Yeah, a one term Congressman from Illinois with no other prior political experience thinks he can do a good job as president and even change history? Ridiculous!
When he that ever happened before? Oh wait, it has. Ever heard of Abraham Lincoln?
Oh, I absolutely think that many of his supporters overestimate how much Obama could change things. At the same time, it’s mighty refreshing to hear from someone who at least wants to try. Especially when the alternative is another Clinton.
What party was he with? Hmmm. 
Something tells me that Obama is not another Lincoln. Of course Teddy says theat he’s another JFK.
Err…
Umm…
I’m the one he was, sort of, calling a “fool” but I was pretty sure he was joking. Sarcastically impersonating a certain stereotype of a political cheerleader.
Wasn’t he?
-FrL-
My God, Obama’s going to lead us into a civil war!
On topic, it’s not like going from unknown to major presidential contender is a trait exclusive to Obama. A couple of years before he was elected President, Jimmy Carter almost stumped the panel on ‘What’s My Line.’
You’re all wrong about Lincoln’s prior political experience. Before his Congressional service he served in the Illinois state legislature, so he wasn’t totally unseasoned.
Hmmmm…
Back in the day, Republicans were the liberals. 
Something tells me that there’s no way of knowing for sure, but if we were going to have another President who shakes things up (like FDR or Lincoln) Obama is the most likely one out of the current line up to do so.
But Lincoln lost his Senate race and Obama won his. Though Douglas wasn’t so accommodating as to get into a sex scandal.
I even recall a contemporary political cartoon – Lincoln is about to lead his followers into the Millennium and asks what they want. A black says, “White people got no rights collud folks is bound to respec’, I jes’ want that understood.” A bum says, “I’d like a hostelry where fellers who ain’t inclined to work can be found in cider and terbacky.” A person of indeterminate gender calls for Free Love. And so on.
Easily could have been. Unfortunately, if I let him engage in a bit of light-hearted name-calling, the next spiteful git whom I call down for deciding to hurl an epithet, here, will immediately whine that they was “jus’ funnin’” and that I am being unreasonable to censure them.
It was decided at the 2003 Bohemian Grove.
They got really drunk (rumor adds a bit of Owsley’s Finest in the cocktails) and decided they needed a giggle.
Of course he had staged plans to achieve his goals. Who doesn’t? Don’t you think hillary’s run for NY senate was simply a stepping stone to put her where she wanted to be politically? The difference is, Obama appears to be honest and sincere. Hillary appears to be a heartless calculating political machine who will step on anyone or tolerate anything to reach her goals. What wife in her right mind would ever stay with Slick after the stuff he pulled? I don’t know anyone with a lick of sense and dignity who would put up with his shit… she stayed because she had an ulterior motive… nothing was going to get in her way of the presidency. She’d sell her soul. She probably has…
oh, I just looked… we’re not in the pit, are we.
This may in fact be why he raises a lot of eyebrows tonight and takes more than was expected.
I think you answered your own question about why she stayed. You think she would have become a Senator if she had left? The remote control guillotine she probably placed where it would hurt the most probably helped also. 
My question wasn’t whether Obama has “staged plans,” but rather, to what extent his rise to celebrity and subsequent presidential bid were staged (i.e., planned in such a way as to give the false appearance of spontaneity) by others. I don’t think one can generally just up and do such things in Washington without a lot of help.
-FrL-
Anybody in the Democrat party - Anyone who might ordinarily have tossed their hat into the ring. Most years, they get 6-8 candidates. Tihs year, they had… 4. And Kuchinich went nowhere (and never had a prayer). And he went there very slowly.
No reason he would have needed outside help to rise in Illinois politics and become a U.S. senator. As it happened, his bid was highly nationally publicized, and a lot of people liked what they saw. Do you really think a conspiracy-theory explanation is the most economical one for that?
I was suggesting you name somebody. I’ll do it: Gore didn’t run, but I can’t think of any other major name who didn’t run - and Gore didn’t stay out because of Clinton, he stayed out because he’s already lost once and is enjoying the whole activist thing more. I didn’t count any four candidates this year; my tally had Obama, Clinton, Edwards, Richardson, Dodd, Biden and Kucinich, along with Warner (quit to run for the Senate), Feingold and Bayh quitting early (not because Clinton was inevitable, but because they couldn’t compete with the big names for money), and Kerry, who decided not to run after his “lost in Iraq” joke made him realize nobody wanted to vote for him. This wasn’t 1992, where people chose not to run because Bush was presumed to be unbeatable and a lot of big names decided to wait for '96.
Also note that the wife Jack Ryan tried to entice into public sex acts was actress Jeri Ryan. Had he been successful, especially if cameras been present, he’d’ve won the Trekkie vote, but she turned him down and used the episode to divorce him, exposing Ryan as the loser all us Trekkies realize the world thinks we are. We may realize it, but do not accept it, knowing that, when all is said and done, we rule the planet, and a true loser could never gain our vote.
Well, that and how the boy (used in the familiar useage to describe one younger than oneself) could sing the birds out of the trees, without going on and on ad nauseum, like Bill. My mom (she’s 83) has loved him since the 2004 convention because of his speaking, his backstory, and the way he projects a resoluteness tempered by kindness. The kid is Presidential Timber personified, and it’s been a damned long time since we’ve had that, shallow as that may seem to those immune to it.
I’m listening to his Super Tuesday speech right now and am hearing absolutely no specifics and no real ideas. IMO All he’s doing is mixing Edward’s divisive rhetoric with anti-Repub bromides and vague feel-good promises–he just said he’ll reward teachers with “pay that equals their greatness” which I wasn’t aware was something the federal government had much control over. He just took brave stands against “terrorism, poverty, genocide and disease” and led the crowd in a chant of “we can do this!” Do what? How? I’ve been to his website and I can’t find much there.
Sorry, I’m just not biting. I’m heard enough high-flown empty rhetoric to last a lifetime in the last eight years. And frankly, the feeling that supposedly sweeps over a crowd when Obama talks echoes to me uncomfortably of the fervor that sweeps over one when Chavez does the same thing. I distrust that simple-minded emotion not because I’m against “hope” but deeply suspicious of anyone who relies so much on it in a world where it’s used way too often, and whom the press seems to be fawning over in a way that is starting to bore and annoy me (Visit Andrew Sullivan’s blog lately? Yikes. He’s practically photoshopping a halo over the guy’s pointy-jawed head).
Nice article here. I was born the year after JFK was killed and, far from a Camelot, my political awareness was formed amid the rather less inspiring antics of Richard Nixon and the failures of Jimmy Carter. I can agree with Siegal’s phrase:
Right now, I want politics to deliver from the moral ground of someone who’s been tested, and has occasionally failed and been called to account for it, not allowed to coast on charisma. I want somebody who won’t try to fly around the world begging people to like America again using the implicit, unearned power of his heritage, and might blunder into a meeting with much older and wilier opponents. I want somebody who will shut up, hunker down, and be a total policy wonk, who will quietly and ruthlessly and efficiently get rid of people and laws that violate her principles, which to be honest are pretty much the same as Obama’s.
Right now, I want Hillary.
Of course, if Obama orates his way to the nomination, I’ll shrug and vote for him. And no Obama now doesn’t mean no Obama ever–in a more settled, more prosperous, less skittish world, a more mature, seasoned Barack, perhaps with some more offices on his resume, might be the answer for me. But not this time.