Something like a quarter of the populace (roughly) *does * think that, though. iMcCain’s platform that he’ll pick up the pieces and get the job finished competently resonates. McCain does have overall support on the order of Obama’s. Why? Is half the country just racist? What was Gore’s excuse for that, then, or Kerry’s?
It does no good at all to say those with different views are unreasonable, or unthinking, or immoral, etc. That is bashing and only gets you considered arrogant and gets your candidates beaten. It does a whole lot more good to understand what they’re thinking, and why, and try to win them over on their own terms.
I’m not trying to convince them of the error of their ways, I’m making an effort to understand why they think like that. It is merely an intellectual pursuit. We Democrats manage to screw ourselves in selecting candidates. Last time we had some “rich stuck up guy” and now, when we need some Centrist to pull votes from both sides, we offer a Black guy or a Woman either of whom will drive away votes merely by existing. But I digress.
Then why would you put that in the title of the thread?
Anyway, there’s lots of reasons why anyone should choose McCain over Obama; you’ll hear a lot of them over the next 5 months. For starters Obama is the most liberal of 100 senators. And he was a member of a blatantly racist church for 20 years, showing that either his powers of observation or his judgement are severely lacking.
Oh, and if you want something specific to Hillary supporters, how about his calling a reporter “sweety” as he refused to answer her question and walked away from her?
I have to admit I’m wondering the same things Sampiro is. I was a Clinton supporter and now I support Obama. He’s my second choice but he’s definitely ahead of McCain. And I’m a Republican and I like McCain.
But I’m vote issues not personalities and I agree with Sampiro - Obama’s and Clinton’s platforms are too close to split the difference.
As for personality, I’ve conceded all along that Obama had the lead here. He’s much more charismatic than Clinton or McCain. (I read how one of McCain’s spokesmen stated “This campaign isn’t about speech-making” and then in a moment of honesty added “Thank God.”)
I can see the argument that McCain might be preferable to Obama on some issues like national security. (I’m not saying I agree with these arguments, but I’ll concede they can be made.) But I figure anyone who thought these issues were key must have been a McCain supporter all along - they wouldn’t have had Clinton as their first choice.
This doesn’t pass the smell test. Andrews publicly announced he was an Obama supporter and someone in Clinton’s campaign then called him up to tell him about their racism-driven strategy? Wouldn’t that be the kind of thing you’d normally try to keep secret rather than discuss with the opposition?
I’ve heard several Republican supporters say this, which I find rather odd given the number of times Obama has reached across the aisle to co-sponsor bills with Republican Senators, and that his positions in the primaries were slightly to the right of both Clinton and Edwards. Obama has strong principles, but first and foremost he is a pragmatist, and while he’s generally not an in-your-face type, make no mistakes: his decisions are his, not the result of pressure from higher-ups in the Democratic Party. The fact that he is quiet and listens to others doesn’t change the fact that he is a *very * dominant guy. Look how tightly controlled his staff has been, and how he *owns * the (usually huge) audience in every campaign speech. I doubt that buckling under is in his character, although I do think he is open to being truly convinced that his position is not as good as someone else’s is.
I imagine this (the most liberal Senator meme) can be counted in numerous ways, so probably there’s some way of massaging the data to come up with support for OBama being the most liberal senator of them all, but I’d really like to know what it is. I mean, it’s obviously a scare tactic trying to win back moderate-to-liberal Republicans to McCain, but is there any substance to it at all? Mind you, I’d love for the most liberal senator or governor in the nation to get the presidency.
[/hijack]
Maybe I should start another thread for the above?
Oh, and apropos of nothing whatsoever, I saw a documentary on Obama’s beginnings and his subsequent entrance into politics, and there were photos of him in his younger days. He was a total babe in his early years (Although not quite as drop-dead gorgeous that McCain was)! Now granted, he can’t recapture the look of his teens without plastic surgery, but I really do think a little longer haircut would help hide the slightly goofy-looking ears. But that would arguably mean that he had an Afro, which would might very well drive the unconscious racists out there to switch to McCain. (At what point does a little longer hair on African-Americans start being labeled as an Afro - 1/2 inch, an inch? Well, at least he doesn’t shave his head!
McCain himself is not so bad- if he didn’t come with the rest of the GOP. I am not happy with his war stance, but he’s honest and I admire him as a person. But we just plain can’t afford another 8 years in Iraq. Not Monetarily, Morally or in the international political arena.
Eight or even four years ago, I might have agreed with you, DrDeth, and no matter what, at this point I’d still prefer McCain in the White House to W. But McCain’s integrity has taken a serious hit since he got serious about running in 2008, and so, I might add, has his aura of competence. Between his wooing of the self-described Christian right wing, and his factual errors (to put the best face on it) in speaking, he’s just not looking like the same guy who ran against W in 2000.
The National Journal rankings were just one way of trying to rank the senators and suffer from selective bias in choosing which votes to count and what they represent. I’m not saying it’s worthless but it sure as hell ain’t gospel.
For a different means of ranking, Electoral-Vote once ranked the senators based on their average ratings from a host of liberal & conservative special interest groups. You know, the folks saying “So-and-So gets an A+ for supporting abortion!” and “So-and-So has worked tirelessly to block tax reform!”.
As the liberal groups rank 'em, Obama & Clinton both aren’t all that great. Neither are the enemy, but they pale against traditional “uber-liberals” such as Feingold. As the conservatives rank them, they get pushed down the list into deeper “anti-conservative” territory but neither is close to scraping the bottom compared to Senate allies.
Is EV’s way better than the National Journal’s? I think so in some ways since it shows what the “scary people” on both ends of the spectrum think about the candidates (it’d be a different argument if Obama was fully embraced by all the liberal groups) and who they think best carries their banner. But it’s not perfect either. No method of trying to pigeonhole someone as the most [ideology] is really worth much by itself.
Maybe someone thinks that the war was wrong to start but now that we have overthrown the Iraqi government and put Iraqi’s on the edge where they could essentially fall into anarchy and warlord rule, it is worng to leave without helping them reach some sense of stability. A person may think that we owe it to the Iraqis to not cut and run when we were the ones responsible for much of their instability.
