There was a lot more that sank Dean than one scream. Unlike Dean, Obama has the most money. What is more, because most of his donors are small donors, he can go back to them again and again. In contrast, many of Clinton’s donors have already given the max.
I don’t understand why Democrats are so paranoid about the one insult that is going to pop their candidates’ bubbles. Look at the numbers of votes in Democratic vs. Republican races. I honestly think the Democrats could run a hard boiled egg and win this year.
If Obama was not in the same picture with the flag, I don’t how it can have the impact of the Dean Scream or Dukakis Tank. It’s just not the same, no matter how much the Righties wish it to be.
The rethuglicans have learned a lot from the PRI, and this is just the kind of dirty trick that PRIistas pull all the time: sneak a ringer into an opponents campaign, have him/her pull some kind of nastiness, then stand around and howl self righteously about the evil commie or whathaveyou that they have exposed. Does anyone remember the woman who designed the “butterfly ballot” of 2000 election fame who, as it turned out, had quit the rethugs, joined the democrats, and went right back to her kennel as soon as the Elderly Jews for Buchanan votes were tallied? IMO, this is just more of the same.
And unlike Dean, Obama has a superior organization. Dean lost in Iowa because his organizin was inferior to Kerry and Edwards, while Obama appears to be better organized than a team of Bill and Hillary Clinton. Consider that for a moment.
Heh, I think Obama’s a douche to begin with (and might even consider voting for the other douche in November should he get the nomination), but this is laughably irrelevant. What’s next, nitpicking the chemical composition of his farts?
Well, I hope not. Though, it is a good question. Obama has galvanized the younger voters, who are going to be more brash (to me, that’s a really good thing, let’s get the juices flowing!) and thoughtless in the way things appear to the older folks. They want change, and are willing to break barriers to do it. As said, not a bad thing. I think Obama can roll with it better than Dean could. Dean never had the popular appeal that Senator Obama has now.
I can’t see a thing like this having any legs. It’s not like Obama himself had anything to do with it. I have to think that the only people who are going to think this is important (or pretend they think it’s important) are the same ones who spread around the “oh noes! Barack Osama is teh Muslim1!!!11” types.
I know Fox News is good at manufactured outrage but this is so stupid, so forced and so easy for Obama to divorce himself from that I doubt even the O’Reillys and the John Gibsons will be able to make much hay out of it without sounding like transparently partisan retards.
I don’t think Obama is swiftboatable. For swiftboating to work, the subject has to have some modicum of unlikeability and the boating itself has to have some core of plausible (or at least unfalsifiable) substance.
We’ve already seen some tacts they’ve taken with Obama and they’ve all been almost humorous in their desperation and inanity. The Manchurian Muslim thing has gotten no purchase and even Fox News won’t try to perpetuate that anymore.
The college drug use is a dog that won’t even lick its balls, much less hunt. He volunteered that information himself in his own memoir, before he was even a politician. All that story really does is make him look honest and normal. Plus, going by the words of his college buddies, he wasn’t that into drugs even when he was into drugs. They remember him taking a hit off a joint once in a while but that’s about it. He says he also tried blow but his buddies don’t even remember that.
Then there’s Rezko, but even there, it’s all just guilt by association and no one can find anything Obama did that was unethical or illegal.
I don’t know where else they can go except to try to paint him as a radical socialist.
The thing about Obama is, whether they agree with him or not, people intuitively know he’s not a scumbag (and the same is true of McCain, for that matter), so no amount of fabricated scandal is going to ring true. I think it’s just going to backfire.
Plus, I don’t think that McCain himself is a dirty campaigner and I don’t believe he’d allow things to get too nasty, even against Hillary.
There is one thing that Obama might get swiftboated on. Obama’s (and mine) denomination does support same sex marriage. Right now, I don’t think SSM will be a major issue in the general election. But, it is out there and I’m sure the Republicans know that.
Swiftboating is successful only when the slander is believed by the supporters of the target. This particular attack would be toothless, since Obama supporters are unlikely to be moved by the knowledge that he supports gay marriage. Those that vote based on that issue are not going to be in his column anyway.
