I could vote for a black or a woman. I would not vote for Obama or Hillary.
Obama doesn’t have executive experience and I’d sooner chew off my foot than vote for Hillary.
In various Arkansas races, yes. In 1992 and 1996, no. He won with a plurality both times (and with my vote both times).
:smack: I knew that. Thanks for the correction.
My point stands, though: Obama’s name will not be a significant hindrance to him. Hell, look at W, sharing a name with a president who lost to Bill Clinton. He won*.
Daniel
- in 2004
I didn’t want to use that word, but that’s how I felt. The stakes in the election will be high, but if you give in to prejudice that way, I think you lose before you start.
He liked to refer to himself on the '04 campaign trail as “the skinny kid with the funny name.” He’s charming and can use things like that to his advantage. The most rabid anti-Hillaryism is found in people who probably wouldn’t vote Democratic anyway, and the same goes for people who wouldn’t vote for Obama because of the spelling of his name.
or as Uncyclopedia calls him, Barack Hussein Saddam Osama Joemama Obama,
You know, you could have made one sentence outa that and it still would have made sense.
I see you’re swallowing the “madrasa” angle. CNN sent a reporter over to the school; seems they only did religious classes one day a week. Far cry from herding the little ones over obstacles with face bandannas and AK 47s.
Then again there was never a strong anti-Marvin the Martian sentiment in this country. Mainstream America is scared of anyone that even appears to be Middle Eastern. They’re in the same boat now as Japanese Americans were during WWII.
True, but the first sentence contains the things that I don’t think should matter at all (but am afraid will matter), while the second sentence about experience is an actual concern of mine.
Ah. So when switching between one person’s opinion and another’s, no need to attribute; a simple period will do. Clears it all up admirably. :dubious:
This is completely anecdotal, but I found it interesting.
The past couple of days I’ve been talking with people who are “independents.” Mostly they are former Republicans who are fed up with Bush. I brought up the various candidates, doing a sort of straw poll, and I’m finding that those borderline voters said they’d go back to the Republicans if and only if Clinton were nominated.
I bring this up because I think it’s important to remember that hatred isn’t necessarily rational, and once you hate someone, changing political parties doesn’t (necessarily) end that hatred. Saying, that the people who hate Clinton wouldn’t have voted for a Dem anyway I think ignores the human nature of the populace. Voting Democrat is one thing, voting for Hillary Clinton (or, say, a Kennedy) is something else entirely.
One of the people I polled said she’d vote for Clinton just because she’s a woman. Personally, that would only come into play for me in a tiebreaker.
This tells me nothing other than what people thought of his book. Could you actually post what his arguments are if you’ve read it.
Please heed what jsgoddess is saying, and note her location.
We can win an election without any help from the South.
Yes you technically could, but then I never said you couldn’t. Can the Dems win without the majority of the midwestern states too?
I think that what you are missing is that the electorate is not very sophisticated.
They want someone that they can recognize, and who looks half competent.
Charisma and a very simple message are what the common joe is about, and to be honest I think that the common joe is not that far wrong.
Hilary has baggage - that is a problem, Obama might or might not be squeaky clean by 2007 standards, but he is recognizable and his message seems to be ‘it is not them and us’
He could turn into another Tony Blair, but his redeeming feature is that he seems fairly late to politics.
If the journos don’t dig up some serious dirt on him in the next few months, then he looks like a viable candidate for the USA to do a bit of recuperation.
I would very much like to learn the opinon people of color hold of Obama.
Who said anything about the midwestern states? You said, “you can kiss the votes across the whole of the South goodbye” if Hillary or Obama gets the nomination. I said, in effect, “So what?”
The South is the GOP’s heartland, the way the Northeast and West Coast states are the Democratic Party’s stronghold. Presidential elections for some years to come will be decided by the Midwest and those Rocky Mountain states that are turning into swing states - Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, and eventually Montana and Arizona.
I don’t see Obama having a problem in either of those parts of the country. And I think Hillary will do better than most people expect in those regions if nominated.
I believe the technical term is junk in the trunk. 
NTTAWWT.
And “Bush” is another name for ‘Really Large Pussy’. That’s why I didn’t vote for him.
Sorry I guess
Whoops I hit submit to soon:
Sorry I guess I was too vague in my original post. What I meant was yes the Dems could kiss the South goodbye. But I don’t really think that is the only region they could kiss goodbye. I think that if the Democrat presidential candidate is Hillary or Obama then they could probably miss the Midwest votes as well. I know there are many swing states in that region, but I think if either of them are the candidate then that will swing it over to Republican.