This is an invitation to a regular correspondent to elaborate on an interesting observation. Back on this post, bud left a comment, toward the end of that long thread, that in part said this:
I’m gradually changing my allegiance to Obama from Hillary. Obama is the real deal, no doubt about it.
I’m curious about bud’s reasoning, and I think it’s worth exploring in greater detail, if bud’s willing.
The reason I think it’s worth going into is that I think bud is going through a process we’ve seen across a large portion of the Democratic electorate this year. Remember, just a few months ago Hillary Clinton was seen as inevitable. That started changing in the weeks before Iowa, and kept on changing, as Democrats and independents who chose to vote in Democratic primaries (where that was permitted, such as in S.C.) starting moving toward Barack Obama.
Now, with neither candidate able to get the required number of committed delegates before the convention, we’re watching as superdelegates (and voters in Pennsylvania) ponder whether to declare for, or switch to, Obama. That makes the thought processes through which a voter like bud has gone particularly relevant.
You know what I think, but I preferred Obama from the time we focused on the candidates in the last days before the S.C. primary. It’s far more interesting right now to see what would convince someone who preferred Hillary then to move toward Obama.
So give it some thought, bud, and share…
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Obama comes across as a leader, not someone who is just trying to win a prize – the presidency. He obviously wants to be president but his motivation seems more in line with a desire to serve the people, not just a mission of self-agrandizement.
Both Hillary and McCain just seem too eager to become president. McCain for his part seems far too anxious to please the Bush/Reagan base (seeking Hagee endorsement, vote for torture, support of tax cuts, laughing at Hillary bitch comment, etc.) What saddens me about the Senator from Arizona is how he seems like a vastly changed (for the worse) man since 2000. It’s as if he knows this is his last shot.
Hillary has made some bad decissions along the way, especially with regard to some of the nitpicking attacks on Obama. None of these incidents rise to the level of the Carl Rove smear campaigns but it has a nasty ring to it that I can do without.
What is there not to like about Obama? I still love Hillary, and will eagerly vote for her again, but Obama will be a once in a lifetime leader that we just can’t let get away.
Hey Brad, it’s Bud.
Who cares?
David
(Hey, I’m just sayin. I completely get it that the same thing is said of me)
What’s not to like about Obama?
1) His landmark speech on race dropped him into the “blame it on whitey” crowd.
2) He’s raising his children in a church where hate is preached.
3) He says he would grant an interview to every tinhorn dictator who wants one.
4) Obama was the most liberal Democratic candidate even when Dennis Kucinich was still in the race.
5) The State’s editorial board endorsed Obama and Brad is sticking by him.
6) Obama’s wife said she was never proud of her country until her husband became the Democratic frontrunner. Apparently, she didn’t notice that the country she was never proud of vanquished Hitler and Hirohito and broke up the Soviet Union.
7) Obama would have us abandon a military effort that has already cost us thousands of lives and trillions of dollars before we see it to a successful end.
8) The sensitivity Obama and his supporters have shown about his middle name after years of damning “Dubya.”
9) Obama’s plans to spend my money, yours and everyone else’s on programs we don’t need.
10) Ted Kennedy endorsed him.
What is there not to like? A naive blindness to reality? He’d make an excellent televangelist.
Although I will most likely be voting “for” him,I’m not at all enthusiastic about the prospect.This is one of the weakest slate of candidates since,….the last election.
To address Weldon’s 10 point assault:
1. Obama’s speech was probably the greatest speech on race since MLK.
2. Obama’s minister is not running.
3. I’m glad to see someone who is willing to talk rather than wage war.
4. Thankfully Obama is more liberal than his opponents. I only wish he was more liberal.
5. Oh well, you can’t refute every charge. But maybe this is one of the few times the State has it right.
6. His wife is not running.
7. We should have abandoned the quagmire a long time ago. Actually we should have never tried this insanity in the first place.
8. Dubya is a term of affection. Using Obama’s middle name is a scare tactic. Big difference.
9. Obama is likely to bring some fiscal responsiblity to government that has been lacking over the past 7 years under Dubya.
10. Way to go Ted!
1. Obama and his entourage have a history of making excuses for terrorists.
2. Obama’s close friends include terrorists.
3. Obama has 40 different messages for 40 different target audiences. He tells each one what they want to hear.
4. Obama would require every person to buy a $2,500 medical care policy from private insurance companies. Healthy people, who would have to pay less in a free market, will be subsidizing unhealthy people.
5. Obama would raise individual income taxes and corporate taxes, which are already up 50% since 1993, and among the highest in the industrialized world. That is why our manufacturing has been in a recession since 1993, and our economy is always just one tax increase from a recession.
6. Obama is a racist.
7. Obama hates Americanism. He is an international socialist.
8. Obama comes out of seedly, corrupt Chicago politics.
… Healthy people, who would have to pay less in a free market, will be subsidizing unhealthy people.
-Lee
Of course healthy people subsidize unhealthy people. How do you think anyone besides the extremely rich afford a serious illnes? THAT’S WHAT INSURANCE DOES.
But right now, insurance is a VOLUNTARY pooling of risk.
Hillary and Obama propose to make it MANDATORY that everyone purchase medical insurance. That’s their idea of “universal coverage”.
There is no free lunch. Wise up.
OK, Bud.
1. Obama’s speech may well be the ONLY speech on race since MLK.
2. Obama’s minister is running. He’s running the church Obama’s children attend.
3. Power grows out of the barrel of a gun, so saith one of your guys, the mighty Mao.
4. More liberal is better? Then let the French fight your wars.
5. The State’s endorsement is a tough row to hoe, ain’t it?
6. No, Mrs. Obama isn’t running, but she would be living in the White House, which is 99.44% of the experience the other Democrat running for the White House actually has at governing anything.
7. Using the term “quagmire” to refer to Iraq is all wet.
8. When’s the last time you used “Dubya” as a term of affection/ When’s the last time you offered anything about McCain that wasn’t a scare tactic?
9. Obama’s idea of fiscal responsibility is transferring money from those who might create it to those who will squander it.
10. Rather than a cheer for Ted Kennedy, wouldn’t a toast and a life preserver be more appropriate?
Oops. That should be 9) Obama’s idea of fiscal responsibility is transferring money from those who might create jobs to those who will squander it.
The Limbaugh story is mostly myth. He came out with that story after it was exposed that some republicans had been doing just the opposite of what Limbaugh now claims. Republicans have been voting in large numbers for Barack Obama in the DEMOCRATIC open primaries, and gaming the DEMOCRATIC caucuses from day one.
Limbaugh is using reverse psychology on you to cover up.
The REPUBLICANS have been trying to choose the weakest DEMOCRATIC candidate to run against in November. And also to prevent the possibility of a Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama DREAM TEAM match up.
I am really surprised the media has not picked this fact up with all their experts, and analyst. It’s as plain as the nose on your face. This is why Obama has mostly only been able to win red state caucuses, and primaries. And no big blue states primaries.
If Obama is the democratic nominee for the national election in November he will be slaughtered. Because the Republican vote cheating help will suddenly evaporate.
Hillary Clinton has actually already won the democratic nomination if you remove the republican vote fraud. Does this really surprise anyone after the 2000 and 2004 elections. 🙁
They have no respect for the constitution, or the democratic process. They have no SHAME!!!
jacksmith…
Obama and Hillary favor letting illegal aliens vote, felons vote, even letting convicts in prison vote.
9. Obama’s idea of fiscal responsibility is transferring money from those who might create it to those who will squander it.
-weldon
The sense of denial from the conservative camp has alway intrigued me on this particular issue. The conservative movement has been in charge on two different occasions during the last 30 years and both times they’ve managed to run up enormous deficits. To any thinking person that could only mean one thing: Conservative fiscal policy fails. It fails to generate jobs (5 recessions and a collapse in the manufucturing sector as evidence). It fails to keep the budget in balance (enormous deficits during Reagan/Bush and Bush II sandwiched around budget surpluses during Clinton). The evidence is completely contradictory to the conservative claims. Conservative economic policy has been tried twice and it has failed twice.
Our economy can only be saved by liberal action to address the inequities created by the enormous handouts to the wealthy aristocrats who essentially steal from the workers through high CEO pay and other confiscatory measures. The Bush II failure is even more astounding given the tremendous headstart given by the Clinton administration. Why on earth would any thinking person continue to think that conservative fiscal policy will actually work? It goes beyond the bounds of reason.
“Why on earth would any thinking person continue to think that conservative fiscal policy will actually work? It goes beyond the bounds of reason.”
I have to admit, Bud, beyond the bounds of reason is a place with which you seem to be remarkably familiar, so you could be right.
Conservative fiscal policy — getting at least a nickel’s worth of goods and services for a nickel — may well be dangerous.
And, you know, I had completely forgotten that the CEOs gave all their income to the workers during the Clinton years.
I mean, I guess it’s good that after Reagan bankrupted the Soviet Union and before Bush decided to actually fight terror, Clinton twiddled his thumbs and sent missile technology to the Chinese while he sold us down the river with NAFTA.
3. Power grows out of the barrel of a gun, so saith one of your guys, the mighty Mao.
-weldon
Again we see how the naive worldview of the conservative camp comes in contact with the realities of the real world. With hundreds of billions of dollars spent on all kinds of military assets the might U.S. military has failed to bring any kind of order to the quagmire of Iraq. The latest reports indicate a great deal of tension between the Iraqi government and the renigade al-Sadr Shiites. And the predictable result is an increase in violence throughout Iraq.
No my conservative friend the world cannot be controlled by a ham-handed, misguided military machine designed to fight another super-power. What is needed is deft diplomacy and some understanding of the cultural differences between America and the rest of the world. With chaos continuing into it’s sixth year the U.S., led by the totally incompetent George W. Bush, has failed to grasp the situation as it exists in the 21st century.
No longer will military might be the decisive factor in international affairs. Instead, as oil supplies dwindle, the new world order will require a deft handling of the impending energy crisis. The Europeans have long understood that fact. Germany now generates about 7% of it’s electricity from wind power and a substantial amount from solar. Denmark has about a 20% wind rating. The U.S. is doing better in this area but still only generates about 1% of it’s total electric use with wind.
The future depends on how we handle the impending decline of oil supplies. It’s time to address that issue and quite meddling in middle-east politics before it’s too late.
Bill, you have opposed every use of US military force, except when Bill Clinton was restoring the socialist dictator Aristide to power in Haiti, or re-Balkanizing Serbia and handing Bosnia over to Muslim terrorists.
The reality is that Saddam Hussein was funding terrorists, arming terrorists, and training them in Iraq. We captured the training camps, the bank books, and the records of the 9/11 hijackers who were there.
Iraq must not fall into the hands of Radical Islam, or there will be millions more killed by them.
You know, Bud, I think you may be right. I think our continued presence in Iraq may have as much to do with oil as it does with terrorism and creating a stable nation-state there.
You reckon?
At least now Iraq will sell its oil at the market price, instead of being ripped off by Clinton and the UN at $8.00 a barrel.
I heard Obama reading this out of his book. I happened to be switching stations and hit the local “progressive” talk station (1320 I think), and heard it. You know how there are readings of many books on tape – well, Obama did his own. The other part I heard later was about him laying around the dorm, talking with his buddies about Marxism, Malcom X, the patriarchal white society, etc. Again, he talks there about how he identifies with Malcom X decrying the white blood in his veins.
Lee, if you were listening to 1320 you had the ultra right wing conservative WIS. Air America is on 1230. My guess is you heard some Rush wannabe using scare tactics.
Reading what Obama says is scare tactic enough. The man is a hater.
Yes, talk radio is playing Obama’s own words about how he hated his white mother and grandmother, and the “blue eyed devils who control America”. It helps us understand why he smeared his grandmother in that speech defending Jeremiah Wright.
You should read more about the man who is duping you.