Barack Obama

mike65

and the democrats will spead enlightenment and the smell of fresh roses?

Mike.

kenco

No way will Clinton get VP. Obama would be mad to bring her on board and if he did or was forced to do so then it would demonstrate all the reasons why he should not be Pres.....He is clued in enough for this not to happen.

I think she has done irreparable damage by not bowing out gracefully (it was a done deal since super tues). All this talk about 2012 is nonsense as it should have been her nomination regardless and she was not able to close the deal. Her seat in the senate could be in jeopardy....

The gen elec with McCain is Obamas to lose. The republicans dont really know what to do with this guy and the big evangelical support may not come out in force as they did in the last two elections. This may be one the GOP is prepared to lose and play a long game. Very tricky though as Obama - though inexperienced - could be a shoe-in for re-election by not doing a hugh amount, e.g. pull back a bit in Iraq, steady the economy, etc

Size=everything

kenco wrote: »

No way will Clinton get VP. Obama would be mad to bring her on board and if he did or was forced to do so then it would demonstrate all the reasons why he should not be Pres.....He is clued in enough for this not to happen.

But we all know how bitter Clinton's supporters are and Obama needs them to have any chance of winning the swing states! I think he might have to.

I think she has done irreparable damage by not bowing out gracefully (it was a done deal since super tues). All this talk about 2012 is nonsense as it should have been her nomination regardless and she was not able to close the deal. Her seat in the senate could be in jeopardy....

True

The gen elec with McCain is Obamas to lose. The republicans dont really know what to do with this guy and the big evangelical support may not come out in force as they did in the last two elections. This may be one the GOP is prepared to lose and play a long game. Very tricky though as Obama - though inexperienced - could be a shoe-in for re-election by not doing a hugh amount, e.g. pull back a bit in Iraq, steady the economy, etc

I doubt they will like a young, liberal, black man man becoming president and will certainly come out in force.

Mr.Micro

If Obama takes Clinton on board it will be like taking a scorpion as a running mate. She has her own agenda. Even now she has not conceded that she lost, has the sulks. Imagine her as VP, the US would have 2 Presidents. It would destroy his credibility if he became President and he would become powerless.
She is far too right wing and was described this week in the US "as George Bush in a skirt", only he is better looking.

Manic Moran

RickyHatton wrote: »

I doubt they will like a young, liberal, black man man becoming president and will certainly come out in force.

They'll come out in force, but not because he's black, and not really because he's young. I think the race factor is overstated.

I hang out on quite a few conservative-leaning websites and the issue of race has not come up. Indeed, they seem to have little problem with voting for Powell or Rice. Age, yes, that's come up. The guy is fairly inexperienced after all. But what will really bring them out are his stated policies which are diametrically opposed to their own.

NTM

flogen

Mr.Micro wrote: »

If Obama takes Clinton on board it will be like taking a scorpion as a running mate. She has her own agenda. Even now she has not conceded that she lost, has the sulks. Imagine her as VP, the US would have 2 Presidents. It would destroy his credibility if he became President and he would become powerless.
She is far too right wing and was described this week in the US "as George Bush in a skirt", only he is better looking.

Well in fairness to Clinton she / her campaign has pretty much stated that she's going to throw her support behind Obama on Saturday - the only reason she's waiting is so she can get all her main backers together in one place to do it. And her speech to the AIPAC yesterday showed nothing in the way of a sulking attitude towards Obama - she sounded like his cheerleader.

That said I do think her as VP would be a mistake as she would be too keen on undermining him from time to time - even if it wasn't on purpose. Then there's the fact that Bill would be in there trying to pull strings too - 2 Presidents and a wannabe all in the white house? Ungh.

CtrlSource

Mr.Micro wrote: »

If Obama takes Clinton on board it will be like taking a scorpion as a running mate. She has her own agenda. Even now she has not conceded that she lost, has the sulks. Imagine her as VP, the US would have 2 Presidents. It would destroy his credibility if he became President and he would become powerless.
She is far too right wing and was described this week in the US "as George Bush in a skirt", only he is better looking.

Agree partly with Mr.Micro in that she would be something of a scorpion, but her husband would be worse! Way too must of a loose cannon these days and he hasn't conducted himself like you would expect an elder statesman type to, throughout the course of the Primary campaign.

She's not right wing though. She's opportunistically right of the centre in her own party. Definitely left wing on issues like 'partial birth' abortion, health care, gun control etc., and her National Journal rating in 2007 placed her as the 16th most liberal Senator.

On a side note, i recently finished reading her memoirs and couldn't help but feel that almost all of it was written as a prelude to a run for the presidency. On nearly every page, she described her life as though everything in it propelled her to public service and formed her views, political and otherwise on this or that. Even the description of her father dying seemed to evoke the need for her to tell us about her ideas on healthcare reform!

And the explanation of her feelings about Bill during the Monica Lewinsky debacle made me stare incredulously at the pages during that chapter.

Riveting stuff :rolleyes:

dublinmayflower

Barack Obama will be a great leader and remembered throughout history. The reason? He believes and he has the passion to get his message across. He has morals and standards that he will stand by no matter what. Americans are not as dumb as we Europeans like to believe. His colour will matter to the minority. What Americans want is someone who will turn their country around and not just settle into same old, same old. His election could change the world for the better and wouldn,t us little Europeans be lucky to have a choice like him? Hey we don't even get a choice half the time. Gordon Brown or Brian Cowen anyone?

snow scorpion

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

so what part of europe are you from dublinmayflower? kentucky?
'

mike65

Irish Democrats for Obama are getting the vote out early.

Mike.

is_that_so

dublinmayflower wrote: »

Barack Obama will be a great leader and remembered throughout history. The reason? He believes and he has the passion to get his message across. He has morals and standards that he will stand by no matter what. Americans are not as dumb as we Europeans like to believe. His colour will matter to the minority. What Americans want is someone who will turn their country around and not just settle into same old, same old. His election could change the world for the better and wouldn,t us little Europeans be lucky to have a choice like him? Hey we don't even get a choice half the time. Gordon Brown or Brian Cowen anyone?

And how do you account for his inability to see that his pastor had "Danger Will Robinson" written all over him after 20 years in the church. I'd also suggest that you read up a bit on the political difficulties he is likely to encounter that are not race-related, like getting elected. His popularity amongst blue collar workers and women is a lot lower than with the cheerleaders. They vote too and some of them can't see the vision and how it relates to them and the likely swing states he failed to win are the ones where they came out for Clinton and may come out for McCain.

Incidentally it seems himself and his former sparring partner have had a chat.
May not be that VP talk but shows they recognise the need to get the Dems into a "group hug". :rolleyes:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7438930.stm

Democratic hopeful Barack Obama has had an unannounced meeting with his defeated rival Hillary Clinton.

The talks came two days after Mr Obama effectively clinched the nomination for November's US presidential election.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

your point? should the democrats stay divided up until the general election? be a great strategy to win if you were john mcain.

is_that_so

Mordances with the proletariat wrote: »

your point? should the democrats stay divided up until the general election? be a great strategy to win if you were john mcain.

I am assuming that this is aimed at me. The point being that they are looking to address it now rather than allow it fester. As I've posted here, even that may not necessarily guarantee that there will be cross-candidate support.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

of course they are, the sooner they get to healing the party the sooner they can send out the party hacks and supporters to lie to the voters but I just don;t understand your tone or sarcastic smiley. You're acting as if it's some sort of betrayal of principle.

is_that_so

Mordances with the proletariat wrote: »

of course they are, the sooner they get to healing the party the sooner they can send out the party hacks and supporters to lie to the voters but I just don;t understand your tone or sarcastic smiley. You're acting as if it's some sort of betrayal of principle.

It was not intended that way. The Dems have always been a bit fractious , hence the "group hug" comment. I just wonder if the Dems will be capable but it is unquestionably the right move by both of them.

gordon_gekko

i would like to see obama winning but i think hillary had a much better chance of beating mc cain

you see , hillary won almost every single SWING state in the primaries , the likes of pensylvania , ohio etc, sure obama won well in the likes of georgia and other southern states but he cannot win those states in the general election
its important to remember that the majority of states in america are completly predictable , what decided the election is usually down to a few key swing states , in 2000 , it was florida , in 2004 it was ohio and new mexico

Denis Irwin

Edwards rules out becoming Obama's VP:

Former Democratic White House candidate John Edwards said he has no desire to stand as Barack Obama's running mate in the US presidential race.
He told the Spanish newspaper Vanguardia that he had already been a candidate for vice president in 2004 and he wants to work hard for the campaign, but the vice presidency is not a position that he desires.
Mr Edwards, a two-time presidential hopeful, was John Kerry's running mate in the 2004 elections won by George W Bush

Last month, he formally endorsed Barack Obama as the Democratic candidate for the November election, four months after dropping out of the race himself.
The former North Carolina senator was in Madrid as part of a European tour, where he met with Spain's Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.

Meanwhile, presumptive US Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama met privately with former rival Hillary Clinton as the party sought to unite for the general election campaign after a long nomination battle.
Senator Clinton and Senator Obama met about the work that needs to be done to succeed in November, according to a statement issued by the two campaigns.
Mr Obama had been scheduled to fly back to Chicago yesterday evening after a rally in northern Virginia, but skipped the flight and slipped away from the reporters travelling with him in order to meet secretly with Mrs Clinton.

As Mr Obama enjoyed his first campaign swing as the likely Democratic presidential nominee, some prominent Clinton supporters launched an effort to pressure him to invite her to join his ticket as the No 2 in the general election battle against Republican John McCain.
But Mrs Clinton distanced herself from the push and said the decision on a vice president was his alone to make.

Critics of Senator Clinton have accused her of trying to force her way on to the ticket.
Backers of an Obama-Clinton ticket believe it would be the best way to unify the Democratic Party after the hard-fought, 16-month race between the candidates.

Mr Obama made history on Tuesday when he became the first black candidate to win a US major-party presidential nomination. Mrs Clinton would have been the first woman to do so.
The former first lady did not immediately concede the race but told supporters in a letter on Wednesday she would hold an event on Saturday where she would formally back Mr Obama.
Mr Obama has not tipped his hand about whom he might pick as his running mate, and when asked publicly about the option of choosing Mrs Clinton, he has praised her but emphasised his selection process would be deliberative and wide-ranging.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0606/uselection.html

Interesting to see who Obama will go for now. Some are suggesting he could pick Joe Biden who AFAIK is chairman of the Foreign Affairs commitee in the Senate.

dublinmayflower

Mordances with the proletariat wrote: »

so what part of europe are you from dublinmayflower? kentucky?
'

I'm from East Wall in Dublin. Sorry maybe I'm getting outside of my sphere. Should be talking about leaving poor Bertie alone and those bloody foreigners.

snow scorpion

gordon_gekko wrote: »

its important to remember that the majority of states in america are completly predictable , what decided the election is usually down to a few key swing states , in 2000 , it was florida , in 2004 it was ohio and new mexico

That's right. I heard yesterday that there are only about 10 states in play. The other 40 can be confidently predicted right now.

quidestveritas?

snow scorpion wrote: »

That's right. I heard yesterday that there are only about 10 states in play. The other 40 can be confidently predicted right now.

To have even ten states in play is quite a lot for your average US Presidential election. Some of the ones that are at the moment seen as predictible could change depending on running mates, gaffes etc. A lot will depend on just how genuine Hillary is about throwing her full support behind Obama, especially for states like Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan (I figure Florida is out of sight for Obama).

I think a lot depends on Obama's selection for running mate: the two most obvious seem to be Bill Strickland, Governor of Ohio which should wrap up that crucial state for him, or Jim Webb, senator from Virginia, another state that usually votes Republican but is leaning towards Obama.

Both have disadvantages - Strickland has relatively little political experience, so you are looking at a ticket with two inexperienced candidates contrasting with McCain and whoever he picks. Getting Ohio in the bag, however, would be invaluable and would put a lot of additional pressure on McCain.

Webb has massive security and military credibility (Assistant Secretary of Defense and Secretary of the Navy in Reagan's cabinet, decorated war hero, fierce critic of the Iraq War in which his own son served etc) but only joined the Democratic Party in 2006 and would be seen (at best) as being on the far right wing of the party - putting him and Obama on the same ticket is quite an ideological stretch (anyone else remember Walter Mondale and Lloyd Bentsen?) but addresses the one area that always comes up weakest for Obama - national security and the 'War on Terror'.

Would be interested to hear what others think... and also, does anyone seriously think Hillary would be a viable option as a running mate?:eek:

bonkey

quidestveritas? wrote: »

Would be interested to hear what others think... and also, does anyone seriously think Hillary would be a viable option as a running mate?:eek:

Only in the sense that it might get some of the more crazed "our candidate didn't win, so we'll vote against the guy who beat her" voters back on-side.

Beyond that...no, I don't see her as a viable option at all.

RonMexico

Check this out, the latest from our fair and balanced friends at Fox News

"Fox's E.D. Hill, noting Michelle and Barack Obama's much-buzzed-about fist pound, describes it as, among other things, "a terrorist fist jab." And "some interesting body communication.""

Yeah, I'm not sure Bin Laden and the evil-doers are pounding it out in the caves.

There is a bit of a generational disconnect here -- and one that is fairly amusing -- but how did Hill get to "terrorist fist jab?"

Have people not watched any sporting event in, say, the last five years and seen athletes of all backgrounds pounding fists?

One can only imagine the connotation should Obama deliver a mysterious "body communication" that was known in the 80s as the "high-five."

Phototoxin

A pro-life group is challenging Senator Barack Obama over his telling a
church congregation: "We need fathers to recognize that responsibility
doesn't just end at conception." The lobbying wing of the Family Research
Council (FRC) is placing a television advertisement showing Mr Obama's
remark, and then asks when he thinks [human] life begins. The head of FRC, holding his own baby, also asks: "If I became a father at conception, when did Samuel here become my son?" The US senator, likely Democrat
presidential candidate, has a pro-abortion voting-record.

how can obama who wants to make abortion a universal US right then come out with stuff like that ?

quidestveritas?

Seen the latest story about Obama getting a 'preferential rate' for his mortgage? Seems someone in the Washington Post doesn't realise (or want to) that an average rate implies some above the average and some below. Here's a summary from Nate Silver's wonderful election website www.fivethirtyeight.com.

The culprit is this piece from the Washington Post, which alleges that Barack Obama received a "discount" on his 30-year home mortgage when he purchased his house in Hyde Park in 2005. Obama's mortgage rate was 5.625 percent; the Washington Post cites databases stating that the average rate on comparable properties was 5.93 percent.

So Obama's rate was 30 basis points better than the average. However, the amount of the loan and the nature of the property are not the only factors that determine a mortgage rate. Another major consideration is the creditworthiness of the borrower. According to current rate quotes from myFICO.com, a borrower with very good credit can expect a mortgage rate about 30 basis points better than someone with pretty good credit, and a borrower with excellent credit can expect about a 50 basis point discount.

Unless the Washington Post has access to Obama's FICO score -- and unless it has rented an apartment to him, it probably doesn't -- it is missing a pretty important piece of information on what Obama's mortgage rate ought to have been. What was Obama's FICO score? I don't know, but considering that...

* Obama had just gotten a $2.27 million book deal from Random House -- about $1 million more than the value of the mortgage.
* The Obamas each had exceptionally secure jobs that paid them a combined annual salary of about $500,000 per year.
* The Obamas had just sold their condo, on which they had realized a $137,500 profit.
* The Obamas were prominent public figures whose political futures depended in part on maintaining a reputation for responsibility and trustworthiness.
* The Obamas are known to be relatively thrifty and have no credit card debt but substantial savings.

...I would think that the Obamas were exceptionally creditworthy. So indeed, Obama received a "discount" -- the same discount that any borrower in his position would have received.

is_that_so

A reminder of how problematic it is to get voters of the losing candidate to back the winner, even when the loser backs them enthusiastically. This in tandem with the rumours that McCain is going to employ Karl Rove and the Obama backtrack on Iraq means it's going to be a very tough campaign.

Personally see nothing wrong with Obama's change especially as it is now more in tune with reality. Whether some of his supporters will embrace his need to jettison some of his original message remains to be seen.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- One week after Sen. Hillary Clinton made a public show of unity with Sen. Barack Obama, a new survey suggests supporters of the New York senator are increasingly less likely to follow her lead.

A growing number of Clinton supporters polled say they may stay home in November instead of casting their ballot for Obama, an indication the party has yet to coalesce around the Illinois senator four weeks after the most prolonged and at times divisive primary race in modern American history came to a close.

According to a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released Friday, the number of Clinton supporters who plan to defect to Republican Sen. John McCain's camp is down from one month ago, but -- in what could be an ominous sign for Obama as he seeks to unify the party -- the number of them who say they plan to vote for Obama is also down, and a growing number say they may not vote at all.

In a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey completed in early June before the New York senator ended her White House bid, 60 percent of Clinton backers polled said they planned on voting for Obama. In the latest poll, that number has dropped to 54 percent.

Full story

Sand

I actually saw a piece on Obama - think it was the BBC, but for the life of me cant locate it - where it was theorised his strategy for the campaign against McCain would be to reduce it to a charisma battle where Obama will win hands down.

He forced Clinton into the mistake of abandoning her centrist policies to try win the democratic primaries, and then it became a personality contest between him and her. He wins.

In the election he takes all the conservitive/republican/warmonger positions - state sponsored religion, death penalty for child abusers, against gun control, stay the course in Iraq, Jeruselam as the undivided capital of Israel, immunity for corporations collaborating with illegal govt evesdropping, etc, etc - and suddenly the only difference between him and McCain is charisma, which Obama wins, just like he beat Clinton.

Quite cynical, but its politics I guess.

Hes probably gambling that whilst some of the crazies who bought into the "politics of change" bull to help him win the democratic primaries will get disillusioned and drop out, or some bloggers emoragequit, the vast majority will simply ignore reality and keep plugging away hoping its the poor fools in the center who are getting lied to and not them.

But it is probably the crazies who are being lied too - after all, if Obama wins then he has to plan for his re-election almost immediately and the centrist positions will be taken over the views that got him out of the primaries.

Pocono Joe

Taken from Barack Obama’s victory speech "…that we come together to remake this great nation"

Message to Barack: If you think it's great, why do you want to remake it?

Memo to American People: Are we really that stupid that we would make this guy our President.

GuanYin

Pocono Joe wrote: »

Taken from Barack Obama’s victory speech "…that we come together to remake this great nation"

Message to Barack: If you think it's great, why do you want to remake it?

Memo to American People: Are we really that stupid that we would make this guy our President.

That's some great logic and reasoning you have there.

No, no, really..... :rolleyes:

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

also, yes you are that stupid. your country is one of the few in the world still 'debating' intelligent design V evolution, there are still people in your country who think saddam had Wmd and was operationally linked to al qaeda. and there are still people who think obama is a secret muslim.

there is intelligence in the united states, but it's not very well diluted.