Primaries

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Yes, and sorry about that. Although I enjoy the back-and-forth banter with Martaug, I can see where it might be tedious for others. Sorry, LKD.

 

oops !



LKD, you haven't figured it out yet? its because the the boards are magic!
they can morph from a serious discussion(not this thread) to a joke thread & back in 1 post.
It's that or just too many posters imbibing liquid refreshments before(& during) posting. hic!

 

I think she meant it more as an "Hey, anything can happen, it ain't over till it's over" but it got, er, slightly out of hand. To be quite honest, it sounded like an honest foot-in-mouth blunder; it was more than a bit surprising that it got twisted into an "Obama may die" incantation - and it's almost like that is how it was represented. Huh, I've long had an opinion that MSNBC is pro-Obama and anti-Clinton, but some of the Youtube comments are about as scary as they are fascinating. Unless they are put by trolls, some of the supporters of the 2 Democratic candidates look ready to gut each other.

 

Ahh, I don't get OFFENDED that easily, my friends, I was just pointing out a little snake twisting. it takes more than that to get me aggravated. Things like . . . .

HILLARY! She gets me riled up, no use saying she doesn't. IMHO, and I know I've said it before, we should have had the two candidates picked and a "US Presidential Race" thread started long ago. Someone should ask her exactly what kind of miracle she envisions that would make this race go her way. I think that would be a beautiful insight into her mindset.

 

What she was trying to say, although not very well, is that Democratic primaries have lasted into June before - Bill Clinton's and RFK's most notably. What she failed to mention is that Bill had his locked-up at that point. It is my belief that she wants to be VP, and that is what she is holding out for. She can't lose as VP, since she would be the obvious choice if:

Obama wins, since she would be by tradition the next Democratic candidate of choice.
Or, Obama loses to Mac. Then she could say "I told you so," although many would still not believe that she could have done much better anyway. But she would again be the most likely choice, since she came very close this time.

Personally, I've lost a lot of respect for her in this process. If I was Obama I would not want her on my ticket after the way she has conducted herself in this primary. Nevertheless, I still believe she would be a good prez if given the chance. She has two really strong qualities that the current prez has scant little of: Intelligence in large amounts and a grasp of the issues that Americans care about.

Ahhh, note the number of this post. Maybe LKD is right about her....

 

dangit chandos, you keep taking all my zingers away ! !

 

I'm with Chandos on this one. As someone who had a zero percent chance of voting for either Democratic candidate in this election, I believe Hillary is fighting for 2012. As a reluctant McCain supporter, I believe that Obama is by far the weaker of the two candidates. He is going to win the nomination because he won states that will in all probability go GOP in the general election. Hillary on the other hand won all of the larger states that the Dems need to win the general election.

I believe Hillary is trying to set Obama up for a defeat in the order of magnitude of Mondale or Dukakis so she can "rise from the ashes" in 2012 and take on a very old and weak incumbant in McCain.

 

I suggested in the post that began this topic of Hillary's blunder (see previous page) that this was not likely a case of "foot in the mouth" because she has said practically the same thing three other times in the last two months. The media didn't pick up on it until the fourth repetition. It is a subject that has been much on her mind, apparently.

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Hi, Shaman,

If I'm reading your post correctly, you want to know where my previous post is located. It's on page 22 of this thread. Regards.

 

I think you are forgetting that a loss to Clinton is not the same thing as a condemnation of Obama or vice-versa. Clinton keeps jabbering about how she won all the big states (against other democrats), but most of those states are going to go to the democrats either way, and in the general election, she'll be seeing John McCain...not another democrat. Beating other democrats in states that the democrats are already going to win really isn't impressive. What matters is winning the swing states and maybe stealing away a few red or blue ones for good measure.

 

No, I'm not forgetting that at all. Let me give you an example of what I see happening. My dad has voted Democrat in every presidential election (with the exception of once for Nixon). He has already told me that there is no way he will vote for Obama, what he hasn't figured out is if he will vote for McCain (which would be a +2 for McCain) or just stay home (which would be a +1). My dad lives in a retirement community in Florida with 30K residents. This is a voting bloc that the Democrats need to carry the state and the number 2 topic discussed around the pool is the upcoming election (The number 1 topic is always how someone's daughter or son in law is either a bitch or an *******).

 

@ TGS: why is he so dead-set against Obama? I'm not much of an Obamaniac myself, but he appears quite tolerable if you're a Democrat (notably more than McCain, from what little I've gathered). He doesn't appear too radical even if you're an independent, imo.

@Cernak: I'm not sure you mean. I remember your post (McCain losing his maverick image and Hillary praying for thunderstorms, iirc), but I wasn't referring to it.

 

I think the fact that he is black will lose Obama many many votes, let's just hope it wins him more than it loses him. Many of the lost votes are not even due to racism but more due to a fear that Obama is different from them simply by being black and of course rumours about Farrakhan and rev Wright's speaks and whatnot fuels the fire of again not exactly racism but more xenophobia if it is possible to be xenophobic against a group of people within your own country.

 

I hate to say it, but I think my dad just doesn't trust a black president (my words not his). History doesn't show us that many examples of great black political leadership. You only have to look at African nations or the major U.S. cities to see the disasters they have become. Obama may be different, but he has a lot of poor performance (not his) holding him back in the eyes of many.

 

We already knew that Obama doesn't really get the votes of the elderly. It hasn't stopped him from trouncing the competition. Contrary to popular belief, one need not win Florida in order to get elected. There are 49 other states, and quite a few of those states are bigger.

 

Would it be correct to say that Florida is one of the biggest swing states?

By the by, could someone tell me which states almost always go Republican, which states almost always go Democrat, and which states are considered "swing" states? About all I know is that Utah is almost always Republican.

 

Coasts and urban areas generally go Democratic while the rest tends to go Republican but I am sure someone less lazy than me can give you a proper list.

 

Core Republican states: The biggest without doubt is Texas. However, the southeast (Bible Belt) is staunchly Republican as well. The list includes Lousiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and to a lesser extent North Carolina. Republicans also get most of the states west of the Mississippi River (excluding the west coast).

Core Democratic states: New York and Massachusettes are probably the most Democratic. California usually goes for the Democratic candidate, except when the Republican nominee is from California, as was the case with both Reagan and Nixon. (That isn't odd though, LBJ was a Texan Democrat, and he did win Texas when he ran as President in 1964, and also when he was the vice presidential candidate for Kennedy in 1960.) Pretty much the entire northeast votes Democrat, as does the entire west coast. There's also an area in the north midwest (Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin) that also tends to go Democrat.

Swing states: The list varies depending on who the nominees are. I am assuming that Obama vs. McCain is the matchup: Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Iowa, Missouri, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and possibly North Carolina, Wisconsin and Michigan.

I think that Hillary's RFK comments over the weekend offiicially killed any shot of her being the VP. But I've been wrong before...

 

I mostly agree with Aldeth's lists, but with the proviso that if a reasonable minority of white voters vote for him, Obama could carry some southern states, perhaps more than some. Western states--not coastal--with very few black voters are probably going to go for McCain, unless voters are convinced that McCain would hurt their interests, and maybe not even then. The crux, as Aldeth points out, will be the swing states. Will the electorate vote their interests or their prejudices? Will McCain be able to convince them that their interests and their prejudices coincide? Will Hillary succeed in getting the nomination and make all this moot?

 

Using "black political leadership" as a concept is plain nuts. Thinking that there's some connection with how some African chiefs and whathaveyou rule and how an African American president would rule is simply racist - not based on reality. But some old people are like that.