That last sentence if the operative one, we are light years from the end of this journey, it will be many more parsecs before we get any clear grasp of things.
But, apropos of nothing in particular, guess who’s climbing on the Obama Bus? Arnold! No, I’m not on drugs! Well, not at the moment, at any rate…
Not an out and out endorsement, true, but still…Arnold? Whodathunkit?
Even Bush is making noises about the environment lately.
And even if he didn’t, distancing oneself from Bush is hardly endorsing Obama. Most Republicans are doing that these days, especially the ones running for office.
Arnold has been very active on global warming for quite some time. CA has some of the toughest standards in the country, partly due to Arnold’s leadership. From 2 years ago (also an interview with GS):
How you spin that into “climbing on the Obama Bus” is beyond me. He enthusiastically campaigned for Bush in '04. He’ll do the same for McCain, I’m sure.
What about his support for faith-based programs, the death penalty for child rapists, gun rights, and his doubts on partial birth abortions?
It doesn’t really matter if he held these views before as it does that he is publicly stating them now. During the primary he was ok with being somewhat liberal, but now he is taking center ground. Ultimately he is going to be held accountable to what he promises during his campaign and not to what people think he privately believes in.
As for Obama losing my support by being a moderate, that isn’t going to happen. This country needs a moderate badly. No liberal is going to break the polarizing political atmosphere over Washington. You need someone that can see both sides of the issue and work out an agreement.
As much as I want this country to go flaming liberal, I understand that most citizens don’t want this to happen. A President runs the whole country, not 51% of it.
It’ll be hard for him to campaign for McCain when he’s already accepting hypothetical appointments in the Obama administration.
If he was going to be campaigning for McCain, shouldn’t be be saying that he’d be McCain’s energy czar?
No surprise to me that he’s moved to the center (and yeah, from my perspective he’s MOVED to the center…he wasn’t there before, unless you have a very skewed view of where the center is in the US today). I think that over all it’s a wise move (even though every Dem seems to do it…every Pub to for that matter), as even though it will piss off a few loony lefty types, by and large they will hold their noses and vote for him anyway (something I can’t say about the ‘tighty righties’ for McCain at this point)…if you lose the center though you lose in the Presidential politics game.
At this point I still think that Obama is clearly the candidate to beat, it’s his race to lose (and never underestimate the Dem’s ability to snatch defeat from the certain jaws of victory), not McCain’s to win. I think Obama is smart enough to not lose.
-XT
No it won’t.
He was asked if he’d take the position with Obama. He wasn’t asked about McCain.
And what do you mean “if”? From you cite:
That’s nonsense. Clearly he’s selling himself that way. Clearly many of his supporters believe that. I was considering voting for him for exactly that reason despite disliking his politics. If what you imply is true, he’s certainly not getting my vote.
Did something change recently or are you just referring to his “I support the rights of sportsmen and hunters” bullshit? That’s hardly pro gun.
Seriously, does anyone realistically believe that getting a FISA without telcom immunity was a battle that was winnable? If so (which I doubt) at what cost?
To me FISA seems like the Left’s Iraq: stay and fight until “victory” (even though such a creature is unattainable) no matter what the price. Compromise is “caving in” and a show of weakness which will be exploited in the future.
On both counts no thank you. I’ll take good enough results in both battlegrounds.
As to polling results … Gallup has results staying fairly stable with Obama currently up by 3, and staying within the same (narrow) lead he has had for the past two weeks. More notably Gallup also has him with a sizable lead among independents - 46 to 39 - which he has never had before. That Rasmussen “tie” you link to notably points out that “It will take a few more days to determine whether this recent tightening of the race reflects real change or is merely statistical noise.”
RCP’s integration of polling results has it tightening but still in the 3 to 6 point Obama lead range that he has consistently been running in. CNN’s poll of polls has him up by 8 (or 6 on another page?) Overall it seems that he has maintained a consistent 3 - 6 point lead and is building support with independents.
Which is what Team Obama wants happen. McCain will find it impossible to not be labelled as increasingly conservative. And when he tries to fight back to the center the Right will get more angered than the Left gets at Obama. Obama is a politician? Yes he is! Again, an effective* one.
*As a parent and a pediatrician, I always come back to what makes for effective parenting: you choose your battles wisely and you never choose one that you cannot guarentee victory in. It’s good parenting and it is good politicking as well.
Sure. The votes were there, just not the willpower.
At the cost of getting campaign contributions from them. What, do you think the phone companies have a broad base of public sympathy that would engender a political backlash?
What was gained in this alleged “compromise”? :dubious: There has to be something of similar value or else yes, it’s caving in. What was that?
The fact that Obama does something does *not * mean you have to support it.
Well, I don’t “support” it, I’m just not rolling around on the ground tearing my hair out over it. There is no chance, none whatsoever, for a candidate who aligns with me entirely. I’m working on that, but its taking longer than I thought when I was 20.
At least if there is too much power in government hands, it will be in hands I trust rather more. Cold comfort farm.
As Obama explained (why do you wonder about these things when simply reading would inform you?), the compromise reinserts FISA court as the watcher of the watchers, which the Protect America Act sought to remove. Plus, he believes that past abuses can be addressed through Inspectors General. It was with those assurances that he voted for the bill as a stop-gap measure. The bill can easily be modified or repealed entirely when he takes office with a Democratic Congress.
Consider the alternative if he had voted against the bill and a key communication was missed. It would be the death knell for his campaign, and even without so dramatic a result, the Republicans would still be able to paint him as weak on defense. Now they can’t. What’s more, since they’re less likely to have McCain as president than they would have been otherwise, the Bush administration will not be able to rest after inauguration day.
One thing Obama has a keen sense of that Democrats before him didn’t is knowing when he is in the driver’s seat, and proceeding with calm resolve. The telecoms will have civil immunity, but the tyrants who bullied them won’t have criminal immunity. It’s a very smart compromise.
The satisfaction is hollow, particularly when the bombing begins (for the women and children, you understand). Especially since the same people we get to say ‘neener neener’ to now will be supporting it in the future, if the 90s are any indication.
Out of interest, what’s your own answer to your last question? Are you any more tempted to vote for him because of this?
Acch. A “me too” to Lib’s explanation of why this was a decent enough compromise. If you want another then this bit by Nancy Soderberg expresses it well.
Honestly I see little need to punish the telcos for complying with what the Executive told them they had to do. I do see need to protect civil liberties from further abuse. This bill does that.
Elvis states
The votes were 69-28. The votes were not there. Wishing it so doesn’t make it happen. Not veto-proof. Not even enough to keep a filibuster going. Voting against it would have been nothing more than an exercise in political posturing. And of the postures a presidential candidate should take, a stupid one at that. Wiser to get what you need - assurances that civil liberties are protected in the future - and to move on to other battles.
Concur. While I dearly wish such a compromise were not necessary, I much prefer a candidate willing to make such a difficult choice over one who is not.
The sellout was the vote on the retroactive-immunity amendment, which was 66-32. Obama’s vote was one of a very few which had sustained Dodd and Feingold’s filibuster.
The votes were there, but the political calculations (both losing the telco’s money and exposing the Dems to “coddling the terr’ists” charges) overrode. Wishing it to have been an act of principle doesn’t make it one.
News flash: It’s campaign season.
A. Civil liberties were already legally protected. The issue was Bush’s unwillingness to obey the law. Passing a new law won’t change that. Bush won’t be held legally accountable for his past actions, not after all these years; don’t be naive about that having any real meaning. There are in fact no more substantive protections of civil rights created by that vote, just the assurance that Obama is willing to trade them away under political pressure.
You say you only are willing to fight battles you’re certain to win? That means losing a lot of things you could have won. And, by quitting before you start, you embolden those who disagree with you to demand more and more, knowing you’ll give it to them. If you as a parent run your household and your claimed pediatric practice that way, as you have bizarrely asserted is the source of your life’s wisdom on the point (and go look up the Appeal to Authority Fallacy sometime too), that means the children are effectively in charge. We’ve had almost 8 years of that in the government, and we simply cannot afford any more of the damage that results from it.
So, what “battles” *do * you consider worth fighting? Or even winnable, for that matter, since you claim that to be synonymous for you?
marshmallow, damn right.
What about them? None of those are shifts. He’s always held the same views on all of those things. That just underlines my point that his “most liberal Senator” label was always bogus.
He publicly stated them before as well.
He was always on the center. He never ran as a liberal, even in the primaries. His moderation is made quite evident in his books.
you may already know but there’s an interesting article in the New Yorker about Obama’s political rise in Chicago.
There was an Op-Ed in the New York times a few days ago which boiled down to “People who thought that Obama would be a new sort of politician who worked across the aisle and reached out to the other side – by staying firmly to the far left and never compromising – really weren’t thinking it through.”
Pretty much my opinion. I never bought into the “OMG the National Journal says Most Liberal EVAH!!!” hype.