The 2008 Presidential Campaign (was Obama Phenomenon 2)

[Primula Baggins]

Oh, I hope there will be a response to the current ads beyond the chuckles and eye-rolling from the campaign. I''m hoping the delay in responding will end soon and that it's a deliberate to let McCain's campaign look desperate and frantic, digging themselves in deeper with each new ad. Already they've got the Wall Street Journal wondering if McCain has lost it.

Obama's got smart people on his campaign, and everybody knows what Kerry did wrong in 2004. Surely they've got a plan. <crosses fingers>

But this topic should be continued in the Marketing thread, not here.

[Ethel]

Ethel - wouldn't you love to see Sixty Minutes interview with McCains first wife? I know I would be glued to the set for that one.

She is loyal to him. He took care of her financially, and she needed that, with her extensive and ongoing medical problems. She's not going to be giving negative interviews about McCain to the media. And nor should she. Good for her for keeping the bitterness that she must certainly have felt out of the public eye. Still, I'm allowed to notice that it wasn't exactly gallant behavior on McCain's part.

Not to speak for Faramond, but from my perspective, it would not speak to McCain's ability to govern, and it would undoubtably be done from a particular perspective to malign his character, telling the story from only one side.

In short, it's not something that I would have any interest in at all.

I agree with you. I like to see my candidate taking the high road, and not addressing personal issues. But his opponent isn't doing that. I heard a couple of tellers at my bank talking about the Britney/Paris/Obama ad this week, and they seemed to think it left a mark. How do you fight back against that? By saying, "Oh, this is just the same old dirty politics"? How'd that work out for Kerry?

[solicitr]

RIGHT-WING EXTREMISTS FOR MCCAIN- SPONSORED ON CAMPAIGN WEBSITE!!!!!!



The McCain Campaign, on its official website, includes under its community blogs an open forum for the radical fringe :

Community Blogs

Fascists/National Socialists/White Supremacists for McCain

This group is for self-proclaimed Fascists/National Socialists/White Supremacists for the election of John Mccain to the Presidency. By no means is he a true Fascist, but under Adolf Hitler's writings we are to support the party with the best interests of the mobilization of the Aryan race. Though the National Socialists of America or the Aryan Nation may have more White Power values, it is pointless to vote for these candidates due to the fact that there is virutally no chance they will be elected on a National level.

Okay, it's not true. There is no such page on the Mccain website.


There IS however, this, on the official Obama campaign site:

Community Blogs

Marxists/Socialists/Communists for Obama

This group is for self-proclaimed Marxists/Communists/Socialists for the election of Barack Obama to the Presidency. By no means is he a true Marxist, but under Karl Marx's writings we are to support the party with the best interests of the mobilization of the proletariat. Though the Democratic Socialists of America or the Communist Patty of America may have more Socialististic values, it is pointless to vote for these candidates due to the fact that there is virutally no chance they will be elected on a National level.

[Primula Baggins]

The Obama site is a social networking site, soli. The people using it put up these groups, the same as on Facebook. There have been groups put up to express anger with various Obama policy changes, for example; the campaign hasn't done anything to suppress them.

There is nothing inherently terrifying about a group of American socialists/communists adding such a group to the site. Nobody seriously suspects Obama of being a communist, nor is it illegal for Americans to hold those beliefs, nor do they constitute a threat to the American Way of Life.

The Klan are a bunch of murderers and racists, and a group like that on his campaign site would seriously damage McCain if it happened (I have no doubt his campaign would remove such a group immediately). But it won't happen; his site is not remotely a social networking site; its content is entirely controlled by the McCain campaign.

In fact I would be surprised if anyone high up in the campaign knew what a social networking site was. That's not one of their strengths. On the other hand, one can buy campaign-labeled golf paraphernalia, which I'm sure isn't possible on the Obama site.

[solicitr]

The Klan are a bunch of murderers and racists

But Communists are just a little cranky?

[Primula Baggins]

American Communists? That probably sums them up rather well, especially in the last 20 years or so.

[ArathornJax]

Any hear of this site? http://www.votesmart.org/ ? Here is the article on them over at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Vote_Smart

I haven't looked a lot yet on the Presidential level but have on the state level and it really lets me know what people voted for and what the bill was about. Seems to be the kind of site to help decide some things based on the issues, and voting record. Thoughts about this site?

[solicitr]

American Communists? That probably sums them up rather well, especially in the last 20 years or so.

Oh, yes, poor dears. It's been nearly forty years since they murdered anyone.

By the way, when was the last Klan lynching?

[Primula Baggins]

Are we really having this argument? Are you really backing the Klan and expecting me to back the communists?

Surreal.

[Jnyusa]

[removed]

[solicitr]

So on that timescale the murders committed by Obama's Weather Underground pals aren't such ancient history after all.

[Primula Baggins]

Pals? I've asked this before—please name them all and give the history of Obama's close relationship with them (because you describe them as his "pals"—they must be friends, socializing a lot? Still, of course?).

And please describe any political or other support he gave them in, what, 1968 especially? I believe he was 5 at the time. And, of course, how long he knew them while they were Weathermen.

[halplm]

so it's okay to be a murderin communist, but not ok to be a murdering klansman?

I think the KKK is one of the most assinine and horrific organizations to exist, even to this day.

however, to even think that such mentality is only relegated to that one group, is absurd.

It's one of the most frustrating things in the world to have liberals point to groups that associate with "the right" and say "you're so evil, how can you be different than me?"

Do we want to start talking about abortion? How evil is that? Do we want to get into killing babies? Do we want to get into Planned parenthood encouraging far more black people to have abortions than anyone else? Do we? We can bring up the fringe evil for all sides...

To claim "your side" is pure and innocent is absurd... perhaps we should discuss things that are actually relevant.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Any hear of this site? http://www.votesmart.org/ ? Here is the article on them over at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Vote_Smart

I haven't looked a lot yet on the Presidential level but have on the state level and it really lets me know what people voted for and what the bill was about. Seems to be the kind of site to help decide some things based on the issues, and voting record. Thoughts about this site?

AJ, thank you for posting that. A very helpful site.

[Primula Baggins]

Hal, no Klansmen are involved here—no one has tried to associate the Klan with McCain, except soli in what was obviously a "switcheroo" joke, to set the context for his association of communists (gasp!) with Obama.

Nor are any murderers under discussion. Presumably murderers get arrested and put in prison; and sharing some political views with a particular group does not make you personally responsible for every criminal act ever committed by anyone marginally associated with that group. As you would say immediately if I started trying to link the Klan with old conservative alliances in the South.

And, this being still a free country, it is perfectly allowable and entirely legal to be a communist—sorry, soli. Perhaps more expedient and safer arrangements will be made for dealing with dissent in the future.

[halplm]

sure, it's legal, but it's also foolish

[Túrin Turambar]

Latest bizarre news memo – Barack Obama is too thin to be President.

[JewelSong]

L_M, that has to be one of the stupidest and most inane articles I have ever seen!

[Primula Baggins]

Still, that story generated one of my favorite recent political headlines: Does This Candidate Make My Butt Look Big?

[solicitr]

Gee, Prim, you're practically making my point for me. It seems that for many, there's nothing really wrong with Communism- certainly they're not remotely as beyond the pale as Nazis.

For people of that mindset, it's 'irrelevant' that *all* of Obama's early political associations were from the radical fringe. Ayers and Dohrn effectively sponsored the launch of Obama's political career, just as Ayers through the Woods Fund financed Obama's first job through a grant to the Alinskyite Developing Communities Project. What, you really thought Obama's 'community organizing' meant setting up soup kitchens? And you dismiss his having 'served on a board with' Ayers. Yes, the board of the Woods Fund, which during their joint tenure made grants to, inter alia, the Arab-American Action Network and ACORN, as well as a cool million to the Neighborhood Rejuvenation Partners scam. Of course, the other board member, Mike Rezko, might have had something to do with that one...

When Obama first ran for political office under Ayers' sponsorship, he was the candidate not only of the Democratic Party but also the New Party. And once in Springfield, his votes and especially his columns in the Hyde Park Herald and the Chicago Defender reveal not a moderate or uniter, but a hard-left extremist- the sort who would quite believably said 'Amen' to every one of Rev Wright's tirades (the ones which we're supposed to believe Obama didn't notice).