I never really thought Obama would win the General Election.

At least not till today.

I used to think that Hillary had no chance at the white house simply because so very many people downright hate her. But I also thought Obama had no chance because he was a political neophyte who would stumble when the going got tough.

When my choice, Edwards dropped out I figured that I wouldn't end up really supporting any other candidate till the GE and then just go with whichever Dem made it. That was, of course, before Hillary went into her all slime all the time mode. When that happened I jumped on the Obama bandwagon, but I still never thought he'd make it.

But I realized today that Obama has brushed off the fake Wright scandal, he has beaten back the Muslim smears, he has even taken on race relations in the middle of a campaign. Now, to top it all off, he's shown that he knows when to hit and when to let his opponent breath. After NC and IN, Obama gave Hillary space. He complimented her and graciously congratulated her for winning IN long before anyone really knew who the winner would be.

But when Hillary used that space to attack with race-baiting and other smears, Obama knew just how to jab. he released a few delegates at a time all through the day, every day to keep Hillary out of the news cycle. Then after her massive win in WV he was prepared. He brought out the second largest endorsement possible, one he has obviously held onto for weeks. He crushed any positive spin for Hillary with a sledge hammer hit at exactly the right time and yet with incredible precision. Obama never had to say a word or break a sweat to do it.

Today, Obama proved that he not only won this nomination but that he deserves it. There is no one more capable to take on the republicans this fall than the man who was able to out fox the Clintons.

I'm curious ... in your opinion, who would be the largest endorsement possible? There's only one person I can think of, but maybe you have another idea. :)

By the way, I totally agree with you. Obama has played this perfectly. :D

He could possibly be the only one who could get some people to change their support, but I wouldn't bet on it at this point.

Gore would be the gold medal of endorsements! :D

Maybe Mandela would compare but I can't think of anyone else off the top of my head.

Does anyone have a list of the "Republicans Most Respected in the World"?

Perhaps this is gloating...but this is a good day.

All the living repubs would make his skin crawl.

than it does now. At least then it was a respectable party.

1. Abraham Lincoln
2. er...
3. That's it.

He did great things around the environment and conservation, inclusing starting our national parks system. And as Rethugs go, Eisenhower wasn't that bad either. He's the one who warned us about the military-industrial complex getting too powerful. But those are about the only ones I can come up with.

Here's a clue:

He started a civil war in Columbia to annex Panama and then set up a puppet state so he could build the canal. He was responsible for many central and south American coups and is largely responsible for the state of the continent over the last 100 years.

pro-immigration. says so in my 1912ish government book. also says the constitution was based on THE MAGNA FUCKING CARTA and NOT the bible.

He did good things and bad. Sounds pretty human to me.

At least according to this mis-administration. :eyes:

He's been strongly hinting his support for Obama for a month now. I don't think his endorsement will be very big news at this point.

Obama is the nominee. EVERY democrat should support him.

It's meant to show the other SDs that a powerful party leader has made his choice and others should step in line behind him. As we've seen here at DU, once fervent Edwards supporters who have gone to Hillary had no problem throwing him under the bus.

And just like the Edwards endorsement, it might help to have Carter campaigning for Obama in mostly-rural, southern states.

Carter, unlike others, takes his role as a party elder to heart. He'll hint, but I doubt he makes it official.

Has offered that his whole family supports Obama, and hasn't said anything to disagree.

:silly:

Only he won't be bringing the delegates. ;)

At least IMHO, Al Gore.

I know the pundits say that endorsements don't usually make a big difference to voters, but I honestly think Gore's would.

The endorsements that count are the ones at the polls. Get out the vote. Unite the party.

Remember, we will need to overcome the evote fraud to really win this thing.

nt

and will be a fine president.

K&R - great post!

:hi:

Obama's timing is absolutely exquisite - he knows just how and when to strategically overshadow any positive move that Clinton has made over the course of the campaign.

The more I watch Obama's campaign style, the more I love the man.

He's illustrating those axioms, of becoming the change you want to see, and of having the means
being inseparable from the ends.

He doesn't just talk about change, he runs a different kind of campaign, with it's own kind
of upbeat mojo, that's proven he can weather some of the fiercest campaign-trail storms without
breaking his stride.

Thanks for your post, oh and thanks to Hillary too, for playing her part in helping us to see the
mettle Obama has under-fire.

too busy being White?

:rofl:

I read earlier that someone thinks he'll bring out Gore in FL. That would be stunning.

I like to say that just so I can say "an historic". But seriously. I feel AWESOME TODAY. You are right that Gore would be a huge get. If that could happen right after people calm down from a asswhooping Obama delivers to Clinton next Tuesday....we might finally see the Clintons see there is no escaping that all the power base in land of the Democrats has shifted to Obama.

Thank you for your support. :)

No Republican has ever beaten the Clintons. That Obama was able to go up against the Clinton machine and WIN, says everything you need to know about his readiness.

How is today any different from any other day? It's not the man anymore, it's people's projections of him.

n/t

there is the key to good leadership.

You must be living in that state of denial, which I heard has gotten crowded as of recently.

This kind of savvy, working for American people instead of against us, is what we need. I look forward to it.

Yesterday on the radio, John Dean said that it will take about three Democratic presidential terms in a row to start to fix the problems created these Bush years. Obama is the kind of personality who can start that process going, imo.

I'm honestly more impressed with him after today than I ever thought I could be. He's still too centrist for my tastes but he's a damned sight better than the alternatives still available.

;)

But he's the best we're going to get and he's proving that he won't be bad at all.

I feel good about this election for the first time. :)

i can hardly wait for him to go head to head with mccain in a debate. these past few days i've been thinking that mccain is sort of like bob dole. it was his turn and he's getting it but he isn't going to win the election.

i believe there will be massive voter registration drives that will make history. that alone will bury mccain's chances no matter what they throw at obama.

To the MSM, the real contest was always between the two most conservative Dems. I think the PTB were just wetting themselves over the good fortune of both having a handicap (race or sex) that would lose them some votes. If not enough votes to get them the Repub they'd prefer, well, at least they'd get one of the two most corporate friendly.

My choice was made after interacting with Obama's WA state campaign, and on the basis of really good organization and bringing large numbers of newly involved people to our caucuses. That's a positive good in and of itself. There is so much political alienation out there, and to get anywhere in the long run, more people will need to get involved and stay involved. As a caucus convener, I just wanted to get people there, nevermind who they supported. Clinton's campaign in WA state consisted of the state organizer bullying LD and county Dem chairs. Obama's voter registration drive did not ignore the work that has already been done--they really wanted to know which precincts didn't yet have PCOs, so they could focus more effort there.

Obama ran with Dean's 50 state strategy and set up offices in most, if not all, states. Hillary used the Clintonian swing state strategy and only went into the "big" states at first. When they realized, too late, that the delegates would be awarded proportionately, they had to scramble, and as you say, bully the local infrastructures of many states.

The best thing about this primary is that Obama's and Dean's work will lead to massive Dem pickups downticket in the fall.

He would be one HELL of a euchre player! :)

He's damned good.

prediction business because appearenly, I don't know much. LOL

But I really thought Hillary would take it away till Iowa. I guess I wouldn't have much of a career in predictions, either. :)

Remember when he timed his speech after one of the primaries to step on hillaries and he knocked her off the air. It was brilliant and the media all went for it.

These guys have been playing chess for a long time now, if that translates into the white house it is going to be a good 8 years indeed.

I'm all atwitter.

I do expect the Clintons to support the Democratic candidate, as I also expect Obama to support Clinton if by some chance she wins the nomination

And bodes well for Obama. Getting things done without anybody realizing they are being done... slick indeed.

Subtle. So unlike our airstrike-waving president we have now.


And he has few corporate ties to be beholden to, unlike Clinton or Bush or McCain.


Excellent.

However, he's used his initial corporate stake to generate an independent small donor base. IMO, that beats the bejeezus out of spending it on shitstains like Mark Penn.

He knows that he doesn't require corporate money so I think that'll free him up to do what he feels is best.

As long as we count the votes. And there really won't be much of a problem with that this year, because the Republican machine is starved for money without Abramoff, DeLay, and Cunningham.

Gas is over $4 a gallon. FOOD is unaffordable. That means Throw the Bastards Out! Which also means that incumbent Democrats need to get off their asses. This country generally prefers the Congress and the President to be different parties. But whatever happens, we only have TWO YEARS. That's all we get till the Republicans regroup and try to tell the country we haven't managed to do anything.

We could run a yellow rubber ducky this year and win. We could run a dead guy and win. We could run a woman and win...

The Democrat will win.

yellow rubber ducky this year and win. We could run a dead guy and win. We could run a woman and win...

Ouch. Not very nice to your candidate...

dropped out. My disappointment was huge! I wasn't going to get hooked on another candidate until the nominee was chosen. I'm slowly tipping towards Obama only because Clinton has turned me OFF with her poorly managed campaign and because her tactics and smears have been really LOW. These are attacks that should be made against McCain -- not a fellow Democrat.

The Clinton campaign has been a trainwreck while Obama's has had the ability to weather every storm that's come it's way. Yesterday was just the latest example of a candidate who can actually win.

Hillary Clinton is smart enough, and bright enough to beat the living crap out of John McCain in the GE. Barack has bested Hillary in every possible way. It's taken one hell of a candidate to accomplish what Barack has against Hillary. Having said that, don't you see that Barack can EASILY handle McCain, (the feeb), in the fall? Christ, he's been sparring against the republican/Rovian play-book this entire time! Oh, and keep your eyes on the pugs. Have you noticed the changes they are starting to make in strategy as of late. McCain sounding like he gives a shit about the environment for example?

I'll illustrate for ya:

if H > M and B > H
then B > M

It's likely to be a very good year for Dems but Hillary has been well hated by everyone but other Democrats since 1992. I don't think people have gotten over that and she'd be a tremendous draw for hyper-conservatives.

Overall, after 2004, I'm just not that cocky about November as I've seen this kind of thing before. However, I do think Obama has the skill to outmaneuver the repubs.

I hope that our nominee (most likely Obama) will win in November. But I see it as naive to assume that Clinton or any Dem candidate have used the best/most effective tactics against Obama. Certain things are off limits for any Dem and will be pushed repeatedly by the Repubs in the GE. Just a couple of examples of such topics:

1. Chicago machine politics, patronage, and corruption. This has not been an issue during the primaries; I am certain that we will see a lot of focus on the many threads of this topic.

2. A compelling life story; "based" on a true story. Obama has mostly received a pass wrt the story of his life and of his family. A lot of his story is contradicted by the various MSM articles about his life. The RW has been fact checking it closely and will weave the various discrepancies into their larger narratives challenging him as being a fraud. These are well afoot already and have been for several months. While most of these problems are small, a couple of them could gain traction among the general public.

3. Religion -- how Muslim is Obama? Believe it or not, this will continue to be a problem for Obama. Not because of the outlandish claims of him being a radical Muslim trained in a madrassa; because he initially denied any connection to Islam except his grandfather and his then-atheist father and has gradually been forced to backtrack to having a minimum family connection (step-father, grade school) that is confirmed by his sister and others.

This is being woven into the narrative of his initial denials wrt Rev. Wright in a attempt to show a pattern of trying to mislead about his religion.

4. Leftist, radicals, commies. The RW is really working this attack on Obama, an attack that no Dem would touch. They are really pushing these attacks (e.g. Ayers, Davis) and also the "Marxist" philosophies of Obama's parents (starting with his mother in high school).

It is going to get really really rough out here.

i know you guys are so focussed on hillary the anti-christ that it's hard to look ahead the GE.

He's tough. He's smart. He takes the crap thrown at him, wraps it up in a box with a bow on it, and hand-delivers it to the flingers.

But Iowa was when I knew it would happen.

But I am definitely converted from this point on. :)

That's not to say I didn't know there would be hurdles, but I figured that Hillary's negatives were already so high that he'd have a much better chance at bringing in the crossovers to beat the Republicans. He had to sell the Democrats on himself, and that was a tall order since he started so far back, but I knew it was a much easier sell than Hillary trying to attract Republicans and Independents. As far as I could find there was only Wright, Rezko, and the Present votes, and if that was all they had, he was not too bad off to start with. I just had to believe he wouldn't do something crushingly stupid along the way.

I saw he had the Q factor in 2004, so I knew it was possible for him to gain the popularity among Dems, but the Clinton Machine was huge and inevitable in the beginning, plus there were so many others in the race. I figured he had the best chance to beat her, and I just had to believe that America was mostly ready to vote for a man of color.

That's been the hardest part for me, watching the ugliness I had hoped we could avoid as we moved the country forward, but I guess it was inevitable that there would be huge growing pains. Thankfully, however, the fact that the public has decided to stop falling for the same old tricks, and Democrats are turning out in droves, has made up for most of that.

At the beginning of this Obama stated that his campaign would be all the proof you would need to know he is ready to be POTUS.

I am glad his campaign has won you over!!!

go check out www.barackobama.com

See if you like the view!!

And he did it big time by bringing out the Edwards endorsement right after Hillary's big win.

Expert timing from an expert statesman.

We need at least four years of Obama's good judgement to start to get things right in this country, and especially in D.C.

What a coup.:bounce: