The Black Neo = Dukakis?Follow

This according to Slate magazine, no less! What a delicious, scrumptious, and delectable comparison. Buawahahahahahaha!

Is Obama Another Dukakis?
Why is Obama so vapid, hesitant, and gutless?
By Christopher Hitchens
Updated Monday, Sept. 22, 2008, at 12:17 PM ET

Michael Dukakis and Barack Obama
Last week really ought to have been the end of the McCain campaign. With the whole country feeling (and its financial class acting) as if we lived in a sweltering, bankrupt banana republic, and with this misery added to the generally Belarusian atmosphere that surrounds any American trying to board a train, catch a plane, fill a prescription, or get a public servant or private practitioner on the phone, it was surely the moment for the supposedly reform candidate to assume a commanding position. And the Republican nominee virtually volunteered to assist that outcome by making an idiot of himself several times over, moving from bovine and Panglossian serenity about the state of the many, many crippled markets to sudden bursts of pointless hyperactivity such as the irrelevant demand to sack the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

And yet, and unless I am about to miss some delayed "groundswell" or mood shift, none of this has translated into any measurable advantage for the Democrat. There are three possible reasons for such a huge failure on Barack Obama's part. The first, and the most widely canvassed, is that he is too nice, too innocent, too honest, and too decent to get down in the arena and trade bloody thrusts with the right-wing enemy. (This is rapidly becoming the story line that will achieve mythic status, along with allegations of racial and religious rumor-mongering, if he actually loses in November.) The second is that crisis and difficulty, at home and abroad, sometimes make electors slightly more likely to trust the existing establishment, or some version of it, than any challenger or newcomer, however slight. The third is that Obama does not, and perhaps even cannot, represent "change" for the very simple reason that the Democrats are a status quo party.

To analyze this is to be obliged to balance some of the qualities of Obama's own personality with some of the characteristics of his party. Here's a swift test. Be honest. What sentence can you quote from his convention speech in Denver? I thought so. All right, what about his big rally speech in Berlin? Just as I guessed. OK, help me out: Surely you can manage to cite a line or two from his imperishable address on race (compared by some liberal academics to Gettysburg itself) in Philadelphia? No, not the line about his white grandmother. Some other line. Oh, dear. Now do you see what I mean?

Why is Obama so vapid and hesitant and gutless? Why, to put it another way, does he risk going into political history as a dusky Dukakis? Well, after the self-imposed Jeremiah Wright nightmare, he can't afford any more militancy, or militant-sounding stuff, even if it might be justified. His other problems are self-inflicted or party-inflicted as well. He couldn't have picked a gifted Democratic woman as his running mate, because he couldn't have chosen a female who wasn't the ever-present Sen. Clinton, and so he handed the free gift of doing so to his Republican opponent (whose own choice has set up a screech from the liberals like nothing I have heard since the nomination of Clarence Thomas). So the unquantifiable yet important "atmospherics" of politics, with all their little X factors, belong at present to the other team.

The Dukakis comparison is, of course, a cruel one, but it raises a couple more questions that must be faced. We are told by outraged Democrats that many voters still believe, thanks to some smear job, that Sen. Obama is a Muslim. Yet who is the most famous source of this supposedly appalling libel (as if an American candidate cannot be of any religion or none)? Absent any anonymous whispering campaign, the person who did most to insinuate the idea in public—"There is nothing to base that on. As far as I know"—was Obama's fellow Democrat and the junior senator from New York. It was much the same in 1988, when Al Gore brought up the Dukakis furlough program, later to be made infamous by the name Willie Horton, against the hapless governor of Massachusetts who was then his rival for the nomination.

By the end of that grueling campaign season, a lot of us had got the idea that Dukakis actually wanted to lose—or was at the very least scared of winning. Why do I sometimes get the same idea about Obama? To put it a touch more precisely, what I suspect in his case is that he had no idea of winning this time around. He was running in Iowa and New Hampshire to seed the ground for 2012, not 2008, and then the enthusiasm of his supporters (and the weird coincidence of a strong John Edwards showing in Iowa) put him at the front of the pack. Yet, having suddenly got the leadership position, he hadn't the faintest idea what to do with it or what to do about it.

Look at the record, and at Obama's replies to essential and pressing questions. The surge in Iraq? I'll answer that only if you insist. The credit crunch? Please may I be photographed with Bill Clinton's economic team? Georgia? After you, please, Sen. McCain. A vice-presidential nominee? What about a guy who, despite his various qualities, is picked because he has almost no enemies among Democratic interest groups?

I ran into a rather clever Republican operative at the airport last week, who pointed out to me that this ought by rights to be a Democratic Party year across the board, from the White House to the Congress to the gubernatorial races. But there was a crucial energy leak, and it came from the very top. More people doubted Obama's qualifications for the presidency in September than had told the pollsters they had doubted these credentials in July. "So what he ought to do," smiled this man, "is spend his time closing that gap and less time attacking McCain." Obama's party hacks, increasingly white and even green about the gills, are telling him to do the opposite. I suppose this could even mean that Sarah Palin, down the road, will end up holding the door open for Hillary Clinton. Such joy!

Lol. When your name gets associated with the quintessential loser, Michael Dukakis, trouble is close at hand. Black Neo, indeed. Heheh.

Totem

While i generally find Christopher Hitchens an execrable human being, I think he touches on something that I began to think about a while ago, and am becoming more and more convinced about as days go by in this comedic farce that is the US presidential election.

As he points out, there is no way on Bobs
green earth that Obama should be where he is at the moment.

Everything in the world of current events is turning out great for him.

From the National economy turning belly up, the incompetant way in wich its being handled now and the fact that in eight years of Republican oversight, no-one saw it coming and no-one did anything to mitigate it. The dollar cost of this alone is in the trillions of (taxpayer)dollars. Credit crisis, mortgage foreclosures, unemployment (McJobs don't count) industrial wasteland etc etc.

The war in Iraq is a failure. A bloody expensive one too. In terms of dollars?..trillions when you take into account future benefits to disabled servicemen. Expensive too in terms of civilian and military deaths, global reputation and credibility. Afghanistan? is circling the plug-hole. Why did the US and others think they could 'win' in Afghanistan when the Russians, most recently, and numerous others have failed throughout history.

A majority of the people in the US think that Bush is a fucking moron. Even half of Republicans think Bush is a fucking moron. Bush is a Republican. ergo McCain is just more of the same shit.

McCain is a septugenarian who has cancer and probably wont live for very long, and tho' he seems to be a pretty personable sort of chap, isn't exactly the most dynamic candidate to run for office in the history of the US.

When he dies, that would leave Palin. Tho some people seem to get their fantasies serviced by imagining her with a shaved **** and a shotgun over her knee, these ar'n't qualifications for being the President. Add to that her lack of experience of anything outside of Alaska, let alone mainland USA, and her complete inability to form opinions based on evidence (creationism anyone?) then it should be obvious to anyone that if the Obama camp wanted to destroy her, then they could without breaking a sweat. Hell! My dog could outwit her in a debate.

So that brings me back to my theory.

And that is, OBAMA HAS NO INTENTION OF WINNING THE ELECTION THIS TIME.

Yup. There you have it.

Obama knows that the good folk of the USA have the attention span of a nematode, and when all the **** inevitably comes crashing down over the next couple of years ie. recession as deep as the Marianas trench, civil unrest and homelessness and yes! even hunger, on the streets of the US. Slaughter on a grand scale in Iraq when the US leaves, Maliki gets strung from the nearest (made in Detroit) lampost and all those guns start getting used again. Afghanistan descends into a full scale rout of the international forces who, like the Russians and numerous others before them, will leave with bloodied noses and a personal vow to never try and fuck with the pashtuns again.

Pakistan....Well who knows about that place, but I'm sure it wont be good.

Iran? See Pakistan.

China?? They are in charge now. You'd better get used to that idea sooner or later...

The list is endless.

So...when all that stuff happens, some of it the fault of the current moron in chief, some of it not... the person who is left holding his package when the music stops, is the poor sad **** who is going to get blamed for it. ALL of it.

Obama knows this. He's young. He can wait a bit (4 more years?)

He wants McCain to be in charge when it happens. Or Palin. Doesn't matter either way.

Because when it does, teh Dems are gonna stand up as one and shout 'YOU FUCKING IDIOTS!! LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE!!ITS ALL THE FAULT OF THE REPUBLICANS!!!".

And then the very next chance they get, they will landslide into the Whitehouse and then they will be there for fucking decades!




Well. Thats my theory anyway.

Are you Obamunists truly happy with how his campaign has been going? And the extention to that argument, are you happy with what you have seen so far in his personal behavior/actions to date? If you could, would you change anything?

Totem

Obama is gonna win he has to win.. i don't think this country can take any more bad times ahead.

There are a two things which seem to consistently get votes in the US:

1. Who would you rather listen to for 4 years?

I think this is a great predictor. And Obama has this one in the bag.

Reagan over Carter and Mondale

H. W. Bush over Dukakis

Clinton over H. W. Bush and Dole

W. Bush over Gore and Kerry

2. Who is promising more cash for people right now (correlary: who will borrow the most money from the future to give people stuff right now). It doesn't much matter if 90% of the cash goes to people making way more then the median. The public all thinks they are going to strike it rich: that one day they (or their children) are going to be in that tax bracket.

Reagan tax cuts

H. W. Bush vs. Dukakis...I don't know

Clinton had by far the largest projected deficits beyond Bush and Perot. He basically had a jobs program and potential health care program, although I'm not sure that was a positive for him.

W. Bush offered tax cuts and Kerry would raise taxes, at least on some folks. Gore would not have lowered taxes as drastically as W. Bush.

Add two things that don't seem to have much effect:

1. War Heros don't win - they may get a boost, but H. W. Bush and Dole lost to Clinton and Kerry lost to W. Bush.

2. Intelligence - Reagan was loosing his mind and W. Bush is a dumb as a post.

So Flixa, you believe that should Obama get elected there will be no more bad times ahead for our country? Perhaps we should all yank out a tooth or two and send the proceeds from the Tooth Fairy in to Washington DC and solve our country's financial crisis. Yeah, that has about as much validity as thinking that the future is Eutopian because one particular person gets elected into higher office.

Good luck and all with life's certain dissappointments. Don't forget to slash your wrists upon discovering there is no Santa Claus.

Totem

This according to the Wall street Journal, no less! What a delicious, scrumptious, and delectable comparison. Buawahahahahahaha!

Presidential campaigns live in fear of a Dukakis-in-the-tank moment. The question is whether John McCain just had his.

Sen. McCain's decision to rush to Washington for bailout negotiations, to suspend his campaign, and to issue a bipartisan statement with Barack Obama, has been spun by his team as an example of putting "country first." Mr. McCain's fellow Republicans have latched on to that theme.

Out in the real world -- that is, everywhere other than in Washington -- the view may be different. The nation is in the middle of a financial meltdown. Voters want to know how, why and what the presidential candidates propose to fix it. What they've instead seen from Mr. McCain is alternating anger and vagueness, capped this week by an impulsive call to delay the first presidential debate. He wants to portray all this as rising above politics. It could look instead as though he's trying to escape it.

What makes this move so risky is that it potentially undermines Mr. McCain's biggest strengths: his experience and judgment. On Iraq, on Georgia and other national security issues, the GOP candidate's merit was foresight and boldness. What aided him throughout was a conscious decision to put principles ahead of politics ("I'd rather lose an election than a war"). This financial mess was an opportunity for him to demonstrate similar leadership, and put to rest doubts about his economic sensibilities.

Instead, Mr. McCain's campaign appears to have deliberately chosen to view this crisis through a narrow lens of presidential vote-getting. How else to explain the past two weeks?

He seems torn between wanting to be a man of action, and wanting to distance himself from an unpopular president who is acting. Mr. McCain might well believe a $700 billion bailout is necessary to stabilize the American economy -- a lot of smart people do. But he isn't going to give Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson -- hired by George W. Bush -- credit. So he's waffled. This consideration also explains Mr. McCain's decision to lay a complex financial problem off on Bush SEC chief Chris Cox.

The bigger McCain error has been to use this crisis to target key voting groups. Vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin has proved such a rock star with the conservative base that Mr. McCain has felt liberated to turn his attention to the independents and Reagan Democrats he'll need to win this election. Fair enough. But there is a difference between showing leadership that attracts those groups, and pandering.

Mr. McCain's angry, populist tone has clearly been a pitch to those blue-collar Democrats, the Hillary Clinton crowd, who supposedly want someone to blame for today's mess. His fury over Washington's failure of oversight, and his call for a new "bipartisanship," are laser-focused on independents who supposedly believe Washington is broken. "Moderates" and the media were the object of his promises to fill his administration with Democrats -- Andrew Cuomo as SEC chief, or Michael Bloomberg for a financial oversight board. (Why not Barney Frank as Treasury secretary?)

Not that Mr. Obama has been any more courageous. Both men have been desperate to avoid being the first to support a controversial bailout plan that the other might then oppose and use to his political advantage. The Democratic nominee has been just as vague in his policy prescriptions, and it was he who called Mr. McCain this week with the wily idea of neutralizing this political hot potato by issuing a joint statement of principles.

Then again, Mr. Obama knows he has the advantage with voters on the economy, and has seen no reason to blow that by actually talking about the economy. He's been happy to sit back and watch Mr. McCain stumble-trip.

Mr. Obama was certainly ready to step into the big fat opening Mr. McCain gave him this week in calling for a debate delay. Mr. Obama coolly responded that this was precisely the point at which Americans needed to hear from their prospective leaders, suggesting that his opponent ought to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time.

Mr. McCain has meanwhile put himself at the mercy of a Democratic Congress. Democrats are already snidely remarking that the GOP nominee is simply one vote in 535, and that they will minimize his role. They are also shooting down Mr. McCain's suggestion that the bailout package was near collapse.

This crisis has thrust Mr. McCain back in the limelight, and reminded conservatives he's at the top of the ticket -- not Mrs. Palin. The base's longtime worry about Mr. McCain has been his economic instincts. That worry has been renewed. As for those blue-collar Democrats and independents, Mr. McCain ought to know that he can't out-angry a liberal, and that calls for "bipartisanship" are playing on Mr. Obama's field.

If Mr. McCain wants to attempt to rescue this situation, he could do worse than to revert to what has carried him this far: his leadership. And not the fuzzy sort that calls for Washington to "come together," but rather the sort that takes positions and stands on principles. Couldn't hurt.

Lol. When your name gets associated with the quintessential loser, Michael Dukakis, trouble is close at hand. Maverick, indeed. Heheh.

Jophiel

Actually, this has been a concern of mine. While doing an unpredictable zig every once in while can be refreshing, zigging and zagging regularly is disconcerting to the average citizen who likes a certain measure of constant-cy and same-ness in their elected leaders.

Doing what the enemy does not expect is all well and good on the battlefield or in air-to-air combat, but in politics too much maverickness may instill worry about what may happen next rather than the comfort of being in a rut or typical pattern of behavior.

Choosing Palin was a good thing in that it shook up the political establishment. Deciding not to debate for a greater good could be seen as a good thing if he went all in and truly stopped campaigning-- something which would be groundbreaking behavior. But changing his mind again and going to the debate suggests a lack of steadfastness and singlemindeness we require for our president.

This week may be seen as the pivotal moment in McCain's campaign when he gambled and lost by going to the well of zig-zag once too often.

Totem

In Virginia? Wow.