so-called right or republican side where he'll never get a vote anyway, but rather from the left itself and in this case I mean the hardcore left (another myth that Obama is a secret "one of them!") as in the socialist faction.

Recently there was a piece in the Socialist Worker publication about Obama but it was more about his senior policy circle that will formulate his public policy if elected. I know most here are chicken littles and fear the dark so they would never be able to click the link :happy-very: but for those few principled souls here who are completely comfortable in your own skin, I find this piece pretty interesting from the POV written and hope you do as well.

http://socialistworker.org/2008/07/02/obama-war-room

Obama isn't flip/flopping or changing his position. He's doing exactly what his genetic makeup was all along. He's just being a politician!
:wink2:

TAX! TAX! TAX!
SPEND! SPEND! SPEND!
ELECT! ELECT! ELECT!

the mantra of the American politician.
 

wkmac

Well-Known Member
Is Obama's moving (flip/flopping if you wish) to the right or center (depending on POV) with the majority of the American electorate also a bit of a myth?

What do I mean by that? Seems Glenn Greenwald makes IMO a very good case that Obama isn't following heartland America but rather the inside the beltway crowd who's job it is to condition us on which way we should think and vote!

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/07/07/leftist_fringe/index.html

As usual Glenn, nice job!

I guess now after this post and the one above that the howling dogs here will begin the "Commie" Chorus at me for my obviously "unpatriotic" ways. Well, as my grand daddy use to say, "call me what ya want but don't call me late for supper!"

And I give you the howling dogs because they are cute. :happy-very:

Howling Dogs
 

Jones

fILE A GRIEVE!
Staff member
Excellent Op-ed from Joan Walsh:
Betrayed by Obama
The Democrat's FISA sellout is unforgivable, but he's counting on supporters having no place else to go. And McCain's nutty neocon Iran talk helps him make his case.
Joan Walsh
Jul. 10, 2008 | What an interesting week: I came back from vacation to find the two presumptive presidential nominees running away from their bases. Suddenly John McCain is evading, not embracing, the media, limiting access and getting testy with the very people whose formerly friendly coverage made him a popular "maverick." Meanwhile Barack Obama is complaining that his "friends on the left" just don't understand him – he's not moving to the center, he is "no doubt" a progressive, just one who now supports the scandalous FISA "compromise" and Antonin Scalia's views on gun rights and the death penalty, no longer plans to accept public campaign funding, and wants to make sure women aren't feigning mental distress to get a "partial-birth" abortion (the right's despicable term of choice; the correct phrase is either late-term or third-trimester abortion.)
I actually have some sympathy for Obama. He was never the great progressive savior that his fans either thought he was, or peddled to their readers. While Arianna Huffington and Markos Moulitsas and Tom Hayden were hyping him as the progressive alternative to Hillary Clinton, Obama was getting away with backing a health care bill less progressive than Clinton's, adopting GOP talking points on the Social Security "crisis" and double-talking on NAFTA. So why shouldn't he think his "friends on the left" will put up with his abandoning other progressive causes?
I've admired Obama, but I never confused him with a genuine progressive leader. Today I don't admire him at all. His collapse on FISA is unforgiveable. The only thing Obama has going for him this week is that McCain is matching him mis-step for mis-step. While we're railing about Obama's craven vote on FISA – rightfully; Glenn Greenwald is a hero for his work on this topic -- McCain was outdoing Dick Cheney with neocon crazy talk, warning that Iran's test of nine old missiles we already knew they had increases the chances of a "second Holocaust." Every time I wonder whether I can ultimately vote for Obama in November, given all of his political cave-ins, McCain does something new to make sure I have to.
But Obama needs to watch himself. Telling voters they have no place else to go, before he officially has the nomination, is not a winning strategy. That's what his people told Clinton voters. That's what they're saying about opponents of the FISA sell-out. That's the line on those concerned about his "partial-birth" abortion remarks. It's arrogant – up against the backdrop of Obama's big plans for an Invesco Field acceptance speech in Denver and a Brandenberg gate extravaganza in Berlin, I'm starting to worry about grandiosity -- and it could backfire.
Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, voted against the FISA bill, but I think "what ifs" are unproductive. Matthew Yglesias's self-justifying fiction that, if she was the nominee, she'd have done what Obama did, is silly. But none of us can really know she'd have done the right thing in Obama's shoes. Since I believe Clinton's craven vote to authorize the Iraq war in 2002 cost her the Democratic nomination, I do find myself wondering whether she learned her lesson about caving into GOP threats. It's funny how so many defeated Democrats – Al Gore, John Kerry, John Edwards and now Clinton – seem to become more progressive after they learn that pandering can't protect them from the attacks of the GOP and its friends in the media. Let's hope Obama doesn't have to learn that lesson the same way.
Of course, the only thing more offensive than Obama's yes vote on FISA was McCain's decision to skip the vote entirely – and then trash Obama for "flip-flopping" on FISA. Unfortunately, Obama did flip-flop on FISA, but McCain didn't bother to show up. So far, this has been a really dispiriting campaign. Part of the problem, I think, is that the two finalists are guys beloved by the media, who've had a fairly free ride to here. With their rivals out of the way, they're getting more scrutiny, and it's not all adoring. Having won impressive underdog victories, neither campaign seems ready for primetime. I know one thing, I'd really like to vote for the guy who said this:
"This Administration has put forward a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we demand. When I am president, there will be no more illegal wire-tapping of American citizens; no more national security letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime; no more tracking citizens who do nothing more than protest a misguided war. Our Constitution works, and so does the FISA court."
Too bad Obama doesn't believe that any more.
-- Joan Walsh​
 

moreluck

golden ticket member
I'm just waiting for B.O. to implode. November is still a ways off and tongue slips are inevitable. I hope he insults all types by then.
 

toonertoo

Most Awesome Dog
Staff member
Lets see he has insulted gun owners, religious people, (sweeties) aka female journalists, prolife people, people who dont know two languages, oil people, our president, our vice president, Hillary, asmathics, so many I need help. Feel free to add.
Oh wait, there are 57 states, with 2 left.................
Americans............
 

toonertoo

Most Awesome Dog
Staff member
And muslim women with burkas, women who want to work in the corporate world instead of social services,
people who want to keep their thermostats on 72, and who want to eat as much as they desire........
Ill think of more

Oh yea, people who want to keep more of their money..............
 

brazenbrown

Well-Known Member
New Yorker mag's 'satire' cover draws Team Obama's ire
tny%207_21.jpg.jpg
 

diesel96

Well-Known Member


First off, I'm all for political satire and lampooning as an essense of our Freedom of speech and expression.....My first thought was how tasteless, desperate and just plain wrong a respected publication would go to sell magazines at the expense of the stupidity at the targeted American consumers. Then as I thought about it more deeply and realized the more Liberal leaning demeanor of the publication it clearly sends out a deeper message of the reality that there still is a large portion of our population still blindly believing in these manufactured sterotypes illustrated on the New Yorker's cover and mocks these rumors. Thanks for exposing this BrazenB (I owe you a fist pump:wink2:), it may score points to the politically uneducated, however if one stays on top of their politics, and knows the political strategies of the past this may be more of a plus for Obama than a negative even though it draws the ire of Obama's capaign staff, Obama himself should just ingore it.
 

Jones

fILE A GRIEVE!
Staff member
My guess is that the people who buy or subscribe to the New Yorker are generally not the same folks who still believe that Obama is a muslim manchurian candidate, so it seems like more of an inside joke. In addition, the New Yorker is in business to sell magazines, not pander to one party or the other, and I suspect that this cover will sell a lot of magazines.
 

brazenbrown

Well-Known Member
Thanks for exposing this BrazenB I owe you a fist pump:wink2:

No problem!!

My guess is that the people who buy or subscribe to the New Yorker are generally not the same folks who still believe that Obama is a muslim manchurian candidate, so it seems like more of an inside joke.

Yes and no, I kinda think the New Yorker is read by a lot of Paris Hilton Hollywood, superficial types along with your more educated readers...

In addition, the New Yorker is in business to sell magazines, not pander to one party or the other, and I suspect that this cover will sell a lot of magazines.

And I totally agree with that statement!!:happy2:
 

tieguy

Banned
My guess is that the people who buy or subscribe to the New Yorker are generally not the same folks who still believe that Obama is a muslim manchurian candidate, so it seems like more of an inside joke. In addition, the New Yorker is in business to sell magazines, not pander to one party or the other, and I suspect that this cover will sell a lot of magazines.

I think the satire works for Obama since many people still think he is a muslim. I think they should have left it at that.

I think the depiction of Michelle Obama as the gun toting chick with the afro was in poor taste.
 

wkmac

Well-Known Member
Well, you just knew that the New Yorker/Obama thing would create an equal time thingy and here it is.

On a completely serious note on this issue, IMO the New Yorker is a worthless rag and not worth the time to consider but thanks to so many, the New Yorker has gotten tons of free advertising so from the standpoint of the normal output of this "leftist rag" if you will and most likely from your normal perspective, the next time they publish an article that socially or politically you find completely tasteless and off the reservation, you might look in the mirror and see if you see someone who in the arena of ideas and thought posted things to make them of some relevance! By placing this issue in the public discourse and thus making it a news item so to speak, you've brought good, free attention to this publication that they can capitialize on and turn into $$$$$$. Mindless masses of leemings.

Just a thought!
:wink2:

Yeah the McCain thing above is completely tasteless too and I don't even like the guy politically speaking but you guys have helped to create this monster so there you go!

LISTEN! LISTEN! LISTEN! Here comes the "OH SO TYPICAL MNDLESS" response.

Howling Dogs
 

brazenbrown

Well-Known Member
How about the possibility of having a V.P. that would so compliment the ticket??:happy-very:

John Edwards, who made a big deal about his loyalty to his cancer-stricken wife during his failed presidential campaign, was actually cheating on her and presiding over an elaborate cover-up. He even has a love child with the radiant Rielle Hunter:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,391426,00.html
 
Top