Barack Hussein Obama

Mark Halperin, listing things McCain can do to beat Obama that Hillary can't:

5. Make an issue of Obama’s acknowledged drug use.

6. Allow some supporters to risk being accused of using the race card when criticizing Obama.

...

11. Emphasize Barack Hussein Obama’s unusual name and exotic background through a Manchurian Candidate prism.

Actually, people associated with Hillary's campaign - if not Hillary herself - seems to have tried all three of these angles, to little avail. There's an assumption out there that Republicans are just way better at gutter politics than Democrats, and so of course the GOP will be able to come up with some sort of brilliantly evil strategy that weaves the drug use, the race card, the Muslim card, the funny-outfit card, and all the rest of it together more successfully than the Clinton campaign did. But I really, really don't see how this is going to work. If there's any lesson of the Billy Shaheen fiasco, or Clinton's "Jesse Jackson" line, or the Somali-costume debacle, it's that you can't just "raise" these kind of issues without some legitimate explanation for why you're raising them; voters won't care, and the media will give you hell for it. The best the Clintonites could come up with was the justification Shaheen offered - that voters should care about Obama's drug use (or his skin color, or his Muslim relatives, or whatever) because Republicans will be able to exploit it in the fall. But that just kicks the ball further down the road. How will Republicans exploit it?

Look at at it this way: Any successful political attack needs to have some sort of valence - it can push all sorts of atavistic buttons, but ultimately it needs to go to an issue, or it needs to go to the opposing candidate's character. The Willie Horton commercials wouldn't have worked if they were just about Willie Horton's race; they worked because they were ultimately about Michael Dukakis's handling of criminal justice. Same with the (in)famous "white hands" ad that Jesse Helms ran against Harvey Gantt: Yes, it arguably played the race card, but it also hit Gantt on a hot-button policy issue, affirmative action, and linked his positions, by implication, to blue-collar economic anxieties. The GOP attacks on Al Gore and John Kerry, meanwhile - as a phony and a flip-flopper, respectively - worked because they painted both men as characterologically unfit to be President.

Now I'm sure McCain can find ways to attack Obama on issues, and I'm sure he can find ways to hit him on character. And there's probably a way to turn Obama's internationalism against him in a very general way, using his "world man" reputation as a foil to highlight McCain's more nationalistic persona. But I don't see how McCain could plausibly weave the race card or the Islam card into his attacks without coming off like both a bigot and a fool. Maybe there's some way for the GOP to plausibly raise Obama's drug use in the context of arguing that he's soft on crime, or raise his Muslim connections in the context of a debate over foreign policy and terrorism. (I assume that's what Halperin has mind with the "Manchurian Candidate" line.) Maybe some "Madrassa Veterans For Truth" will emerge to claim that Obama's lying about his Muslim past. Or maybe having right-wing talk radio hosts make Obama-Osama cracks will actually help McCain, rather than just make conservatives look like moronic frat boys. Anything's possible. But at the moment it seems as though going down the race-card path wouldn't be some brilliant machiavellian move on the part of the McCain camp, as Halperin suggests, but the purest sort of folly.

So when Jon Chait praises McCain for declaring the "Hussein" trope out-of-bounds, I'm with him. But I suspect that in addition to being a decent human being, McCain is savvy enough to recognize that if conservatives flog Obama's middle name from here to the election, it's likely to hurt his campaign far more than it helps it.

Update: Via Marc, I see Karl Rove concurs.

Comments

Umm, he can attack Obama for drug use? Isn't McCain's wife a recovering drug addict? Wouldn't that rebound on him pretty quickly? Halperin ought to know better

Posted by DCwolverine | February 27, 2008 11:12 AM

Let's be honest -- Obama is getting a pass (in part) because the media hates Clinton. Stupid of them -- they could probably sell more papers if Clinton were to be the nominee. So, while it is still a hard sell, a McCain could use most of these tactics and not get so called on it.

Posted by charlie | February 27, 2008 11:35 AM

On the other hand, who would have believed in February 2004 that a bunch of draft-dodging chickenhawks like Bush and company could successfully attack Kerry's military service?
We can assume that there will be shadowy 527 organizations throwing all kinds of mud at Obama, and that when asked directly about them McCain will distance himself. There is some hope that Obama will be able to turn these attacks against the Republicans - he has seemed pretty adept at that so far.

Posted by peter | February 27, 2008 11:40 AM

You have it exactly. The _campaign_ can't be explicitly racist, etc. McCain has to win the independents in November. And the Madrassa Veterans for Truth will somehow just magically appear...

Posted by Bill Gardner | February 27, 2008 11:41 AM

Ross, I agree that a smear must be connected in some way to a substantive issue or character quality for it to be effective. The current smears against Obama haven't done this. But I think that's only partly why they failed. The other reason is that they were aimed at Democratic primary voters. Among general-election voters, the race/religion smear may work a lot better.

Posted by Jonathan | February 27, 2008 11:42 AM

There's an assumption out there that Republicans are just way better at gutter politics than Democrats, and so of course the GOP will be able to come up with some sort of brilliantly evil strategy that weaves the drug use, the race card, the Muslim card, the funny-outfit card, and all the rest of it together more successfully than the Clinton campaign did.

No, that isn't it.

There's a presumption that general election voters, on average, are more bigoted against african-americans than Democratic primary voters.

I see you've already got your defenses at the ready, though. Any attack that also touches on a substantive policy difference is by definition not a racial attack.

Are you really arguing that the "white hands" spot didn't play on bigotry? Obviously it did other things as well, but it could have argued against affirmative action without playing on bigotry.

As Lee Atwater said:

“You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘N*****, n*****, n*****,’ ” said Atwater. “By 1968, you can’t say ‘n*****’ — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things, and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.”

Posted by DivGuy | February 27, 2008 11:59 AM

Full Atwater quote. He saw the racism in the attacks he created perfectly clearly:

You start out in 1954 by saying, 'N*****, n*****, n*****.' By 1968 you can't say 'n*****' — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now (that) you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things, and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites …

You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, 'We want to cut this,' is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than 'N*****, n*****.'

Posted by DivGuy | February 27, 2008 12:01 PM

Spengler in the Asia Times has a fascinating article, Obama's women reveal his secret, in which he argues that Obama was much more influenced by his mother, the anthropoligist, Ann Dunham's anti Americanism than his father's Islam. The following is an excerpt:

Barack Obama received at least some instruction in the Islamic faith of his father and went with him to the mosque, but the importance of this experience is vastly overstated by conservative commentators who seek to portray Obama as a Muslim of sorts. Radical anti-Americanism, rather than Islam, was the reigning faith in the Dunham household. In the Muslim world of the 1960s, nationalism rather than radical Islam was the ideology of choice among the enraged. Radical Islam did not emerge as a major political force until the nationalism of a Gamal Abdel Nasser or a Sukarno failed.
Barack Obama is a clever fellow who imbibed hatred of America with his mother's milk, but worked his way up the elite ladder of education and career. He shares the resentment of Muslims against the encroachment of American culture, although not their religion. He has the empathetic skill set of an anthropologist who lives with his subjects, learns their language, and elicits their hopes and fears while remaining at emotional distance. That is, he is the political equivalent of a sociopath. The difference is that he is practicing not on a primitive tribe but on the population of the United States.

Posted by Peter Leavitt | February 27, 2008 12:04 PM

Frankly, I think the race card isn't all that useful any more, for this reason: Take Helms's "white hands" ad; the reason it worked was because it raised a classic "wedge" issue, i.e. it split off Democratic voters who might be otherwise inclined to vote the party of their fathers. Helms built his career in NC on his hold over the so-called "Jessecrats," especially in depressed, rural Eastern NC. But basically the Democratic votes that can be split away from the party by these sorts of appeals are really few and far between now.

For that reason, for instance, I thought non-Tennessee liberals [actual TN liberals were leery of Ford to begin with] went off the deep end in their attacks on the "racist" "Bimbo" ad against Ford. Those whose racist buttons were going to be pushed weren't going to vote for Ford anyway, but the "Bimbo" put front and center the contrast between Ford's efforts at marketing himself as a good Sunday-School boy and his bachelor life-style. Indeed, what was remarkable was how well Ford did in TN, despite its red-statehood and his family baggage.

Ditto for Obama; the people who'll be swayed by race--or for that matter the creaky sixties "culture wars" attacks--are people that Obama wouldn't get to begin with. The "Islam" stuff is a bit more dangerous, because I reckon there are plenty of Democrats and Independents who can be split off by appeals to their fears of terrorism. [TBS, Islam and race aren't easily distinguished; witness the recent encounter of a Nashville blogger-Obama supporter with a woman asking him if Obama has "Muslim blood."] Obama will have to move aggressively to limit that damage, but I think it's primarily a problem among people who don't yet really know the guy.

Posted by David in Nashville | February 27, 2008 12:10 PM

Wow. That's an astounding parade of ignorance. There is no evidence cited, nothing. Just a claim that Barack Obama hates America because he spent time in Indonesia and because his mother was an anthropologist. That's reprehensible.

Posted by DivGuy | February 27, 2008 12:11 PM

In case you hadn't see this National Examiner exposee on Obama's Secret Al Qaeda link is a such an attempt, though not one done apparently by Republicans.

This may be the source of the source to Drudge, and for at least half of us, its a self-parody. I'm not sure what the other half will make of it.

I suspect that those who have cropped this or have recirculated this picture, might eventually be embarassed by the fact that their own logic is tabloid variety.

http://patdollard.com/wp-content/uploads/2286994669_426a7d669e_b.jpg

Posted by PaulC | February 27, 2008 12:21 PM

But I don't see how McCain could plausibly weave the race card or the Islam card into his attacks without coming off like both a bigot and a fool.

Yeah, but you're looking at this the wrong way, Ross. McCain himself can't and won't engage in these attacks. His surrogates both can and will.

So McCain dismisses Cunningham's "Hussein" remark - but in fact the McCain campaign will need a lot more of that as the months wear on, and they'll get it. At every turn, McCain denies and denounces it; but the hits will keep on coming, because it all works in tandem; McCain can keep his gloves clean while others get the dirt on theirs. He maintains the plausible deniability, the surrogates go full-on Atwater, specifically attempting to appeal to the darkest impulses.

Posted by Gil | February 27, 2008 12:25 PM

The political value in all of this really is that it will solidify the Republican base. For McCain, that has some value. Most of that base was never going to support Obama, so the question becomes whether solidifying the base risks alienating some in the middle.

One place where this kind of stuff may shake lose a few votes is with jewish Democratic voters. There, the Farrakhan, Jeremiah White link has had some effect.

Nearly all of this tactic plays on the fact, obviously, that Obama's background is different than most people's background so you can overlay onto it any interpretation you like. This is what Rove is best at, telling a plausible story that "links" the intended smearee with something the target group reacts viscerally to.

Which, btw, is why many are telling Obama to opt out of the Public Finance challenge McCain has made. He has the firepower to dominate the airwaves, and even though he can't undo some of the damage of a smear, he can paint McCain any way he wants, and there's many, many factual negatives from McCains' long, long, long record.

Posted by Paulc | February 27, 2008 12:36 PM

Given that Obama has paid professionals as well, I think McCain needs to worry more about his negatives being pumped. He is still having trouble with pro-life voters, and his nomination has been decided. Ross is right that a lot of this stuff is just plain dopey. I think Obama has already diffused the drug use charge. I remember reading somewhere that Obama could actually be accused of exagerating his drug use. As far as the 'Hussein' crack, intelligent people will be unwilling to defend the charge. It will work as red meat for the base, but it will turn off independents. It will be seen for what it is: a transparent ploy to intimate that Obama supports the evil-doers. Yes, there is a certain irony over the matter of his middle name, but it is such low hanging fruit, the person who mentions it looks like an ass. It's like intimating that friend's wife was loose in her youth. Even if true, you don't touch it wife a 10 foot poll.

Posted by M.Z. Forrest | February 27, 2008 12:56 PM

Given that Obama has paid professionals as well, I think McCain needs to worry more about his negatives being pumped. He is still having trouble with pro-life voters, and his nomination has been decided. Ross is right that a lot of this stuff is just plain dopey. I think Obama has already diffused the drug use charge. I remember reading somewhere that Obama could actually be accused of exagerating his drug use. As far as the 'Hussein' crack, intelligent people will be unwilling to defend the charge. It will work as red meat for the base, but it will turn off independents. It will be seen for what it is: a transparent ploy to intimate that Obama supports the evil-doers. Yes, there is a certain irony over the matter of his middle name, but it is such low hanging fruit, the person who mentions it looks like an ass. It's like intimating that friend's wife was loose in her youth. Even if true, you don't touch it with a 10 foot poll.

Posted by M.Z. Forrest | February 27, 2008 12:57 PM

The Republicans don't need to play the race or (ersatz) religion card. They will tag Obama with all the weaknesses with which they tagged other Democratic losers; too weak, too vacillating, too elitist, too patronizing, too liberal, too urban, not "one of us." They won't play to outright bigotry, they will play to generalized cultural unease. And, of course, experience will be an issue (and a valid one).

As the "change" candidate, as the less experienced candidate, as a candidate with a unique new story, it will be Obama's task to gain the voters' trust -- to find ways to reassure them that he is someone they can relate to who easily relates to them, that he is not "outside the mainstream," that he can handle the job.

The Republicans will just do what they always do -- work to undermine the public's trust in their opponent's character, experience, values and veracity.

Liberals appear to think that Obama's race will protect him from these standard Republican storylines. Only time will tell if that untested theory is true.

Posted by mary | February 27, 2008 1:00 PM

Unofficial McCain folks will continue to play the (flagrantly bogus) patriotism card, b/c it raises the (utterly crazy) "Manchurian Candidate" idea by implication, at least for some voters.

Didn't Rove say that Democrats wanted to give the 9/11 bombers therapy? Maybe McCain could try a variation on that idea w/r/t Iraq-- that Obama believes if we just understand the terrorists, we can all get along. That would also raise the crazy "Obama is a secret Muslim" card by implication.

(Of course, at the moment, McCain is going after Obama for his Pakistan comments, which strikes me as idiotic. I realize he's trying to raise the experience issue, which I agree is valid, but Obama seems to be right on the merits, and it highlights Obama willingness to use force. Not to mention that the experience issue cuts both ways, since it highlights just how old McCain is.)

We may also hear a lot about Harvard: not only does it fit the classic intellectual/liberal/feminine stereotype, it may also be used to raise the specter of affirmative action without referring to it explicitly.

I still McCain will get trounced. The economy is not looking good, and McCain doesn't even seem to really care about the economy-- and he's been wildly inconsistent on taxes.

Posted by PJ | February 27, 2008 1:15 PM

For those interested, Tony Blankley just published a column about what McCain can do to beat Obama. I recommend it. The link is Here.

Posted by Bob | February 27, 2008 1:30 PM

The reference to the fact that Obama over-stated his own drug use appears here in the New Yorker:

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2008/02/25/080225taco_talk_hertzberg

BTW, many of us who saw the original NYTimes front page article, "OLD FRIENDS SAY DRUGS PLAYED BIT PART IN OBAMA’S YOUNG LIFE", wondered why, if drugs played only a *BIT* part, that the non-story received front page coverage.

The Obama campaign did not whine about a smear from pro-Hillary, liberal media.

McCain's boat anchor is the war. Last night the post-debate spin from NBC was that Hillary had finally admitted her mistake in authorizating the war, and that, combined with Obama's compelling metaphor about driving the bus into the ditch, was a strong point for Obama.

If Obama is willing to bet his position on the war, and I think he is, then is perfectly positioned against McCain.

Posted by paulc | February 27, 2008 1:35 PM

"(Of course, at the moment, McCain is going after Obama for his Pakistan comments, which strikes me as idiotic. I realize he's trying to raise the experience issue, which I agree is valid, but Obama seems to be right on the merits, and it highlights Obama willingness to use force....)"

Raise your hand if you really and truly believe that Obama would actually use force in this manner. He just said that he would use force and go back into Iraq after leaving if it turned out that Al Qaeda was gaining strength there. This merely highlights his unseriousness on the matter. First, al Qaeda is in Iraq right now, and we have them on the ropes, and it would be folly to withdraw (or announce a withdrawal) at this particular time, but that is exactly what he is proposing. Second, it would be far costlier and problematic to leave and then re-invade (even if on a smaller scale) than to simply continue on the path we are one until the Iraqis can reasonably take care of al Qaeda themselves.

Obama has no intention of ever using significant force in Pakistan or Iraq - he'll be no different than Bill Clinton was in that regard (i.e. lobbing a stray missile or two for show). Perhaps this is what the majority of voters will want, or perhaps Obama will be able to camouflage his true views enough to get elected, but in either case Obama won't be instigating any serious military action.

Posted by Mike S. | February 27, 2008 1:56 PM

Note what Marc A is reporting:

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/19603

I was wrong. The "Hussein" smear is apparently an official Republican tactic.

Posted by Bill Gardner | February 27, 2008 2:19 PM

Rove lies about literally everything, so if he's saying publicly Republicans shouldn't play the "Hussein" card we can safely assume what he really means is they should play it as hard as they can.

Posted by Ron | February 27, 2008 3:05 PM

I think McCain will attack BHO as being too liberal. Others will talk about "young", "minority", "risky".

If the voters connect the dots, Obama will have a lot of explaning to do. But he does that well.

Posted by kim, livonia, michigan | February 27, 2008 4:07 PM

Fantastic thread. The comments regarding Atwater, Rove, etc. are spot on.
Now that the Bush machine is in full control of McCain '08 - meaning they're in charge of raising and managing the money, the tenor can change.
There will now be a downpour of hatred from FOX and Talk Radio, raining down on Obama daily. McCain's muted attempts to distance himself from reactionary Bill Cunningham is case in point: Cunningham was brought to the stage by Rob Portman, a Bush insider and friend of Karl Rove.
McCain will be muzzled, and the hate will flow. Moderates and independents will migrate to Obama.
Once again, Limbaugh and his ilk will damage the GOP, fatten their bank accounts with speaking fees to arouse the base, and the result - McCain loses in a landslide, the GOP goes broke, and the fat cats of FOX and Talk Radio will grow richer.
The Democrats couldn't have written a better script for success than this.

Posted by fougasseu | February 27, 2008 6:45 PM

Mike S: "Obama has no intention of ever using significant force in Pakistan or Iraq - he'll be no different than Bill Clinton was in that regard (i.e. lobbing a stray missile or two for show). Perhaps this is what the majority of voters will want, or perhaps Obama will be able to camouflage his true views enough to get elected, but in either case Obama won't be instigating any serious military action."

What are the hell are you talking about? The issue at hand is whether we should kill or capture terrorists that are mobilizing to attack America IF WE HAVE THEM IN OUR SIGHTS. The blindingly obvious answer is yes. As it happens the Bush Administration just used a cruise missile to take out the #3 Al-Qaeda guy in Pakistan (yes, for the dozenth time). Clinton did the same thing. Can you truly not understand the difference between targeted killings of terrorists based on actionable intelligence and invading other countries based on neoconservative fantasies?

Mike S: "He just said that he would use force and go back into Iraq after leaving if it turned out that Al Qaeda was gaining strength there. This merely highlights his unseriousness on the matter. First, al Qaeda is in Iraq right now, and we have them on the ropes, and it would be folly to withdraw (or announce a withdrawal) at this particular time, but that is exactly what he is proposing."

We do not have 130,000 troops to Iraq to fight Al Qaeda. That is simply a lie. The Iraq occupation is not and never has been about fighting terrorists. AQI numbers in the thousands, it is a regional power at best in Iraq and the Iraqis do not need any particular U.S. help to destroy AQI on their own. Of course you're attempting to conflate Al Qaeda with the immeasurably stronger insurgency or resistance against the U.S. occupation, which is again a lie. The two are extremely different sorts of groups. Any number of things could happen in the event of a phased redeployment of American forces out of Iraq, but Al Qaeda somehow taking over Iraq is just a flat-out impossibility.

You could make the case that the U.S. has OTHER national security or strategic objectives in Iraq and so support an endless occupation along those lines. But clearly a numerically insignificant terrorist group operating as a insurgent group in a geographically limited area does not require a massive U.S. occupation of an entire country. You do not need 130,000 troops in Iraq to kill or capture terrorists, you could do it probably better with an extremely reduced force presence combined with targeted strike missions.

Posted by Korha | February 27, 2008 6:55 PM

There are areas a Republican could attack Obama where a Democrat couldn't. Halperin does mention one. Even among Democrats he's seen as more weak and unready on National security or terrorism.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/104578/Few-Democrats-Say-Experience-Critical-Their-Vote.aspx

However Democratic voters are comparatively uninterested in terrorism, I'm going by the polls here, and being seen as tougher on National Security is a mixed-blessing for Hillary.

Also McCain could go at him on non-military spending in a way more difficult for Hillary. Obama's strong opposition to the partial-birth abortion law could also help McCain as Americans were majority supportive of it. However positioning McCain as a pro-Life zealot would be difficult as it could just help McCain get those voters or be seen as not credible.

I don't think he should smear Obama on race or Islamic ancestry, but because there's a bit of a "cult of personality" around Obama he might end up having to tarnish his "Mr. Wonderful" image if he wants to win. Possibly by looking for instances of Obama corruption or mentioning his minister's praise of Farrakhan. I don't like that and I hope he doesn't do it, but someone probably will.

Posted by Thomas R | February 27, 2008 7:51 PM

What Korha said. Obama, when he got the hypothetical question from Russert, said he will use force to go after terrorists in Iraq if they pose a grave threat to US security. That does not mean, "I would send 100,000+ troops back into the country"-- nor should it.

Of course, after Mike S. said that we have Al Qaeda in Iraq "on the ropes," it became harder to take the rest of his post seriously. I suppose they're in their "last throes"?

Posted by PJ | February 27, 2008 9:51 PM

The Republicans deserve to lose, so the most likely way they can win is if Obama botches it. McCain will likely attack Obama as a phony, which he is. For his whole life, Obama has been way to the left of this ridiculous bipartisan unifier Oprah nonsense he's been peddling lately. McCain will say, "I'm the honest moderate in this race, and you're the phony moderate who has been yanking our chains." McCain doesn't deserve to win, but that's not a bad little message to pound home month after month.

Obama is extremely suave, but the people who have had the most influence on him -- his wife and his minister -- are not. The GOP will try to provoke them into more gaffes where they reveals what's really on their minds.

Posted by Steve Sailer | February 28, 2008 3:20 AM

Steve Sailer klavens: "The GOP will try to provoke them into more gaffes where they reveals what's really on their minds."

"(W)here they reveals"? Is that Stebonics? I also like the "suave" line. Straight from the 70s.

This campaign will reveal that the basest sort of racism still lies at the heart of the conservative animal. Sailer and Leavitt's nonsense up above is just a hint of what we'll see over the next 8 months or so. America will either emerge as a more civilized nation or as some sort of David Duke wet dream. I know which side I'm on, and I know which side Leavitt and Sailer are on.

As for Ross and other "mainstream" conservative pundits - we'll see. They're playing the middle for now, and it will be interesting to see how long they refuse to acknowledge what their fellow cons are up to. Think about this sort of garbage, presented by Leavitt as "fact" - "Barack Obama is a clever fellow who imbibed hatred of America with his mother's milk," and consider that it's just the beginning of what the sick, stupid, vicious hitmen of the right will be up to.

Posted by TheBannedMoeLarryAndJesus | February 28, 2008 4:25 AM

Peter - On the other hand, who would have believed in February 2004 that a bunch of draft-dodging chickenhawks like Bush and company could successfully attack Kerry's military service?

That's really simple, Peter, although it might escape you since you obviously never served. Viet Nam era Vets listened, and decided. Was John Kerry a "hero" or was he a duplicitous scumbag who fudged his medals, slimed the troops, and met with the enemy in Paris? Was George Bush a draft-dodger as opposed to the people making that charge about him being the same people who lauded the actual draft dodgers that fled to Canada as "heroes of conscience" and praised Carter's Amnesty?
They listened, they voted. They decided as people who were there and knew - who between the Swifties and Kerry was lying. By 80-20 margins they voted that Kerry was indeed a scumbag and Bush had served honorably in a high-risk Guard spot. And two million plus Guard and Reservists who resented all of them being called draft Dodgers and the 3 million Americans who served "in-theater" in SE Asia in the conflict?? They were Bush's margin of victory.

It is hard to convey to a non-Vet, as most Lefties are, just how much Kerry is hated and resented. If the Democrats had run any candidate they had who had true honor and credibility in 2004, like Gephardt or Bayh, they would have beaten Dubya.
******************
Korha - The issue at hand is whether we should kill or capture terrorists that are mobilizing to attack America IF WE HAVE THEM IN OUR SIGHTS.

No, the issue at hand is whether or not we should interrogate terrorist prisoners to get them to reveal others SO WE HAVE THEM IN OUR SIGHTS, or use electronic surveillance of Islamoids to help reveal who the terrorist are to HELP PUT THEM IN OUR SIGHTS.

Lefties, out of concern for terrorist's civil liberties, oppose both measures.

************************
Obama has had a fairly free ride WITHIN the Democratic Party, and the progressive Jewish-owned elements of the national media that denounces any criticism of Obama as out of bounds if his side even hints at playing the race card. They have also made it abundantly clear that white women occupy a position of far less entitlement for one of their own to seek High Office than their black constituency group. (Which may be damaging to the Party as women see that if Dem activists have to choose between a black and a woman, the woman will be demonized and treated like 2nd-class dirt.)

The free ride ends in the General Election and will end with the inevitable race controversy that the Obama camp's hard left or race activists raise that seeks to immunize him from all criticism - but that voters see as going too far.

PC is not an almighty club once an election moves past the control of Dem Insiders, progressive Jewish opinion-makers, and campus Lefties.

The Democrats went into their selection process and have almost picked their CEO. Instead of selecting a seasoned executive, they have settled on the mailroom clerk who gave an articulate, inspiring, smooth job interview. It is now time to pin him down on issues.

I concur with Steve Sailor that Republicans deserve to lose and McCain himself is a bad selection. They suffer from corporatism that has screwed the poor and middle class, from 6 years of distastrous Bush leadership. They also ideologically suffer from Reaganism as a form of mental retardation - that what Reagan thought in 1980 was the end point and all Party thoughts must be frozen in amber and each candidate subject to inane "flip-flopper" litmus tests.
That discourages new voices and new solutions to America's problems. If it doesn't deter people from entering Republican post-Reagan retarded theocratic politics, it forces candidates to be who they are not - like Romney and Giuliani and Arnold - until they gain office and can think for themselves even if the heresy "RINO! RINO! Flip-Flopper. Remember Terri Schiavo's murder!!" hound them.
We all know that Reagan, who thought hard and evolved his policies and beliefs all his life after starting as a devoted fan of FDR, would have continued to evolve his views as he confronted new realities if he had continued to be mentally and physically vigorous to the end.

My guess is the mailroom clerk wins and the Republicans lose badly and are forced to ditch their primitive Fundie Base and reinvent themselves in post-Reagan doctrine that makes sense for 2012, not "more of the same 1980 solution".

Posted by chris ford | February 28, 2008 5:22 AM

"This campaign will reveal that the basest sort of racism still lies at the heart of the conservative animal." not-so-banned dude

Hmm I seem to recall it being mostly liberals who said "America isn't ready for a black man."

Racism or ethnic-bias lies at the heart of many people regardless of their ideology. If the Republicans had ran a man of Kenyan/White ancestry disparaging him as "not really black" would've occurred. If Republicans ran an Orthodox Jewish man there'd certainly be elements of the Left that'd make unsavory associations.

If you think Democrats are above playing on racial tensions or racism than you must've been asleep for the last fifty years.

Posted by Thomas R | February 28, 2008 6:49 AM

"that what Reagan thought in 1980 was the end point and all Party thoughts must be frozen in amber"

I know some Republicans who agree with this. I tentatively said something to one like "why is Reagan still the standard of everything, he wasn't infallible and situations change." This woman is very intensely Republican, but she basically agreed and I've seen similar elsewhere.

Like the question in that one debate on "who would Reagan endorse?" I almost wished one would have had the guts to say "Reagan is dead, I can't mind-read a ghost" or something similar. At some point you have to let go or move on.

Posted by Thomas R | February 28, 2008 6:53 AM

You know what? Americans fell for the SwiftBoat bullshit hook, line, and sinker. They'll fall for anything.

Posted by goethean | February 28, 2008 11:26 AM

That's a nice little trick you pulled there, Ross with your reference to "...Obama's lying about his Muslim past." Pray tell me: what Muslim past?

Posted by derek | February 28, 2008 11:50 AM

Barack Hussein Obama. Eighteen letters, divided by three (the symbolic number representing sodomites), equals six: Three sixes - The Mark of the Beast.
Obama is the Anti-Christ, trained as a toddler to be a Muslim plant, destined to infiltrate the highest reaches of our government.
Love it. Pour it on Talk Radio! Keep up the good work!

Posted by fougasseu | February 28, 2008 1:06 PM

Frankly. I've been hoping that McCain would face Obama rather than Clinton, as in the long run his negatives are more striking. H. Clinton, like her husband, has a history of running from the center-left. Obama, ranked the most liberal senator by the National Journal, is clearly running from the hard -left, having caved to virtually all of the nutroots positions.

McCain should have little difficulty in locating Obama's hard-left positions without placing any emphasis on the Barack Hussein Obama bit. Obama may be riding some sort of rhetorical wave at the moment, though waves have a tendency to come crashing onto the land.

Posted by Peter Leavitt | February 28, 2008 5:07 PM

Another weak area for Obama seems to be old people. He still doesn't do particularly well among people over 50 and Democrats over 65.

http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?PageID=1254

Considering the elderly often turnout a bit more this could be a problem. Although people over 50 seem to actually be a bit more uncomfortable with McCain's age. In any event older voters might be more skeptical of someone deemed inexperienced or unfamiliar.

In addition at present white Democrats would support vote McCain in greater percentages if Obama's the nominee. Obama's perceived inexperience and weakness on national security is presumably the reason. A minority of white Clinton voters prefer McCain to Obama on those matters. They can look at McCain and clearly see that he shares something with Clinton that Obama doesn't.

Posted by Thomas R | February 29, 2008 6:27 AM

I am sick of empty speeches of Barack Hussein Obama and his empty headed wife who is one of the biggest racist that I have ever seen. (except for Ophrey) Who is this man? Why would anyone vote for someone who has basically done nothing except help his slum landlord friend, who was raised by an atheist mother, had a muslem father, a muslem stepfather and went to a muslem school and now attends a freaky so-called christian church? Wake up America and especially Black America - this is not your salvation, this will be your damnation. If you want to play the race card, get Colin Powell to run for President. Someone who is truly an American!

Posted by ashock | March 5, 2008 9:38 PM

Barack Hussein Obama used drugs and belongs to a Racist Church shouldn't be president of the United States.

Posted by wild bill | April 11, 2008 6:11 PM