Obama the inevitable
Wednesday May 7, 2008
Categories: Democrats
After last night's results -- a decisive victory in North Carolina, and a close loss in Indiana -- there can be no doubt now that Barack Obama will be the Democratic nominee. I've not been one of those people who...
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About Crunchy Con
Rod Dreher is an editorial columnist for the Dallas Morning News, and author of "Crunchy Cons" (Crown Forum), a nonfiction book about conservatives, most of them religious, whose faith and political convictions sometimes put them at odds with mainstream conservatives. The views expressed in this blog are his own.
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In what sense is McCain a war hero?
There may be less to the idea of McCain's fortitude as a POW than we've been led to believe...
http://counterpunch.com/cockburn04192008.html
Aside from sheer ego, why would she continue after this?
To try an save the party.
Democrats are crazy; they could have won this election in a cakewalk by picking a booring, liberal governor. A moderate guy could get universal health care, pull us out of Iraq, and raise anti-business laws all in the first year. Democrats could own the office for 12 years in a row if they had just taken it slow.
Now, Obama will probably win. He of course will travel so far to the left it will kill Democrats for years afterwards. If Hillary stays in she will argue that she needs to save the party...and she is probably even correct. Good times, good times.
The idea that Obama is going to travel to the far left is absurd. Nothing in his rhetoric supports that, nothing in his policy positions supports that, and quite truthfully there's little in his voting record to support that. He's a liberal, like Hillary is a liberal and like McCain is a conservative.
Even though Democrats are going to have an even more solid control of Congress, it's not as though the U.S. is suddenly going to become a progressive bastion. Yes, judges will be more liberal. Yes, universal healthcare is going to succeed. Yes, we will pull out of Iraq. But those are all mainstream positions.
Whoever wins is a 4 year president IMO. I do not see good resolutions in Iraq or Afghanistan. Taking on Social Security or Medicare will ruin any President. Reducing the debt will require some raising of taxes. If the economy hits any snags those raises will be blamed.
Steve
Wow, a web search on "McCain collaborator" turns up a lot of stuff.
Anyone want to lay odds on seeing a new version of Swiftboat? Maybe called Vietnam POW Veterans for Truth?
http://www.geoffmetcalf.com/mccain.html
Rod,
I think that you're realizing Republicans have tanked. Neocons have ruled the decade and look at the results.
1. Some 4,000 dead U.S. troops & countless dead Iraqi civilians for a war based on lies.
2. A national debt given to us by Republicans that are mortgaging our future out to China.
3. A hollowed out government that can't respond to domestic crisis like Katrina
4. Inflation that could make Jimmy Carter blush.
I've yet to hear anybody really differentiate McCain and Bush. The Republican establishment is quite content to let things continue on the same track as far as I can tell. FOX news, Rush Limbaugh, etc. are all lined up for a third George W. Bush term.
Maybe conservatives should be more careful about that for which they wish.
Obama's not God, but I do think he's sincere. I think his speech on race and his critique of the gas tax holiday show honesty.
Republicans are actually supporters of corporate welfare and socialism for the rich. They'd rather tax actual work than financial speculation.
What's really strange is how the vast majority of Evangelicals fall for the same BS all the time.
It's interesting to note that McCain was vehemently opposed to a constitutional ban on gay marriage. The Cheney's daughter is an out & proud lesbian. I think cultural conservatives have been hoodwinked in more ways than one.
Yes, universal healthcare is going to succeed.
No, it won't. Not even with a Democratic President and heavily Democratic Congress (as we had in 1993-95).
Health care is a lot like public education: Most people recognize that the current system overall is profoundly inadequate. Trouble is, most people also consider their personal situation good enough, and no one is willing to pay one more dime to make the overall public policy equitable.
Everyone knows that inner city U.S. public schools are a disgrace. But that disgrace directly affects only a minority of the public. Everyone else will oppose any education policy that even vaguely threatens to improve the bad school by increasing their own tax burdens or by shifting dollars away from their local public schools (the higher quality of which is often built into the prices of their homes).
Likewise, we all know that the current system of paying for health care largely through employment-based group health insurance is irrational and unfair. It completely screws over the unemployed, the underemployed, and the self-employed, for reasons having nothing to do with their health. But the fact is that MOST people still work for an employer who pays most of their health insurance premiums (union members and government employees being the greatest beneficiaries of this system). And they will oppose vehemently any sort of health care reform that even potentially reduces their benefits or increases their costs. Which means, if we're being honest, any sort of reform whatsoever.
No doubt a President Obama (or President Clinton) would press hard for universal health care. But given the way Congress, regardless of party affiliation, responds to interest groups, the chance of anything more than minor tweaks to the current system being enacted into law are close to zero.
Inflation that could make Jimmy Carter blush.
This gets hyperbole-of-the-month award.
The economy is obviously in a down cycle. To compare it to the systemic disaster we faced in the 1970s, which reached its nadir during the inept Carter years, is laughably wrongheaded.
As a Clinton supporter, I think Hillary should stay in the race because she is the most qualified candidate. I haven't definitely decided that I won't vote for Obama, but I am much more likely to vote for McCain if Obama is the Democratic nominee.
There's no way, in my opinion, that Hillary's hard fought battle for the nom has done anything other than help the Democrats. If Obama can't win in the general election, I believe it will be due to his own weaknesses as a candidate. If anything, the competition has helped toughen him up, and perhaps he won't turn out to have "a glass jaw" as some of us suspect.
Perhaps (hopefully) Hillary will drop out now. But it's hard to see why she would, with the next contests in the cycle being West Virginia and Kentucky. She's going to win both of those by margins considerably wider than Obama's North Carolina victory. At that point, she will have a good claim to lead the "national" popular vote, with Obama's lead in pledged delegates resulting almost entirely from the unrepresentative caucuses.
No candidate with this much support in the primary process has ever quit before the National Convention. And since the superdelegates' commitments are subject to change at any time up to the Convention, she has every reason to hang around.
Not intending to hijack the thread, but WRT McCain & "collaboration":
1. See here:
frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=2B781184-2E6A-4F82-BD3B-D42A8289317A
2. Correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it, when subjected to torture, _everyone_ breaks, sooner or later. The Vietnam POWs even had rules about this - e.g., duty required putting up with X hours of beatings before answering a question, or signing a confession, or what have you. I suppose one could term this "collaboration", after a fashion.
3. I'm hardly McCain's biggest fan - his positions on immigration, campaign finance, & the gas tax (for starters) really annoy me - but until I see documentary evidence, authentic video footage, and a live, prime-time confession by McCain himself, I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt on this one.
4. For those wondering about double-standards...no, I wasn't a big fan of those who questioned Kerry's service record in '04, either. It struck me as unseemly, and everyone in shouting distance knew I had little tolerance for such insinuations.
What happens in Asia and the Middle East over the next four years is going to be the next President's legacy - and it's going to be an epitaph, not a monument. Becoming the next President is the closest thing to a death wish or a suicide pact as one could make.
More on "inflation that could make Jimmy Carter blush."
It never ceases to amaze me that people will make such blatantly inaccurate and easily refuted claims about quantitative matters. When you're talking about inflation, Brian, it doesn't matter how strong your feelings are; it's just about the data. And you are badly wrong here.
Here's inflation during the Carter years:
1977 6.50%
1978 7.62%
1979 11.22%
1980 13.58%
Inflation during the Bush years:
2001 2.83%
2002 1.59%
2003 2.27%
2004 2.68%
2005 3.39%
2006 3.24%
2007 2.85%
So far in 2008, inflation is running at 4.10%. Drilling down to the data on a monthly level, the month with the highest inflation during the Bush years is still lower than the month with the lowest inflation during the Carter years. Source:
http://inflationdata.com/inflation/Inflation_Rate/HistoricalInflation.aspx?dsInflation_currentPage=0
The only aspect of this that could make Jimmy Carter blush is being reminded of how much higher inflation was on his watch.
Support for universal health care is a mainstream position, Daniel? I'll take your word for it, because you live in the USA and I don't, but that's not the sense I get from American relatives.
Advice from Canada on universal health care: think twice before you buy in.
Jeff,
Yes, support for universal health care is definitely a mainstream position, and possibly the majority one. I don't think it would be wise, but it's certainly a popular idea.
Just out of curiosity (I dont know offhand), was inflation calculated the same way when Carter was president as now?
Steve
Yes, support for universal health care is definitely a mainstream position, and possibly the majority one.
In the abstract. Once you get down to specifics, which means finding out exactly whose ox gets gored, no actual program designed to achieve universal health care is or will be popular.
In the next Congress, the issue will either be a dead letter or, more likely, result in some superficial bill that will allow proponents to claim to have addressed the issue but which, in reality, will affect hardly anyone.
To quote John Adams from the movie 1776 (script taken from the actual words/writings of the principals):
"I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is called a disgrace; that two are called a law firm, and that three or more become a Congress!"
(To God in prayer/exasperation, IIRC): "A second flood, a simple famine, plagues of locusts everywhere, or a cataclysmic earthquake, I'd accept with some despair. But no, You sent us Congress! Good God, Sir, was that fair?"
- - -
Our Congress may have achieved Peter Principledom a long time ago.
Eric- We probably get what we deserve. People make their decisions on voting based on 10 second sound bytes. How many people actually vote? People vote for the more likeable person. How many people really know what we spend our U.S. budget on? How many people take responsibility for their own actions rather than assuming government will care for everything? Why don't people look at actual results rather than fall for the same promises?
I could go on but you get the picture. People of good conscience can look at our problems and reach different conclusions. Most people just don't care or aren't willing to make some effort to learn the issues. That is how we get our politicians.
Steve
>>>It's a manifestation of will to power that's actually turning creepy.
TURNING creepy? Where were you all through the 1990's?
Universal health care is not a mainstream position. And there is no money for it anyway.
The way things are going McCain had better run a damned good campaign or the Democrats can run a Hilter/Stalin ticket and win the White House!
Steve,
Re your question on measurement of inflation, the overall answer is yes. The consumer price index for urban consumers is the most commonly referred-to measure of inflation, and it's what the numbers in my prior comment are based on. CPI measures the cost of a "basket" of goods and services thought to be typical of the average consumer's cost. There's always argument about how good a job the basket does of capturing the "typical" experience -- as well as argument about what's typical. The exact composition of the basket has varied from time to time, but not radically since the 1970s. The objective and the basic methodology are unchanged, which is why the overall answer is "yes."
I will stand with Hillary to the end. Obama has done things that we are turning our backs on - turned his back to the flag, refusal to wear an American flag (pin), on and on. What was his pastor trying to tell us that we refuse to listen to. And come on being compared to JFK and Jackie Kennedy. I listened to the talk show after the voting was all in....BO needs another vacation (so they say because he is worn out). Bruised his ribs playing ball and he probably needs another beer. Hillary's baggage is out there.... and she wears it well. She is brillant. And her pantsuits are respectable people.
Half of the people voting have not taken their time to do their homework. There are a lot of followers out there doing exactly what we teach our children not to do. Following the wrong people around.
Hillary is a strong, compassionate person. If she gets in the White House I will not worry about my children, my grandchildren and hey....I will not worry about me. Better open your eyes people.
refusal to wear an American flag (pin)
None of the men in my family who have been in the military wear a flag pin either. What does a pin mean? How does that prove anything? Why not vote based on hair color?
Steve
Yes it looks like Obama will be nominated unless he hits something very unseen and soon. Hillary is still in and may hope that Obama runs over a mine in the next few weeks, which is not impossible.
The three candidates are now group identity people. As one journalists wrote, when asked questions they do not want to answer the response is "Jimmy crack corn and I don't care"!
It is as if the mask has come off and the guts of the process are now exposed for all of us to see. I think it is foolish to put any real hope in any of the three. The best choice may be someone qualified who does not want the job. That person simply can not be elected in the current process.
I'm with you, Merenda. (Though the American Flag pin issue doesn't bug me as much as Obama's relationship with his former pastor, and his lack of what I see as real policy substance.) Hillary blew him out of the water at the Pennsylvania debate, and looked good doing it.
I am completely dumbfounded how people who support Clinton or Obama, and say they will vote for McCain if their preferred candidate is not the nominee. There is very little policy difference between the two Democrats, but a gulf between them and McCain. Instead of worrying about lapel pins, perceived slights to the US Flag (ever been to a ball game? most people are talking during the national anthem), and overstated ties to radicals, what about real issues? Or are cosmetic things more important to you?
And whoever said that Obama has not made any substantive speeches on issues, should either look at his website or stop watching FOX news.
"I'm thinking that the last seven weeks, with their focus on Obama's roots in the cultural hard left..."
Um, guess just WHO did the 'focusing'? And it seems to me it wasn't focused on Obama so much as on a man named Wright who isn't even running for the Presidency.
Funny that.
jeff sullivn,
"Advice from Canada on universal health care: think twice before you buy in."
I am from Canada and I sure as heck am glad we 'bought in' so many decades ago. My husband slipped and fell on the ice 1 week before our wedding and was in the operating room within 3 hours of his admission to the hospital (of his own choice, btw) and at no charge. Why on earth would any sane, thinking person not want a system like that?
mdavid,
"Democrats are crazy; they could have won this election in a cakewalk by picking a booring, liberal governor. A moderate guy could get universal health care, pull us out of Iraq, and raise anti-business laws all in the first year. Democrats could own the office for 12 years in a row if they had just taken it slow.
Now, Obama will probably win. He of course will travel so far to the left it will kill Democrats for years afterwards."
Ya mean like W took the Repubs so far to the right that he has probably killed the party for years to come???
U 2 funnee.
Merenda and Alicia, it's difference of opinion that makes a horserace. My opinion is that the lady in question is a shameless and profound liar, is a preening narcissist, (much like the piece of work she married) and has no qualifications at all, save relentless and flaming raw ambition, for the job she wants. Her default position is to obfuscate, specially plead or lie. (Pick one.) She is caught in a web of delusion. She has no real core. I believe that she, unlike the piece of work she married, secretly despises America and Americans. She is the smartest person in the room, and she will make damn sure that you know it.
Aside from that, there's nothing wrong with her. I changed my registration for the specific purpose of making as sure as I could that the closest Hillary ever again gets to the Oval Office is a photo-op on the White House lawn, in a supporting role as Senator from New York.
Many of my closest friends would agree with your assessment of Hillary's character, Scott. Obviously, I disagree. I would just note that many of her political enemies in the U.S. Senate have come to respect Hillary Clinton a great deal since she was elected Senator.
McCain reportedly likes and respects her, and feels that Obama's word can't be trusted (my source for that is David Brooks).
Personally, the Clintons remind me of what one character in "Breakfast at Tiffanys" says of Holly Golightly - that they are phonies, but they are "real phonies" (oxymoron intended) meaning that they are self made people (or B.S. artists, if you like) who have come to believe their own lines, to a certain extent, but who also have a core of decency that makes them essentially human and trustworthy. Just my opinion.
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