McCain, GOP in Trouble as Obama Wraps it Up

[Frenchy]

51308_545454 - HUMAN EVENTS

McCain, GOP in Trouble as Obama Wraps it Up
by Robert Novak and Timothy P. Carney (more by this author)
Posted 05/14/2008 ET
Updated 05/14/2008 ET


Outlook

1. Sen. Hillary Clinton's landslide victory in West Virginia only strengthens her determination to stay in the race without opening the way for her to be nominated. There remains no clear path for her to the nomination.
2. The determination in party circles to nominate Sen. Barack Obama is intense and pervasive. However, powerful figures inside the party want to stop the nagging of Clinton, pressing her to leave the race, and get on with the business at hand: to run down Sen. John McCain as the third term of George W. Bush, associating him with the general decline.
3. Nevertheless, Clinton loyalists insist that the race may not be over. They say Sen. Clinton is a very "tight" woman with a buck and that she would not be putting up $11 million of her own money if she did not have some plan to win the nomination.
4. The claims that McCain has a united Republican Party behind him are greatly exaggerated. We find considerable opposition on the right, ranging from economic conservatives (who consider him too green) to evangelicals. The biggest problem is that he does not realize he has a problem.
5. The third straight Democratic win in a special election in a Republican district -- in Mississippi yesterday following Louisiana and Illinois -- raises the prospect of a tsunami in November against the GOP. Pessimism about McCain reversing this tide against Obama is growing.
6. In the face of a possible catastrophe, Republicans in Congress are doing nothing to change their brand -- and President Bush is not helping. With the spendthrift farm bill coming up in the House Thursday, the House Republican leadership has informed the GOP "aggies" that they can vote their districts. Bush, in effect, has given them the same signal even while threatening a veto.

[Etta Place]

Originally Posted by Frenchy

51308_545454 - HUMAN EVENTS

McCain, GOP in Trouble as Obama Wraps it Up
by Robert Novak and Timothy P. Carney (more by this author)
Posted 05/14/2008 ET
Updated 05/14/2008 ET


Outlook

1. Sen. Hillary Clinton's landslide victory in West Virginia only strengthens her determination to stay in the race without opening the way for her to be nominated. There remains no clear path for her to the nomination.
2. The determination in party circles to nominate Sen. Barack Obama is intense and pervasive. However, powerful figures inside the party want to stop the nagging of Clinton, pressing her to leave the race, and get on with the business at hand: to run down Sen. John McCain as the third term of George W. Bush, associating him with the general decline.
3. Nevertheless, Clinton loyalists insist that the race may not be over. They say Sen. Clinton is a very "tight" woman with a buck and that she would not be putting up $11 million of her own money if she did not have some plan to win the nomination.
4. The claims that McCain has a united Republican Party behind him are greatly exaggerated. We find considerable opposition on the right, ranging from economic conservatives (who consider him too green) to evangelicals. The biggest problem is that he does not realize he has a problem.
5. The third straight Democratic win in a special election in a Republican district -- in Mississippi yesterday following Louisiana and Illinois -- raises the prospect of a tsunami in November against the GOP. Pessimism about McCain reversing this tide against Obama is growing.
6. In the face of a possible catastrophe, Republicans in Congress are doing nothing to change their brand -- and President Bush is not helping. With the spendthrift farm bill coming up in the House Thursday, the House Republican leadership has informed the GOP "aggies" that they can vote their districts. Bush, in effect, has given them the same signal even while threatening a veto.

Funny, I think Obama is in trouble.

I don't know why Hillary would be throwing in her own money to a seeming hopeless cause.

[Etta Place]

May 14, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
Raspberry for Barry
By MAUREEN DOWD
WASHINGTON

In grim times, a bitter Hillary clings to bitter voters who in grim times supposedly cling to guns, religion and antipathy to people who aren’t like them.

Mining that antipathy, the New York senator has been working hard to get the hard-working white voters of hardscrabble Appalachia so she can show that a black man can’t yet be elected president.

Obama breezed through West Virginia, the state he couldn’t charm even wearing a flag pin and promising to invest in “clean coal.” Fast Barry shot some pool Monday afternoon at Schultzie’s Billiards in South Charleston, including prophetically sinking an eight-ball in the pocket, and then fled from Hillary territory to pursue white, blue-collar workers in battleground states and convince them not to vote for John McBush.

Obama is acting the diffident debutante, pretending not to care that he was given a raspberry by a state he will need in the fall. He was dismissed not only by the voters Hillary usually gets, but was also edged out in blocs that usually prefer him — the under-30 set, college graduates and affluent voters.

Interviews with West Virginians leaving the polls showed some profound weaknesses that could haunt the Illinois senator in the fall. More than half said they would be dissatisfied if Obama was the nominee. Half believe he shares the views of the Rev. Wright, and more than half said he does not share their values. More than half also said that he is not honest and trustworthy. Just under half of the Clinton voters said they would not support Obama in the fall.

Obama may have started the primary season with an inspiring win in 94-percent-white Iowa, but he is winding it up with a resounding loss in 94-percent-white West Virginia.

“As the song says, ‘Almost heaven,’ ” Hillary said at her Charleston victory party, hailing herself as “the strongest candidate,” the one who can win swing states, and urging again that Michigan and Florida votes be counted.

“You know I never give up,” she said, with a W.-strength denial of reality.

Two in 10 white voters said race was important in how they voted, and more than 8 of 10 of these went for Hillary. This echoes an article in The Washington Post on Tuesday that chronicled the racism that some Obama volunteers found in Indiana and Pennsylvania.

The story quoted Victoria Switzer, a retired social studies teacher, who could take only one night on an Obama phone bank in the nearly all-white Susquehanna County, Pa.: “One caller, Switzer remembers, said he couldn’t possibly vote for Obama and concluded: ‘Hang that darky from a tree!’ ”

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution wrote about complaints of racism after a bar in Marietta, Ga., began selling an Obama 2008 T-shirt with a picture of Curious George peeling a banana.

Charlie Peters, the legendary former editor of the liberal Washington Monthly who ran Jack Kennedy’s campaign in Kanawha County, W. Va., said Obama should study how J.F.K. managed to win there despite raging anti-Catholicism.

(My father, in West Virginia once on business, found his car had been flipped over by some locals furious about a sign on it supporting the first Catholic Democratic nominee, Al Smith.)

“The point of West Virginia in 1960 is that you can change attitudes,” Peters, an Obama supporter, said on Tuesday evening. “But if you don’t act to change them, he could lose West Virginia and I think he could lose the country.

“He has to change those perceptions of the people who think he could actually agree with the Rev. Wright.”

J.F.K. bought affection in West Virginia. “The boss of Logan County said 35,” Peters recalled. “He meant $3,500, but Kennedy thought it was $35,000, so he gave him $35,000. They put out all this money and they carried the precincts.” (Hillary has been using street money more than Obama, though it is unclear how much it has helped.)

West Virginia loved F.D.R. “because the Depression had been very tough for them and F.D.R. was kind to them,” Peters said. (On my father’s trip, he was threatened by a man who asked him about “rumors” that President Roosevelt was in a wheelchair and threatened to thrash any man who said so. My dad, a detective who served on protective details for F.D.R., assured the ruffian that Roosevelt was “a fine, athletic man.”)

So the campaign brought down F.D.R. Jr., Peters recounted, to “say it’s O.K. to vote for this Catholic.” Because West Virginia had a lot of veterans, they distributed a little tabloid emphasizing J.F.K.’s war record, including a Reader’s Digest piece about his heroism in the Pacific.

And finally, there was the beguiling Kennedy wit and smile. “Kennedy turned out to be this engaging person,” Peters said, “especially with young people, and children talked to their parents.”

Peters says Obama needs imagination and a “tremendous effort” to dispel bias in West Virginia, and quickly, “because once it’s set in concrete, you’ll have a hell of a time.”

Scary about this Ku Klux Klan-type racism in Pennsylvania.

Kennedy was an extremely charming person. Things were just "sunny" back then. It's so different today.

[XDConvert9mm]

Originally Posted by Etta Place

Funny, I think Obama is in trouble.

I don't know why Hillary would be throwing in her own money to a seeming hopeless cause.

I'm sure she has the timing worked out so she can pay back her loan to herself before the deadline dates. If not, Ole Bill better get on a few more planes and do some more speeches to make it up!

[Frenchy]

Funny, I think Obama is in trouble.

I believe he will be in the general election, But McCain must find away to pull all aspects of the party together, without further alienation.

[PackerfanXD]

I think McCain is in trouble because of Bob Barr.

[Frenchy]

Originally Posted by PackerfanXD

I think McCain is in trouble because of Bob Barr.

Both Barr and Paul could pose a problem for him!

[PackerfanXD]

Agreed.

[LUVMYSIGP225]

No one has a clue about how Obama will do. The primaries were about anything other than voting for the candidate you like the best. Seeing as McCain had the Repub nomination clinched very early on, even before they got to my Ohio primaries, many people went out to the polls and played games. Like myself. I was counted as a Dem vote, because I knew that McCain had the nomination in the bag, and my vote wouldn't count. So, I went out and switched to Dem so that I could vote AGAINST a candidate that I hated. But, rest assured, I am going right back to Repub when the General Elections hit. Ohio Dems are so pi$$ed off about the skew in the elections, that they were threatening to investigate VOTERS!!!! This happened all over the nation. The primaries cannot be used as any indicator of how it will go.

I personally know many people that will not vote for Obama because of his name, race, affiliations, etc. These aren't rednecks living in a trailer park. They are white collar, college educated folks. They want nothing to do with him. I basically look at it as the past few Presidential elections have been pretty much down the middle, 50/50. Even in 2004, when Bush was already started to be hated amongst many Repubs, the split was close, with Ohio being a big factor in determining the race.

If we want to look at it in simplistic, basic, unscientific, rounded out math, Dems are entitled to expect a close race with 50% of the vote in the Generals. In the primaries, Hillary and Obama split the democrat votes down the middle with the total count leaning towards Obama. So, can we say that Obama got 25 to 30% of the total votes in the nation? However, the Dems pulled a lot of spite votes in the Primaries that they cannot count on in the Generals. Polls are showing that a lot of Dems are so split on the candidates, that they would go McCain if their Dem candidate didn't get the nomination.

I really think Obama is in trouble. Plus, I think the heavy dirt on Obama is being saved for his nomination. I think that once Hillary is out of the program, we can concentrate on Obama wanting to disarm the military. Stripping the nation's military of wepons. Negotiating with Iran and north Korea. His stance on gun rights. The fact that he will give handouts to all of the hood rats. I am sure Rev. Wright will pop up like Whack-A-Mole again. People will concentrate on his statements about whites that he has made so many times in the past. Hell, I am already running a full-on spam campaign against the guy.

Sorry, I think he has no chance, and if he gets in, people will work tirelessly to get him out.

[Etta Place]

Originally Posted by LUVMYSIGP225

No one has a clue about how Obama will do. The primaries were about anything other than voting for the candidate you like the best. Seeing as McCain had the Repub nomination clinched very early on, even before they got to my Ohio primaries, many people went out to the polls and played games. Like myself. I was counted as a Dem vote, because I knew that McCain had the nomination in the bag, and my vote wouldn't count. So, I went out and switched to Dem so that I could vote AGAINST a candidate that I hated. But, rest assured, I am going right back to Repub when the General Elections hit. Ohio Dems are so pi$$ed off about the skew in the elections, that they were threatening to investigate VOTERS!!!! This happened all over the nation. The primaries cannot be used as any indicator of how it will go.

I personally know many people that will not vote for Obama because of his name, race, affiliations, etc. These aren't rednecks living in a trailer park. They are white collar, college educated folks. They want nothing to do with him. I basically look at it as the past few Presidential elections have been pretty much down the middle, 50/50. Even in 2004, when Bush was already started to be hated amongst many Repubs, the split was close, with Ohio being a big factor in determining the race.

If we want to look at it in simplistic, basic, unscientific, rounded out math, Dems are entitled to expect a close race with 50% of the vote in the Generals. In the primaries, Hillary and Obama split the democrat votes down the middle with the total count leaning towards Obama. So, can we say that Obama got 25 to 30% of the total votes in the nation? However, the Dems pulled a lot of spite votes in the Primaries that they cannot count on in the Generals. Polls are showing that a lot of Dems are so split on the candidates, that they would go McCain if their Dem candidate didn't get the nomination.

I really think Obama is in trouble. Plus, I think the heavy dirt on Obama is being saved for his nomination. I think that once Hillary is out of the program, we can concentrate on Obama wanting to disarm the military. Stripping the nation's military of wepons. Negotiating with Iran and north Korea. His stance on gun rights. The fact that he will give handouts to all of the hood rats. I am sure Rev. Wright will pop up like Whack-A-Mole again. People will concentrate on his statements about whites that he has made so many times in the past. Hell, I am already running a full-on spam campaign against the guy.

Sorry, I think he has no chance, and if he gets in, people will work tirelessly to get him out.

Strange. I don't feel that strongly about either Obama or McCain. What does bother me is the Obama hatred. Again, I think it's irrational and says more about the person hating than it does about Obama.