The thing is, though, that Clinton has the majority of DLC superdelegates, and they’re mostly retired from office, so there’s really no way to hold them accountable.
They’ll hold themselves accountable if they start to think that Hillary could not win the general. At a certain point these national numbers and comparison polls will start cutting into Hillary’s superdelegate support.
Wouldn’t it be ironic if Obama’s lead turns out to be made in large part of supers whose districts/cities/states supported Clinton? Though it seems unlikely that he will lose the pledged delegate race at this point.
See, I didn’t say I would not back him. I just said he wasn’t my first choice. This is why the attitute of his followers is losing him support.
Read my line again: “I mean, that’s what you Obama-ites are suggesting, right? That the SuperDelegates must abide by the popular vote, even though the rules as agreed to said they were free to vote as they wish? That not doing so is “dismissing the will of the voters”?”
I am sure that secretly Obama would like the Superdelegates to be bound by their state;s Majority, but so far, AFAIK, he has not said so directly. His followers certainly have.
The Democratic Convention itself can vote to let them back in. Obama is against it, Hillary is for it. No big suprise there either way.
I also read your line “So you support Obama changing the rules mid-game so they favor him? The same rules he agreed to abide by several months ago?” So, Obama supporters encouraging (not insisting) that the superdelegates vote in accord with the pledged delegates has what all to do with the MI/FL thing again? It sure sounded to me like you were conflating the two in the post we both quoted.
In other words: Heckuva job, Rovie.
Oh I don’t know how much support he is actually losing, seems he’s gaining in the polls every time I check. However, to lend credence to what you say I will say that some of us Obama supporters are more boisterous in their approach, but I believe we all follow the same fundamental inkling - we want a different direction in Washington, and if the front man happens to be a good speaker and cool enough guy? Then I’m psyched for that change. I mean how fun would it be if we didn’t have to wince when listening to our president on TV - The extra added bonus to Barack is that he would be a fantastic leader as well, one who I believe would run this country every nicely.
I know. Eleven straight primary victories. Pulling ahead of Clinton in Texas and a statistical dead heat in Ohio in the latest polls. If Obama’s followers keep costing him support at this rate, he’ll blow Clinton out of the water.
Actually I said no such thing. What I meant was that if the supers decide the election for Hillary and Obama has the lead in popular/delegates, it could cost them a lot of voters and would look like they were simply overriding the voters. They are more than free to vote for whoever they want, but unfortunately for them they have a lot of people watching them right now. And to be perfectly honest, I wouldn’t be particularly happy if Hillary was in the lead and the supers tossed it to Obama.
By the way, “Obama-ites?” Dreadfully clever. Must make it ever so helpful to dismiss points made by those who disagree with you by thinking of them as members of the Obama cult.
Why waste your mind reading powers on Obama. I’m sure there are unsolved crimes that urgently need your abilities.
Bolding mine. Poisoning the well I believe. Of course noone can simply prefer Obama to Clinton and disagree with your arguments. They’re followers. :rolleyes:
No, no, no! I’m still waiting to be provided the Mega Millions lottery numbers by the clairvoyant Hillary fans!
Jeez, give a fellow Obamaite a break here, would ya? Quit diverting the mojo outside the clan. Thanks!
By far the most impressive thing to me about Obama’s rise to the top is his parents’ foresight to name him after(or similar to) two of most nefarious men in world news today, and there by use reverse psychology to get people to subconsciously vote for him.
Hey if we can get into Obama’s mind, why not his parents?
They are equated. The Superdelegates voting the way they wish is no more “dismissing the will of the people” than not allowing the Fla delegates their vote is. If you disenfranchise the 4th most populous state becuase that the way the rules are, then the SuperDelegates voting the way they wish is also *the way the rules are.
*
So you are that brazen to directly compare the two*. One candidate wants to count votes where the opponent wasn’t even on the ballot. The other suggests how he thinks the superdelegates should cast their votes. Politically I can see how a Clinton supporter would want to equate the two, but I can’t imagine any objective observer would agree.
*which means I have to take back to Rove comment - hey, what’s beyond Rove?
The big worry with Obama is that he’s going to wilt under fire from an opponent who can more credibly attack him. That’s already starting to happen as of today. Obama is trying to backpedal on his, “All the troops out of Iraq” strategy by saying, “Of course, we’ll maintain the ability to attack al-Qaida if al-Qaida starts forming bases in Iraq”.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/us/politics/28campaign.html?ex=1361854800&en=42c10ddc32860b31&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink]McCain Responded:
That’s the kind of stuff which, coming from a person with the stature of McCain, is going to hit a lot harder and make Obama look like he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Obama jabbed back, saying that they wouldn’t be there if “McCain and Bush hadn’t invaded the country”. Even if true, this is irrelevant to the point that they ARE there, and Obama saying he’d pull the troops out but send them back if al-Qaida showed up flies in the face of reality, which is that they ARE there now. And in fact, almost 100% of U.S. combat operations now are directed specifically at them (with the help of Iraqis). So Obama’s statements are pretty incoherent.
I honestly think Obama is vulnerable to McCain in ways that he isn’t vulnerable to Hillary. The war is actually more of a weakness with Hillary, because she can’t attack it without her vote for it being thrown back in her face. So it’s a big liability for her, and Obama can strike a ‘purer’ pose and look more coherent and serious. That’s not going to work against McCain. And Obama’s lack of foreign policy and defense experience is going to trip him up repeatedly, and McCain will hammer him on it every time.
The issue with NAFTA is another example of how inexperience is going to hurt him. He’s starting to get himself in trouble as his anti-NAFTA rhetoric riles allies like Canada and the Canadian government throws its opinions in the mix, forcing him to backpedal. This is also a strength for McCain, who is a staunch free trader. Played right, McCain is going to be able to paint himself as the internationalist who supports agrreements with allies, and Obama as a nationalist who wants to renege on U.S. treaties and play hardball with the world.
I honestly think this is the way the campaign will play out - the two men respect each other, and will go at each other on policy differences and honest issues of experience, judgement, intelligence, age, and such. I’m sure the wingnuts on both sides will attempt to stir up irrelevant crap and personal smears, but I think the candidates will attempt to stay above that and even repudiate it.
This could actually be a very good election in the sense that it addresses real issues and puts forth a real debate and forces the American people to choose based on their ideals and vision of where they want the country to go, rather than focusing on the candidates’ screwups as teenagers, or allegations of old affairs and that sort of thing.
See, that exchange is going to be read through the lens of partisan politics. Of course, to me, McCain seemed pandering and fake-smart, like a precocious fourth-grader. “Oooh! Oooh! Pick me! There’s Al-Qaeda in Iraq!”
And Obama’s response was funny, just a little sarcastic, and used the opportunity to hang the Bushbatross around McCain’s neck.
I heard a replay of the two quotes, and literally had the exact diametric opposite reaction that you did. I thought, man, Obama’s gonna be fine.
They’re not incoherent, Sam Stone, you just disagree. There’s a difference. I’m just going to respond to the Iraq part for now.
You make three fundamental mistakes here. First, you misstate Obama’s policy on Iraq. He has never said he wants to pull all troops out. He has always said that some troops should be left in for anti-terrorism missions. You may recall that Edwards criticized him for this in the debates.
Second, you look at McCain’s paraphrasing instead of what Obama actually said, which was a general statement about the CIC’s perogative to take steps necessary to protect our security. He said, “As commander in chief, I will always reserve the right to make sure that we are looking out for American interests. And if al Qaeda is forming a base in Iraq, then we will have to act in a way that secures the American homeland and our interests abroad.” That’s boilerplate policy that everyone agrees with. It doesn’t imply re-invasion.
Third, and most importantly, you and McCain both conflate AQI with the AQ that committed acts of terrorism on U.S. soil. I don’t fault you for that, since it has been the primary goal of the US Psy-op campaign. This was accidentally exposed in 2005, if you recall, as an effort on behalf of the administration to brand AQI insurgency as the justification for staying in Iraq. Anyone can call themselves “Al-Qaeda,” but the one in Iraq may be primarily a domestic insurgency campaign (though they’ve apparently done some nastiness in Jordan). They are almost 100% Iraqi. There is debate in the foreign policy community over the extent to which AQI is an international threat (though it’s worth noting that many who thought invading Iraq would be good strategy are now saying AQI is why we need to stay–so we should perhaps discount their strategic acumen), but there are reasonable people on both sides (see, e.g., http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2007/0710.tilghman.html).
The fact that Obama is on one side of the debate doesn’t make him “incoherent.” He can rightly argue that we no more need to invade to get rid of AQI than we need to invade Indonesia to get rid of Islamists there. As you know, the U.S. does have foreign policy tools–even military tools–aside from fruitless occupation. Indeed, Obama and other argue that withdrawal will actually do more to stem AQI than occupation, since it will force political reconciliation and remove the obvious recruiting and mobilization target.
I hope this will be McCain’s strategy, because it betrays a stunning lack of understanding about the complexity of the situation in Iraq which is consistent both with his initial support for the war and his comments in the Baghdad marketplace. Both of which will be used to severely impeach his foreign policy judgment. Most Americans think the war was a strategic mistake. That says nothing about what we should do now, but it does speak to whose judgment we should trust for how to move forward. There is a reasonable debate to be had here, but McCain’s Bushian oversimplification of AIQ is pretty disturbing. We’ve seen what happens when the President isn’t capable of complex understandings.
According to th state Department, aQ only has about 1000 people in Iraq. They’re like 1% of the insurgency. They’re an irrelevant, insignificant, unimportant presence in Iraq. The attempts by Republicans to frame Iraq as primarily a conflict with al Qaeda is intentionally misleading and dishonest. The AQ presence in Iraq amounts to little more than a few opportunistic gnats and if we leave, they have no reason to stay. The only reason any of them are in there now is because we are giving them targets to shoot at. America is not in any threat from al Qaeda in Iraq. For that matter, neither is Iraq.
The places AQ is actually regrouping and respawning are Afghanistan and Pakistan, places Obama has been very hawkish about – calling for more troops in Afghanistan, a more concerted effort to root out bin Laden and a willingness to pursue AQ targets in Pakistan if necessary.
Iraq is a dog of an argument for McCain. The bottom line is, he’s WRONG about it and it isn’t possible to defend our continued occupation without lying. All Obama had to do is call him on every prevarication (remnember when McCain was talking about he could walk down the streets of Baghdad like he was taking a stroll in Duluth), remind voters where the eneny actually IS and remain hard-assed in his positions on the 'stans. Iraq is one of Obama’s strongest issues. He’s got a huge advantage there because he’s right and McCain is wrong.
Bush just refers to Iraqis as “terrorists” when it suits him. To a lot of people, those words are synonymous. So good luck separating Al Qaeda from insurgents.
Unity: If George Bush can’t do it, it can’t be done.
That is a truly risible argument.